Well, My dad was born in 1905 in Cork, and was in an excellent position to view the struggle for Independence there, but he never joined Sinn Féin or tried to radicalise his kids. He was under the Official Secrets Act like any senior Civil Servant. Like most others, he was just glad it was over. I certainly think contemporaneous accounts are best, and a couple are even better. We can get news from several sources and become an 'expert' on a subject. Back 100 years, it was personal experience and what you heard. But it was strange, in retrospect, that it was only mentioned so little by those who knew.

BTW I have not recanted on post #1 which tries to set out stuff in an unbiased way. You never see your own bias, do you?

My bias? I have none. I am the only one perfect in the whole galaxy. Thats why I accept others are not perfect. It help me giving the absolution when other makes mistakes and make me strong to help them thinking and doing the right thing (a bit of laugh in this ;-)

You make me smile.

Recently, there's been a couple of useful TV things. This year was 100 years from Independence, and one of the interesting things was a view of things from the British perspective, presumably drawing on the Government Archives. The 'Michael Collins' movie with Liam Neeson wasn't actually too bad, except it understated British superiority. I felt the thing that swung it was American Influence; they lost the publicity war, because they couldn't cow people by committing atrocities until people gave up the rebels. People knew you signed your own death warrant informing; also, An Ṗoblaċt (now An Phoblacht) the Republican paper detailed all the trouble and as Irish Americans were a powerful lobby, it made Britain look bad.

An uprising happened in the Boer War 1898-1901 in South Africa, but South Africa didn't have a voice to the world. Atrocities went unnoticed.

Another one thrown up on a farming show here

Ireland, which grows a lot of potatoes, used to buy seed potatoes from Scotland. Being in the North, it's quite free of diseases inherent to potatoes. Now it's outside the EU. So in coming years, seed potatoes in the NOI and Donegal can supply the rest and into Europe, as Irish seed is more disease free than Eurpoean stock, because some diseases never made the jump over here.

This link https://www.mail.com/int/news/uk/106...-stage-hero1-6 kind of well sums up how quickly this thing up North can go pear shaped.

Usually, the Irish North & South have enough common sense to avoid trouble. There have been scores of smaller spats, a few failed attempts at peace before, and the smart ones know the cost of saying the wrong thing. OTOH, extremists on both sides purposely tread on the other side's corns, but that can't be avoided. But when the NOI gets affected by British or EU politics, as at present, that's when things go pear shaped.

This https://www.mail.com/int/scitech/hea...-stage-hero1-6 is a fairly good explanation of the current Northern violence, with one exception, which I shall mention next.

I was driven through the middle of Belfast early one Sunday morning in the 1970s by a local who pointed out the territorial areas of the Provisional & Official IRA, the UDA, & the UVF. These divisions were largely along side streets. I'm sure my guide chose a fairly divided area but during the troubles, it was a turf war. For instance, The (Protestant/Loyalist) Shankhill Road is a main trunk road in Belfast and runs parallel to the (Catholic/Nationalist) Falls Road. All the trouble starts at these invisible divisions. I recognized the street names from the news reports. This time the Protestants are starting trouble, and will head for Catholic areas. The Catholic youths will come out to protect their area. The police are stuck in the middle.

For now, It's the older Loyalists encouraging this. Many have heavy prison sentences waiting for them. But it's so easy to see this getting out of hand and returning to the situation before. If those 'Loyalist' youths get through into a Catholic area, 'Republican' houses will be torched, people stoned etc. Guaranteed escalation there the next night… then everyone will then re-arm, and the very hard-won peace will be squandered. The NOI politicians are elected are from the two extremes, so there's nobody who will be listened to by the opposing viewpoint; that was key to the Peace of 1998, because (the late) John Hume put his huge reputation behind this peace effort. Folks may not have agreed with his views, but they would listen because of his peaceful record. The current leaders could preach only to their respective and bitterly opposed choirs.

If it all goes sadly wrong in the North of Ireland, Brexit, or the handling of it, will be the cause. I started this thread some months back because I could foresee trouble. I must be honest, I didn't foresee it getting this bad. But in 23 years, a generation of peacemakers has gone, more have come, and the new ones don't seem to have a clue.

If I mention the ones who were parties to the Agreement in 1998, they all seem like historical figures: Ian Paisley; David Trimble; John Hume; The Alliance Party (John Alderdice?); Bertie Ahern; Tony Blair; Gerry Adams; Martin McGuinness; Bill Clinton, and George Mitchell. Who has the stature to pick up the pieces now? Our ROI politicians are fairly clued in on the sensitivities, but they have no long record of sensitive action and would hardly be seen as neutral.