"Dissident Republicans" and "The Irish Republic".
Dissidents? What?
Are they absurdist playwrights who throw dice and drink vodka - like the Soviet "Dissidents"?
Ireland is a republic. People who are aware of that fact may call themselves Republicans.
Why does "NewSpeak" insist that the only remaining variety are "dissidents"?
Also, take a look in your Atlas. You will find that there is nowhere in the world called "the Irish Republic". Hence the reason why the BBC ever uses this meaningless phrase will always be a mystery.
Peter Taylor - the veteran English journo of The Troubles - is on the telly or radio once again talking about "Dissident Republicans".
If he means people committed to violence - who I personally thoroughly repudiate - why does he not say so?
He is a nearly perfect metafor for the role of the English State in Ireland.
He seems to be an impartial, disinterested arbiter between two recalcitrant warring parties.
And yet the English State is a part of the problem - at least according to one side!
As is the way the problem is reported as "Not England's problem - they are just mad Paddies etc." - when English rule is of course part of the problem there IMO!
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An interesting detail is that in the early 70s people like Taylor would interview a chap called Se'an MacStofia'n who was a fanatical "Provo" at the height of the Troubles/War in Ireland.
He gave the air of being a real "hardnut" - the hardest IRA man of them all. And probably was.
But I can't help but find it amusing that he was born in Leytonstone as John Stevenson!
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It cannot be said enuff that the first Irish Republicans in history were English-speaking Protestants from the Belfast and the North (c.1790s).
They were anti-imperialists. They were from a different era of Irish nationalism.
They were the ones who led the ideal of abolishing the differences between Irish people - whatever they may be.
Who is preaching that message now?
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