Posted on 02/25/2006 12:37:44 PM PST by Irish_Thatcherite
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Several hundred Irish Republican army supporters attacked police on Dublin's central boulevard and near the parliament building Saturday to prevent an unprecedented parade by Northern Ireland Protestants.
In riotous scenes rarely seen in the Republic of Ireland, protesters hurled bottles, bricks and fireworks, at police as they tried to clear the hostile crowd from O'Connell Street.
The Garda Siochana, Ireland's national police force, said 14 people - six officers, seven protesters and a journalist - were hospitalized, mostly with head wounds. More than a dozen other people suffered less serious injuries. The police advised shoppers and tourists to avoid the entire city centre, which is normally packed with pedestrian traffic on Saturdays.
Officers in full riot gear - helmets, shields and clubs - arrested at least 37 protesters as a police surveillance plane circled overhead.
The protesters, mostly young men covering their faces with scarves, chanted pro-IRA slogans as they waged running battles with riot police and other officers on horseback for more than an hour, forcing shops on Ireland's most famous street to close. Afterward, O'Connell Street was littered with broken paving stones and glass from shattered shop windows.
Later, more scuffles broke out on Kildare Street near Leinster House, Ireland's parliament, and the country's national history and art museums. At least three cars were set on fire, one was flipped over, and the windows of several others were smashed as police struggled to contain the rioters.
The mayhem forced Protestant hardliners from the Love Ulster campaign to abandon their plan to parade through Dublin, which the Irish government had supported in a gesture of reconciliation. It would have been the first parade in Dublin by pro-British Protestants since Ireland's partition into a mostly Protestant north and mostly Catholic south in 1921.
Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Protestant "unionists," who favour Northern Ireland's union with Britain, should have enjoyed freedom to demonstrate their views.
"There is absolutely no excuse for the disgraceful scenes in Dublin today," Ahern said. "It is the essence of Irish democracy and republicanism that people are allowed to express their views freely and in a peaceful manner."
Leaders of the aborted parade praised police efforts to protect them, but nonetheless handed a letter of protest to Justice Minister Michael McDowell during a meeting inside Leinster House.
A Protestant politician, Democratic Unionist party legislator Jeffrey Donaldson, said most of the rioters had travelled to Dublin from Catholic areas of Northern Ireland.
"We have received a warm welcome from ordinary Dubliners," Donaldson said. "But it's clear these republicans have come from north of the border and other areas intent only on causing trouble."
Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most Catholics in Northern Ireland but is less popular south of the border, sought to distance itself from the violence.
Sean Crowe, a Sinn Fein member of parliament, said the Protestant marchers "came to Dublin today to be provocative and get a reaction. Sinn Fein urged people not to be provoked and to stay away, and the vast majority of Dubliners . . . did just that."
But the Social Democratic and Labour party, which represents moderate Catholic opinion in Northern Ireland, said republican rioters had reinforced Protestants' hostility to the idea of a politically united Ireland.
The Love Ulster campaign is led by Willie Frazer, several of whose relatives were killed by the modern IRA.
The IRA in 1970 launched a bloody campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. The outlawed group killed about 1,775 people and maimed thousands more before calling a 1997 cease-fire.
shades of Altamont...
The Irish language was banned. The Catholic faith was illegal in the early modern period. The land of natives was stolen. The native population was beaten down, robbed, starved, and deported.
Not genocide? Close enough.
Ireland's population was cut in half in the nineteenth century. Nor genocide? Yes, all of those people were not murdered or starved. Most left to escape the poverty forced on Ireland by English law and brutality.
And what the hell has all that got to do with the modern IRA? What has a famine 150 years ago got to do with today?
They are trying to overthrow Irish democracy, they are have also killed 2000 people, north and south!!
If you want this thread to get "good", you'd have to invite Kellynla to the party!
Why can't you all listen to the opinions of someone who actually lives in Ireland?
The IRA have murdered innocent Protestants in Northern Ireland, in a war against British democracy.
They have murdered members of the Irish police force, in a war against Irish democracy.
They are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Irish demcoracy, and replace it with a socialist dictatorship.
They are in league with FARC, ETA, the PLO, Al Qaida, etc.
They are allies of Castro and Chavez.
Yes, I would like to get a flame war going.... LOL!!
The English honed the divide and conquer strategy used so successfully around the world when they were brought into the internecine warring between the kingdoms of Ireland.
The Irish, being Irish, did not view the English as worthy opponents, and thus continued to fight among themselves to this very day!
:-)
Actually, I tell my relatives in Ireland that if I walk into a shop or pub and see a sign saying "We treat you like family", I turn around and run out the door!
LOL! I couldn't help myself IT!
it's kinda like if Yankee's INSISTED that they march through Atlanta every year!!!
HEY! HEY! Atlanta has a great Gay Pride parade, and don't you forget it.
It's a pity it was a quiet weekend with my ping list, there would have been fireworks!!
yeah, at least they still got that going for them... 8^)
Good idea kelly, insult and abuse everyone, then ask them to leave you alone.
You are very sensitive for an IRA apologist!!
I think Pandora's Box has just been opened...
Haha! Maybe the shinner who wrote that would prefer we were back in the good days when the scumbag RA blew up Lord Mountbatten and his grandchildren. Terrorist appeasers never get it - they just keep wallowing in shinner crap propaganda. Personally, I'd shoot every feckin' one of them and their lackeys.
You wrote: "And what the hell has all that got to do with the modern IRA?"
Did I ever once say the two were related? If you're going to attack what I say wouldn't it help to actually start with what I did say rather than just imagine something?
"What has a famine 150 years ago got to do with today?"
Did I ever say it had anything to do with today? Again, If you're going to attack what I say wouldn't it help to actually start with what I did say rather than just imagine something?
"They are trying to overthrow Irish democracy, they are have also killed 2000 people, north and south!!"
Overthrow Irish democracy? Please get a grip on yourself. And yes, they most certainly have killed 2,000 people in Ireland and elsewhere. The violence seems largely over on their side, however. Let's hope that continues.
You wrote: "Why can't you all listen to the opinions of someone who actually lives in Ireland?"
We are "listening". We are also disagreeing. We are free to do both.
"The IRA have murdered innocent Protestants in Northern Ireland, in a war against British democracy."
A war against British democracy? No. The IRA uses democracy to achieve its goals. It doesn't care about or for democracy in itself and wouldn't waste time fighting against it when it has proven so useful to their cause.
"They have murdered members of the Irish police force, in a war against Irish democracy."
No. The IRA has murdered those who get in the way of its larger enterprise (making war on the Brits) and its subsidiary enterprises (gun running, smuggling, illegal businesses of all kinds, political opponents, Protestant thugs, innocent Protestants whose deaths can be exploited, etc). The IRA is not waging a war against Irish democracy. If it is, it is the most low level, unintensive, down right dull sitzkrieg in recorded history.
“They are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Irish demcoracy, and replace it with a socialist dictatorship.”
No. The IRA knows it will never overthrow any government and has made that plain in its halting entrance into a political deal with Britain over the last 15 years. You can shout “conspiracy” all you want, but Ireland is safe from any significant move by the IRA.
“They are in league with FARC, ETA, the PLO, Al Qaida, etc.”
The first three most certainly. Al Qaida? Doubtful. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4718223.stm
“They are allies of Castro and Chavez.”
Probably true. They will cozy up to anyone who can further their cause. We would do the same if we thought it necessary.
“And all you can complain about are Orangemen banging a drum, crybabies!!”
You seem to be the only crybaby here. You are whinning and whinning in post after post. Be an adult for Pete’s sake. If you’re modern Ireland then YOU WILL LOSE to the IRA with that childish attitude of yours.
You wrote:
“The Irish have only themselves to blame Vladimir!”
No, actually they don’t. If it was only themselves then there wouldn’t be any British troops in Northern Ireland now would there?
“The English honed the divide and conquer strategy used so successfully around the world when they were brought into the internecine warring between the kingdoms of Ireland.”
What century are you babbling about? The times period in question really only dates back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were no “kingdoms of Ireland” in the nineteenth or twentieth century. Nor the eighteenth. Nor the seventeenth. Nor the sixteenth .
“The Irish, being Irish, did not view the English as worthy opponents, and thus continued to fight among themselves to this very day!”
Rubbish. If the Irish didn’t think the British were worthy opponents then why were there several large scale Irish rebellions against them?
“Actually, I tell my relatives in Ireland that if I walk into a shop or pub and see a sign saying "We treat you like family", I turn around and run out the door!”
You come from the shallow end of the family gene pool don’t you?
I'm sorry my satire was lost on you.
Suffice it to say that I am in complete agreement with Irish_Thatcherite, Colosis and the other FReepers who actually live in Ireland.
Sounds like a plan to me!!
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