Comments on The Pensive Quill: The Bell and the Blanket: Journals of Irish Repub...

Marty, It pleases me that you got so much satisfa...

2012-10-16T07:56:28.270+01:00

Marty,

It pleases me that you got so much satisfaction from the Blanket. As you know it was hated by the SF mob back in the day. I think it helped illuminate the failure of Provo strategy in terms of moving anything republican forward. TPQ is a much more relaxed form of writing than the Blanket. I think when a writer goes off the boil it does no harm to be considerably less ambitious about the topics tackled.

I have mixed views about the Blanket winding up. It was a majority decision. It was felt that the Blanket was really a running commentary on the collapse of the republican end of the Provo project. When that project reached ground zero with the political endorsement of the British PSNI the Blanket, it was felt had served its purpose. But, yes, there is no bottom to how far the Provos will descend and in that sense there is room for commentary.

I think they may still have a more sinister role to play yet ,thinking of vol Joe O Connor here.

I think this is a very good point which is all too often overlooked in the commentary. Despite all their protestations the Provos killed Joe in a shoot to kill operation. I would never rule it out as a possibility.

mackers 'that must be Ugly na h-Eireann' ...

2012-09-13T21:49:23.922+01:00

mackers

'that must be Ugly na h-Eireann'

sure as hell turned out that way!

TR; I read your post and think you're saying t...

2012-09-13T21:36:48.322+01:00

TR; I read your post and think you're saying that you believe if people used methods such as Hunter & 'lead lambs to the slaughter' then they were not republicans - which is why I mentioned honey traps. If I've misunderstood you then I apoligise.

Larry, that must be Ugly na h-Eireann

2012-09-13T19:37:15.471+01:00

Larry,

that must be Ugly na h-Eireann

Belfastbookworm, 'Two words: Honey traps'...

2012-09-13T19:16:24.296+01:00

Belfastbookworm,

'Two words: Honey traps'

Three words: Read my sentence.

Martina Purdy news and current affairs corresponde...

2012-09-13T13:46:20.872+01:00

Martina Purdy news and current affairs correspondent for the BBC stated that deputy Martyboy was in America on party business,one hell of a party I,d bet.probably telling our American friends all about the peace dividends we are now enjoying,unemployment at its highest,homes being repossessed at a higher rater than ever ,suicide on the increase.internment back,no hope no future. yip even the weather is crap.but on a bright note the bearded one promised us a united Ireland by 2016 and we know he does not tell porkies,

'Peter the punt and Martyboy recently went to ...

2012-09-13T13:21:20.769+01:00

'Peter the punt and Martyboy recently went to China with a host of cronies to sort out jobs,They succeeded 760 jobs from F.G Wilson are now on their way there'

FANTASTIC and true, American capitalism outsourced all their manufacturing jobs to 3rd world countries and China and if it wasn't for the Chinese military upgrade there'd have been a war with China and its economic 'miracle' long before now. Those fighting that war would have been the same unemployed in America. How screwed up is that? But they would no doubt have been bringing Iraqi and Lybian style 'freedom' to whoever they were shock and awe-ing. [I just love the way the Americans train foreign militias after they wreck some country...train them to shoot US Marines haha].

Also, look at the Churchill insurance advert, 'I love how you know what I'm saying'. A dig at UK call centres based in India no doubt.

Peter the punt and Martyboy recently went to China...

2012-09-13T12:44:30.907+01:00

Peter the punt and Martyboy recently went to China with a host of cronies to sort out jobs,They succeeded 760 jobs from F.G Wilson are now on their way there

Anthony another one for a this n that When Thieves...

2012-09-13T08:28:03.688+01:00

Anthony another one for a this n that
When Thieves Fall Out;
Two members of the Knights of the Order OF the Holy Sepulchre have been in court over a property deal which one of them failed to honor the house on Belfasts Malone rd was sold to businessman Nicholas McKenna,he had offered to buy the house from fellow knight for £3.5 mill but pulled out when the property boom went belly up the vendor Jim McDonald(not of Corrie fame) and fellow knight a claims assessor for the brit army took his mate to court and now the law says that the bold Nick has to cough up,wonder did Nick turn the other cheek.

TR, 'if republicans did engage in this form o...

2012-09-13T08:19:10.602+01:00

TR,

'if republicans did engage in this form of sub-human treachery, then they were not republicans'

Two words: honey traps.

It is said that John McErlean was smiling when he ...

2012-09-13T08:03:27.127+01:00

It is said that John McErlean was smiling when he was murdered & his face still bore the smile in his coffin, indicating he was perhaps 'at home' with those people who plotted to & murdered him. It beggars belief & you're right Marty, that such people are revered in their communities is madness to us but being revered by their own shouldnt come as any surprise.

My granny used to say that once someone died they ceased to be your enemy & I tried to remember that. But sometimes 'jokes' were just too witty not to enjoy.

Hunter had obviously severe mental health problems. Perhaps his background damaged him beyond repair - or perhaps he had problems to begin with & that's what drove him to do what he did.

Mackers A man told me recently people joined the ...

2012-09-13T07:17:32.971+01:00

Mackers

A man told me recently people joined the IRA for all manner of resons, to take orders, give orders to get into the 'corner of the mouth gang'....as he said no-one likes to think they are ugly but there are a hell of a lot of ugly people out there!

Still goes down a treat that one when i tell it. cheers.

Marty love it. the brits are toppers in the paral...

2012-09-13T07:14:15.746+01:00

Marty

love it. the brits are toppers in the paralympics and always will be...steady numbers coming back from Iraq and wherever they happen to be missing body parts.

Anthony for yourself and Larry only right this ti...

2012-09-12T22:05:43.163+01:00

Anthony for yourself and Larry only right this time.
paralympic update.4 dead in the epileptic clay pigeon shooting.

Well said a cara and I couldnt argue with that com...

2012-09-12T21:58:12.240+01:00

Well said a cara and I couldnt argue with that comment.

Marty, Doesn’t much matter about who is at odds w...

2012-09-12T21:55:09.295+01:00

Marty,

Doesn’t much matter about who is at odds with who I suppose. Just an airing of opinions.

The individual is always open to exploitation in these matters. As you say it happened with our own. It doesn’t take much figuring to work out who sat on the army council that approved the operation that led to the Shankill deaths.

I don’t have a problem with them apologising for the war if they think it was wrong. But it is merely an instrument to them: they want the careers so badly that the war has to be thrust into the distant past and hermetically sealed from their current posturing. Do you think for a minute they wouldn’t disappear you in the morn if it suited? If they were in the slightest bit serious they would organisationally fess up to Joanne Mathers, Claudy, Whitecross, Joe O’Connor and a list of others longer than Pinocchio’s nose. How can they tell the unionists or anybody else they are serious when they lie through their teeth about all those matters?

I think we had much more right on our side than loyalism but I feel we should not lose our ability to self reflect and avoid the dangers of believing our own propaganda. Like yourself I have seem too many bad ones on our side to think we could possibly have a monopoly on being good.

2012-09-12T21:47:17.433+01:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Anthony I am not at odds with what you think or sa...

2012-09-12T21:40:29.758+01:00

Anthony I am not at odds with what you think or say here a cara and I understand your point,I think what irks me most is the exploitation of the individual. Hunter was after all only a pawn in their game, Thomas Begley another.we have the sight of loyalists commemorating Brian Robinson while the dogs in the street know he was set up by those he swore allegiance to,flip the coin Adams also carried Thomas Begley,s coffin and yet he was in the process of selling out the "struggle" that action has all the hallmarks of a one way trip and the volunteers involved were not privy to that. now qsf,national chairman Declan Kearney is bending over almost in two to appease loyalism with groveling apologies and we see no genuine reciprocation,I find the so called outpouring of grief for Hunter as believable as anything that comes from Adams mouth. that I think is the nub of this whole thing with me.if it was real and sincere I think that would come across,Bobby Sands funeral and those brave comrades as a point,what the business at ASDA and elsewhere says to me is as stated nothing more than criminals exploiting the sectarian nature of their community.as far as right is concerned I think we had that in abundance unfortunately not the might to go along with it.

Anthony 'More than a few from the republican ...

2012-09-12T21:36:37.982+01:00

Anthony

'More than a few from the republican side set up a work mate or a neighbour'
I would refer you to the 'Boycott Asda Facebook page where Shauneen McErlean describes the 'actual' method that Billy Hunter used to lure her father and uncle back to MountVermin. She describes how the story of a 'card game' was a side issue. Her father was a store manager and as such had access to bank and wages. One of Hunters' cohorts lured these innocent men on the pretence that he had'nt received any wages, and as an act of decency, they went to the house so that this low life would'nt be left short. That's how Hunter procured his 'lambs to the slaughter'.

If republicans did engage in this form of sub-human treachery, then they were not republicans.
If such people are revered then it diminishes us all.

Larry, I wonder about the answers to these things...

2012-09-12T21:23:08.492+01:00

Larry,

I wonder about the answers to these things much more than I have the answers. Massacres work as does torture and a few other unsavoury things. Rape works for the rapist but ...

We didn't all rush to the IRA or whatever because it was intellectually the thought out thing for good guys to do any more than the loyalists ran to the UVF because they were all neanderthals who couldn't think. It had a lot to do with geographical location. If I had grown up in the Shankill I would hardly have crossed the line to sign up with the republican struggle.

Funny how what is just in life tends to correspond directly with what we happen to think.

Gallows humour is the best. Like yourself, I love it. Somebody once siad there are no racist jokes, just racists who tell jokes. I love a good joke.

Mackers know what you mean about stooping to that ...

2012-09-12T20:35:36.387+01:00

Mackers
know what you mean about stooping to that level re' Whitecross. Massacres worked and continue to work for the Israelis, yanks and Brits who use it as first resort. Bernadette McAliskey stated the war is over the good guys lost. Nails it for me.

Gallows humour is hard to resist at times. It was written on a wall in Lurgan 'Semtex...kills more germs than vortex'. Also in a loyalist estate in Lurgan when RUC men were getting burned out after the signing of the Anglo Irish agreement in '85 'come home to a real fire...join the RUC'. Or Lord Mountbatten had dandruff...they found his head and shoulders on the beach.

Marty, Each community has heroes the other commun...

2012-09-12T20:24:12.144+01:00

Marty,

Each community has heroes the other community hates. The unionist community were infuriated when we turned out to bury Thomas Begley. It didn’t stop me carrying his coffin. Every group in this conflict produced people the other groups regard as war criminals. But they are respected within their own communities. I might not like that and don’t subscribe to a moral relativism. But I shirk from the notion that nobody is right but us or that there is no view other than the one we have.

More than a few from the republican side set up a work mate or a neighbor.

I have long thought that the Shankill butchers were a vile lot, guilty of the most heinous actions under the smoke of war. But those that killed the hunger strikers don’t figure too highly either.

Belfast bookworm as an ardent fan of Frankie Boyl...

2012-09-12T19:54:38.910+01:00

Belfast bookworm as an ardent fan of Frankie Boyle I would describe myself as far away from p.c as is possible to get,yet when it comes to a community hero worshiping the likes of Hunter and the Shankill Butchers then surely you must ask yourself what sort of morons live in these communities,I cant find anything other than they are no longer on this earth in the slightest bit funny about them or their dirty deeds, as Truerevisionist has said I believe his glorification or the Ardoyne and st Patrick incidents were nothing more than a know your place orchestrated by those criminals who masquerade under the banner of loyalism in the name of uvf or uda,the purpose being that they want an even greater slice of the so called social fund £85mill that Peter the punt and Martyboy has stashed away.I am equally sure those leaders of the loyalist people or cannon fodder gave as much concern to Billy Hunters mental health and welfare as did those in prm to the Dark and Kieran Nugent

Larry, he doused himself in petrol and set himse...

2012-09-12T19:11:31.332+01:00

Larry,

he doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire. Apparently it was the second effort in a few days.

The manager of the Turf Lodge Enterprise Scheme went out and painted over the grafitti it as far as I remember.

If the Whitecross killings were right what would make them so different from the the two massacres you wrote about? I would have done it too in the day but we change with reflection and age. It sort of leads to a conclusion that some victims are more innocent than others.

BB,

if the book of condolences policy operates across the board fine but in principle I don't have a problem with such gestures. I think the way things are managed differently and preferentially by the state is the bigger issue than the sympathy expressed for Billy Hunter.

As for taunting the other side the list as you suggest is endless.

I have to agree with Anthony on this one. Hunter, ...

2012-09-12T18:45:56.355+01:00

I have to agree with Anthony on this one. Hunter, as sickening as he was to me, was a hero of sorts in his community. You can't argue with them wanting to Mark his passing.

Asda on the other hand should have a policy where they dont allow anything like the book of condolences to operate on their premises. But they're Walmart so what do you expect? Theyre not known for ethical business or trading. And the west Belfast branch was still bursting at the seems despite the issue getting high coverage in the media.

Marty;

'our side' were great at having a laugh at the expense of others - even in death. 'Jokes' about shankill bomb, George seawright's killing, numerous Brits/peelers plastered the Walls of our districts. It's what we do, rub salt into the wounds of enemies where and when we can.