The S.C. State newspaper gives a fairly good report and assessment of the situation in Ulster. Of course when Adams mentions a 'peaceful alternative' that always existed. The ballot-box was always there. The only gripe which may have had some justification was the 'company vote' This meant that in local council elections (only) those who owned business premises etc had a vote for each of these premises up to a limit which I think was 3. This applied to both Protestant and Roman Catholic business's. The thinking behind it being the old adage..he who pays the piper calls the tune. They were paying rates on each of their premises so therefore contributing more to the Council. This system applied on the British mainland up until 1945 when the Labour goverment did away with it.
The mention of the 500lb bomb reminds me of when I walked past a 900lb car-bomb on my way to work. However, it never went off and the IRA rang up the next day to notify the authorities of it. They had hung smaller bombs on the window grills of the factory the idea being to lure the soldiers to deal with these and then set off the 900 pounder. But it malfunctioned so they phoned them up the mext day. But in between that I had walked passed it(about 3 feet away) Lucky me and any others who had walked past it.lol But I wasn't lol at the time when I read about it in the papers.
The S.C. State newspaper gives a fairly good report and assessment of the situation in Ulster. Of course when Adams mentions a 'peaceful alternative' that always existed. The ballot-box was always there. The only gripe which may have had some justification was the 'company vote' This meant that in local council elections (only) those who owned business premises etc had a vote for each of these premises up to a limit which I think was 3. This applied to both Protestant and Roman Catholic business's. The thinking behind it being the old adage..he who pays the piper calls the tune. They were paying rates on each of their premises so therefore contributing more to the Council. This system applied on the British mainland up until 1945 when the Labour goverment did away with it.
ReplyDeleteThe mention of the 500lb bomb reminds me of when I walked past a 900lb car-bomb on my way to work. However, it never went off and the IRA rang up the next day to notify the authorities of it. They had hung smaller bombs on the window grills of the factory the idea being to lure the soldiers to deal with these and then set off the 900 pounder. But it malfunctioned so they phoned them up the mext day. But in between that I had walked passed it(about 3 feet away) Lucky me and any others who had walked past it.lol But I wasn't lol at the time when I read about it in the papers.