Never forget

IRA member firing shots with an AR18 during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. c.1973

The charitable interpretation of the law passed in the British Parliament today, an amnesty for all crimes committed by both paramilitary groups and British soldiers over the course of the Troubles, is this:

It is perfectly fine for British soldiers to murder innocent civilians, citizens of the United Kingdom. They will not be investigated for it. They will be given amnesty. They will face no justice.

That is the charitable interpretation. That is giving them the benefit of the doubt.

That is assuming they see the people they murdered as fellow British, and not something other and lesser than British. That this is a rule for all British citizens, and not an exception made for a certain group. That it's okay if members of that group died.

The charitable explanation is a chilling indictment of the British Government. The other explanation was British policy for eight hundred years.

I kinda hoped it had stopped being British Policy.

I love random Dad Lore (tm) drops like, “Oh, we used to stay every weekend up at a caravan park on the north coast” and “once I accidentally punted a football at my baby brother when he was two and I was eighteen” and “One time your granddad’s construction crew was kidnapped by the IRA and they forced your granddad to drive a truck of explosives to a target, but luckily he managed to warn the police so no one got hurt.”

Fun facts like that.

IRA checkpoint during the 70s

I adore the inclusion of Liam Neeson’s character in the finale for two reasons:

1. The show is the world of these teenagers, so almost everyone they - and we as an extension - interact with is Catholic. So despite the almost cameo nature of the character, he’s really the only Protestant we see. And along with seeing all our main Catholic characters saying “yes, we want peace” we also get to see that same decision - at least that’s how I read his acting while taking off the hat, etc. since we don’t actually see what he marks - from the other side and from a character that is something of the bad guy in his episode part. It’s seeing that both sides wanted this.

2. Just the reality of Neeson himself. He was an 8-year-old Northern Irish Catholic when the Troubles began. He lived through all of it. He was 18 when one of the most violent parts of the Troubles began. He was 20 when Bloody Sunday happened. To include a face that we all know so well is standard cameo practice. But to include this man, who at 46 as an Irish citizen could have stood in one of those polling booths and been faced with that exact decision. That was so much more.

They call it "the troubles" to minimise what it was - a war of occupation in a British colony.

Female IRA fighter during the height of the troubles.

Have scanned “Sapphowoman and the Greater Belfast Dykes” and uploaded to the internet archive.Published in 1989 and features some funny characters and elements of living in Belfast during The Troubles.Has very dated language but an interesting read.

Republican posters with a quote from Pádraig Pearse.

Man throwing a firebomb during the Battle of the Bogside, Derry, Northern Ireland, Tony McGrath, August 1969

A mobile sniper platform in a Mazda 626 with a Barrett M90, used by the South Armagh Sniper (1997)

This show is absolutely ridiculously good and I'm here for it

Belfast Confetti

- Ciaran Carson (1990)

Need to know how clare, erin, michelle, james, and orla would react to the queen dying!!!

Mourners attend Bobby Sands funeral, May 7th 1981