Lions and Lambs and Time

Now, the AXE is pricing Haggis on line ( a variation of the Scot's version that involves neither sheep not stomachs but sirloin and cans) and noticed this on his Google Homepage...Sinn Fein, the die-hard political wing of the IRA, has agreed to support the Police in Northern Island. No, not a reunion tour -- although that would be terminally cool -- the boys doing King of Pain at Stormont castle surrounded by security in trenchcoats, black berets and sunglasses, finishing up with Tarofiach  or something. The Cops. The Peelers.  The Gypos...

So, reconciliation can work. Of course, there ended up being almost as many spin-offs  of the IRA in Ulster as there are sheep in the Republic of Ireland. (Lots of the fuckers -- they outnumber people.) So, there may be some reluctance on the part of the Provos, the Real IRA, the Real Provos, the Catholic Wannabe Bad-Boy Gangsta IRA and so on. Still, it's a start.

Kind of like al Sadr announcing his support for the continued US occupation.

So, what's the relevance AXE? Duh...Iraq? Ulster, not unlike Iraq, Isreal, Palestine and so on is a British creation. While the ethnic tensions between the Anglo-Irish, the Scots-Irish and the Irish-Irish (whatever that means, by the way -- the Irish are a mongrel bunch, with Celt, Viking, Spanish and whatever thrown into the pot along the way. Including Britons and Saxons, of course -- the Irish were best known in Roman times as pirates who'd steal women.) (Not that we probably knew what to do with them...) The real fuel was religion. The Anglican Anglo-Irish looked down on the Presbyterian Scots Irish who of course regarded the Catholic Irish as an abomination. So, partition and separation based on religious predominance was the way forward.

Again, not unlike Iraq. While they don't look at all like  each other, Paisley and Sadr are scarily  similar...spiritually.

Comments

[luke]

wat the fuck r u talking about u fool u hav no idea wat ur goin on about i'll hav u knw that first of all the ira r gone how do i knw this i live in ireland and one thing u hav to knw is that wen the united irish men the first republic movement started it was by Presbyterian protestant wolftone u bloody fool the main issue is not really between religion however it has been used bcoz most catholic's want freedom from england and wer nationalist's and most protestants wer unionist's and didn't want this and another thing the ira wer allways illegal and nw there gone bt the uvf and uda r unionist fighters and they wer only made illgal in the 80's and r still around so get ur facts straights u fucking fool

[Crusader AXE]

Are you really from Ireland? Funny, we've always been considered to be masters of the English language...I guess this is a love letter to Paisley, which is kind of interesting. Wasn't aware that Orangemen are into homoerotica, except perhaps the synchronized swimming team at Syracuse University.

Of course the main issue wasn't religion. It was...what, exactly? What exactly motivated the Presbyterians to want to stay part of the United Kingdom? A fondness for Haggis and fear of being prevented by the Catholics from getting it? Religion was a nice cover for maintaining the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, no doubt. It's certainly true that a lot of the advocates of a free Ireland were Protestant from the times of Wolfe Tone. It's also true that the whole Civil Rights movement had to do with assuring equal treatment for the 1/3 of the North that was Catholic.

Mentholated spirits and methamphetamine besides, slan, brother. Or sister...which is a scary conception indeed.