Martin McGuinness

[Earl Aelfheah]

I went to a Catholic school, where many of my friends families supported the IRA. Their houses would have pictures of paramilitaries on the wall in full garb holding guns. I certainly understood the situation in Northern Ireland to be a case of English occupation. Of course I now know it's more complicated than that and looking back realise how weird it was that people celebrated / glorified the violence in that way.

[Alan Medic]

My little story goes back to my teens. I fell in love with a girl from Keady, Co.Armagh, who would spend her Summer in my hometown. Having moved to Dublin, my friend who had a car offered to drive me up there. We arranged to meet in the local pub. Keady is a village or at least was then. Sipping our pints and waiting for Siobhan to arrive, in come what seems like half the British army, heavily armed and looking for whoever had the car with the Southern registration. That was us. Thankfully all that happened was we were asked a few questions. For us Southerners though it was quite intimidating.

Some years later I went back to the North. I was working for a Scandanavian company and travelling with a Swede. I let him do all the talking at checkpoints. In more recent years I went with my wife for a holiday in Ireland and started in Belfast. We had no problems whatsoever. However, whenever we were looking for a place to stop I would avoid all those places where there was Union Jack bunting plastered all over the streets. It felt quite unwelcoming.

[Otta]

Haha, I don't doubt what you say at all, but the fact that bunting of all things can be intimidating, has tickled me.

[red devil]

Yep, stay away from village fetes this summer, you might get accosted by the WI and forced to eat a cucumber sandwich...

[Alan Medic]

I'd understand if it was around the 12th of July but it wasn't. Scarred for life I am, by bunting.

[stringvest]

I won't miss that man. I'm glad there's peace in NI but still remember being caught up in central london bombings and scares. Harrods, Hyde park .... my friend from Belfast would stop at the entrances of shops unnecessarily to be frisked by the security guards.

If a convicted murderer learns the piano are they now a pianist and not a murderer anymore? I am still a bit surprised that Nelson Mandela is treated like a diety as HE WAS ACTUALLY IN A TERRORIST organisation that blew up school buees and wasn't jailed for no reason. I was speaking to some twenty somethings who thought he should have a plinth at trafalgar square, they were very shocked to hear about the ANC and thought he was locked up for being black .....?????

[Springer]

String vest convicted ?? No

[stringvest]

I am sure NM was a convicted terrorist?

"uMkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, Xhosa pronunciation: [uˈmkʰonto we ˈsizwe], meaning "Spear of the Nation") was the ARMED wing of the African National Congress (ANC), co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its founding represented the conviction in the face of the massacre that the ANC could no longer limit itself to nonviolent protest; its mission was to fight against the South African government.[1]

After warning the South African government in June 1961 of its intent to resist further acts of government instituted terror if the government did not take steps toward constitutional reform and increase political rights, MK launched its first attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. It was subsequently classified as a terrorist organisation by the South African government and the United States, and banned.[2]

For a time it was headquartered in the affluent suburb of Rivonia, in Johannesburg. On 11 July 1963, 19 ANC and MK leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Arthur Goldreich and Walter Sisulu, were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia. The farm was privately owned by Arthur Goldreich and bought with South African Communist Party and ANC funds, as individuals who were not white were unable to own a property in that area under the Group Areas Act. This was followed by the Rivonia Trial, in which ten leaders of the ANC were tried for 221 militant acts designed to "foment violent revolution". Wilton Mkwayi, chief of MK at the time, escaped during trial."

[Springer]

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[Springer]

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[JoeLeg]

stringvest Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I won't miss that man. I'm glad there's peace in

> NI but still remember being caught up in central

> london bombings and scares. Harrods, Hyde park

> .... my friend from Belfast would stop at the

> entrances of shops unnecessarily to be frisked by

> the security guards.

>

> If a convicted murderer learns the piano are they

> now a pianist and not a murderer anymore? I am

> still a bit surprised that Nelson Mandela is

> treated like a diety as HE WAS ACTUALLY IN A

> TERRORIST organisation that blew up school buees

> and wasn't jailed for no reason. I was speaking

> to some twenty somethings who thought he should

> have a plinth at trafalgar square, they were very

> shocked to hear about the ANC and thought he was

> locked up for being black .....?????

You honestly, seriously cannot see how Nelson Mandela genuinely turned his back on violence and with FW de Klerk guided South Africa through an incredibly dangerous time when it could've literally descended into civil war? You cannot see that?

Wow...