he's not wrong that there's a deep ambivalence in the DUP abt the nature of their britishness
That's no understatement.
― Return of the Flustered Bootle Native (Tom D.), Friday, 10 March 2017 12:35 (seven years ago) link
by not-entirely-odd coincidence: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/devolution/2017/03/ian-paisley-jr-northern-irish-aelection-dup-were-caught-napping
― mark s, Friday, 10 March 2017 15:38 (seven years ago) link
― Return of the Flustered Bootle Native (Tom D.), Friday, March 10, 2017 4:35 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this idea is often expressed and, i think, holds a lot of water.
having a google to find someone saying it better than i can and came across this:
The bilateral nature of Unionist British national identity, based on a contractual attitude to the state, is associated with the phenomenon of negative nationalism. Such identity is as much as symbol of Unionist resistance to Irish reunification as its s of any sense of belong to a UK 'collective conscience'. In this respect, Unionist adherence to a British national identity is an act of defiance, rather than a positive assertion of British nationalist sentiment. 'The Ulster state came into being solely because of the opposition of Northern Protestants to Irish unification: negative nationalism had its way'. Unionism, and especially its more fundamentalist brand, is loyal unto itself first. This is the real significance of the label of Loyalism. According to the Northern Ireland Attitude Survey of 1978, 85 per cent of respondents deemed that a 'loyalist is loyal to Ulster before the British Government'.
The highly symbolic nature of the Unionists' Britishness and their conditional loyalism and negative nationalism, present a paradox. Is it that the Unionist community is not British at all? Or is it that it is the most British part of the UK? Certainly Union Jack waving, noisy loyalty to Crown and fundamentalist Protestant faith, all tend to set Ireland apart from the rest of the UK. Nowhere else (sic) on the mainland of Britain are these traditional symbols of Britishness so visibly and audibly proclaimed.
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Friday, 10 March 2017 17:28 (seven years ago) link
I think Brighton has the union jacks and a few others that might not be mentioned there
― brat_stuntin (darraghmac), Friday, 10 March 2017 17:43 (seven years ago) link
the piece also goes on to talk about hartzian fragment theory. the idea that colonial settler societies that break off from european society do not continue to develop along the lines of the mother society. So Hartz thought Latin America a fragment of feudal Europe, the United States and Canada a fragment of Europe in the age of liberalism. So perhaps Ulster is a Hartzian fragment and this explains the archaic elements of Ulster Unionism.
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Friday, 10 March 2017 17:55 (seven years ago) link
15 yrs late but puzzled by:
I lost two friends when the IRA bombed Manchester. I lost two friends when the WTC was destroyed. I don't like terrorism no matter what.
― Paul Strange, Monday, 24 September 2001 00:00 (fifteen years ago)
There were no fatalities in the 96 Manchester bombing. Is he referring to a different one?
― NI, Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:49 (seven years ago) link
fwiw he was apparently lying about losing friends on 9/11 so he was probably lying about the Manchester one as well.
― Colonel Poo, Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:59 (seven years ago) link
Then he changed his name to Nuttall?
― Odysseus, Sunday, 12 March 2017 17:03 (seven years ago) link
Ha, years-old scandal unearthed. Was he the twee record label guy?
― NI, Sunday, 12 March 2017 17:27 (seven years ago) link
more talking about loyalism
http://www.secondcaptains.com/2017/03/10/episode-801-peter-geoghegan-future-unionism-price-loyalty/
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Monday, 13 March 2017 22:45 (seven years ago) link
(subscription podcast link)
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Monday, 13 March 2017 22:52 (seven years ago) link
Since the ceasefire, the UVF has been involved in rioting, organised crime, vigilantism and feuds with other loyalist groups.[11] Some members have also been found responsible for orchestrating a series of racist attacks.
And we're back
― brat_stuntin (darraghmac), Monday, 13 March 2017 23:10 (seven years ago) link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_McClinton
My good god
― brat_stuntin (darraghmac), Monday, 13 March 2017 23:58 (seven years ago) link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wallace
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Monday, 24 April 2017 23:19 (seven years ago) link
Gets absolutely astonishing, trust me
― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Friday, 10 March 2017 17:55 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is i think correct, btw. Loyalists are loyal to the besieged Ulster of the settlers, insofar are they are loyal to the crown it is to the far distant crown that gave them their charter and writ these many centuries gone.
There are significant parallels here perhaps in nationalist loyalty to the recognised 32 county state declared in 1916 and not the 26 county republic that emerged as an unideal but realised compromise.
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Monday, 24 April 2017 23:48 (seven years ago) link
I'm getting the distinct impression that these guys are far more familiar in the UK than the ROI.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Monday, 24 April 2017 23:52 (seven years ago) link
... familiar to people in the UK than in the Republic that is.. Colin Wallace was in Private Eye every other week. Not quite a household name.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Monday, 24 April 2017 23:54 (seven years ago) link
Well he'd never crossed my radar but I've run the name past one of my politically minded friends so I'll confirm or not the theory as and when
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 00:10 (seven years ago) link
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Monday, April 24, 2017 4:48 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i love irish republican legitimism. really batshit crazy when you think about it. like finding out who can pull a sword from a stone is a less bizarre way to determine legitimacy.
for the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_republican_legitimism
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 17:12 (seven years ago) link
I saw your last comment on the French thread and i was wondering whether you had any thoughts on the republican side taken in isolation as a Marxist group (of varying degrees of that, obviously).
I'm only recently getting more background on the (Trotskyite?) stickies that merged into the mainstream left in the 80s and served in Celtic tiger govts in the 90s but who spent the 70s full on beating the shit out of sinn feiners on the streets of the northside if I'm to believe what I'm told. Might look up more info on it.
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 18:07 (seven years ago) link
my knowledge of the stickies (and subsequent schisms such as the irsp and democratic left) is scant, really just know a little about the schism between provos and officials, and that they ended up renouncing violence and being the worker's party of ireland.
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 18:18 (seven years ago) link
would def like to change that though
If i dig anything recommended up it'll go on here
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 18:22 (seven years ago) link
I've been wanting to read inla: deadly divisions for ages but you can't buy the book for love nor money and i don't read pdfs of books.
this looks promising regarding the stickies: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/915 688 pages too !
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 18:47 (seven years ago) link
I am not at all well-read on these matters but I learned a lot from this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Revolution-Story-Official-Workers/dp/0141028459/
― Choco Blavatsky (seandalai), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 22:46 (seven years ago) link
You just stepped up as best read, so thanks for the rec
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 22:51 (seven years ago) link
Yes indeed, I'll be reading that sucker.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:07 (seven years ago) link
think i had a mild disagreement w/jim abt this on the brexit thread a month or two back, which i was going to return to
my memory (and what i posted) was that the Official IRA = OIRA (the stickies) were marxist (as were and the INLA) but the provos weren't -- jim found a quote which definitely had the PIRA aligning themselves, round the end of the 70s, with marxism (i was planning to push back a bit on this, and argue it was more rhetorical and geopolitically tactical than an expression of the practical philsophical core of the PIRA or of Sinn Fein, but it was so hair-splitting that in the end i never formulated it sensibly)
OIRA and PIRA were the two sides of the 1969 split in the IRA, over armed struggle (OIRA were agin it)
i'm not sure if "trots" is really the right word -- tho i did just find an essay on-line which described the Workers Party (which is what Official Sinn Fein became in the late 70s) as "leninist", but again, the result of any discussion on such definitions and distinctions is likely to end in a quagmire of split hairs
― mark s, Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:19 (seven years ago) link
OIRA def not Trots...this passage about the estimable Eoghan Harris has stayed with me:
Harris, 'in a black leather coat and looking terribly fierce', is recalled lecturing one Galway meeting on 'our Trotskyite deviations and Social Democratic instincts which had to be purged out of us if we were to become true revolutionaries'. O'Hagan, no fan of Trotskyism himself, recalls meeting Harris and Donohue in Des Geraghty's house, where Harris started 'to rant about the Trots. I looked at him in stark raving fucking amazement...I said to Geraghty, "Is he mad?" Geraghty replied, "He just goes on like that."'
― Choco Blavatsky (seandalai), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:30 (seven years ago) link
Official Sinn Féin I should have said
― Choco Blavatsky (seandalai), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:33 (seven years ago) link
they identified as Stalinist through the 70s at least
― Choco Blavatsky (seandalai), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:34 (seven years ago) link
haha my friend who used to be in the swp -- who the world calls trots but who call themselves leninists (occasionally neoleninists) -- used to say to me "TROTS ARE MONSTERS!"
(i think he had the gerry healy lot in mind, who his mum had had a run in with in the 50s or 60s)
― mark s, Tuesday, 25 April 2017 23:34 (seven years ago) link
The odd thing about this is, in the 1980s Bono said he was attracted to the Workers' Party.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 26 April 2017 07:34 (seven years ago) link
That was when he was still looking for etc
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Wednesday, 26 April 2017 08:36 (seven years ago) link
I Will Follow... the teachings of Comrade V.I. Lenin.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 April 2017 08:41 (seven years ago) link
"Shadows & Trotskies"
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 26 April 2017 08:51 (seven years ago) link
of the 210 people we arrested, only three were not (Intelligence) agentsclassic
― Uhura Mazda (lukas), Thursday, 27 April 2017 16:13 (seven years ago) link
Reading "The Lost Revolution". LOLz @ the Official IRA in Belfast dismissing the Provos as 'armed Celtic supporters'.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 16:15 (seven years ago) link
... also Gene Kelly giving money to the IRA, who knew?
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 18:23 (seven years ago) link
... but only on condition that they bought arms with the money, as opposed to, I don't know, tap shoes or something.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 18:24 (seven years ago) link
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 9:15 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
haha yas
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 19:06 (seven years ago) link
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/scientist-provides-evidence-exonerating-robert-nairac-of-troubles-killings-1.3069263?mode=amp
pretty weak sauce attempt to get whereabouts, not sure that the main thrust of allegations against nairac were that he was there pulling triggers or wev so this shit of running into a packed court waving a sheaf of yellowing papers and breathily declaring that he was on a course that day washes away precisely zero stench
― s'rong, unstable (darraghmac), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 23:43 (seven years ago) link
still at least no terrorist sympathisers made it into government eh?
― There's got to be a Corbyn after (Noodle Vague), Friday, 9 June 2017 09:40 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
So otm it had completely not occurred to anyone until he said it
― D'mnuchin returns (darraghmac), Friday, 9 June 2017 09:52 (six years ago) link
Nail on the head from the lad, NV.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Friday, 9 June 2017 09:56 (six years ago) link
Gives me not much pleasure tbh
― There's got to be a Corbyn after (Noodle Vague), Friday, 9 June 2017 09:57 (six years ago) link
If you can tolerate the poor typing here's a decent snippet on some of the intricacies, contemporary report by v browne in the 80s
http://politico.ie/archive/inside-inla
― quet inn tarnation (darraghmac), Saturday, 17 June 2017 13:57 (six years ago) link
The INLA issued a statement regarding the killing in the August 1979 edition of The Starry Plough:[27]
In March, retired terrorist and supporter of capital punishment, Airey Neave, got a taste of his own medicine when an INLA unit pulled off the operation of the decade and blew him to bits inside the 'impregnable' Palace of Westminster. The nauseous Margaret Thatcher snivelled on television that he was an 'incalculable loss'—and so he was—to the British ruling class.
Jesus lads
― quet inn tarnation (darraghmac), Monday, 3 July 2017 13:12 (six years ago) link
https://www.scribd.com/document/356942234/Young-2015
article about the workers' party's relationship with north korea
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 22 August 2017 21:28 (six years ago) link
Our friends indeed
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Tuesday, 22 August 2017 22:03 (six years ago) link