Northern Ireland News: Martin McGuinness to step down

[Swami]

I have an uncle I never knew as he was shot in the back by British soldiers in the '70s. He was 16. He was not in the IRA. My father was also killed during the troubles in the 1980s, also an innocent person unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. I cant hold on to that and let it be who I am. Everyone in Northern Ireland has been affected in some way by what we have come through. We have to move on. Why would you want to remain in those dark times. Why would you insist on that two tribes mentality?

You have made this thread about something other than what Sarah was posting about. She never mentioned the IRA or the troubles. She merely wanted to discuss the mess that Arlene Foster had put NI in. You somehow turned it around to be the fault of Sinn Fein. You cant blame Sinn Fein for everything all the time. Sinn Fein haven't been caught out lying and stealing from the government. That would be the DUP. Arlene clearly does have a conflict of interest. Pretending she doesn't and shouting loudly at Sinn Fein doesn't legitimise your argument.

I don't insist on a two tribes mentality but this detestable attempt to rewrite history must stop and stop now. For the future generations it is for their benefit that they know the truth, and the truth is republican murderers over forty years - and even longer than that if you count their muddled campaigns in the 50s - did their best to destroy Northern Ireland. Thankfully they did not, but so many innocent people lost their lives or were grievously injured by republican or loyalist terrorism.

At the end of the day Sinn Fein truly don't care about RHI - they are using the issue to throw the toys out of the pram, because their whole Brits Out campaign has failed in every way - they couldn't kill us off, so then they try their whole smear propaganda campaigns, to demonise the police and security forces. That won't work either.

It's a bit laughable Sinn Fein talking about equality as well - try telling that to people from Fermanagh where nothing short of a campaign of ethnic cleansing was launched against them. Not much equality with that.

Swami

 

[Swami]

LOL.... She wanted the DUP to head that inquiry. I think her vindication would have been the only outcome.

And to say that the News Letter is a Unionist biased paper would be a grand understatement.

It does have a largely Unionist readership but that editorial cut to the chase, and anyone with an aota of wit would heartily concur with it.

Swami

 

[Alexis]

It does have a largely Unionist readership but that editorial cut to the chase, and anyone with an aota of wit would heartily concur with it.

It's political alignment is British Unionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_News_Letter

 

[Alexis]

I don't insist on a two tribes mentality but this detestable attempt to rewrite history must stop and stop now. For the future generations it is for their benefit that they know the truth, and the truth is republican murderers over forty years - and even longer than that if you count their muddled campaigns in the 50s - did their best to destroy Northern Ireland. Thankfully they did not, but so many innocent people lost their lives or were grievously injured by republican or loyalist terrorism.

Nobody is rewriting history. That's very creative of you to imply that they are but it isn't so. The inequality and injustices of the once fully Unionist NI government is well documented and is part of the reason we now have a power sharing executive.

At the end of the day Sinn Fein truly don't care about RHI - they are using the issue to throw the toys out of the pram, because their whole Brits Out campaign has failed in every way - they couldn't kill us off, so then they try their whole smear propaganda campaigns, to demonise the police and security forces. That won't work either.

So you have insight into the inner workings of Sinn Fein? Of course Sinn Fein care about the RHI. It was fraud on epic proportions. It was corruption within the high ranks of NI government. It would be silly to claim they do not care about it. How can there be trust between the parties if this kind of thing is going on. Again I admire your creative mind for implying that the RHI scandal is just a Sinn Fein smear/propaganda campaign. They must have been pulling double shifts at Stormont to come up with that one. The fact is the DUP messed up. A smear campaign didn't make £400 million vanish.

It's a bit laughable Sinn Fein talking about equality as well - try telling that to people from Fermanagh where nothing short of a campaign of ethnic cleansing was launched against them. Not much equality with that.

Again here we go with the two tribes mentality. I could ream off lists of atrocities perpetrated on Catholics going way beyond the 1950s. But what would be the point? It's tit for tat. And it's nothing to do with Mrs Foster's corruption which would be the main topic of this thread.

 

[Swami]

I am not implying that the RHI is a Sinn Fein smear/campaign, I am just saying they are using it to deflect the issues they are having as a party (Gerry Adams' Manuel-like "I Know Nothing" answers to everything about his IRA activities).

With regard to Arlene Foster, time will tell. All these allegations about countless numbers of people supposedly heating empty sheds - if the accusers are so certain, why don't they name them?

Hundreds of farmers are facing being demonised by a lot of scaremongering tittle-tattle, but no doubt that doesn't worry you.

Swami

 

[Alexis]

Scaremongering. That's cute. But not as cute as you bringing up the IRA again when were are trying to discuss the failings of the DUP.

 

[Swami]

Scaremongering. That's cute. But not as cute as you bringing up the IRA again when were are trying to discuss the failings of the DUP.

I am more than proud to have voted for the DUP since 1992, when I first was eligible to vote. They have always delivered on the issues in North Antrim and elsewhere, and your "failings" as you refer them - where's your proof? At least the DUP stand up for what is right.

Swami

 

[Sarah]

I am more than proud to have voted for the DUP since 1992, when I first was eligible to vote. They have always delivered on the issues in North Antrim and elsewhere, and your "failings" as you refer them - where's your proof? At least the DUP stand up for what is right.

Swami

How is being opposed to gay marriage 'right'?

How is what she has been doing with Dee Stitt 'right'?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38011001

First Minister Arlene Foster has refused to back calls for a UDA leader who heads an east Belfast community-based organisation to step down.

On Wednesday, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said Dee Stitt should reconsider his position as chief executive of Charter NI.

However, Mrs Foster said she could not tell the organisation what to do over employability issues.

She said she regretted the fact that Mr Stitt had now become "a distraction".

"My view is he has become a distraction to the work that's ongoing in east Belfast and I regret that," Mrs Foster said.


"This man is an employee of Charter NI and they have to deal with him as they see fit, it would be wrong for me to intervene in all of the different organisations that exist across Northern Ireland."



Or is UDA murder different than IRA murders?

How can the first minister of NI not displace him from position?

How was Iris Robinson of the DUP having an affair with a boy young enough to be her son and committing adultery 'right'?

 

[Sarah]

Here's a nice article from Eamonn Mailie that might help us all:

http://eamonnmallie.com/2017/01/grace-by-eamonn-mallie/

GRACE, BY EAMONN MAILIE

At one thirty on Monday lunchtime well away from the cameras and the public an enfeebled and emaciated deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness walked into First Minister Arlene Foster’s office and greeted her in a virtual whisper.
Mrs Foster rose to her feet, shocked at Mr McGuinness’s disposition, moved towards him, took him in her arms, cleaved him to her bosom and said Martin “It’ll be all-right. You and I are going to sort out this mess.

“I’ll step aside for a little while and I’ll go out and tell the world life is too short for all this bickering and arguing.”

This didn’t happen. I imagined this on Tuesday as I reflected on my sense of shock on seeing the gaunt figure of the deputy First Minister on our TV screens.

What, I thought, if the events of the day had been otherwise and Arlene Foster mindful of all our human physical frailties had acted graciously in the circumstances?
Northern Ireland would potentially be a different place not just now but possibly for ever.

One single act of grace, of leadership, at the hands of Arlene Foster would probably have melted the possibility of what she now expects to be a ‘brutal election.’

When will principle of ‘Noblesse Oblige’ hit the Hill?

(Responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency. It has also been used to describe a person taking the blame for something in order to solve an issue or save someone else)

Fr Brian Darcy who was abused as a young boy and as a trainee priest is still loyal to God at 70.
I once challenged him to explain why he still clings to a God who claims to be just, but who allowed this evil to be visited upon him?

“I’ll tell you why” he said “some nights I am driving back to Fermanagh and I am tired and I remember some poor devil who is ill or who is in hospital and I decide to visit that person. A few days later or a short time later I hear that person has died.

“I thank God for guiding me to do that simple act of visiting a sick person.”

This is not just about God it is about leadership and good example.

When former DUP leader Peter Robinson and his wife Iris had their very public domestic upheaval, one of the earliest outings in the aftermath, was their visit to Dublin Castle where The Queen was the guest of Irish President Mary McAleese and of the Irish government. Mrs Robinson cut a dash in her bottle green dress flanked by her husband but what was more memorable for me were two other happenings.

Hundreds of people lined to up to be greeted by President McAleese. She did not not over fraternise with most of them but when it was Iris Robinson’s turn to shake hands with the President Mrs McAleese cleaved her to her bosom and hugged her.

This was an act of grace and an act of love for one who had suffered.

In addressing the Dublin Castle gathering on that same night in perfect Irish, the Queen was gracious to her hosts, uninhibited in acknowledging Irish nationhood, visiting The Garden of Remembrance and Croke Park, landmarks housing loaded memories of a bitter past between The British and Irish peoples.

In her speech The Queen expanded on the British Irish enmity.

“Of course, the relationship has not always been straightforward; nor has the record over the centuries been entirely benign. It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss.

“These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.” Grace and leadership in spades from The Queen.

Within touching distance of The Queen in Dublin Castle sat poet Seamus Heaney who once wrote:

“Be advised, my passport’s green/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen.”

Now he was toasting that same Queen.

This was another act of grace by one of the most celebrated poets in the world writing in the English language who was born into a nationalist family in Northern Ireland.

That same generosity resides in Heaney’s fellow poet Michael Longley of a Protestant tradition who penned these words in ‘Ceasefire’:

I

Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears

Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king

Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and

Wept with him until their sadness filled the buidling.

II

Taking Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles

Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,

Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry

Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.

III

When they had eaten together, it pleased them both

To stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,

Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still

And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:

IV

‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done

And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’

We can all learn from history but history can be cruel to history makers.

Ian Paisley paid a high price for befriending Martin McGuinness as his deputy First Minister.

John Hume engaged Sinn Fein to bring about an end to the IRA’s campaign of violence and Sinn Fein stole his party’s clothes.
Peter Robinson stood aside as First Minister during his tenure while senior counsel investigated an allegation that he had breached the Ministerial Code.

He regained his role as First Minister when no guilt was proven. The sky didn’t fall in because he withdrew from exercising his duties for several weeks.

Mr Robinson attended the Dr McKenna Cup GAA final in Armagh and met with hostility in his own camp for doing so. He did his damnedest to deliver the Maze project but faced with outright opposition he had to surrender. Politics is a cruel trade.

Martin McGuinness visited Ian Paisley when he was ill and regularly phoned Mrs Paisley when her husband was in hospital.

Meeting The Queen was a high wire act for Martin McGuinness. The foot soldiers looked to McGuinness during the IRA’s campaign. He was the last person history would have expected to entertain the Queen. Risk taking is part of leadership.

The question is now – has Arlene Foster forfeited a place in history in the current atmosphere in being too inflexible?

Had she in reality cleaved an ailing Martin McGuinness to her bosom in an act of generosity God only knows what would have flown from such a gesture.

Our society is crying out for humanity and hope.

Again as Seamus Heaney told us,”if you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.”

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracle

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there’s fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.”

We could all learn from the lessons of Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King in 1965 – et tu Arlene.

Sometimes it is better to walk away from confrontation:

The protesters sat down on the road and:

‘After prayers they rose and turned the march back to Selma, avoiding another confrontation with state troopers and skirting the issue of whether to obey Judge Johnson’s court order.

Many marchers were critical of King’s unexpected decision not to push on to Montgomery, but the restraint gained support from President Johnson, who issued a public statement: ‘‘Americans everywhere join in deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated when they sought to dramatize their deep and sincere interest in attaining the precious right to vote’’ (Johnson, ‘‘Statement by the President,’’ 272). Johnson promised to introduce a voting rights bill to Congress within a few days.’
Leadership…

 

[Alexis]

I am more than proud to have voted for the DUP since 1992, when I first was eligible to vote. They have always delivered on the issues in North Antrim and elsewhere, and your "failings" as you refer them - where's your proof? At least the DUP stand up for what is right.

Swami

It's very clear to me and all reading this thread why you vote DUP. It's laughable that you continue to defend them and refuse to recognise their failings as a party. It really is the blind leading the blind.

 

[Alexis]

How was Iris Robinson of the DUP having an affair with a boy young enough to be her son and committing adultery 'right'?

At a time when she was all over the papers with her husband proclaiming about the sanctity of marriage. It's actually quite funny. That little love shack that they had with that scratchy mattress on the floor. There was no sanctity in that marriage. It's clearly not gays that ruin the sanctity of marriage.

 

[Sarah]

At a time when she was all over the papers with her husband proclaiming about the sanctity of marriage. It's actually quite funny. That little love shack that they had with that scratchy mattress on the floor. There was no sanctity in that marriage. It's clearly not gays that ruin the sanctity of marriage.

This is why I cannot agree that the antiquated DUP stand up for what's right. There is nothing 'right' about them.

 

[Sarah]

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/love-your-enemies-says-dup-man-on-mcguinness-illness-1-7766567


A founding member of the DUP on the religious right of the party has quoted the Biblical exhortation to “love your enemies” in urging his friends not to rejoice in Martin McGuinness’s serious illness.

Wallace Thompson, a former Stormont special advisor to Nigel Dodds when he was finance minister, is generally seen as a member of the ‘old DUP’, with socially conservative and politically hard line views.

But, in a post on his Facebook page on Monday night, Mr Thompson, who is also heavily involved with fundamentalist groups the Evangelical Protestant Society and the Caleb Foundation, directed his friends to Christ’s words urging forgiveness.


He wrote: “It is obvious that Martin McGuinness is seriously ill. There are those on Facebook rejoicing in this and hoping that he suffers a painful and lingering death.



“I have been around a long time and I’m under no illusions about Martin McGuinness. Supergrass Raymond Gilmour is quoted as saying ‘To look at him now he thinks he is a statesman but his hands are dripping in the blood of many, many people. People shouldn’t forget that.’

“However, if we profess to be evangelical Protestants, we need to reflect upon the words of Christ who said, ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Mr Thompson told the News Letter that he realised that he did not lose close family members to the IRA during the Troubles and that he did not want to be “patronising” to those who suffered the most.

However, he said that he had been reading The Sermon On The Mount and had been struck by the “challenge” of Christ’s words.

 

[Alexis]

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/love-your-enemies-says-dup-man-on-mcguinness-illness-1-7766567


A founding member of the DUP on the religious right of the party has quoted the Biblical exhortation to “love your enemies” in urging his friends not to rejoice in Martin McGuinness’s serious illness.

Wallace Thompson, a former Stormont special advisor to Nigel Dodds when he was finance minister, is generally seen as a member of the ‘old DUP’, with socially conservative and politically hard line views.

But, in a post on his Facebook page on Monday night, Mr Thompson, who is also heavily involved with fundamentalist groups the Evangelical Protestant Society and the Caleb Foundation, directed his friends to Christ’s words urging forgiveness.


He wrote: “It is obvious that Martin McGuinness is seriously ill. There are those on Facebook rejoicing in this and hoping that he suffers a painful and lingering death.



“I have been around a long time and I’m under no illusions about Martin McGuinness. Supergrass Raymond Gilmour is quoted as saying ‘To look at him now he thinks he is a statesman but his hands are dripping in the blood of many, many people. People shouldn’t forget that.’

“However, if we profess to be evangelical Protestants, we need to reflect upon the words of Christ who said, ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Mr Thompson told the News Letter that he realised that he did not lose close family members to the IRA during the Troubles and that he did not want to be “patronising” to those who suffered the most.

However, he said that he had been reading The Sermon On The Mount and had been struck by the “challenge” of Christ’s words.

That is such a wonderfully passive aggressive statement.