Comments on The Pensive Quill: You need the truth to find reconciliation – A pers...

This is a stimulating article and we are glad for ...

2012-11-07T13:42:10.420Z

This is a stimulating article and we are glad for the author’s permission to reproduce it. The tension in it is strong but does not seem creative. Its critique of Spain is directed against the violence of the state. Even here I think it was much too weak on the homicidal violence of the Gonsalez regime which we now know quite a bit more about than we did during the days that the regime was in situ and Conall was living there and was enamoured toward it. That administration was behind a dirty war which involved killings and disappearances and torture.

But when he moves to the northern conflict the focus is shifted from state actors to republican ones. As Niall asks why the Travers killing? There was no justification for killing Mary Travers that I can see but does her death have more significance because the Provos caused it? You would imagine that for the first part of the article to be consistent with the second part the focus would have remained on the violence of the state. Not that there is intrinsically anything wrong with examining non state violence given that, in the case of the Provisionals what they have signed up to fundamentally delegitimizes their own campaign and allows the opening through which the sort of critique waged by Connall McDevitt can be made.

The issue of percentage of blame is fine but would be much more robust if we were able to quantify it.

Marty, I actually think it is the opposite here. Rather than forget the oast the article seems to suggest we revisit it. The problem is as Organised Rage points out it is more focussed on the republican actions. I know the old RUC mentality is pushing this but there is also an element of the revenge of the Catholic middle class. Look at the line up of figures making it to the front line in the legal judicial end – Barra McCrory, John Larkin, Nuala O’Loan, Seamus Tracey, Declan Morgan.

Mick/Organized Rage

I think the GFA was a glove fit solution to an internal conflict problem and it completely extracted the Brits out of serious culpability. It became a two tribes problem that found its own natural solution.

Marty,

I think the opposite was the case here. Rather than argue for the past to be forgotten the point was made that it should not be. The problem is that when we moved to look at the past, the emphasis was on the republican dimension and the prism we were offered to look through was the killing of Mary Travers.

Michael, I think Conall McDevitt has got it wrong...

2012-11-02T00:07:17.181Z

Michael,

I think Conall McDevitt has got it wrong when he says that a majority of those killed by the Provos were Catholics. Indeed, according to the CAIN-Sutton Index of Deaths, the PIRA killed 1712 people. 344 were Catholics from Northern Ireland and 795 were Protestants from Northern Ireland. The residual 573 were not from Northern Ireland; while the religious breakdown of this group is not given by CAIN-Sutton, it is very unlikely that a majority of them were Catholics.

In any event, it is more instructive to note that about 60 percent of the Provos' victims were members of the security forces and that the majority of these victims (about 54%) were actually from Northern Ireland.

I read this article out of curiosity to see what M...

2012-11-01T13:02:40.439Z

I read this article out of curiosity to see what McDevitt was up to here and after his opening salvo of absolving the SDLP of all blame in the Troubles - when you sit back and call on Nationalists to support the rule of British Law, while those who are supposed to uphold the Law, the British Security Services are murdering your constituents then you qualify for a percentage of the blame of the violence…and that includes Hume, Mallon and McGrady…those who rode the gravy train….anyway, after that opening I realised that this was just clap trap SDLP anti-SF rhetoric, same old, same old, which ended with Anne Travers who came to the fore because Jim Allister realised the political points he could score here and as we read so did McDevitt who with the use of Mystic Meg’s paranormal predictions informed us that Travers was inspirational to many…….horse-shit in its purest political point scoring form - he hasn’t the decency to state how she was used by all the politicos who at every opportunity attack all things Republican…..to finish, McDevitt is using the grief and pain of relatives of only it would seem, Republican victims, to point score against Republicans….McDevitt you’re a disgrace.

Alfie- Those are not the numbers that Conall is o...

2012-11-01T08:39:49.557Z

Alfie-

Those are not the numbers that Conall is on about- he said that the majority of whom the IRA killed were Catholic-whilst the true truth was that the majority of those killed by the Provos were brit- does it matter- well to Conall it does-but the truth always beats the defeated-

According to the CAIN/Sutton Index Of Deaths, Repu...

2012-11-01T00:11:17.052Z

According to the CAIN/Sutton Index Of Deaths, Republican paramilitaries killed 450 Catholics from the North during the Troubles. British security forces killed 303.

I do not like this piece at all and I share Marty ...

2012-10-31T23:21:52.796Z

I do not like this piece at all and I share Marty contempt and anger. The only kind of truth and reconciliation process that people like Connell are really interested is one which places in the dock PIRA volunteers and those who commanded them.

In post Franco Spain, and in post apartheid South Africa there was eventual agreement amongst the majority of the people about what originally caused the great tragedy both nations experienced. Franco's Fascist coup in Spain and Apartheid in SA.

In the north today there is no common agreement of who is to blame and the responsibility of the UK State for the whole thing is being airbrushed out of history.

The bold Conall whispers- " The majority of ...

2012-10-31T20:41:17.015Z

The bold Conall whispers-

" The majority of those whom the IRA killed were Catholic " but he forgot to say that the majority of them were english serving in the brit army when death caught up with them- me thinks that Conall spend to much time in the heat in spain to know about the truth here-

" reconcillation and building a new Ireland " good to know that Conall wants a new united Ireland-
wonder what - say goodbye to the stoops is in spanish-

"sdlp mla an Andalucian and an Irishman"...

2012-10-31T11:48:20.462Z

"sdlp mla an Andalucian and an Irishman" could have mentioned a brit subject in the pay of HM govt,how convenient it would be for all those nicccceee people if we just buried the past and got on with looking after wee norn iorn.

David; I totally agree you. The re-emergence of t...

2012-10-31T08:02:21.188Z

David; I totally agree you. The re-emergence of the RUC was only a matter of time in my opinion since the so called disbandment was only a half baked exercise in 'keeping that other lot quiet'. And our leaders knew it and accepted it for what it was - all in the interests of the peace process of course.

But I imagine that the unionist community feel exactly like this when they look at who is running their country.

Imagine the hue and cry there would have been in S...

2012-10-30T21:45:36.836Z

Imagine the hue and cry there would have been in Spain and internationally if 18 years after Francos demise several hundred of the worst offenders in the security services of that regime were rehired for their "experience".

In Ireland Republicans should just take the RUC re-emergence on the chin??