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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 01:24 PM

  Renegade Iconoclast, is the means of death important? The IRA used Semtex explosives

  and killed many people who had no involvement with politics or religion as, for instance, a kiosk-owner and a worker in Canary Wharf, a financial centre in London; another example of death by explosive occurred when people who had attended a dog-show were dining in a restaurant and were blown to kingdom come, for whatever reason. The number of innocent people killed and mutilated by the IRA, the INLA and, on the other side, the UVF and the UDA. Btw, the Semtex is said to have come from Czechoslovakia, as it was when the bombing campaign was at its height. Americans have very little understanding of what happened in Northern Ireland during those terrible years from 1969 and 1998 and I hardly understand it myself: Leon Uris' book on Ireland "Trinity" was a load of hogwash. The Irish situation is NOT similar to that of Israel and Gaza. The Plantation of Ulster with Scots Presbyterian settlers took place at the very beginning of the 17th century, inspired by what was happening in North America at the same time; the Scots and the Irish are Celts who enjoy the same kind of music and once shared a language and the "planters" have been in Ireland for 400 years now and are as Irish as anyone else.

  Renegade Iconoclast, I have to tell you that you know nothing of any worth about the IRA and it's not clear whether you mean the Official IRA or the Provisionals (the Provos) the group that broke away in 1969, I think, and sometimes murdered each other when not otherwise engaged. Whatever point you want to make about Israel's merciless pounding of Gaza, please leave Ireland out of it as you are talking through your nether orifice.

  —maureenodonnell Read maureenodonnell's other letters
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