Bill Gates has a reason to smile today...

@Clifford Brennan: I think that’s the reason FFG supporters want to deny fellow Irish nationals in the north a vote in the presidential election; it would create the conditions for a Sinn Fein president.

@Conan Campbell: You’d have to factor in the votes of people who wouldn’t support a SF candidate in the North too so. Could backfire spectacularly.

@Gowon Geter: Is Leo not a “real man” in the Paddy Holohan sense of what a “man” should be like?

@Paul O’Sullivan: Where is your evidence for that ? And if that the case would you call the British PM’s during modern troubles a real man ?

@Paddy J: Ne he is not, Leo is a egotistical power maniac only interested in how he looks in the media and the optics of everything and flip flops on every decision based on optics and focus groups and became a Politician when he couldn’t hack it as a doctor, where as Gerry dedicated his life and put his life on the line for his beliefs for his entire career

@Gowon Geter: in answer to your question no I wouldn’t…
Deours Price’s evidence is testimony enough for me.
I’m Republican he has left the side down with his lies… the IRA what’s left of them xont like him

@Clifford Brennan: True, an FG candidate would get all their fellow unionist votes. Assuming unionists would participate.

@Conan Campbell: I’d hope they would. If you open the ballot to Northern Ireland they would be entitled to vote like everyone else there too. As I said it could backfire spectacularly.

@Paul O’Sullivan: Dolores Price was a deeply troubled individual with addiction problems who was taken advantage of by unscrupulous journalists and fake history projects.

@Martin O Donnell: ha ha not!

@Paul O’Sullivan: who told you that ?

@Martin O Donnell: a murderer as Taoiseach? Yeah sounds good

@Martin O Donnell: Lol

@Clifford Brennan: I actually hope so too. It would be a win/win for SF. Either they get sufficient votes from northern nationalists to carry a SF candidate to victory or they loose in their bid for the presidency because unionists came out in force in a presidential election to back an FG candidate. I’d certainly accept losing if unionists participated in an All Ireland institution like the presidency.

@Martin O D se Ed 3rd za zaconnell: I am sure the murdered in cold blood Widow McConvilles family and all the other victims including children will share your view. The sooner he joins the dissappeared and sinks back into anonymity , the better.

@Clifford Brennan: if that’s what you think, then you know very little about the man.

@Paul O’Sullivan: prove it

@Joey Byrne: who did he murder?

@Mona Murphy: gene mc conville

@J: No he was Sinn Fein and whats your point ?, Maybe you should look up Irish History and see Sinn Fein’s role in the foundation of the Republic

@Gowon Geter: Sinn Fein 1918 = FF/FG. The original Sinn Fein party founded by the monarchist Arthur Griffith has no connection whatsoever to then (Provisional) Sinn Fein that was founded in 1970. Even SF don’t pretend they have any connection.

@Paddy J: Jez wow … thanks I didn’t know that ..

@Gowon Geter: Happy to help.

@Gowon Geter: you didn’t know that? Really?

@Chin Feeyin: U are a Loyalist and and no concept of sarcasm.

@Gowon Geter: he put a lot of people’s lives on the line for his beliefs, whether they wanted their lives put on the line or not.

@Clifford Brennan: As usual ur opinion is wrong, I am quite happy as its the end of a boring work day .. pls point out the where I was name calling ? and I haven’t a clue what the rest of ur drivel means.
You are an apologist for the British and Loyalist atrocities so I expect no less out of you.
Bye bye now have a nice evening and I will try to cheer up having a few pints of Guinness on way home.

@Gowon Geter: gerry is famous for in fact not putting his life on the line when it mattered, he was willing to put others lives on the line though.

@Paddy J: that first 1919 Dail which gave us the leftist Democratic Programme for government Paddy, bares much more resemblance to the Sinn Fein of today than either of the Tory FF/FG parties. surely you can see that Paddy!

@Angela McCarthy: I think Angela that the majority of the Irish people were the same then as they are now, conservative and even right wing. We often look back on those revolutionaries and their ideals between 1916 and 1922 with rose tinted glasses but in reality as soon as independence was granted there were no signs of socialist/leftist policies from either Pro Treaty or Anti Treaty Sinn Fein’s and their eventual FG and FF guises or indeed any demand from the electorate for such policies. The 1919 programme seems to be totally at odds with the political outlook of what both Sinn Fein factions became. It would make you wonder!

@Gowon Geter: he put a lot of lives on the line all right he sanctioned their execution

@J: I hope he was

@Paddy J: nothing to do with rose tinted glasses Paddy, just some historical facts. If the members of the first Dail and the voters alike were basically all conservative, how do you then explain where the radical Democratic Programme came from to begin with?

we also know, and some historians tell us this, that if Labour back then didn’t stand aside to make way for SF, it would have won a lot of seats itself and today might have replaced either FF or FG and became the second of the two main parties.

@Paul O’Sullivan: Yawn

@Wheresmyjumper: Evidently they do

@Gowon Geter: you have a really low bar on great men if you think that way the right thing to do

@Wheresmyjumper: if this was math that’s one in the minus columns compared to thousands in the plus column

Unfortunately there is always collateral damage during conflict, but you choose to look at the collateral damage rather that the reason for the conflict. If I was born in Derry along with my relations I would have been in the IRA defending my people

@Gowon Geter: I didn’t realise the postcard picture perfect town of Adare was in the conflict? Campaigning for these cowards to be released early makes him a coward

@Gowon Geter: I am sure the garda family will be comforted to know his death was collateral damage or a minus one for that matter, I’d say every day of their lives they are aware of being ‘minus 1′, a grief that does not heal.

@Honeybee: As opposed to all the collateral damage we have to accept from the British and Loyalists its a very small price to pay

@Wheresmyjumper: Cowards dont put their life on the line for their beliefs… cowards renege on their beliefs

@Gowon Geter: why don’t you go live up in Derry and go the the front line rather than wasting your time here, the “cause” could really use a parlour room republican such as yourself to wash diesel or rob atms

@Paul O’Sullivan: ????

@Gowon Geter: Collateral damage? Is that the Sinn Fein policy now?

Good to know. People need to know what they are voting for.

@Gowon Geter: very erudite comment. Good to know u like reading fiction .

@camio55: plus the hundreds of maimed in constant pain.

@Paddy J: I thought you had a better perception of the historic conflict Paddy. it takes two or more to fight a war, and in this particular case the conflict didn’t begin because of or by the IRA.

@Angela McCarthy: That is why Angela I am saying from 1973 onwards, rather than from 1969. The conflict should have stopped from a Republican perspective from that point given that the primary aim was now to secure a United Ireland rather than to protect nationalists. The conflict was counter productive to the IRA from ’73 onwards. Everything that was achieved in 1998 in additional to Sunningdale and possibly more could have been won through purely peaceful means.

@Paddy J: Have you any idea what the north was like for Catholics prior to the troubles?

@Paddy J: You keep banging on about the Sunningdale agreement it was the Unionists that destroyed any hope of peace by rejecting that outright. The IRA wasn’t around in 1968 it was because of lotalist death squads burning and killing innocent civilians out of their homes and brutal conditions caused by Unionists and successive British governments that started the war the IRA would not of lasted for 30 years if it didnt have wide spread support up north and abroad sadly the cowards down south stood by and on few occasions colluded with the british.

@Paddy J: Get real and stop talking rubbish on about the IRA just stopping in 1973 after internment was rampant in nationalist areas. Wars are easily started but very hard stopped and thats why most of the blame lies with the British government.

@Seamus Donnelly: Evening Seamus, we’ll have to agree to disagree there I’m afraid.

@Paddy J: ya can disagree all ya want doesn’t change the facts of what actually happened.

@Seamus Donnelly: My point is purely based on facts Seamus. If you look at what the IRA achieved with the GFA in 1998 over and above what was achieved by the SDLP with Sunningdale, it certainly wasn’t worth the thousands of lives lost in the intervening period. It wasn’t worth a single life.

@Paddy J: Im actually trying understand why you keep bringing up the sunningdale agreement it was the Unionists and loyalists that wouldn’t agree to it and the way you keep going on ya would swear the IRA was the only ones fighting in the war. Over 90% of British and Loyalist killings was innocent civilians and lets not forget collusion that went on in the RUC and UVF/UDA that prolonged the bloodshed even longer.

@Seamus Donnelly: so true so true let down by jack Lynch with his comment we won’t stand ideally by and that’s just what he did turned his back on his fellow Irish people north of the border result the IRA result peace process we Should all be proud of those who fought and died for their fellow Irish people

@Paddy J: Its easy to simply look at two documents from 1973 and 1998 and compare them, but totally ignore the dynamics of what was going on during the two different periods, as well as the different players and leaderships on the different sides to the conflict.

try making that same case to the British Government in 1998 and tell them that all could have been sorted in 1973 if they did some things differently, or in 1968 when all that was asked for was civil rights, or indeed if all was put on a level footing for everyone living in the north immediately after partition.

your argument is so simplistic Paddy, its laughable. It might make a handy soundbite to undermine sf by its political opponents, but doesn’t stand up to historic scrutiny.