I heard an old clip on the radio this morning in which he said (I paraphrase) that he only gave up terrorism because it wasn't achieving the desired result - otherwise he would have carried on. I wish he'd stayed alive for another twenty years in terrible pain.

Fair enough, I was listening to 5Live

Edit: I have just been told that later on they had a relative of the Birmingham bombing victims on

Edited by Y Ddraig Goch (21 Mar 2017 9.52am)

True Republican who accepted the bullet wasn't the way forward.
Worked with all shades of green and orange to bring an acceptable agreed Peace.
Nothing in life is black and white.

RIP

Very true, I had to take my cat to the vet today, no mention on BBC or sky news ffs

I lived in Surrey / Sussex for the first 35 years of my life and religion was something that never really affected us which is why it was so difficult for us to understand what was going on in Northern Ireland.

I actually worked alongside someone for two years before finding out that he was Jewish as a person's religion seemed to be so irrelevant to our everyday lives.

I moved from Sussex to Newcastle in the mid eighties and quite a few people there asked me what religion I was which I found very unusual and none of them seemed happy with my answer of atheist.

25 years ago we went for a drink with one of my wife's friends and her new boyfriend who came from Belfast. We were only halfway through the first pint before he let us know his opinion of Catholics which he appeared to think were a sub species of humanity but with all the better features missing.

It's difficult to reason with people who have ingrained beliefs like that so I didn't even try but it did give me a first hand indication of why peace would be difficult to attain

i got friends of all faiths and all nationalities and agree that we should all try to get along and respect each other. If ulster wishes to remain british , that is fine by me. If it chooses to peacefully join the south...fine also. Peace, love and respect are pretty important. But that is my story.

The story of my grandfather....woke up one quiet morning in a sleepy village in 1920 West Cork with the Black & Tans bursting into every cottage and kicking the sh1t out of the locals. So him and his mates picked up a gun. As an elderly man, he didnt like the provisional ira in the North and their methods.

Bloody Sunday was the turning point for the North. The subsequent cover-up kept the fires burning.

wrong has been committed on both sides. Peace is fragile but worth working for. Blood begets blood. Everybody loses out in War - even the victors. Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

now living in a Catholic-Protestant hybrid family, i wish others could forget the poison from Churches and Governments and just try to get along. Religion, Empire, ethnic strife are some dangerous chemicals. to be handled with care.

RiP everybody who died in the troubles - from all sides.

Lets be optimistic for the twenty first century....going forwards in peace and rugby ;-)

Edited by PalazioVecchio (21 Mar 2017 11.21am)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford