Unionist Principles Condensed

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Nor have we ever had cavalry. Too busy bettin' on the feckers to put a saddle on 'em I suppose....

Still it works both ways ... 40% of those who fought at Trafalgar were Irish and at Waterloo wasn't it the Irish Regiments who held off the Imperial cavalry of the Grande Armee all day long in those defensive squares and never took a step back until Blucher came over the horizon on the double with his Prussian lads to pile in and and save the day?

Jayze ladies and gentlemen we are going to have to sit down some day and work out why the hell we fight so well for others..

[moss]

I'm reading a book about Bloody Sunday at present by Eamonn McCann.

In an afterword he talks about how the paras killed 2 unarmed protestants on the Shankill seven months after BS. Robert McKinnie and Robert Johnston.

He details how he contacted the DUP, UUP and PUP reps on the Shankill suggesting that the reference made to these killings during the Saville Inquiry (where soldier 027 admitted under questioning that soldiers 'had, at the least, behaved improperly on Bloody Sunday') could be used to pressure the brit govt to begin an investigation into these killings.

He recieved no reply.

So what about plastic bullets and screaming children ?

Unionist politicians will sacrifice a few bodies so as not to rock the boat with the brit establishment.
No doubt their electorate agree with them as the keep voting them in.
They are still prepared to sacrifice the lives of their neighbours for queen and country.

Another example put to unionist politicians at stormont last night.

While the Bloody Sunday families received some closure, those of the 11 Ballymurphy victims – shot dead in 1973 in another ruthless display by the Paras – are still denied even a façade of justice.
And perhaps those facing the greatest challenge are individuals who don't fit their community's stereotype of a victim. John, then an 18-year-old East Belfast Protestant, was shot by the British Army following rioting near the peaceline in 1974.
The bullet ruptured his bowels and other organs, leaving a hole the size of a football. He developed gas gangrene and required 33 pints of blood during his four-month hospital stay. He didn't receive a penny compensation because a solicitor at the time advised he was ineligible.
Tolerable in his younger days, the pain has worsened with age. "I've asked many unionist politicians for help with my situation but none has been interested because the perpetrator was the state," John says.

http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/art...-Telegraph.php

[Andrew_t]

the Brits sent God knows how many paddies from Ulster to a certain death in the battle of the Somme also

Volunteers all. As were the Irish of a next generation who fought in the Second World War.

[Fraxinus]

Were not a substantial number encouraged to fight to protect the empire from the nasty "Huns"? A squabble among empires that sent millions to their graves.

[Andrew_t]

Encouraged, yes, but not compelled. Ask anyone in any country which has conscription and you will soon learn about the difference.

I used to have an Irish colleague, now long dead, of strongly Nationalist sympathies (perhaps a bit theoretical after decades of life in London, but there you go) who took the boat to Liverpool in 1939 and joined the British Army because he reckoned that if Britain fell to the Nazis Corporal Hitler would not respect Irish neutrality and Ireland would be next - and that whatever Britain had done to Ireland would seem like a golden age in comparison.

There must be substantial numbers of people in Ireland still drawing pensions from their service in the British Army in the Second World War and since!