As far as I'm aware, the peace process only really took hold after 9/11 convinced the primary sponsors of the IRA to stop sponsoring them and the actual giving up of weapons bit happened. I don't think it would have mattered who dealt with that at the time, it would have happened anyway.

Completely untrue. The peace process took hold in 1997 which is why the Good Friday Agreement could be negotiated in 1998. Any groups or individuals who carried on practicing violence after 1997 are still practicing violence today.

9/11 had no effect had on the NI peace process apart from maybe speeding up decommissioning on both sides, although even that had started long before 9/11 happened.
 
Completely untrue. The peace process took hold in 1997 which is why the Good Friday Agreement could be negotiated in 1998. Any groups or individuals who carried on practicing violence after 1997 are still practicing violence today.

9/11 had no effect had on the NI peace process apart from maybe speeding up decommissioning on both sides, although even that had started long before 9/11 happened.



When did the IRA decommission it's weapons?
 

So the Bel Tel would have you believe, but quoting them on the subject of anything to do with Irish republicans is like quoting the Daily Mail on the subject of the EU.

I'll stick with what Senator George Mitchell and General de Chastelain say if you don't mind, and according to them decommissioning started in 1997. I see no reason to disbelieve them.
 
So the Bel Tel would have you believe, but quoting them on the subject of anything to do with Irish republicans is like quoting the Daily Mail on the subject of the EU.

I'll stick with what Senator George Mitchell and General de Chastelain say if you don't mind, and according to them decommissioning started in 1997. I see no reason to disbelieve them.


I think it's a great, great deal more complex than you present it, but I'm going to bow out because I really don't have the inclination to get into it.
 
I think it's a great, great deal more complex than you present it, but I'm going to bow out because I really don't have the inclination to get into it.

It was you that posited the simplistic notion that the peace process only took hold after 9/11 because Irish Americans. As someone who lives here I can tell you that's certainly not true. The peace process was a real thing before 9/11 happened, and btw the type of Irish Americans who were funding the armed campaign haven't changed their view of the Provisional IRA since 9/11 either, because they tend to be the type who view the IRA as freedom fighters and Al Qaeda as terrorists. If there was no peace process those people would still be funding the IRA, 9/11 or no 9/11, just as there are some who are still funding dissident republicans.
 
For what it's worth my memory also is that the peace process started in 1997 and it was real, and 9/11 really didn't have anything to do with it. (My memory is all tangled up with a song called "Holy Ground" that was part of a CD I listened to a lot in the mid to late 1990s.


I remember in 1997 my attitude to the song changed radically, because this was now something in the past.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top Bottom