Peace Initiatives in Ireland: A Reply to Adrian Kent
J.McGhee
> Your article, to which J.P. was replying, described (inter alia) the Maze
> prison as a concentration camp. Was this propaganda?
My Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary says:
"concentration camp n : a camp where persons (as prisoners
of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained or confined."
The Maze prison, also known as Long Kesh, houses only political
prisoners. It was built by the British Army, not civil authorities, to contain
people **> SUSPECTED <** of being members of the IRA or INLA or other persons
who are **> SUSPECTED <** of being opposed to British Rule in Ireland according
to the provisions of the Special Powers Act, which, if briefly examined,
can be shown to abolish all the human rights guaranteed under the U.S.
Constitution or under the United Nations conventions concerning human rights.
Most persons held there have never been tried in a court of law for
their **> SUSPECTED <** transgressions of the infamous Special Powers Act.
Aside from that, it and other "prisons" in northern Ireland bear a strong
physical resemblance to Auswitz or Buchenwald. There are no gas chambers or
ovens there that we know of, but if loyalists like George Seawright have their
way it won't be long before they're installed.
>> The world has come a long way since the time when a bill was
>> introduced in the "mother of parliaments" in London calling for the
>> **> CASTRATION <** of all Catholic priests, but we still have a long way
>> to go.
> Yes, we have come a long way since this time, if it ever existed. Did it?
Yes, according to the BBC-TV documentary entitled "The Troubles" it
did. You find it on page 23 of the transcript of that program which can be
obtained by writing to BBC-TV. It also describes a portable gallows which
was the size of a small cart and could be set up in less than a minute for
instant hangings. These were typically used for British Army lynchings of
any person who showed any sign of resistance to British Rule. Many other
hangings were carried out by the loyalist "yeomanry" (i.e. loyalist subjects).
It was also a "crime" for a Catholic priest to celebrate the Mass.
The penalty for that "crime" was that the "criminal" was hanged, drawn and
quartered. I assume you know what hanging is. Drawing and quartering meant
that you stretched a person out on the ground and hacked his or her body
into four roughly equal but extremely bloody pieces. This was meant to
**> TERRORIZE <** the audience. I guess that makes the executioners TERRORISTS.
Bishop Oliver Plunkett was executed by this method for the
above-mentioned crime of the practice of his religion. He was recently
declared a saint by the Church.
> Does it have any relevance at all to Ireland in 1985?
Yes, it is only a single thread of the fabric of British Rule in
Ireland, but it demonstrates that the British Army and government were the
original terrorists in Ireland; that their history of terror extends over
centuries and over many countries which they colonized and still continues
today in spite of what historical revisionists and media controllers may say.
This use of terror and genocide is one of the chief reasons why the Irish
people cannot accept a British Rule - the Irish people are literally fighting
for their own self-preservation.
On October 29 at 2:30 pm the British Army intentionally provoked
a riot in Derry when a British soldier tripped a six-year-old boy and stood
on him. When the boy's mother complained she was told: "We do what we want.
We are the law!" In Dungannon John Sheridan who has been constantly harassed
by the British Army was told by the Army: "You'll be dead by Christmas."
Unfortunately these incidents are not unusual but typical of what goes on
every day under British Rule in Ireland.
>> I can tell you that an American Police Chief who recently travelled
>>to northern Ireland, speaking from a podium outside the UN in Dag Hammerskjold
>>Plaza, denounced the Royal Ulster Constabulary as being a completely sectarian
>>force of repression which did not deserve to be described by the word
>>"police" because they could not measure of to the standards of any police
>>force in America.
> Which police chief?
> What does he or she know about Ireland?
I've been trying to find out the name of the police chief I mentioned
but I haven't had any luck. Next time I'll bring my tape recorder! If that
disappoints you, consider this: This past summer a conference of more than
100 lawyers met in Paris to consider the totality of the problem in Ireland.
The lawyers were from France, Britain, Belgium, the US and Ireland. Their
conclusions were:
1. The Irish government must "assert vigorously" the right of
self-determination of the the people of all of Ireland and ensure
that the enforcement of this right is placed on the agenda of the
United Nations General Assembly and other appropriate international
institutions.
2. The British government was cited for fueling political violence by
the use of "special" courts and laws.
3. The continued reliance of the authorities on special courts in Ireland
and emergency legislation in all parts of Ireland and Britain runs
counter to the rule of law, alienates the police from judicial
institutions and contributes to political violence.
4. Excessive powers of arrest and seizure are allowed to military units
being used as police forces.
5. The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) which "operates as a sectarian unit
within the British Army" must be disbanded.
6. The power of detaining suspects without charges for seven days is
contrary to the basic rights of a suspect and is frequently abused,
allowing unacceptable forms of pressure to be used against suspects
and these powers are widely used for motives other than the
investigation of offenses.
7. The use of plastic bullets against the civilian population is
denounced as a serious violation of human rights.
8. The use of plastic bullets must be banned in accordance with the
resolutions of the European Parliament in May, 1982 and October 1984.
9. The cases of 150 innocent civilians killed by British government forces
require investigation by an international tribunal.
10. Diplock juryless courts violate the principle of common law and
should be banned.
11. The strip-searching of women prisoners in Armagh Prison should be
ended.
> I don't want to suggest that all is well with the RUC - in particular they
> are certainly overwhelmingly (not completely) sectarian (Protestant). Would
> you agree that one reason - not by any means the only one - for this is that
> the Irish Republican Army (military wing of Sinn Fein) make a special point
> of killing Catholics who join the R.U.C.?
I don't want to suggest that only Catholics can police other
Catholics. There are many Protestants who do not agree with the actions of
the RUC and the British Army who wouldn't dare to state it to their own people.
A few years ago, a loyalist leader was dragged down off a speaking platform
and beaten to death in front of his wife and literally thousands of people
for suggesting that the people of northern Ireland should live together in
peace. There were no witnesses to that murder, none would say what they saw.
The IRA makes a special point of killing any RUC or British Army
personnel, whether Catholic or Protestant, who are involved in torturing
and killing Irish people in order to perpetuate British Rule. One Catholic
RUC man who was recently killed by the IRA had tortured prisoners, according
to victims interviewed by Sinn Fein.
>> In the 1700's Protestants were not only participants in the Irish
>> independence movement, they were its founders and principal leaders. These
>> facts have been purged from the British histories of Ireland and a
>> mythological doomsday scenario has been promoted by the British government
>> whenever it refers to a United Ireland in order to promote a Chicken-Little
>> "the sky is falling!" mentality among them.
>> You ought to be more careful about what you say, John. Some people
>> may begin to suspect you of being a "Fenian plant" for feeding me "just
>> the right questions".
>>
>> J. M. McGhee
> At the risk of falling under similar suspicion, let me ask you a few
> more.
> Firstly, can we agree on a few basic facts about Ireland:
> Northern Ireland - the part which is presently part of the United Kingdom -
> has a population which is sharply divided on religious lines.
Northern Ireland is sharply divided over the question of whether
it will be governed by the English system of The Ascendancy in which, as
George Orwell stated in the "Animal Farm": - "some animals are more equal
than others" or whether it will be an egalitarian community in which every
person is born with the same rights and privileges and every person is judged
by their actions and accomplishments.
> The majority ( roughly 60% ) are Protestant, the minority Catholic.
The loyalist "majority" was artificially created by the most contrived
gerrymandering the world has ever seen. Not only are towns cut by the border,
but even individual farms are cut by it, so that half a farmer's land is under
British control and half is under the control of the Dublin government.
This loyalist "majority" can only be maintained by constant pressure
of violence and denial of rights to drive out members of the "minority" to
preclude them from becoming becoming a "majority" even in that contrived
gerrymandered artificial state as they most certainly will be if they are
ever left in peace.
Since the loyalist "majority" cannot be maintained without this
pressure of violence and human rights denial, these evils must forever
continue in order to maintain British Rule.
> Nearly all the Protestant community wants to remain part of the U.K.,
> while most of the Catholic community would like the north to become part
> of a united Ireland, ruled by the parliamentin Dublin which presently
> governs the south.
The partitioning of Ireland in 1922 violates the United Nations
conventions on colonialism. By these conventions, authored by all the nations
of the world, an imperial power (such as England) may not partition or
subdivide any of its colonies. An imperial power may not withdraw from only
part of a colony and maintain an occupied enclave within that colony.
These actions are violations of the national sovereignty and territorial
integrity of the former colony.
The so-called "loyalist" community is only loyal to its continued
dominance in that artificial state. Many "loyalists" dislike the British
government almost as much as the Nationalists/Republicans do. They have said
so quite often and there is considerable support among "loyalists" for the
concept of an "independent Ulster" which is controlled by neither London
nor Dublin.
"Loyalists", using automatic weapons, have fought pitched street
battles agaist the British Army in the Shankill district of Belfast. This
is described by Captain Anthony F.N. Clarke of the British Parachute
Regiment in his book entitled "Contact".
> Sinn Fein recognises neither the British nor the Irish parliaments,
Sinn Fein recognizes both of these governing bodies to the extent
that it participates in elections and now accounts for about 98 elected
representatives both north and south. It considers both governments
fundamentally flawed by their structure and operating procedures.
By American standards, the Prime Ministers of both of these states
are chosen in a "smoke-filled room" of professional politicians rather than
being elected by direct choice of the people through primary elections and
the runoff national elections as we have in the U.S.
Neither of these states has implemented the principal of "one-man,
one-vote" (i.e., proportional representation) nor have they implemented the
independent drawing of electoral district boundaries which make gerrymandering
practically impossible.
Sinn Fein fully participates in local governing bodies such as
town councils to the great consternation of the loyalists who have tried to
prevent Sinn Fein representatives from participating. A large number of
northern town councils are now adjourned indefinitely in order to prevent
Sinn Fein representatives from participating in government. The town councils
which remain in operation at present are the ones controlled by Nationalist/
Republican representatives so that the loyalists are the abstentionists
at the town council level. The Republicans in town councils are attempting
to accomplish the practical business of these bodies in a spirit of brotherhood
and cooperation with loyalists while cleaning out, as much as possible, the
decaying and useless artifacts of British colonialism.
On the national level Sinn Fein does not participate in the London
or Dublin governments. This matter was the subject of long debate at the
Sinn Fein convention in Dublin in the past few weeks. Those voting for the
abstentionist principle won out over those favoring participation by a narrow
margin. As Sinn Fein strength continues to grow in elections, this will
probably be discarded.
> and in particular aims to overthrow the Dublin parliament and establish
> a socialist state governing all Ireland.
This is totally untrue if by "overthrow" you mean an armed coup
or military seizure of the reins of government. They actually intend to
"overthrow" the Dublin government by gaining the support of the majority
of Irish voters or at least by becoming an indispensible minority in a
coalition government and forcing the Dublin government to make reforms.
> Given this situation, what do you propose should happen to northern Ireland?
The British government should stop torturing, harassing, murdering
and illegally imprisoning people. It should adhere to the judgements of the
United Nations on the status of former colonies. It should adhere to the
clearly demonstrated wishes of the majority of the British people who want
to their troops out of Ireland. It should forever and immediately withdraw
its troops from all Irish soil. Areas which have a Nationalist/Republican
majority should immediately be transferred to the control of the government
of Ireland.
Areas having a loyalist "majority" should be allowed to operate
autonomously for a period of time until these people sort out their loyalties
without the presence of British troops. In the event of disorder in loyalist
"majority" areas, the security forces of the Irish government should exercise
their right of sovereignty in these areas, but only in the case of disorder.
At the same time a new government should be formed which represents
all the people of Ireland on a "one-man, one-vote" basis with a special
emphasis on the respect of the human rights of all individuals within the
country. The Prime Minister should be chosen directly by the people of Ireland.
Laws concerning marriage and divorce and control of the education system
should be tranferred to the local county governments to assure that these
laws are in accordance with the standards of the local community.
> Would you support attempts to have it governed from Dublin, against the wishes
> of the majority of its inhabitants? If so, why?
No. As stated above, the Dublin government should be responsible for
national security, but should not interfere in the delegated powers of local
government unless the local government violates the basic human rights of
individuals. At the same time the Dublin government should BE GOVERNED by
the wishes of all the people of Ireland as one nation.
> Why do you dismiss as British propaganda the view that withdrawing British
> troops and British rule from N.I. would lead to civil war?
Because there was no civil war between nationalists and loyalists
in the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland after the establishment of
that government. There WAS a civil war between Republican factions because the
British Army and government did not fully withdraw in 1922. It is the British
presence which was then and continues to be the cause of violence.
> (There is, as you ought to know, significant support in mainland Britain for
> precisely this course of action. How do you explain an article by a former
> southern Irish foreign minister (*) warning the British government that
> withdrawing troops could result in chaos engulfing the whole island?)
> (*) Conor Cruse O'Brien, writing in The Observer, circa August 1984.)
This is the first time in years that I have seen mention of the name
of Conor Cruise O'Brien (laughingly referred to as "the Cruiser" in Ireland).
This man has as much following in Ireland as Benedict Arnold has in America
and like Benedict Arnold he has sold out and defected to England to live out
the rest of his days.
> There is some hope that the London and Dublin governments will soon agree
> on measures designed to reduce inter-communal tension in N.I. - such as a
> joint parliamentary commission to investigate minority grievances. Sinn Fein
> and the I.R.A. will denounce any such agreement as a sham organised by two
> bodies which have no role in Ireland. Which side will you be on?
I am on the side of logic. Logic tells me that the only good thing
that the British government has ever done in Ireland is withdraw its troops
and get out. This is the only possible good thing that they can do now.
J. M. McGhee
Adrian Kent
a great deal. Before I take up some of his/her individual points, let me give
an overall reaction. Firstly, there are several references to Irish history.
Whether they're accurate or not, they don't describe the present reality.
Maybe a unified, independent Ireland should have been created in the 1920s:
it doesn't follow that the two parts of the island can or should be unified
now. As for the various atrocities committed by Britons over the previous
eight centuries, I can only assume they're dragged in to avoid rational thought
about the present situation. Secondly, there's a claim - which I believe to be
quite spurious -that Sinn Fein is an organisation with democratic
goals and aspirations, and a concomitant contempt for the democratic
institutions and politicians of Britain and of Ireland. Thirdly, there's a
strange ambiguity in J.McGhee's attitude to the Protestant majority in Northern
Ireland. On the one hand, they are supposed to be Irishmen oppressed by Britain,who would happily live within a unified Irish state. On the other hand, their
repression of Catholics causes many of his grievances.
Anyway, on with the response. Talking about the Maze prison, we have:
>Aside from that, it and other "prisons" in northern Ireland bear a strong
>physical resemblance to Auswitz or Buchenwald. There are no gas chambers or
>ovens there that we know of, but if loyalists like George Seawright have their
>way it won't be long before they're installed.
somehow to want to associate the idea of Nazi-style concentration camps with
Britain, without actually saying they exist. Why "no(ne)... that we know of"?
There are no gas chambers or ovens there at all. Would it have harmed the cause
of Irish unity so much if you'd said so? George Seawright (a Protestant bigot
who suggested the incineration of Catholics) is completely unrepresentative of
loyalist opinion. If you don't think so, I fail to understand your optimism
regarding the peaceful incorporation of loyalists in a unified Ireland. If you
do think so, then why did you associate loyalism with him (what's wrong with
"if George Seawright has his way"?) and why did you mention him at all in this
context?
>
>>> The world has come a long way since the time when a bill was
>>> introduced in the "mother of parliaments" in London calling for the
>>> **> CASTRATION <** of all Catholic priests, but we still have a long way
>>> to go.
>
>> Yes, we have come a long way since this time, if it ever existed. Did it?
>
> Yes, according to the BBC-TV documentary entitled "The Troubles" it
>did. You find it on page 23 of the transcript of that program which can be
>obtained by writing to BBC-TV. It also describes a portable gallows which
>was the size of a small cart and could be set up in less than a minute for
>instant hangings. These were typically used for British Army lynchings of
>any person who showed any sign of resistance to British Rule. Many other
>hangings were carried out by the loyalist "yeomanry" (i.e. loyalist subjects).
> It was also a "crime" for a Catholic priest to celebrate the Mass.
>The penalty for that "crime" was that the "criminal" was hanged, drawn and
>quartered.
(description and case history follows)
Fine. Now when was this? and the earlier question still stands ....
>> Does it have any relevance at all to Ireland in 1985?
>
> Yes, it is only a single thread of the fabric of British Rule in
>Ireland, but it demonstrates that the British Army and government were the
>original terrorists in Ireland; that their history of terror extends over
>centuries and over many countries which they colonized and still continues
>today in spite of what historical revisionists and media controllers may say.
>This use of terror and genocide is one of the chief reasons why the Irish
>people cannot accept a British Rule - the Irish people are literally fighting
>for their own self-preservation.
It's a remarkable historical method that "demonstrates" those conclusions
from the evidence you gave. The Irish people are not literally fighting for
their self-preservation. A small number of the Irish people are literally
fighting for various political motives with which you may sympathise. Another
small number are literally fighting for other political motives with which you
apparently don't sympathise. A much larger number of the Irish people are not
fighting for anything. I'm rather suspicious of your 'fabric of British Rule',
which seems to be a tapestry of relentless oppression. How does the period
1922-68 fit in, for instance? Or the Catholics civil rights marchers' appeals
for British troops to be sent to N.I. in 1969? Is it just possible that things
are a little more complicated than you want to admit?
>> I don't want to suggest that all is well with the RUC - in particular they
>> are certainly overwhelmingly (not completely) sectarian (Protestant). Would
>> you agree that one reason - not by any means the only one - for this is that
>> the Irish Republican Army (military wing of Sinn Fein) make a special point
>> of killing Catholics who join the R.U.C.?
>
> I don't want to suggest that only Catholics can police other
>Catholics. There are many Protestants who do not agree with the actions of
>the RUC and the British Army who wouldn't dare to state it to their own people.
>A few years ago, a loyalist leader was dragged down off a speaking platform
>and beaten to death in front of his wife and literally thousands of people
>for suggesting that the people of northern Ireland should live together in
>peace. There were no witnesses to that murder, none would say what they saw.
> The IRA makes a special point of killing any RUC or British Army
>personnel, whether Catholic or Protestant, who are involved in torturing
>and killing Irish people in order to perpetuate British Rule. One Catholic
>RUC man who was recently killed by the IRA had tortured prisoners, according
>to victims interviewed by Sinn Fein.
Who was the leader? When? I'm a little surprised that his wife wasn't
willing to say what she saw. There are an awful lot of propaganda stories
about N.Ireland, and this sounds like one of the clumsier ones. You don't
meet the question about the I.R.A. killing Catholic R.U.C. members - it's
a deliberate policy to intimidate them from joining. They may also declare
a separate policy of killing torturers. I know of no independent evidence that
the RUC or Army have practiced torture in the last nine years. (It is greatly
to Britain's shame that inhuman interrogation methods were used in the early
seventies.)
>> Firstly, can we agree on a few basic facts about Ireland:
>> Northern Ireland - the part which is presently part of the United Kingdom -
>> has a population which is sharply divided on religious lines.
>
> Northern Ireland is sharply divided over the question of whether
>it will be governed by the English system of The Ascendancy in which, as
>George Orwell stated in the "Animal Farm": - "some animals are more equal
>than others" or whether it will be an egalitarian community in which every
>person is born with the same rights and privileges and every person is judged
>by their actions and accomplishments.
What exactly do you mean by "The Ascendancy"? Is your division supposed
to be between capitalists and communists, conservatives and socialists, bigots
and non-bigots, or what? Is it supposed to coincide with the Protestant-
Catholic division, or not?
>
>> The majority ( roughly 60% ) are Protestant, the minority Catholic.
>
> The loyalist "majority" was artificially created by the most contrived
>gerrymandering the world has ever seen. Not only are towns cut by the border,
>but even individual farms are cut by it, so that half a farmer's land is under
>British control and half is under the control of the Dublin government.
> This loyalist "majority" can only be maintained by constant pressure
>of violence and denial of rights to drive out members of the "minority" to
>preclude them from becoming becoming a "majority" even in that contrived
>gerrymandered artificial state as they most certainly will be if they are
>ever left in peace.
The border was certainly artificial. The political reality is that
most of the people on one side of the border have different aspirations from
most of the people on the other side. Do you have any estimate for the
emigration rates among Protestants and Catholics from N.I.? I don't have the
impression that the difference (if any) is a significant factor in the
demography, and I thought the Catholic proportion of the population was
gradually increasing because of a higher birthrate.
>> Sinn Fein recognises neither the British nor the Irish parliaments,
>
> Sinn Fein recognizes both of these governing bodies to the extent
>that it participates in elections and now accounts for about 98 elected
>representatives both north and south. It considers both governments
>fundamentally flawed by their structure and operating procedures.
> By American standards, the Prime Ministers of both of these states
>are chosen in a "smoke-filled room" of professional politicians rather than
>being elected by direct choice of the people through primary elections and
>the runoff national elections as we have in the U.S.
> Neither of these states has implemented the principal of "one-man,
>one-vote" (i.e., proportional representation) nor have they implemented the
>independent drawing of electoral district boundaries which make gerrymandering
>practically impossible.
This really is extraordinary. Britain and Ireland both have parliamentary
systems, in which the leader of the party with the largest number of seats tends
to become Prime Minister (or Taioseach - I apologise for my Gaelic spelling).
Voters choose between candidates of different parties; one factor in this choice
is the difference between the potential Prime Ministers. Most democracies use
some version of this system (France and the U.S. are exceptions which come to
mind). It is not at all clear that the presidential model favored by the U.S.
is more representative or otherwise superior.
Both Britain and Ireland use a "one-man, one-vote" system, which is a
basic element of a democracy, and nothing to do with proportional
representation. Ireland does use a form of proportional representation. Britain
does not, nor does the U.S.. Britain has an independent electoral boundary
commission, which is separate from the political process. It periodically
reviews the parliamentary constituencies and alters them so as to balance
the demands of geographic naturality with roughly equal representation. I
would imagine that Ireland has a similar body, though gerrymandering would
anyway be rather ineffective in their proportional system.
> On the national level Sinn Fein does not participate in the London
>or Dublin governments. This matter was the subject of long debate at the
>Sinn Fein convention in Dublin in the past few weeks. Those voting for the
>abstentionist principle won out over those favoring participation by a narrow
>margin. As Sinn Fein strength continues to grow in elections, this will
>probably be discarded.
>
>> and in particular aims to overthrow the Dublin parliament and establish
>> a socialist state governing all Ireland.
>
> This is totally untrue if by "overthrow" you mean an armed coup
>or military seizure of the reins of government. They actually intend to
>"overthrow" the Dublin government by gaining the support of the majority
>of Irish voters or at least by becoming an indispensible minority in a
>coalition government and forcing the Dublin government to make reforms.
>
By "overthrow" I mean precisely that. If Sinn Fein intends to be
democratically elected by Irish voters, they could make a start by standing
for elections to the Dublin parliament and by taking any seats they might win.
These seem like fairly basic elements in a democratic political strategy.
By your own admission, a majority in Sinn Fein is opposed to this strategy.
(Despite your earlier claim, Sinn Fein has stood for few, if any, seats in
the Dublin parliament, and of course taken up none. As I understand it, the
present debate in Sinn Fein reflects no conversion to Western-style democracy,
but is simply a question of tactics. Antidemocratic organisations have used
democracy before now.)
I could go on, but if I haven't made any impression yet I guess it's
not worth it. I personally welcome the Anglo-Irish agreement on N.I.. I hope
it will eventually reduce the tension in the province, which probably ought
to evolve towards some form of largely self-governing condominium. It seems
the only sort of future which has a chance of ending the violence. And that,
to me, is the priority.
a.k.
Jody Patilla
> The penalty for that "crime" was that the "criminal" was hanged, drawn and
> quartered. I assume you know what hanging is. Drawing and quartering meant
> that you stretched a person out on the ground and hacked his or her body
> into four roughly equal but extremely bloody pieces. This was meant to
> **> TERRORIZE <** the audience.
It's worse than that. "Drawing" is a term that butchers and hunters
well know - it refers to the evisceration of an animal, or in this case,
a human being. The person was laid out, cut open while alive and had their
intestines withdrawn from the abdominal cavity and usually thrown in
the dirt. The quartering was often done by tying a person's four limbs to
four horses in a cross-roads, and then driving the horses apart such that
the victim was rent asunder.
--
jcpatilla
David Brake c/o Reid Ellis
I was just reading through net.politics, looking for cheap laughs (at Don
Black's expense) when I suddenly came across something that shocked me even
more. It astonishes me that the supporters of Sinn Fein (sp?), and, by
extension (don't fool yourselves) the I.R.A. would dredge up the gross
details of atrocities committed by the English in Ireland just to whip
themselves into a frenzy of hatred. The comparisons of the Maze Prisons
to Auschwitz are so totally ridiculous and hateful that they hardly
bear discussion.
I'm afraid that terrorism can breed in ordinarily decent people occaisionally
brutality. This does not mean that the British are "butchers". The past
treatment of the Irish may have been harsh, but the cycle of violence MUST
end.
What offended me most was an incident in a peace march here. I was standing
around, minding my own business, when a woman came up to me with a leaflet.
I read it, and it was talking about donations to help prevent brutalities
in prisons. I assumed that these were in a banana republic somewhere- imagine
my shock when these were purported to be prisons in Ireland, and the money
was to be given to an Irish group with a rather suspicious title. It horrified
me that some of these marchers for peace would give money to these people, and
that I felt sure that at least some of this money would be used to build
bombs to kill women and children.
Sorry, but clutching your hatred close to you is not a solution. The sooner
one side or the other stops, the better, and since the British are essentially
reacting to the violence they find all around them, it had better be the I.R.A.
--
--
Reid Ellis "Roads? Where we're going, who needs _roads_?"
{{allegra,decvax,duke,floyd,linus}!utzoo,{ihnp4,utzoo}!utcsri}!dciem!reid
This message brought to you courtesy of the Poslfit Committee
Raymond D. Dunn
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, remove net.nlang.celts from the distribution list of
this diatribe. This is NOT net.nlang.bigots.
Ray Dunn.
Andy Linton
Celtic languages (apart from from Breton) is related to the
attitudes and policies of the British government, I must also
complain that this is NOT the group to discuss political doctrine
in.
The language has for too long been a political issue and it would
be nice if it was something that united rather than divided my
fellow countrymen and women. I didn't have the opportunity to learn
Gaelic at school as I am not a Catholic and was, in retrospect,
very annoyed about it. I have since started to learn and subscribe
to this group in the (vague) hope of seeing some Gaelic (or other
Celtic) language topics discussed in it.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh.
Slainte mhaith,
Andy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SENDER : Aindrias Mac Giolla Fhionntain PHONE : +44 632 329233
POST : Computing Lab, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU
ARPA : andy%cheviot.new...@ucl-cs.ARPA)
JANET : an...@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot
UUCP : <UK>!ukc!cheviot!andy
*** Ni fui moran beagan d'aon rud, ach is fui moran beagan ceille. ***
Lindsay F. Marshall
concerned with Celtic culture - since when has politics had anything to
do with culture??? Unfortunately this newsgroup is NOT imported into
Europe and we only see cross postings with other groups - one of the
main reasons for this ridiculous situation is that the group is filled
with political bigotry and hatred and is thus deemed not worth bringing
across the Atlantic (Has anyone read net.research, net.news.group,
net.almost-anything these days??). So if the second, third and fourth
generation Celts would stop messing things up, us real Celts might just
get a chance to see this group :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lindsay F. Marshall, Computing Lab., U of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK
ARPA : lindsay%cheviot.new...@ucl-cs.arpa
JANET : lin...@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot
UUCP : <UK>!ukc!cheviot!lindsay
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brint Cooper
A truly sad fact about all the bigotry (on BOTH sides)
expressed here about Northern Ireland (Ulster) is that it
shows that a rational, loving, human solution to the conflict
is rather impossible.
And this is the "civilized" part of the world?
--
Brint Cooper
ARPA: a...@brl.arpa
UUCP: ...{seismo,decvax,cbosgd}!brl-tgr!abc
Robert L Cromwell
I have a question dealing with Celtic mattters for all of you.
My roommate is curious about the Druids. Other than saying,
'They built Stongehenge, and so they obviously had it together
mathematically and astronomically', I can't come up with much.
How much is known about this group of people?
What were they like?
What was the basis for their religion?
Are there people today who practice this religion, or
a closely-related one?
What area and time did they inhabit?
Is there any other development they are known for?
Thanks a lot,
Bob Cromwell
pur-ee!cromwell
Lewis Barnett
>
> My roommate is curious about the Druids. Other than saying,
> 'They built Stongehenge, and so they obviously had it together
> mathematically and astronomically', I can't come up with much.
Though it's a popular misconception, the Druids didn't build Stonehenge.
I'm not up on the Druids, per se, but Stonehenge is believed to have been
built by a people referred to as the Beakers. They were named after
beaker shaped pottery that is found littered about places where they
used to live. As best I recall, the construction of Stonehenge is
dated between 1800 and 1500 B.C. Had the Celts made it to that part of
the world then? (I guess that proves I'm not really up on the Celts,
either!)
Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
"Frankly, there's something about reality that gives me the shivering willies!"
-- Hank the Hallucination --
-- bar...@sally.UTEXAS.EDU, bar...@ut-sally.UUCP,
{ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!barnett
Jamie Andrews
> 'They built Stongehenge, and so they obviously had it together
> mathematically and astronomically', I can't come up with much.
You'll probably get a lot of responses to this article, so I'll just
write about the topic I'm most familiar with.
It's not at all clear that the Druids built Stonehenge, or even that they
understood the more subtle astronomically significant arrangements of stones
in the circle. After all, we "modern" people had no widespread knowledge of
its significance until fairly recently. The modern Druids who celebrate the
solstice at Stonehenge are riding on this new wave of knowledge and interest.
Stonehenge may have been built by even more primitive peoples than the
Celts. In this respect, it may be like the "medicine wheels" built by some
early Plains Indian tribes, which were evidently used to help track the
heavenly objects. This fact was generally lost on the later Plains tribes, and
on the white man, until recently.
--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Yeah, let's get sushi -- and not pay"
ronc
>Though it's a popular misconception, the Druids didn't build Stonehenge.
>[...]
>Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
***
Oh my god. Let's not start that tired discussion again. This topic
was beat to death in net.misc a couple years back. Please! Some believe
the Celts built Stonehenge, some believe otherwise. Let's leave it
at that. This time. Pretty please?
--
--
Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calf.)
ihnp4!{pesnta,qubix}!wjvax!fai!ronc
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility:
"If you are seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it."
Wayne Young
Apparently, modern anthropological sources have come to concrete conclusions
regarding the origins of the people known as the 'Celts'. Based to a great
degree on the morphological hereditary sign called the Mongolian spot, as
well as certain linguistic similarities, one may conclude, with a great
degree of certainty, that the earliest origins of the Celtic cultural group
are in fact from within the boundaries of modern Afghanistan.
(The Mongolian Spot is dark pigmentation that is commonly found at the base
of the spines of Asians.)
-Hermetically Sealed-
Dazed and Confused
>
>
> My roommate is curious about the Druids. Other than saying,
> 'They built Stongehenge, and so they obviously had it together
> mathematically and astronomically', I can't come up with much.
Even that is wrong. Constuction at Stonehenge began in 2700 BC and the last
major (non-destuctive) modifications were made no later than 1100 BC. The
druids did not appear until a good 1000 years after this. The most that can
be said (although no supporting evidence is available) is that the druids
arose from some earlier tradition that was responsible for the monument.
More likely, it is a complete canard started by the 17th century antiquarian
William Stukely.
Joe Knapp cbosgd!nscs!jmk
--
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/| /| AT&T Bell Laboratories
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| +--|-+
|/ |/ cbosgd!rlp
+----+ (614) 860-4850
"They say it's automatic, but actually you have to push this button"
chmorris
>to Druidic traditions concerning the worship of nature and oak trees in
>particular. Can any one comment or otherwise shed light upon this ?
The Christmas tree tradition is German in origin, from what I've heard;
it came to England about the time of the King Georges (I-III).
The story goes that a Christian missionary came along to convert the
people to Christianity. Their religion involved a sacred tree (Woden's ?)
and the saint-to-be took an axe and chopped it down. When he wasn't struck
by lightning, the natives were very impressed and decided his God was more
powerful than theirs. As an alternate symbol, he gave them the Christmas
tree. I've forgotten some of the details and the saint's name, and whether
the original tree was an oak or not.
db...@stc.uucp
>The Christmas tree tradition is German in origin, from what I've heard;
>it came to England about the time of the King Georges (I-III).
Last I heard it was introduced by Albert - Prince Consort to Queen Victoria.
--
Regards
Derek !seismo!mcvax!ukc!stc!dbmk1
If anyone wants these opinions they're free, and worth what you pay for them