Children hand unexploded pipe bomb to cops after Northern Ireland blast

nbcnews.com ^ | August 13, 2013 | Alastair Jamieson

[Berlin_Freeper]

A group of children picked up an unexploded pipe bomb minutes after another device exploded nearby in Belfast, Northern Ireland, police said Tuesday.

The children, some as young as nine years old, handed the bomb to officers who were dealing with the first explosion at a nearby police station in the west of the city, ITV News and the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Nobody was injured by either of Monday night’s bombs, which came after 56 police officers and two civilians were injured in protests in the city on Saturday - the latest flare-up in violence stoked by tensions between Northern Ireland's Protestant and Catholic communities.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I thought this Protestant-Catholic thing was over...

[proxy_user]

“Er, thanks, kids....

[Berlin_Freeper]

I believe it is parade season.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Imagine if one segment of our society elected to march and taunt the rest of us.

Whoops...

[melsec]

As long as they keep rubbing each others nose in it during parade season then it will never be totally over.

Mel

[PoloSec]

Oh the wonders of religion...sucks don’t it!

[CWW]

You don’t know too much a out Ireland if you think it was a out religion. It was about nationalism and freedom from Britian. The IRAs a tip s don’t represent the views of the Catholic Church any more than the views of the Ulster Unionist represent the chur h of England. So you can take you canard about religion and ...

[irish_links]

...I believe it is parade season....

The peak of parade season falls in mid-July. It should be over by now, but my occasional perusal of Irish media suggests this was a particularly nasty one. This inflamed tensions, especially in Derry.

[mass55th]

"I thought this Protestant-Catholic thing was over..."

I was in Belfast for a few days in May of 2006. The city had a very depressed feeling about it, and hints of the IRA were still visible in murals painted on the sides of buildings. My impression at that time was that tensions were still simmering beneath the surface, and violence could eventually erupt again.

[Mr Radical]

This "thing" will never be over until Ulster leaves the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and becomes a part of the Irish Republic. And this will never happen until the Protestants in the north have been over-ruled (in effect, ethnically cleansed), as they have been in the Republic, with the connivance of the Irish, British and American governments. (My mother-in-law, who is Protestant, lives in the west of Ireland, and is in her eighties and too old to move away, goes to bed every night with a loaded revolver under her pillow.) The marching is one of the few ways left that the Protestants can express their identity and disapproval.
Almost certainly this particular bomb was planted by "dissident" Republicans (Catholics). They are called "dissident Republicans" as most have given up supporting bombings (publically at least) because the government is gradually giving them what they want anyway.
These terrorists, like all terrorists, are driven by a blind hatred and care nothing for anyone they hurt, as long as they think it pursues the greater objective. I personally witnessed one IRA bombing where the fatalies were Catholic children from a family of IRA sympathisers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; you might have thought such events would make the bombers think twice about their actions . . . but you'd be wrong.

[Mr Radical]

It is a Catholic-Protestant thing because Republicans are predominately Catholic and Loyalists (i.e. Loyal to the British Crown) predominately Protestant. Both sides know there is no place for Protestants under a Catholic majority rule in a united Ireland. Most right-thinking people were appalled at the lack of public censure of the terrorists by the church. It is no good denying it - there were even cases of active support, such as the Catholic priest who sourced bomb making materials for the IRA; here is another example: Guardian Newspaper 24 August 2010 - Claudy bombings cover-up revealed in police report

[Mr. Jeeves]

These terrorists, like all terrorists, are driven by a blind hatred and care nothing for anyone they hurt, as long as they think it pursues the greater objective.

The greater objective is usually getting "our guys" into positions to dole out patronage. Political murders seldom have as their aim lofty but empty concepts like "freedom" and "liberty". They are all about who gets to hand out the cash.

Regardless of the quality of life in Northern Ireland today, the result of a British defeat would be the inevitable transformation of Belfast into Detroit.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Grandfather on mom's side was born in N. Ireland. He couldn't remember much about those early days but letters from relatives who stayed behind were sad...

[Mr Radical]

One of my favourite verses, couldn’t resist posting it in full for those who don’t know it:

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Came, silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

One of my favorites, too.

Thanks !

[Mr Radical]

I wouldn't go as far as likening Belfast to Detroit, but a very valid point. Politicians and laterly terrorits, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness exhibit all the classic traits of the psychopath, and revel in their new found 'establishment' status.
And there are definite similarities between the mindset of the American black ghetto and the Irish republican no-go area: the blacks will side with their own in the face of that law, no matter what; the republicans will turn a blind eye to the terrorists in their midst no matter what attrocities they commit. Both become the victims of themselves. It speaks volumes that IRA/Sinn Fein politicians oppose the British and Protestants yet utter not a peep about Muslims coming into Ireland.

[OldNewYork]

Why are children so confident handling pipe-bombs? Several stern lectures are in order.