Great article that does not shy away from the apartheid nature and colonialism of ‘Northern Ireland’ and the very reasons why armed resistance was necessary.
Of course Irish neo-IPPers and the British commentariat will never speak in the same emotive terms when it comes to state violence, but nonetheless, the truth is there.
> However, unionists were well aware that any county by county plebiscite would leave them with only four counties that could carry a “supremacy” vote. Thus Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry City were dragged in – and gerrymandered – to make up a viable “sub-polity”.
Worth remembering that free staters went along with this too. For a deal on debt.
So essentially, sold off two counties.
As a northerner, I’m not at all surprised people in the south didn’t always believe the extent of the official prejudice, systemic disadvantage, and state collusion in violence right up to the 90s: even if their parents and grandparents remembered British rule, it had *never* been as part of a cultural minority.
It doesn’t require a disclaimer or caveat about the Troubles. The way people were treated was wrong. The supremacist views (that get a mainstream platform anyway) are still wrong.
3 comments
Great article that does not shy away from the apartheid nature and colonialism of ‘Northern Ireland’ and the very reasons why armed resistance was necessary.
Of course Irish neo-IPPers and the British commentariat will never speak in the same emotive terms when it comes to state violence, but nonetheless, the truth is there.
> However, unionists were well aware that any county by county plebiscite would leave them with only four counties that could carry a “supremacy” vote. Thus Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry City were dragged in – and gerrymandered – to make up a viable “sub-polity”.
Worth remembering that free staters went along with this too. For a deal on debt.
So essentially, sold off two counties.
As a northerner, I’m not at all surprised people in the south didn’t always believe the extent of the official prejudice, systemic disadvantage, and state collusion in violence right up to the 90s: even if their parents and grandparents remembered British rule, it had *never* been as part of a cultural minority.
It doesn’t require a disclaimer or caveat about the Troubles. The way people were treated was wrong. The supremacist views (that get a mainstream platform anyway) are still wrong.