Northern Ireland Thread

I always wondered, are these firebombs just petrol bombs or something more complex. This one seemed a real Darwin award nominee.
 
Alert closes streets in Belfast city centre

_71889684_belfastalert.jpg
High Street was cordoned off in the alert​
High Street, Bridge Street and Donegall Street in Belfast city centre have been closed to traffic due to a security alert.
It is understood a number of bars have been evacuated.
Police said a suspicious object was found in a building at the junction of Bridge Street and High Street. Army bomb experts have been called to the scene.
There are no further details at the moment
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:(
 
Ah it's really getting upsetting now. People are putting on the brave face but it's getting to the locals. Four incidents in as many weeks of this magnitude is frightening. Please God they don't have a big one up their sleeve.
 
Irwhine said:
She should be doing the blowing pal.
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:lol: I thought you were taking the piss with that question! If it was serious, nah, she's in Vienna for Christmas.

The most annoying thing at the moment is how a small minority of people, on both sides, are wrecking everything for everyone else. Fleggers on one hand, Dissidents on the other. The threat of a bomb is worse than a flag protest, I should add. But it's all fecked.

Meh.
 
PhilipB said:
:lol: I thought you were taking the piss with that question! If it was serious, nah, she's in Vienna for Christmas.

The most annoying thing at the moment is how a small minority of people, on both sides, are wrecking everything for everyone else. Fleggers on one hand, Dissidents on the other. The threat of a bomb is worse than a flag protest, I should add. But it's all fecked.

Meh.
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Aye. I've yet to speak to anyone from the North that has a modicum of support or sympathy for these attacks. It's just so different from before when people were openly supporting of the IRA or the Loyalists. I've not spoken to anyone in RL that's been supportive of the fleggers either but tbf I've not spoken to a lot of Unionists living down here.

Any chance they'll get the message?
 
So, this is how the British government and NI office though of Catholics/nationalist then at the very highest level in the 80's.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...anding-west-belfast-to-republic-29885285.html

Extraordinary plans to redraw the Irish Border - which included handing over west Belfast to the Republic - were seriously considered by British officials in the 1980s, according to previously classified state papers released today.
The radical proposals - which reached the desk of Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher - also suggested ceding most of Derry city to the Republic. A briefing paper prepared by officials at the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), based on a new partition plan put forward by an academic, suggested slicing Northern Ireland in half and cutting its population by 500,000.

It also mentioned establishing a "walled ghetto" in west Belfast.

However, officials later noted that while moving half-a-million people -- mostly Catholics -- might be acceptable for a totalitarian regime, human rights arguments would be an obstacle.

Other incentives, such as loyalty tests for benefits and large-scale internment "should drive out large numbers", they speculated.

The plans, which also discussed compensating unionists in areas ceded to the Republic, were quickly rejected as unrealistic and impractical. But the fact they reached the desk of the British prime minister shows that they were considered at the top level. The proposals are contained in UK government files from 1984, released today under the 30-year rule. Officials revisited the border question in response to research by Paul Compton, an academic from Queen's University Belfast. His "most respected analysis" is discussed in a secret paper prepared by the Northern Ireland Office. A copy sent to Mrs Thatcher and included in one of the files is heavily underlined, suggesting that she considered it in detail.

Dr Compton had described the partition of 1920 as "necessary and justified" but "flawed by the messy way in which it was executed". He suggested three options for repartition, including one which would cede over half of the geographical area of Northern Ireland to the Republic, reducing its population to one million -- 73.5pc of which would be Protestant. A more modest version, ceding parts of Fermanagh, south Armagh and most of Derry city, was also proposed. The Catholic population would have been cut by 105,000 to around 460,000, while transferring only 30,000 Protestants to the Republic.

The briefing paper on Dr Compton's suggestions also referred to a possible partition of Belfast. NIO officials discussed creating "a wedge-shaped area in west Belfast" running from Twinbrook to the Divis Flats, including areas such as Poleglass, Andersonstown and the Lower Falls. The briefing paper discusses "difficulties over the Belfast sector", adding that one solution, "a walled ghetto", "would entail physical as well as political difficulties".

It adds: "Policing international boundaries across Belfast and any corridor between republican Belfast and the Border would be a formidable task." Although the idea was quickly rejected, repartition re-emerged as a political issue in November 1984, when Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald spoke publicly against it. Dr FitzGerald warned that it would lead to a more permanent division of the island. On a minute referring to those remarks, Mrs Thatcher wrote: "That's why he doesn't like it."

Seperately, released papers show Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald was left depressed after the "profound personal and political setback" of an Anglo-Irish summit between himself and prime minister Margaret Thatcher, in which little progress was made in resolving problems in Northern Ireland. UK state papers released by the National Archives in London from 1984 show that Dr FitzGerald wanted to advance co-operation between the two governments, whereas the British were considering whether or not to continue talks between the two countries at all.
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Just jawdropping that these kind of proposals were seriously considered at all. Loyalty tests for benefits and a walled Ghetto in Belfast. Ethnic cleansing was all this was.
 
Didnt want to start a new thread for this so just sticking it in here.

So is Stormont going to collapse then because of these letters? Seems excessive that one mans threat to resign can bring the whole thing down. Let him resign and just replace him, no?
 
Rooney24 said:
Didnt want to start a new thread for this so just sticking it in here.

So is Stormont going to collapse then because of these letters? Seems excessive that one mans threat to resign can bring the whole thing down. Let him resign and just replace him, no?
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Who would replace him though? I doubt any of the Unionist MPs would step up as they would demand the same answers he wants.
 
Robinson did his angry man to placate his party, Cameron has given him a toothless 'inquiry' to throw to the dogs.
 
Ramshock said:
It was Peter Robinson electioneering
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Do you not think people had a right to know though? If it was the other way round the reaction would have been exactly the same, and rightly so. It's being called the "get out of jail free" letter, and for good reason.
Didn't that murderer Downey get off because he got one of the letters by mistake, how many more times is that going to happen?
 
Getsme said:
Do you not think people had a right to know though? If it was the other way round the reaction would have been exactly the same, and rightly so. It's being called the "get out of jail free" letter, and for good reason.
Didn't that murderer Downey get off because he got one of the letters by mistake, how many more times is that going to happen?
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I am not talking about the OTR situation I am talking about Robinson's threatening to resign bullshit. Yes the people had the right to know but the DUP already knew. Robinson;s actions were just a way of distancing himself from implication.
 
Ramshock said:
I am not talking about the OTR situation I am talking about Robinson's threatening to resign bullshit. Yes the people had the right to know but the DUP already knew. Robinson;s actions were just a way of distancing himself from implication.
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So should he have kept quiet? Yes the threat to quit was a bit OTT but he got the message across, and fast. Personally I think all politicians are assholes but he is completely right in his view that there should be an inquiry. It's a disgrace that Downey got off because of this, what else is the inquiry going to bring to the surface.
 
Getsme said:
Do you not think people had a right to know though? If it was the other way round the reaction would have been exactly the same, and rightly so. It's being called the "get out of jail free" letter, and for good reason.
Didn't that murderer Downey get off because he got one of the letters by mistake, how many more times is that going to happen?
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Downey has not been found guilty of anything in a court of law, as far as I know.

As far as the 'get out of jail free' card bit goes, that's not the case at all. People simply utilised Sinn Fein to find out if they were being sought out by the police, which is a different thing altogether.
 
Getsme said:
So should he have kept quiet? Yes the threat to quit was a bit OTT but he got the message across, and fast. Personally I think all politicians are assholes but he is completely right in his view that there should be an inquiry. It's a disgrace that Downey got off because of this, what else is the inquiry going to bring to the surface.
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it wasnt a matter of keeping quiet it was a matter of lying that he didnt know about the OTR situation of course he fcking knew about the get out of jail free card and who exactly was on the run. Your naivety is exactly what he wants
 
An Irish Red said:
Downey has not been found guilty of anything in a court of law, as far as I know.

As far as the 'get out of jail free' card bit goes, that's not the case at all. People simply utilised Sinn Fein to find out if they were being sought out by the police, which is a different thing altogether.
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Correct he hasn't, thanks to his get out of jail free card.
 
Ramshock said:
it wasnt a matter of keeping quiet it was a matter of lying that he didnt know about the OTR situation of course he fcking knew about the get out of jail free card and who exactly was on the run. Your naivety is exactly what he wants
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Ooh FFS
My naivety, a murderer has got off thanks to these letters, but sure lets just brush it under the carpet.
 
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