Thursday, 2024-03-28, 9:25 PM
Welcome, Guest
[ New messages · Members · Forum rules · Search · RSS ]
  • Page 1 of 1
  • 1
Forum moderator: RSAUB  
Forum » ..:: General ::.. » Ulster news » Concern aired after 'Butchers' TV show
Concern aired after 'Butchers' TV show
CulzieDate: Thursday, 2011-03-31, 7:12 PM | Message # 1
Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 1750
Load ...
Status: Offline
Concern aired after 'Butchers' TV show

Published on Wednesday 30 March 2011 News Letter

By Philip Bradfield
A BBC TV documentary on the Shankill Butchers has heightened unionist fears that the IRA’s responsibility for more Troubles murders than any other group is being overlooked.
While there was universal agreement yesterday that the butchers were savage murderers — branded by the BBC as “the most prolific gang of serial killers in UK history” — there was concern that republican brutality also needed scrutiny.

On air yesterday, east Belfast community worker Jim Wilson told Stephen Nolan —who presented the documentary — that he had got it wrong.

“Those murders cannot be justified,” he said. “But the biggest mass murderers we have had were the IRA.”
During the Troubles, republicans claimed 2,148 lives, loyalists 1,071 and the security forces 365.
Mr Wilson said that despite atrocities such the Enniskillen, La Mon and Bloody Friday bombs, republicans had progressed to respectability at Stormont “and not a word is being said about them”.
He added: “And it is now my community that is being demonised.”
Stephen Nolan described his comments as worthy of consideration.

Former victims’ commissioner and UUP member Mike Nesbitt told the News Letter there was a perception that the review processes currently in place do not represent a level playing field.
“The prime minister apologised for Bloody Sunday, the secretary of state apologised for Claudy, the previous NI Secretary expressed regret regarding the shooting of Aidan McAnespie, this week Owen Paterson is apologising again,” he said. “The problem is there have been no apologies from republicans in reply in relation to the likes of the murder of Jean McConville, Bloody Friday, the La Mon bombing, and Enniskillen.”
Mr Nesbitt said that there had been silence over “events like the murder of a young mother, Joanne Mathers, shot dead by the IRA in 1981 whilst collecting census forms in Londonderry”.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson branded the Shankill Butchers as “deplorable”.
“But the Northern Ireland media needs to be careful it does not rewrite history so we forget that the most prolific murderers were the IRA,” he said. “The IRA killed as many Catholics as loyalists did. And the Dublin government has never fulfilled promises to hold inquiries about its collusion with the IRA throughout the Troubles.”

PUP leader Brian Ervine said what the butchers did was “horrible and vicious. But it is as if the Provos didn’t do anything — and now they are sitting in government”.
“Loyalists have apologised for the murders they committed but republicans have never reciprocated. They always justify themselves.”

Victims campaigner Willie Frazer also said a small gang of IRA men were responsible for around 100 murders, but that this had never been highlighted.
“This was the same small gang of IRA men who were responsible for the 15 murders at Kingsmills in 1976 and Tullyvallen in 1975,” he said. “About 40 bodies were dumped along the border like confetti.
“They would use a blow torch on your feet, smash your hands with a lump hammer, smash your kneecaps, partially drown you and then start all over again. This would go on for three to five days without sleep. Then they would shoot you in the back of the head and dump you on a road somewhere.”

Chris McGimpsey, a former Belfast councillor who knows the Shankill well, described the Nolan documentary as “a very good programme — it got to the depth of the problem and the horror of it”.
But he added: “I thought it should have linked the whole thing into what was happening in Northern Ireland. There were other Protestant gangs and other Catholic gangs roaming around killing people. You would think from the programme the worst sectarian killers came from the Shankill, so I think overall it did a disservice to the Shankill community. I thought Baroness May spoke well for the community.”
Mr McGimpsey added: “You understand the anger and upset of the victims. There were Protestant victims of the Butchers too, and the programme didn’t make any effort to expose their pain.”

The BBC responded that the documentary asked important questions of one of the most distressing periods in Northern Ireland and was set within the wider context of the time.
“We believe the programme captures some of the difficulties faced by all communities in Northern Ireland and importantly the distressing legacy left by these horrific events on everyone affected,” a spokeswoman said. “The documentary makers made every effort to ensure the difficult subject matter within the programme was presented factually and in a sensitive manner with a broad range of views and opinions sought from both sides of the community to ensure balance.”
It was one of a portfolio of BBC programmes which ask questions about the past, she said, including the Poppy Day Bomb, Bloody Sunday, Omagh.


Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
 
RSAUBDate: Thursday, 2011-03-31, 10:24 PM | Message # 2
Colonel general
Group: Moderators
Messages: 871
Load ...
Status: Offline
Baroness May spoke the truth when she said that the media branded the whole Shankill community, by referring to the gang as the Shankill butchers. You don’t see them referring to the IRA units in Ardoyne as “Ardoyne butchers” etc.

What-ever one thinks about the butchers, the reality is at that time Protestants were abducted and given horrible deaths at the hands of republicans and all the disappeared and the torture handed out to people suspected of informing to the security forces within the republican movement etc. Yet there isn’t a level playing field on how the murders are classed, is there really a difference between stabbing someone to death and the horrible deaths suffered by those who carried out acts like La Mon?

Some might say there is, how ever the reality is those who supported or carried out acts like La Mon, Kingsmill, Bloody Friday are now elected and paid representatives of the majority of the Roman Catholic community in this part of the United Kingdom.

As much as the butchers were certainly barbaric. One only has to go up the Shankill and see the various memorials located up the road to see just how much in that particular time period that the Shankill area suffered at the hands of Irish republicans, mostly indiscriminate sectarian slaughter of members of our community. Attacks on your own people, over a period of time would indeed breed hatred inside you of the other kind.

 
CulzieDate: Friday, 2011-04-01, 4:21 PM | Message # 3
Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 1750
Load ...
Status: Offline
There is this feelin abroad even among some Protestants that the loyalist cause in some way is not a legitmate one and that the irish republican one is. Again I believe this is because of what way your cause is presented. The British goverment I do believe see the Irish cause as a just one. If they didn't I think they would treat them in an entirely different manner. It underlies a lot of what happens..Ireland for the Irish seems sensible to very many people. Those who oppose it are wrong.

Loyalists come across as a bunch of of 'gangsters' with no legitmate cause at all and are only wreckers,drug merchants,boozers etc etc.. Granted the media has had a lot to do with this but outside of Davy Ervine I haven't seen any one articulate enough to counter this sort of propaganda. And I say that as one who would disagree with DE on many points. Now they seemed to have ditched the one thing that might have gave them some legitmacy...Ulster.

Compare 'Sons of the Father' with 'Nothing Personal' etc and I think that sums it up.


Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
 
RSAUBDate: Saturday, 2011-04-02, 11:27 PM | Message # 4
Colonel general
Group: Moderators
Messages: 871
Load ...
Status: Offline
Very true.

Nationalist slogans like Britain for the British or Ireland for the Irish, they are easy for everybody to understand and accept as a legitimate stance to take.

 
CulzieDate: Sunday, 2011-04-03, 7:46 PM | Message # 5
Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 1750
Load ...
Status: Offline
Thats the way to go. Very few people outside of Ulster itself realised the there were two different countries (or states) on the island. It always amuses me when some Prods go on about when you go to the mainland you are classed as a paddy. Maybe true,but then the biggest reason for that is that we take the irish name on ourselves and don't try to educate those people who are ignorant of the situation. But I agree it would be an awful lot easier if we had a different name. I don't think Scotland has that same problem. People are well aware of Scotland,its people tradition and culture.

Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
 
RSAUBDate: Sunday, 2011-04-03, 10:06 PM | Message # 6
Colonel general
Group: Moderators
Messages: 871
Load ...
Status: Offline
A names of paramount importance, when I find myself arguing over this subject, when I’m on holiday or over on the Mainland, the main argument I get back is but you’re still from Ireland albeit the North of Ireland. People are like sheep, most are ignorant of political or historical facts. So things have to be made simple for them to understand, like the English are from England and the Irish are from Ireland (and that’s how it’s said, it’s not the Irish are from the Republic of Ireland, it’s the Irish are from Ireland).
 
CulzieDate: Friday, 2011-06-10, 8:37 PM | Message # 7
Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 1750
Load ...
Status: Offline
It is understandable RSAUB how ordinary folk with no particular interest or folk with just a passing interest in whats going on see this place. In a way I don't fault them. It is us and our 'leaders'who bear the responsible for this ignorance. They have never made a serious attempt to promote Ulster as a separate entity. The fact is whatever walk of life you are in a name is essential for identity.

The world of nature has all the different names for trees,plants,rivers,mountains,hills etc. In business we have all the different named companies etc. In politics the different parties etc. In a bar if you order a pint you can bet the question will be ''a pint of what'

Its staring us in the face what is needed, and Brett Ingram summed this up brilliantly in his article and address at the City Hall. But we are too lazy and unconcerned to busy ourselves about these things. More interested perhaps in how Linfield does or what won the 3-30 at Epsom.

Where there is no vision the people perish. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge


Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
 
RSAUBDate: Sunday, 2011-06-12, 10:40 PM | Message # 8
Colonel general
Group: Moderators
Messages: 871
Load ...
Status: Offline
Agree with everything you said there, it all comes down to a name. As you say it's simple marketing, the name is the brand.

Where there is no vision the people perish. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge


That says it all!!
 
Forum » ..:: General ::.. » Ulster news » Concern aired after 'Butchers' TV show
  • Page 1 of 1
  • 1
Search: