Bloody Sunday 40th Anniversary..........

[Casually Red]

Thing about this mural, it seems to me (just a supposition) that some parts of the community wanted to do a forward-looking optimistic mural, and then someone else came along and insisted on politicizing it.

its the other way about . The Free Derry corner mural has since 1970 been a constant feature on that wall. Usually looking like this .

But every once in a while it gets slightly altered to highlight stuff like Gaza , Lebanon, even the gayers ..while still retaining its iconic original form .

What happened simply is a load of happy clappy stuff has been painted onto the original , not the other way about .

 

[Casually Red]

i'm certainlly not claiming there was no support in the 70's, simply tht it wasn't anything like the level they got by 84, mainly due to the support after sands election. I'm currently working on analysing why electoral support dropped after that.

the 'i ran away' seems to be fairly well considered to be true though, along with the analysis that there was no effective republican movement in parts of the 60's.

i think youd be wrong to equate votes for sinn fein with support for the IRA . People voted sinn fein..and for people like Bobby sands for all sorts of reasons . Meanwhile the IRA drew its support and even members from all sorts of strange corners . You would have had some IRA people voting for the likes of Fianna Fail for instance in the south . The book on the Long Kesh mass break out in the 80s points out prisoners were being sheltered in the homes of Fine Gaelers and even PDs . Its nowhere near as clear cut as that . A fianna fail councillor i think..a senior member in his locality at least ...was caught with a van full of arms near Limerick in the early 1990s .

In my view the ran away slogan was nothing more thn an apocryphal tale repeated over and over again by lazy journalists with a byline in sensationalism . Nobody ever actually saw it , its an urban myth that has served manys the reporter well.

 

[Casually Red]

i'm certainlly not claiming there was no support in the 70's, simply tht it wasn't anything like the level they got by 84, mainly due to the support after sands election. I'm currently working on analysing why electoral support dropped after that.

the 'i ran away' seems to be fairly well considered to be true though, along with the analysis that there was no effective republican movement in parts of the 60's.

in fairness the supposed spike in their support in the 80s bears more than a passing resemblance to the precise same manner and numbers who voted for them in the 1950s...who were probably the parents and grandparents of many who voted them in the 80s . What was truly different though was their taking of the west belfast seat..traditionally the preserve of "nationalists" of one stripe or another.
However its fair to say that in that instance the incumbent was Gerry Fitt , later Lord Fitt, who by the time the hungerstrikes were over had become an utterly reviled figure due to his open support for Thatcher and the British crown forces . His own party the SDLP , which had moved to oust him by that stage, actually ran against him and it was that split vote which largely saw Adams get elected as MP . Peoples Democracy candidate Fergus OHare also unseated him from Belfast city council in the 81 elections .

By 1992 the SDLP had retaken the seat from Adams . However when the next election came around in 1997 the British government had very helpfully redrawn the electoral boundaries for Mr Adams , including the sprawling working class estates of Poleglass and Twinbrook which has guaranteed Sinn Fein dominance ever since . Nothing like a bit of patronage between freinds.

 

[Bakunin]

I am seeing a lot of writing suggesting that those who voted for sinn fein were strongly correlated with conditional support for the IRA. not absolute, but dependent on a lot of other things, including whether they approved of the ira's latest actions. I'm gonna have to see what else i can dig up though, but i'm somewhat limited on main themes for what i can find in the acedemic work i can get my paws on. what i am learning is the more i read, the less i find i can know. but i've also got a time and word limit on this, i'm going to have to go with the main themes that i can find references for.

but i've got an ill request in for the article pm suggested. it is supprising tbh, i've found that graffiti mentioned in articles that seem otherwise reasonable and quite sympathetic.

 

[Casually Red]

regardless , theres no photos of it and no witnesses who can remember seeing it , much less anyone owning up to painting this supposed iconic graffitti ( in a city were nobody can keep their trap shut for 5 seconds) and the place was absolutely crawling with journalists , tv cameras etc at the time .

 

[Pickman's model]

personally I think its an apocryphal tale . Irish republican history is littered with them ..the instances were only one guy ever saw or heard this outlandish occurence that nobody else seemed to notice or remember or be present when it happened.

A couple of others that leap to mind are James Connolly supposedly telling his men as they marched to the GPO to hold onto their rifles as they might need them to shoot the Irish volunteers later....apparently only one guy actually heard this frankly treacherous, bonkers and bizzare outburst .

And that Dev quote at the beginning of the Michael Collins film ,

again , apparently everyone else was struck deaf at the time and only one guy actually heard it . Relating the tale after Dev was dead of course , just as with Connolly .

Remember as regards the ran away graffitti this was supposed to be plastered accrosss the Falls road according to the myth . But Brian Hanley can only just about find one supposed sort of witness to it .

hanley's rubbishing it, saying there never was any graffiti

 

[Casually Red]

cheers, took that up wrong.

 

[Idris2002]

I think the graffiti thing has been pretty much debunked alright. What's significant is that so many people were ready to believe it.

 

[Pickman's model]

hanley says

[sidebar headed 'no photos extant of 'i ran away' slogan, p. 27]
by late august 1969 belfast had settled down to an uneasy calm, with several areas now patrolled by vigilantes and defence committees. the barricades thrown up during august were soon adorned with all manner of slogans: 'this is free belfast', 'the falls will never fall', ss-ruc' and 'b-men child killers beware'. but while there are numerous photographs of walls bearing the slogan 'join the ira', there are none extant of the famous 'i ran away' slogan in a city where there were now 200 newsmen (including cameramen) by late august. it would be eight months later before ardoyne priest fr marcellus gillespie would tell the scarman inquiry, set up to examine the causes of the violence, that after the fighting some men in his area called the ira the 'i ran away'. this would seem to be the first mention of the slogan that has dominated discourse on the republican movement and its role in 1969 ever since. it may reflect the feeling in ardoyne but it does not explain what happened elsewhere in belfast, or indeed why the idea of an inactive ira has been so widely accepted.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think the graffiti thing has been pretty much debunked alright. What's significant is that so many people were ready to believe it.

and hanley makes clear, the ira had a higher profile in belfast in september 1969 than it had had for many years.

 

[Casually Red]

exact same thing happened in Ireland recently when a trade union leader went on the radio and spoke of " No Irish need apply " graffiti and signs springing up on building sites right accross Poland . Accepted immediately as truth , acres of media commentary on it . Politicians , media commentators , journalists etc all repeating it blindly as a truth but not a single witness ever seeing one and not a single photograph of one ever seen. Unbelievable . Just accepted across the board as a truth .

At least the moving statues had fucking witnesses , bewildered as they were.

 

[Idris2002]

exact same thing happened in Ireland recently when a trade union leader went on the radio and spoke of " No Irish need apply " graffiti and signs springing up on building sites right accross Poland . Accepted immediately as truth , acres of media commentary on it . Politicians , media commentators , journalists etc all repeating it blindly as a truth but not a single witness ever seeing one and not a single photograph of one ever seen. Unbelievable . Just accepted across the board as a truth .

At least the moving statues had fucking witnesses , bewildered as they were.

I was talking to the sister earlier, and she said there was a big furore over a Polish woman had written a piece for a Polish language newspaper about what a great life she was having signing on the dole in Donegal. That too, it transpires, was not (apparently) based on fact. . .

 

[Idris2002]

and hanley makes clear, the ira had a higher profile in belfast in september 1969 than it had had for many years.

So why do you think so many people were prepared to believe it for so many years? (genuine question, btw)

 

[Casually Red]

I was talking to the sister earlier, and she said there was a big furore over a Polish woman had written a piece for a Polish language newspaper about what a great life she was having signing on the dole in Donegal. That too, it transpires, was not (apparently) based on fact. . .

much less the dole giving nigerians free mercedes benz motorcars, again widely believed

 

[Idris2002]

i

Beven the gayers ...

Painted pink, wasn't it? I was trying to remember if that had actually happened, or if it was just a weird dream I had.

 

[Idris2002]

much less the dole giving nigerians free mercedes benz motorcars, again widely believed

Jesus fucking Christ. Makes you wonder if the Punch magazine stereotypes were right all along.

 

[Casually Red]

So why do you think so many people were prepared to believe it for so many years? (genuine question, btw)

personally i think its because

a) we have the shitest media in western europe , if not the world
b) we , the Irish, have a propensity to carry on like a bunch of daft ,unthinking , immature arseholes who'll believe fucking anything .

 

[Pickman's model]

So why do you think so many people were prepared to believe it for so many years? (genuine question, btw)

i think partly (from a pira perspective) to rubbish the officials and goulding, and (from a british state perspective) to rubbish the ira at being crap and cowards. the reason it's been believed is that no one's ever said, wait a minute where's the bloody evidence.

 

[silverfish]

Yes I know, but I understand there are now some new American methods that have been introduced in the British Army.

Like what?

 

[Idris2002]

Like what?

A "free jazz" approach to urination no doubt.

As for the Polish thing, it's worse than I thought:

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/02/01/ouch-2/

 

[Casually Red]

Painted pink, wasn't it? I was trying to remember if that had actually happened, or if it was just a weird dream I had.

Yes , this highly tasteful occurence did indeed occur .

I incurred the wrath of a couple of Derry chums at the time as we passed it in a taxi and I remarked " You will now be entered in free derry" . Taxi driver however gladly took it as his cue to give out fuck about it.

 

[Idris2002]

All sorts of alternative lifestyles here on Craggy island.

 

[Casually Red]

i think partly (from a pira perspective) to rubbish the officials and goulding, and (from a british state perspective) to rubbish the ira at being crap and cowards. the reason it's been believed is that no one's ever said, wait a minute where's the bloody evidence.

theres also the irish catholic desire for self flaggelation . And seeing things that werent there . Virgin Mary doing riverdance not withstanding .

 

[rekil]

As for the Polish thing, it's worse than I thought:

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/02/01/ouch-2/

Yep, I was just reading the ambassador's response here. Really bad, even for the indo.

 

[Casually Red]

I was talking to the sister earlier, and she said there was a big furore over a Polish woman had written a piece for a Polish language newspaper about what a great life she was having signing on the dole in Donegal. That too, it transpires, was not (apparently) based on fact. . .

had it been a derry man writing in the journal though.....

 

[Casually Red]

Yep, I was just reading the ambassador's response here. Really bad, even for the indo.

id just like to pass on the wonderful news that its editor Aenghus Fanning died recently . If there is a god hopefully he and John Paul 2 are reading over this article together and shaking their heads and considering his punishment.

 

[Deareg]

Yep, I was just reading the ambassador's response here. Really bad, even for the indo.

From the replies that I have read, not to many people seem to be believing it.

 

[alsoknownas]

its the other way about . The Free Derry corner mural has since 1970 been a constant feature on that wall. Usually looking like this .

But every once in a while it gets slightly altered to highlight stuff like Gaza , Lebanon, even the gayers ..while still retaining its iconic original form .

What happened simply is a load of happy clappy stuff has been painted onto the original , not the other way about .

Well I'm glad about that.

 

[rekil]

From the replies that I have read, not to many people seem to be believing it.

I haven't looked for or heard any responses to this but I'd assume it'll just confirm already existing prejudices and whatnot, even after the story has been exposed as scurrilous nonsense. Different thread required for this sort of thing anyway.

id just like to pass on the wonderful news that its editor Aenghus Fanning died recently . If there is a god hopefully he and John Paul 2 are reading over this article together and shaking their heads and considering his punishment.

One evening about 10 years ago while drunk as a monkey, I rang up the indo with a story about shenanigans at my work and they put it on the front page the next morning - my rambling pissed up bullshit word for word. They'll print any old bollocks.

Greg Harkin's responsible for those lies, the same Greg Harkin of stakeknife story fame?

 

[toggle]

i think youd be wrong to equate votes for sinn fein with support for the IRA . People voted sinn fein..and for people like Bobby sands for all sorts of reasons . Meanwhile the IRA drew its support and even members from all sorts of strange corners . You would have had some IRA people voting for the likes of Fianna Fail for instance in the south . The book on the Long Kesh mass break out in the 80s points out prisoners were being sheltered in the homes of Fine Gaelers and even PDs . Its nowhere near as clear cut as that . A fianna fail councillor i think..a senior member in his locality at least ...was caught with a van full of arms near Limerick in the early 1990s .

In my view the ran away slogan was nothing more thn an apocryphal tale repeated over and over again by lazy journalists with a byline in sensationalism . Nobody ever actually saw it , its an urban myth that has served manys the reporter well.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that those prepared to actively support the IRA were told to keep a distance from republican politics or anyone known to be involved. I'd wonder whether involvement in what could be percieved as more 'respectable' politics could be seen as putting up a front of involvment in non republican politics, either to put on a front of respectability or to be actively supporting their community in a manner that would not draw attention to their republicanism?IDK, just my theory, but it could make some sense in some cases?

but what interests me is thatalthough there is no evidence for this graffiti, it is being repeated as fact in the majority of acedemic writting i'm seeing. no doubt at all. cwetainly highlights how much of what i'm reading needs to be accompanied by a rather large dollop of salt. there are certainly a lot of people presenting themselves as they would like others to see them rather than as what they were actually doing, and the acedemic writing is taking rumour as fact. I think i need to find a polite way of saying that there's too much bullshit floating about.