Irish Women’s Team singing pro IRA chant

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

Not this again. Yes, a lot of bad things happened in the building of the British Empire. A lot of bad things happened in the building of all empires. They are a product of their time, just as what happens now is a product of our time. I would suggest things that happened 150, 200, 300, 400 years ago, no matter how bad we think they are now, were more in keeping with their time, than a campaign of action by a minority against civilian populations for political ends 50 years ago, but maybe that is just me.

It's the same argument that is used against countries who currently have less developed social and governance structures. Basically, having grappled with the issues of universal suffrage, women's rights, sexual orientation and the rest for 200 years, we have come to a situation where some feel we have some sort of right to tell other countries, who haven't been through that process, how to behave. It's nonsense. Encourage them by all means, but give them time.

You really can't look at history through today's lens, in the same way you shouldn't look at other parts of the world impatiently and arrogantly through our lens either.

I wasn’t going to comment on this thread again but I thought that you deserved to know that our slaughter of innocents abroad didn’t stop 150 years ago (What on earth made you believe it did?) so you should really revise your theory to align it with modern day reality.

If it actually had ended 150 years ago then Julian Assange wouldn’t have been able to release the files proving that the UK and USA commit heinous crimes against humanity and our authorities wouldn’t have needed to shut him up to scare off other good folk from revealing similar.
The fact is that we still have armies of occupation, we’re still funding mercenaries to tear down legitimate governments, we’re still lying to our own people, we’re still refusing release of government files because we’re still sending our cannon fodder children to engage in the murder of innocent people in their own counties so that the rich who rule our society get richer.

As a point of interest you might want to read up on the Mau Mau uprising. It ended in 1963 and our government has been refusing to release the files ever since and, now that lawyers for survivors have weeded out some undeniable facts (our troops anally raped women prisoners with broken bottles and tore the testicles off men and boys as young as 10 years old to leave them to bleed to death) our government is saying that it was so long ago that they now bear no responsibility - this being despite the fact that their refusal to release files has led to the delay in the lawyers for the maimed survivors from being able to substantiate their cases.
That’s our government still fighting tooth and nail to stop the truth of their horrors from the 1960’s being in the public domain and files from later and continuing atrocities remain under lock & key (hence the torture doled out to Assange for shining the light of day onto the current regime).

 

[Octavian]

Is it really any different to England fans singing ''Two world wars and one world cup'' or singing the tune to the Great Escape at German fans / players?
If I was Irish I'd be pissed off that the Irish FA apologised for their players for singing a rebel song.
Lets just suppose the Ukranian side won a game right now against Russia and the players were jumping up and down afterwards singing ''Up the 'UA'', we'd all be cheering them on and sticking two fingers up to Putin with the players.
One mans' freedom fighter is another mans' terrorist. We cant be pissed off with the Irish just because they happen to have a little bit of an issue with the British Government, but be cheering on Ukraine, just because we think Putin is a prick and shouldn't be invading Ukraine. The reason the Irish sing those songs is for the very same reason Ukraine are fighting the Russian army right now.

Not really the same is it.

One could have sympathies with the Republican Army in the 1920s but not what replaced the conventional army in the latter half of the 20th century, that murdered children and innocent people drinking in a pub, committing terrorist acts against those that had no say in what happened on the island of Ireland.

I couldn’t give a shiny one about this tho, I’m never going to watch women’s football anyway and couldn’t care less what a foreign country sings in their dressing room.

Too many get outraged over little.

 

[Octavian]

I wasn’t going to comment on this thread again but I thought that you deserved to know that our slaughter of innocents abroad didn’t stop 150 years ago (What on earth made you believe it did?) so you should really revise your theory to align it with modern day reality.

If it actually had ended 150 years ago then Julian Assange wouldn’t have been able to release the files proving that the UK and USA commit heinous crimes against humanity and our authorities wouldn’t have needed to shut him up to scare off other good folk from revealing similar.
The fact is that we still have armies of occupation, we’re still funding mercenaries to tear down legitimate governments, we’re still lying to our own people, we’re still refusing release of government files because we’re still sending our cannon fodder children to engage in the murder of innocent people in their own counties so that the rich who rule our society get richer.

As a point of interest you might want to read up on the Mau Mau uprising. It ended in 1963 and our government has been refusing to release the files ever since and, now that lawyers for survivors have weeded out some undeniable facts (our troops anally raped women prisoners with broken bottles and tore the testicles off men and boys as young as 10 years old to leave them to bleed to death) our government is saying that it was so long ago that they now bear no responsibility - this being despite the fact that their refusal to release files has led to the delay in the lawyers for the maimed survivors from being able to substantiate their cases.
That’s our government still fighting tooth and nail to stop the truth of their horrors from the 1960’s being in the public domain and files from later and continuing atrocities remain under lock & key (hence the torture doled out to Assange for shining the light of day onto the current regime).

Again, big difference between the UK government ordering atrocities and a handful of soldiers committing them outside of official orders.

Assange is a victim and the whole situation with him is terrible, I think it has more to do with how stuck up the yanks arses we are more than anything.

Our government has no problem going after guilty members of the troubles on our side, whilst allowing republicans who did the same to get off scot free

 

[york away to this!]

Thanks to the IRA for starting the amazing regeneration of Manchester. (Murdering bastards)

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So at what point did Nelson Mandela stop being a terrorist and become a freedom fighter?
Are the Ukranians freedom fighters or terrorists?

Lol

 

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

Again, big difference between the UK government ordering atrocities and a handful of soldiers committing them outside of official orders.

Assange is a victim and the whole situation with him is terrible, I think it has more to do with how stuck up the yanks arses we are more than anything.

Our government has no problem going after guilty members of the troubles on our side, whilst allowing republicans who did the same to get off scot free

Re the Mau Mau; The murder and castration of men and the anally raping and murdering of women Kenyans was widespread, systematic and fully known about by all levels in the military and as high as the upper echelons of government, but they allowed it to persist.
Even if it wasn’t directly ordered by government (hard to say due to the wholesale redaction in the papers released to date) it was seen as a means to and end and they were complicit by letting it continue.

Re Assange; Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Re our government going after it’s own side; When do they do that in the context of the occupation? As far as I’m aware the British troops did everything under orders and I’m not aware of any soldiers ever being prosecuted - though I must emphasise that it’s not an aspect that I’ve read up on.
In any case, IMO the most heinous acts weren’t by soldiers in ordinary uniform but by MI6 and special forces and the full truth of it will be in our dirty laundry basket where some parts will be cleaned by our tame media and the parts that just don’t come clean won’t see the light of day for 100 years.

PS. When thinking in the topic of our government going after our side, in a wider context.
My thoughts went to the sinking of the General Belgrano, a troop carrier that, (as I’m sure you’ll recall) was outside the exclusion zone stipulated by the UK government, and sailing away from it when it was sunk by torpedoes murdering 323 sailors and young boy recruits who weren’t posing a threat to anyone.
The captain of the submarine later ‘lost’ the ships log during a journey from Scotland to London . . so nobody was prosecuted for a mass murder that everybody knew about.
Public knowledge and, with the helpful massaging by the media to make it seem ‘acceptable‘, none of ours got so much as a slapped wrist.

 

[Octavian]

Re the Mau Mau; The murder and castration of men and the anally raping and murdering of women Kenyans was widespread, systematic and fully known about by all levels in the military and as high as the upper echelons of government, but they allowed it to persist.
Even if it wasn’t directly ordered by government (hard to say due to the wholesale redaction in the papers released to date) it was seen as a means to and end and they were complicit by letting it continue.

Re Assange; Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Re our government going after it’s own side; When do they do that in the context of the occupation? As far as I’m aware the British troops did everything under orders and I’m not aware of any soldiers ever being prosecuted - though I must emphasise that it’s not an aspect that I’ve read up on.
In any case, IMO the most heinous acts weren’t by soldiers in ordinary uniform but by MI6 and special forces and the full truth of it will be in our dirty laundry basket where some parts will be cleaned by our tame media and the parts that just don’t come clean won’t see the light of day for 100 years.

You must read up on it re prosecuting British troops, whilst allowing those on the opposing side to get away with heinous crimes in the name of the peace process.

Back on the topic of the OP, I think if there was a British song relating to atrocious acts committed, then our ladies team singing it should be punishable by UEFA or whoever is in control of doing so.

But I can’t muster up the emotion to seriously get annoyed about a group of footballers, who’s ability wouldn’t even have them playing professionally in the men’s game, singing stuff in their dressing room.

 

[urban genie]

Many who are British and grew up during the troubles and the UK bombing campaigns would undersatandadly annoyed about this, but not sure anyone Irish or Northern Irish and Catholic would be.

Now as it was an Irish team what they sing isn't really britains business and if it wasn't for social media no one would know or care, the only criticism should surely be that the song is crap and related to a scottish football teams sectarian banter not a traditional irish song so misguided to sing and stupid to post online

I wonder though would anyone here to have got upset if they had say sang come on you black n tans that mentions the easter rising IRA not the 70s provos in the north, I suppect they would and so are equally in need of education on the history of Anglo-irish relations.

And before anyone shoots me down I being on one side or the other being decended from irish imigrants through grand and great grand parents I have family both north and south whose opinion differs (even one who was in the RUC and been shot by the PIRA in the 80s and also told tales of what went on to inocent catholics and prods by both sides ) so am coming at it nuetrally.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

The fact is that we still have armies of occupation, we’re still funding mercenaries to tear down legitimate governments, we’re still lying to our own people, we’re still refusing release of government files because we’re still sending our cannon fodder children to engage in the murder of innocent people in their own counties so that the rich who rule our society get richer.

As a point of interest you might want to read up on the Mau Mau uprising. It ended in 1963 and our government has been refusing to release the files ever since and, now that lawyers for survivors have weeded out some undeniable facts (our troops anally raped women prisoners with broken bottles and tore the testicles off men and boys as young as 10 years old to leave them to bleed to death) our government is saying that it was so long ago that they now bear no responsibility - this being despite the fact that their refusal to release files has led to the delay in the lawyers for the maimed survivors from being able to substantiate their cases.
That’s our government still fighting tooth and nail to stop the truth of their horrors from the 1960’s being in the public domain and files from later and continuing atrocities remain under lock & key (hence the torture doled out to Assange for shining the light of day onto the current regime).

Of course the British Government and armed forces have committed atrocities. Likewise they’ve also done tremendous good in fighting fascism etc. There’s lots of terrible things and lots of good things done by the millions of people who have served in our armed forces. You only want to see the bad.

I don’t really care about a women’s football team singing songs. What’s a bit shite is the peole on here queuing up to sympathise with the IRA. The last active service I heard them involved in was as guns for hire for Irish drug cartels. Distant relatives of the warring factions were hunted down and murdered. They would have been catholics. Some of the killers had terrorist links, others didn’t. I loath these sorts of people like I do their Protestant equivalents in the UVF etc.

 

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

You must read up on it re prosecuting British troops, whilst allowing those on the opposing side to get away with heinous crimes in the name of the peace process.

Back on the topic of the OP, I think if there was a British song relating to atrocious acts committed, then our ladies team singing it should be punishable by UEFA or whoever is in control of doing so.

But I can’t muster up the emotion to seriously get annoyed about a group of footballers, who’s ability wouldn’t even have them playing professionally in the men’s game, singing stuff in their dressing room.

I’m not sure I can agree re their footballing ability having any bearing. It’s being questioned as a moral and acceptable action. And what’s ‘moral and acceptable’ applies to all of
us regardless of footballing ability.

Anyhow, I don’t think it was even offensive. And, even if it was to some, it was sung after a game, out of the eye and away from the ears of the general public, in the privacy of their changing room.
Not like they stood on the halfway line and belted it out for the crowd and the cameras
, with a big ‘fuck you all’ at the end for good measure, was it? . .
Might have been funny though . . maybe in an embarrassing way like Janet Jackson flopping a boob out, accidentally on purpose and for special effect, at that awards thing.
Which went down like a lead ballon and was great comedy in the style of The Office.

I digress. Sorry.

The British fighting fascism? You do know that we tore down a democratedly elected, left wing government of the people and installed a brutal fascist dictatorship in Chile under Pinochet don’t you?
Thousands murdered horribly and tortured to death by a fascist regime held by the hand by Britain.
The truth I think is that the British fight those that they see it advantageous to fight and visa versa support those where advantage lies, regardless of their political persuasions or how evil they are.

Regards a British song relating to atrocious acts; well, as an example, GSTK is a song that (while innocuous or, at worse, mildly annoying to most British) is an inextricable reminder of atrocious acts to many peoples. The significance of songs can be different things to different people - very much depending which side of the guns they’ve lived on.

Anyway, I’ve got to tootle along now but it’s been nice bantering with you and I’ll have a good think about some of your points for sure. Ta.