Remarks by Fr.Reid in Presbyterian Church Belfast

[ChrIreland]

Unfortunately the revisionists have painted the Provos as the bad guys, conveniently forgetting the events, including Pogroms, that caused them to come into being

Ah yes - the "causes of crime" theory.

New Labour would be glad to have you on board :roll:

Causes of Crime?

The Provos weren't the crime, they were the response to the crime.

30 years later and we have civil rights and democracy in NI.

Would we have it without the Provos?

Very unlikely!

Ah I forgot the PIRA have been rebranded as an armed civil rights movement.

Is that the best you can come up with, duff? Get real man.

 

[Libero]

Or would you suggest the Jews shut up about Auschitz, and get on with it too

No, I'd just suggest that republicans stop going on as if they were at Auschwitz.

You have to admit, bad and all as Unionist-controlled NI was, it wasn't the Warsaw Ghetto for Catholics and it sure wasn't a concentration camp. You do admit that, don't you? Because if you do, I can't see how you can approve of Fr. Reid's comments unless you take the bizzare civic_critic line of accepting that they were overblown yet somehow give him the thumbs up anyway.

For such an oppressed people, us catholic nationalists don't do dignity all that well.

I won't take lectures from the likes of you, Barry, MJ, True or whoever else, who trys to convince me that certain things never happened, when I not only know they happened, but lived through some of them personally.

Draw a line under the past and move on, fair enough. But don't pretend it didn't happen.

On the subject of things that didn't happen, do you accept that Catholics being treated as the Nazis treated the Jews was one of those things that didn't happen? And remember that we're not talking here about picking out one instance of how the Nazis behaved and crying "ah! you're treating me like the Nazis did", we must be talking about their whole pattern of behaviour. Otherwise I could refer to the IRA bombing London or torturing prisoners and, guess what, compare them to the Nazis.
That's what is at the root of this discussion.

As I've already said, I don't for a moment downplay the historic facts of what Catholics in Northern Ireland went through. But I won't distort history (and insult the victims of the Holocaust) by drawing false equations.

You really should read others' posts so that you don't misrepresent them, as you have done to mine.
You may also remember that I've defended you against BarryW's distortion of your "preference in government" comments so a bit of honesty would be nice in return.

 

[mjcoughlan]

Ill-timed and ill-judged comments. Though I agree with the general sentiment that many innocent people in NI were treated appallingly, to compare unionists to Nazis is out of order. Time has moved on since the 1970s. Fr. Reid should be trying to win the trust of unionists in relation to his involvement in the process of IRA decommissioning. Instead he is deliberately antagonising them.

 

[true04]

They were faults and good and bad people on both sides in the past, but Fr. Reids rant shows the bigotry that is below the surface of many Roman Catholics priests in N. Ireland if you scratch the surface.

The proportion of Protestants in the Republic of Ireland fell from ten percent in 1922 to three percent today. The proportion of Catholics in Northern Ireland rose from 28 percent in 1922 to 44 or 45% percent today. As I asked once before, looking at the twentieth century, which of those figures, in your opinion, offers stronger evidence of ‘religious discrimination’, or some other type of discrimination ? Only a few days ago we read a four page article in a Sunday newspaper, and see pictures, about some of the 50,000 Irish people who were intimidated / mistreated. We read of some innocent Protestant lads shot in Co. Offaly and who slowly bled to death after many hours, and of their mother and sisters who were burnt out of their relatively modest house, like many others.

 

[JCSkinner]

It mightn't soothe many furrowed brows in the South, or ease Unionist concerns about the IRA decommissioning in the North, but the fact is Fr Reid speaks the truth and ought to be commended for it.
Great to see all the mealy-mouthed middle-class Free Staters spitting their muesli in horror at this comment.
Sorry to ruin your brekfast lads, but that was the way it was for the second class citizens in the Protestant state for the Protestant people.

Thank you JC.........we have crossed swords a bit...................... but you are an honourable man, and I respect your convictions. I know you lived there and so did I....................and FR Reid IS correct in what he says. Bravo.

I'll try not to make a habit of agreeing with you, but thanks!
To some of the other posters, writing about a series of McGuffins including the IRA campaign and so on, I'll simply say this:
The point Fr Reid addressed in an admittedly inflammatory manner is ultimately sound. Catholics were barred from places of employment, forced to live in ghettos, and were unable to properly take part in the business or political corridoors of power for generations in their own country.
The Unionists may not like to remember it that way, but then again that's because their actions in the past do them little honour.
Their bleating now about IRA activity against their community is mere whataboutery. I can cite many exempla of British, Unionist and yes, IRA subjugation of my own community too.
I choose not to. Instead it is important to seek a way forward in the future where no one is subjugated the way my community was. But the only way for that to happen is for Unionists to abandon the mindset that they are "better than fenians", as this feeds into BS aggression over so-called "concessions" to the Catholic community.
Giving me my civil rights that my father was denied is not a ****ing concession. Seeing me as your equal is not a denial of your community or its "traditions". Treating me as a fellow citizen with the same rights as you is my birthright, not your privilege to grant.

 

[woodie]

No one would deny that the conservative Unionist establishment treated catholics with contempt (and indeed working class protestants only slightly better) but to compare the plight of catholics under Stormont to jews under the Nazis in the 1930s is an insult to jews and extremely stupid.

 

[SPN]

One thing that is becoming clear in this thread is the lack of knowledge about how Jews were treated in Germany in the 30s and 40s.

The analogy isn't to the concentration camps or the so called holocaust, it is to the day to day removal of civil rights.

The Priest, and Mary McAleese before him, are correct in the points they are trying to make. They lived through the pogroms in Norn Iron, whereas most of the gobby pointscorers on this board weren't alive at the time.

 

[FutureTaoiseach]

They were faults and good and bad people on both sides in the past, but Fr. Reids rant shows the bigotry that is below the surface of many Roman Catholics priests in N. Ireland if you scratch the surface.

The proportion of Protestants in the Republic of Ireland fell from ten percent in 1922 to three percent today. The proportion of Catholics in Northern Ireland rose from 28 percent in 1922 to 44 or 45% percent today. As I asked once before, looking at the twentieth century, which of those figures, in your opinion, offers stronger evidence of ‘religious discrimination’, or some other type of discrimination ? Only a few days ago we read a four page article in a Sunday newspaper, and see pictures, about some of the 50,000 Irish people who were intimidated / mistreated. We read of some innocent Protestant lads shot in Co. Offaly and who slowly bled to death after many hours, and of their mother and sisters who were burnt out of their relatively modest house, like many others.

Here we go again on this... :roll:

Population-trends in NI favoured the Catholics in SPITE of the behaviour of the Old Stormont, not because of it. In particular, the Catholic Church ban on contraception during decades - until the 90's - when the Church still held huge influence over Irish Catholics - led to a far higher Catholic birth-rate than for Protestants - North and South. Then there was Ne Temere.

Since 1994, the Protestant % has stabilised and is growing rapidly.

 

[Justin]

.......... is to offer solace to the worst type of sectarian nonsense

Is referring to Protestants as Nazis not a wee-bit sectarian, in your opinion?!

Nonsense.Reid comes at this as a christian peace maker frustrated by the refusal of unionism to accept any responsibility for sorting out this mess.His remarks might not have been helpful but they are not as damaging as the usual gobshitery that effectively enables unionist psychosis by denying the reality of their politics.

 

[Libero]

One thing that is becoming clear in this thread is the lack of knowledge about how Jews were treated in Germany in the 30s and 40s.

The analogy isn't to the concentration camps or the so called holocaust, it is to the day to day removal of civil rights.

The Priest, and Mary McAleese before him, are correct in the points they are trying to make. They lived through the pogroms in Norn Iron, whereas most of the gobby pointscorers on this board weren't alive at the time.

They are not correct. They are woefully off-target and historically inaccurate, even if one grants them the charity of presuming that they were referring only to the pre-Final Solution days of Nazi policy (and whatever about McAleese, Reid did not make that clear).

Comparisons with Nazi Germany in the 1930s would only have validity if the situation in Northern Ireland had ever seen anything close to the Nuremburg Laws. Thankfully for all involved, NI did not.
In case you need reminding, SPN, the Nuremburg Laws of 1935/36 included the following:

- Marriage between Jews and non-Jews prohibited (never the case with Catholics in Northern Ireland)
- Removal of the right to vote (not gerrymandering)
- Jews barred from all professional jobs (not the case in NI, where despite widespread discrimination, a Catholic could set up his own solicitor's practice for example)
- Government contracts not awarded to Jewish firms AS A RULE
- Jews banned from being doctors
- Jews forbidden to join the Army (never the case in modern times with Catholics and the British Army despite effectively segregated units)

By 1938, Jews had to add Israel (male) or Sarah (female) to their names and have a large letter J imprinted on their passports.

It's just my opinion, but anyone who can look at the above and still insist that NI Catholics were treated in a similar manner is, as the English would say, sexing things up.

Now if Fr Reid were to refer to the Penal Laws and draw a comparison, he'd have a point. But he didn't do that, he insisted that "unionists" (hopefully referring to the Stormont government rather than ordinary Protestants) treated Catholics like slaves and like the Nazis treated the Jews. You might have sympathy with what he's getting at, but it is stretching history and misleading children about what Germany's Jews actually went through.

If the man had any sense he could have made his point by outlining real instances of discrimination faced by Catholics in past decades (and there are plenty of them), rather than reaching for the cheap, inaccurate and tacky comparison with Germany's Jews.

 

[SPN]

even if one grants them the charity of presuming that they were referring only to the pre-Final Solution days of Nazi policy (and whatever about McAleese, Reid did not make that clear).

Grant them the charity?

What sort of twisted fcukwit are you?

It is patently obvious what they were talking about, and while the German example is more extreme in its application, it is very similiar in principle to what went on in Norn Iron.

Perhaps you can advise us on a more appropriate analogy for future use?

 

[The OD]

lets get our timeframes correct here - the gas chambers were the culmination of the nazis treatment of the jews, but remember that they were treated badly before the final solution was enacted. I listened to jeffrey donaldson getting all indignant about it on the radio this morning. I would have put it to him that the concentration camps were indeed the culmination of the final solution but hitler came to power in '33 and there was persecution of the jews on the same scale as what nationalists had to endure as well as the worse actions of the nazis, things like the kristelnacht etc smacks of the behaviour of unionists right up to the shameful actions of stoning little girls going into holy cross national school. people may think that its an unfair comparison;why not ask a 6 year old catholic girl her opinion?

In effect he was right.

 

[scurrilous]

The activities of the IRA had no small part in forcing the political changes which have taken place over the last 10 years. Most of these changes were forced upon unionists who had to be dragged and kicked out of the 19th century.

Is it possible that IRA decommissioning may signal to elements in unionism that they can go about reclaiming some of what they perceive as lost ground in the knowledge that the tadhgs have no guns.

 

[Ernie]

Very very sad the comments of Fr Reid. He admits he lost his temper and he did apologise. He very much damaged his position and lost much esteem. Like our President, when the mask slips it reveals a dark and dangerous mentality that fostered and fed a cycle of violence and mayhem over 40 years. Very sad that not much has changed. Only providing oxygen for Paisley jnr. McCrea Donaldson and other Protestant bigots to sound off.

 

[FutureTaoiseach]

Very very sad the comments of Fr Reid. He admits he lost his temper and he did apologise. He very much damaged his position and lost much esteem. Like our President, when the mask slips it reveals a dark and dangerous mentality that fostered and fed a cycle of violence and mayhem over 40 years. Very sad that not much has changed. Only providing oxygen for Paisley jnr. McCrea Donaldson and other Protestant bigots to sound off.

Why don't you similarly criticise the provocations of Willie Frazer with his obsessions with Popish-plots involving the PIRA and Clonard monastery?

 

[The OD]

Very very sad the comments of Fr Reid. He admits he lost his temper and he did apologise. He very much damaged his position and lost much esteem. Like our President, when the mask slips it reveals a dark and dangerous mentality that fostered and fed a cycle of violence and mayhem over 40 years. Very sad that not much has changed. Only providing oxygen for Paisley jnr. McCrea Donaldson and other Protestant bigots to sound off.

firstly, we are too softly softly with these bigots.

secondly, paisley, jnr, donaldson etc are mentally ill so they dont need a reason to sound off.

 

[Libero]

there was persecution of the jews on the same scale as what nationalists had to endure

No there wasn't. Read my last post.

things like the kristelnacht etc smacks of the behaviour of unionists right up to the shameful actions of stoning little girls going into holy cross national school.

The behaviour of some loyalists at Holy Cross was disgusting, but it wasn't Kristallnacht and that event didn't "smack of" Holy Cross, though both were motivated by sectarian hatred.
Nearly 100 Jews were killed that night and over 7,000 properties wrecked. 30,000 Jewish men were taken to Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Even accounting for the bigger size of Germany, that was worse than Holy Cross, wasn't it? And wasn't it also of a different order in that it was carried out by agents of the state rather than freelance local nutters?

One other thing about Holy Cross: you talk of it as if it were typical of unionist behaviour towards Catholics ("smacks of the behaviour of unionists right up to the shameful actions of stoning little girls going into holy cross national school"). You'll be glad to hear, though you really should already have known, that the huge majority of unionism condemned that behaviour from on high and made it clear that it had nothing to do with them.

people may think that its an unfair comparison;why not ask a 6 year old catholic girl her opinion?

Since she's still alive, at least one can - though apart from being used cheaply as a rhetorical device, I'm not sure what good it would be asking a six year old about a comparison with 1930s Germany. Still, she may do a better job of it than Fr. Reid or yourself.

In effect he was right.

No, and he has admitted it. People can second-guess his apology and try to make out like he still means it, but he sure sounds like he regrets it - not only because of the effect on unionists, but because he was factually wrong.

 

[SPN]

Very very sad the comments of Fr Reid. He admits he lost his temper and he did apologise. He very much damaged his position and lost much esteem. Like our President, when the mask slips it reveals a dark and dangerous mentality that fostered and fed a cycle of violence and mayhem over 40 years. Very sad that not much has changed. Only providing oxygen for Paisley jnr. McCrea Donaldson and other Protestant bigots to sound off.

When the mask slips?

A dark and dangerous mentality?

Get a grip on yourself!

The cycle of violence and mayhem was going on for very long time before the Catholics stood up for themselves in the 60s. Initially it was peaceful campaigns for Civil Rights, and when the B Specials and British Army showed what they thought of peaceful marches, that nice Mr McGuinness demonstrated plan B.

Plan B stopped as soon as the British Government decided that Civil Rights for Catholics would be a good idea - or was it that they realised they were now the targets themselves?

 

[civic_critic]

the Nuremburg Laws of 1935/36 included the following:

- Marriage between Jews and non-Jews prohibited (never the case with Catholics in Northern Ireland) [prejudice & work/social segregation took care of that]

Removal of the right to vote (not gerrymandering) [exactly what happened in n. ireland - and worse,; commercial rates payers (mainly protestants) got up to 6 votes]

Jews barred from all professional jobs (not the case in NI, where despite widespread discrimination, a Catholic could set up his own solicitor's practice for example) [obviously also in n. ireland "I wouldn't have a catholic about the place"]

Government contracts not awarded to Jewish firms AS A RULE [catholics couldn't even get so far as to be in a position to tender] -

Jews banned from being doctors

- Jews forbidden to join the Army (never the case in modern times with Catholics and the British Army despite effectively segregated units) [A, B and C specials were all almost exclusively protestant]

By 1938, Jews had to add Israel (male) or Sarah (female) to their names and have a large letter J imprinted on their passports. [Sean Rafferty as opposed to Duncan McCausland - name and school on job application were enough to ensure no second interview]

Thank you libero for that enlightening piece on the Nuremburg Laws, it is the best riposte to your own 'reasoning'

 

[Libero]

Civic_critic: but you do have to admit that Catholics were not treated the same as Jews were by the Nazi state? Right?

I admit you did have a point about electoral rules so you might want to revisit the other Nuremburg Laws and show how they applied to NI Catholics, because you haven't really succeeded on that front just by pointing out how there was a high level of social discrimination.