Shankhill Butchers and Collusion

This may seem long, it will take about 3 minutes to read, i ask you to just have a look.

I dont know if anyone on here watched the show last night, but after watching my mother and her family break their hearts over the murder of their brother, my uncle, in 1972, ive decided to raise the issue.

I have heard many stories about the butchers, ive read the books, newspapers etc, even this morning i was told who pulled the trigger on murphy, but i have genuine concern, my concern is based around this, william moore who died in 2008, had on his news paper memorandum, "here lies a soldier", now this is 11 years after we agreed to the good friday agreement we still have someone willing to believe that william moores butchering of innocent catholics was in some way the act of a soldier, i mean what is that about, how many people out their still see what the butchers done as actions of war? These people, were not like Davy Irvine or other what i would describe as semi decent loyalists who ive met, these people where animals but we must ask does this hatred still run this deep? I know on the republican side of things, people dont fear interaction with protestants, they dont like the fact that the british still occupy part of our country.

I also have my biggest concern to note with tipster comrades, the special branch who very clearly over seen the handling and downfall of Lenny Murphy, and the rest of the butchers, are still in tact, this organisation is still roaming our streets monitoring our politics, religious beliefs, who are friends are and more, they were involved in the murder of pat finucane (my friends father), they were involved in the murder of rosemary nelson, they are involved in the handling of the case of mark haddock, murderer of catholics and protestants alike at the behest of their orders, what else are this force involved in, why have we not seen them made redundant, even when the few decent RUC officers that did exist tried to investigate properly they met brick walls.

We talk about libya being controlled, the middle east lacking democracy and so on, yet here we have a force involved in all this, and more than likely the recent prison scandal whereby a republican prisoner was found to have information on the govenor of maghaberry prison, they where involved in the downfall of the previous stormont assembly, by planting evidence etc, they botched the attempts to find the victims of omagh justice due to their dirty war with republicans.

I ask this why did they bomb in the catholic primary school last year go unnoticed in the comments of late by the british pm or chief constable matt baggott, why did the bomb at a GAA club on the grosvenor road receive so little media coverage, who are these people that have this amount of control? and why are we assessing the lack of democracy in other parts of the world when the freedom we preach to them about doesnt even fully exist in the north of ireland, why is their several republican prisoners in prison without ever seeing a jury?

This is a lot to take in but i ask you to consider it carefully and voice what you think. I would ask pat please dont change the subject, im asking your opinion on my genuine concerns, me and you dont see eye to eye on this stuff, pm me if youd like to debate the other issues which surround this.

Thanks for reading.

Good post NSG. It was a good programme last night about a horrible horrible series of events.
I've heard it said repeatedly that those who carried out the murders were psychopaths and if it weren't for the troubles they would still have found a reason to kill. I posted something on this elsewhere ...

Is it realistic that they were all psychopaths? I mean what are the chances that a group of people all from the same area would all have a similar mental issue? I doubt it to be honest. Maybe some of them were crazy but some went along with those horrible things while being fully aware of what they were doing and choosing to do so. Calling them all psychos may help people distance themselves from it which is understandable but is the truth not that some of them were just hate filled people who chose to murder people cause they wanted to?

These people were tortured - on one occasion cause they were bored and there wasn't a chippie open

Totally agree RMD, i dont even think Murphy was a nut, i think he just hated catholics that much.

Was talking to a solicitor today and was telling me, he was talking to a pealer in the mid eighties in a court waiting room, the issue of murphy came up, the pealer told him, when murphy was released from jail he barrowed a black taxi went down the falls road and when a man flagged him down he picked him up, he took him to the home he use to live in, ripped out his teeth with pliers, toe naills finger naills the works, two days later the IRA kidknapped a UDR man, murphy contacted police, to negotiate the release of the UDR man, by bargaining with the victim he had, none of this was on the show, the man had died by the time he was found, he had died from loss of blood and pain, the victim was never listed as a victim of the butchers, nor a crime of murphys, yet all in all, this was kept very quiet by murphy and the establishment, i dont think his head was gone, i think he was an evil evil man he knew no boundaries.

Didn't see the documentary but will take a look on the i-player to see if I can find it when I have time...Have read a decent bit about them over the past few years and there was definately some psychopathic tendancies in Murphy and others in the group, rmd may not be be far off with regards killing but it has happened in other countries where there has been war/turmoil that psychopaths have used it as a means of justifying their most heinous of acts......it was a whole new sickeningly low form of violence perpetrated by them.....

The Puke wrote:Didn't see the documentary but will take a look on the i-player to see if I can find it when I have time...Have read a decent bit about them over the past few years and there was definately some psychopathic tendancies in Murphy and others in the group, rmd may not be be far off with regards killing but it has happened in other countries where there has been war/turmoil that psychopaths have used it as a means of justifying their most heinous of acts......it was a whole new sickeningly low form of violence perpetrated by them.....

Yeah I know what you are saying Puke and I know that war can make heros out of people who would be shunned normally. But there were so many people involved in these killings that I cannot believe that they can all be labelled as psychopaths. Maybe it's too scary for us all to think that they came from among us and were like us in a lot of ways.

RMDrive wrote:

The Puke wrote:Didn't see the documentary but will take a look on the i-player to see if I can find it when I have time...Have read a decent bit about them over the past few years and there was definately some psychopathic tendancies in Murphy and others in the group, rmd may not be be far off with regards killing but it has happened in other countries where there has been war/turmoil that psychopaths have used it as a means of justifying their most heinous of acts......it was a whole new sickeningly low form of violence perpetrated by them.....

Yeah I know what you are saying Puke and I know that war can make heros out of people who would be shunned normally. But there were so many people involved in these killings that I cannot believe that they can all be labelled as psychopaths. Maybe it's too scary for us all to think that they came from among us and were like us in a lot of ways.

I would agree that all probably weren't psychopaths but it times of crisis you would be surprised how easily led lads could become or how self preservation kicks into the psyche, it is us or them mentality......It is a rather interesting yet horrible/harrowing story all the same, you wouldn't wish the death that some of them men received on anyone

Speaking of such ....

Afghans killed for sport, says report
Tue, Mar 29, 2011

Civilians were murdered and body parts cut off, says report in ‘ Rolling Stone’ magazine, writes LARA MARLOWE in Washington

US SOLDIERS in Afghanistan murdered civilians for sport, mutilated the bodies of their victims and kept severed fingers and part of a skull as “trophies”, according to an indepth report published by Rolling Stone magazine yesterday.

The journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal investigated the atrocities using army records and more than a dozen interviews. Boal won Academy Awards in 2009 for best original screenplay and best picture for The Hurt Locker , about US forces in Iraq.

The US soldiers described by Boal in Rolling Stone call Afghans “hajis” and “savages”. They “constantly” smoked hashish supplied by Afghan interpreters.

Cpl Jeremy Morlock, who was last week sentenced to 24 years in prison, “did any drug he could get his hands on”. Army officers repeatedly ignored evidence of the killings, on the plains of Kandahar Province between January and May of last year. When confronted with irrefutable proof, the army went to great lengths to suppress the information.

The German magazine Der Spiegel last week published three photographs taken by members of the unit. Rolling Stone has published many more, including images of a decapitated head being prodded with a stick, limbs and mangled torsos.

In some of the photographs, soldiers grin beside the Afghans they killed, portraying “a front-line culture among US troops in which killing Afghan civilians is less a reason for concern than a cause for celebration,” Boal writes.

Cpl Morlock and Pte First Class Andrew Holmes, then aged 21 and 19, killed the unit’s first victim, a “smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old” on January 15th, 2010. While their officers were meeting with a village elder, the men singled out the youth, who was working alone in a poppy field.

The soldiers knelt behind a wall and tossed a grenade at the boy, whose name was Gul Mudin. As it exploded, they fired at him with an M4 assault rifle and a machine gun. They then claimed the boy attacked them. The army captain who arrived on the scene thought the story was “strange”. But he did not follow up on it, and ordered a staff sergeant to deliver the coup de grace. The dead boy turned out to be the son of the village elder whom the officers had visited.

Morlock and Holmes had themselves photographed with Gul Mudin’s half-naked body. Staff sergeant Calvin Gibbs – whom the army holds most responsible for the atrocities – cut off the boy’s little finger and gave it to Holmes as a trophy, which he carried around thereafter in a zip-lock bag. After killing the boy, the men of 3rd platoon were “high-fiving” each other in jubilation, Boal reports.

Morlock and five other soldiers, who have yet to be tried, were promised more lenient treatment for testifying against Gibbs, who allegedly urged the men to kill Afghans whom they suspected of supporting the Taliban. Gibbs had skulls tattooed on his left shin: three red skulls represented the men he killed in Iraq; three blue skulls those he “waxed” in Afghanistan.

Some 20 villagers went to the unit’s headquarters to protest bitterly at the death of Gul Mudin, but their protest was disregarded. The platoon’s top two officers were promoted. When the father of a soldier in the unit called a command centre in the US to complain, the sergeant on duty told him, “Stuff like that happens.” Sgt Gibbs began collecting AK47s, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons used by insurgents so the soldiers could plant them as fake evidence next to the bodies of the civilians they killed. Their second victim was a man whom the army later said it believed to be deaf or mentally retarded.

Using thermal imagery, they discovered him curled in a ball by a roadside one night. They kept part of his skull as a trophy.

In the village of Marach Agha, Gibbs shot at close range an unarmed man whom he claimed belonged to the Taliban. The unit’s fourth confirmed victim was Mullah Allah Dad, a white-bearded cleric who was killed as the first boy was – with a grenade and gunfire. Soldiers “pushed away the dead man’s wife and children, who were screaming hysterical with grief”. Gibbs again used medical shears to amputate the corpse’s little finger, which he kept for himself.

The atrocities were discovered only because the soldiers beat up a colleague who complained about them smoking hashish in his room. Twelve soldiers have been charged in all, but the army has kept secret its report on officer accountability in the case. “None of us in the platoon – the platoon leader, the platoon sergeant – no one gives a f--k about these people,” Morlock said.

Sadly, I don't think we have to look as far as Afghanistan for such stories Jayo....

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No TC - but the point I suppose I am making is that this type of savagery exists to this day and is carried out by 'soldier's' who are fighting the good fight against evil etc etc etc ....

Jayo Cluxton wrote:No TC - but the point I suppose I am making is that this type of savagery exists to this day and is carried out by 'soldier's' who are fighting the good fight against evil etc etc etc ....

Oh without doubt. It has happened for centuries, and always will. Fire up young men with hatred, give them weapons and a 'cause' for which to use them, and you will always get results like what have been highlighted.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

Jayo Cluxton wrote:No TC - but the point I suppose I am making is that this type of savagery exists to this day and is carried out by 'soldier's' who are fighting the good fight against evil etc etc etc ....

Oh without doubt. It has happened for centuries, and always will. Fire up young men with hatred, give them weapons and a 'cause' for which to use them, and you will always get results like what have been highlighted.

I find that frigntening tbh. Are well all just a war away from being butchers?

North Side Gael wrote:Totally agree RMD, i dont even think Murphy was a nut, i think he just hated catholics that much.

Was talking to a solicitor today and was telling me, he was talking to a pealer in the mid eighties in a court waiting room, the issue of murphy came up, the pealer told him, when murphy was released from jail he barrowed a black taxi went down the falls road and when a man flagged him down he picked him up, he took him to the home he use to live in, ripped out his teeth with pliers, toe naills finger naills the works, two days later the IRA kidknapped a UDR man, murphy contacted police, to negotiate the release of the UDR man, by bargaining with the victim he had, none of this was on the show, the man had died by the time he was found, he had died from loss of blood and pain, the victim was never listed as a victim of the butchers, nor a crime of murphys, yet all in all, this was kept very quiet by murphy and the establishment, i dont think his head was gone, i think he was an evil evil man he knew no boundaries.

was Murphy not a Catholic himself or came from a Catholic background???

I watched the programme last night and cannot believe for one minute that the RUC didn't know who the gang were. Loyalist paramilitaries, RUC and UDR personnel not only lived in the area they would have all drank and socialised in the pubs and clubs in the shankill. To listen to the detective on the documentary last night you'd think they were ghosts that came out after dark that nobody but nobody knew.

I listened to various contributions from people who were lucky to not be abducted by the gang on the radio this morning, the all too familiar pattern of statements being made by these people to the then RUC including quite accurate descriptions of individuals not being acted on doesn't really surprise me to be honest. Paid agents like Billy Wright had a free hand in East Tyrone and North Armagh for years with evidence conveniently not being acted on and as recently as yesterday witness statements regarding the massacre at Loughinisland points to collusion with the security forces.

There was countless cases of collusion in the North during the troubles where working class loyalists were used as pawns provided with information from the security forces, escorted into catholic areas to do the dirty work that the RUC or UDR couldn't be seen to do in order to strike fear into the catholic community so as to maximise pressure on the IRA to either surrender or at the very least call a ceasefire. For the puppett masters this policy probably worked in the end.

I like many found it very difficult to accept policing because of its history in this state but also realised that things had to change for the greater good. It is by no means perfect and there are still rogue elements at work but the documentary last night reminded me of the fear and mistrust that did exist at the time and makes you grateful for the peace and relative normality that does exist at the moment, Maybe if some of the so-called young dissidents had lived through these times they might view the whole armed struggle subject in a different light.

bocerty wrote:

North Side Gael wrote:Totally agree RMD, i dont even think Murphy was a nut, i think he just hated catholics that much.

Was talking to a solicitor today and was telling me, he was talking to a pealer in the mid eighties in a court waiting room, the issue of murphy came up, the pealer told him, when murphy was released from jail he barrowed a black taxi went down the falls road and when a man flagged him down he picked him up, he took him to the home he use to live in, ripped out his teeth with pliers, toe naills finger naills the works, two days later the IRA kidknapped a UDR man, murphy contacted police, to negotiate the release of the UDR man, by bargaining with the victim he had, none of this was on the show, the man had died by the time he was found, he had died from loss of blood and pain, the victim was never listed as a victim of the butchers, nor a crime of murphys, yet all in all, this was kept very quiet by murphy and the establishment, i dont think his head was gone, i think he was an evil evil man he knew no boundaries.

was Murphy not a Catholic himself or came from a Catholic background???

No he was a Protestant and it is believed that his hatred for Catholics came about due to the hard time he got over his surname and tried to dispell any notions of having recent Catholic ancestry.....

Dont know if anyone has read on down in the post, but i was also wondering, what do people think of the fact that special branch who clearly had a hand in controlling the butchers, still exist today without investigation, without reprimand and without being answerable to anyone?

mugsys_barber wrote:I watched the programme last night and cannot believe for one minute that the RUC didn't know who the gang were. Loyalist paramilitaries, RUC and UDR personnel not only lived in the area they would have all drank and socialised in the pubs and clubs in the shankill. To listen to the detective on the documentary last night you'd think they were ghosts that came out after dark that nobody but nobody knew.

I listened to various contributions from people who were lucky to not be abducted by the gang on the radio this morning, the all too familiar pattern of statements being made by these people to the then RUC including quite accurate descriptions of individuals not being acted on doesn't really surprise me to be honest. Paid agents like Billy Wright had a free hand in East Tyrone and North Armagh for years with evidence conveniently not being acted on and as recently as yesterday witness statements regarding the massacre at Loughinisland points to collusion with the security forces.

There was countless cases of collusion in the North during the troubles where working class loyalists were used as pawns provided with information from the security forces, escorted into catholic areas to do the dirty work that the RUC or UDR couldn't be seen to do in order to strike fear into the catholic community so as to maximise pressure on the IRA to either surrender or at the very least call a ceasefire. For the puppett masters this policy probably worked in the end.

I like many found it very difficult to accept policing because of its history in this state but also realised that things had to change for the greater good. It is by no means perfect and there are still rogue elements at work but the documentary last night reminded me of the fear and mistrust that did exist at the time and makes you grateful for the peace and relative normality that does exist at the moment, Maybe if some of the so-called young dissidents had lived through these times they might view the whole armed struggle subject in a different light.

I would tend to disagree with your last post, young people must assess the past and make up their own minds, i was 15 when the good friday agreement was signed, but at the end of the day, since that ive had two friends murdered by the UDA and in north belfast, ive seen young men butchered trying to get away from protestant gangs only a few years back i think 2005 young thomas devlin met his fate and a short while before that young michael mcilveen was butchered, add in the celtic supporter in coleraine about two years ago, some of these young men feel strongly and its not as though these actions are the actions of a relatively normal society, this young men are making decisions based on what they see.

Listen to the court case reports of Thomas Devlin, how his 15 year old friends in 2005 had to listen to his screams of pain and for help and he was repeatedly stabbed to death by what can only be described as modern day murphys, but in the interests of peace people choose to ignore this.

North Side Gael wrote: but in the interests of peace people choose to ignore this.

I'd say that it is in the interest of progress NSG. Of course, there are terrible acts still being carried out, but these are fewer and further between than they were 30 years ago. Relationships between Catholics and Protestants in the North are enormously better now than they were 15 years ago.

I guess I don't really understand your point, or what you see as an alternative, when you say that "in the interest of peace people chose to ignore this".

In the interests of peace, i mean, what cost do some individuals have to pay for the price of peace, these young fellas have chosen to not accept this cost and do something, i dont feel they can be blamed for what the feel.

Im in favour of peace, but not at a cost to one side of the community and not in the form it currently exists, look up how many peace walls have been raised since the signing of the good friday agreement, this agreement is not addressing the problem, its creating a vacuum, a dangerous one at that, until parades are properly addresses we will go through a period in the summer when the hatred of the early 90s and 70s is not only replicated but its worse!

I live in an area that didnt have a peacewall until 8 years ago, we lived in a shared area, we shared the shops we went to, the children played the same games on the street, now last year we had a young catholic near beat to death with a golf club, i was attempted to be run over by a car on the footpath on the way home from hurling training. I dont believe thats progress and ive talked to many in ardoyne, newlodge, tigers bay, shankhill, areas of derry being the fountain and the creggan bogside etc, they all report similar incidents, and not only are the sectarian victims of these areas paying a price the media are ignoring them as they fear bringing bad press on the north. The assembly are selling a dead donkey, this place sits on the breach of madness and it will take one or two incidents to kick it all off again, yet, here we have our 100k a year politicians ignoring the situation, they can say what they want about the rioters in ardoyne on parades day, still their are 100s of protesters making peaceful protest, this is relatively normal or normal its the sign of a seperated society. The TV and the press can portray it what ever way they wish the difference is working in the communities, and dealing with the problems on a street level reflects a totally different picture.

Well, I disagree with you that feelings and relationships between the 2 communities are as bad as they were 2-3 decades ago - in fact, I don't even think that it is close. If you were 15 when the Good Friday agreement was signed, that would have made you 11 when the IRA ceasefire was called in 1994. With all due respect NSG, you aren't old enough to be able to judge relations between the communities during the pre-ceasefire troubles.

But, even if you are right, what is your solution to the 'dead donkey'? Are you advocating a return to tit-for-tit?

Thomas Clarke wrote:Well, I disagree with you that feelings and relationships between the 2 communities are as bad as they were 2-3 decades ago - in fact, I don't even think that it is close. If you were 15 when the Good Friday agreement was signed, that would have made you 11 when the IRA ceasefire was called in 1994. With all due respect NSG, you aren't old enough to be able to judge relations between the communities during the pre-ceasefire troubles.

But, even if you are right, what is your solution to the 'dead donkey'? Are you advocating a return to tit-for-tit?

With all due respect to you i may well have been 11 when the first ceasefire was called, but growing up in the north of belfast is a slightly different outlook to one growing up in tyrone where the gripe was more with people from miles away in the next village or the minority in dungannon or omagh, north belfast has a striking difference to the rest, we have bars called the sucide, roads called death row, not names given to it by locals either, so 11 or not, i seen a hell of a lot.

Not to mention my family gaa club, which was described in the irish independent as the most attacked social club in western europe, so yes maybe for some parts of the community things have changed, people have started to look at the next village or look at the minority and say what are they about, but for the thousands of people in north belfast who still cant see each others houses for 30/40 foot fences erected since the GFA, youll have to forgive me for feeling that we arent exactly a small part of the population, nor where we a small part in the "troubles".

That agreement does nothing to address sectarianism, from a republican point of view it has nothing in it for republicanism neither, have you ever read it, a known fact is that the majority of people in northern ireland didnt vote for the GFA they voted for peace and who could blame them, but temporary solutions to long term problems isnt ideal, loyalist and republican groups are gathering more members dailly, and every time a bomb is left at a gaa club or outside a barracks more join, these people see no way of using the GFA to address how they feel.

We have a situation in north belfast also where hoods run riot, why? because the PSNI allow them too in response for any interaction information they may have regarding republican militants. Very easy to sit back when your not involved in a situation and say its all grand, unless the whole of ireland has achieved peace we all have a roll to play in achieving for each other as the problem is now nearly 900 years old, not 40.

It's hard to know which is greater - your arrogance or your ignorance.

Growing up in North Belfast may well be different to growing up in Tyrone, but your attitude of 'poor me, poor me, i'm from Belfast, and we had it tougher than anyone' is pathetic. Belfast had it tough, but so did other parts. Were there no abductions/murders in Tyrone? Was my friend's grandfather not burnt alive in his car there? Did King Rat and his men not use it as their hunting ground? Were there no hunger strikers from Tyrone? Or did Clonoe or Loughall not happen? Was Aiden McAnespie not shot walking to football training? Were there no bombs in Omagh, and many other towns? Were young people not harrassed on their way to school? Were soldiers not a permanent fixture in my garden, and in my schoolyard? Do you think that Catholics and Protestants had a merry time together in Tyrone? I've said that, but could have said the same about any of the 6 counties. Belfast had it tough, but don't think you had it different to anyone else.

As for the problems that Belfast now faces, well, i hate to break it to you, but those are not sectarian in nature - they are socio-economic. Poverty, unemployment, lack of good schools and facilities lead to a depressed and angry community. I know i'm generalising here, but in the main, people in affluent areas work and live alongside the other side of the community - the problems of sectarianism are much more manifest where there are extreme social problems.

You talk about hoods running riot as though it is something that has been caused by living near protestants and the corruption of the PSNI. Sorry NSG, how do you explain the hoods in Dublin? Or Limerick? Or London? Or New York? Is the Good Friday Agreement and the PSNI at fault there too? Of course not - those are social problems.

Sorry NSG, you have no grasp of this subject. I had thought of calling you a dinosaur, but that would be to imply that you were something of the past, when you are actually a young man who happens to have archaic views. If you are genuinely concerned, you should focus on making your community better, instead of talking about taking up arms again against Protestants.

I think the main problem with Belfast is the close proximity that nationalists and loyalists live in. It is just too easy to p**s eachother off. I know a few people from Ardoyne who have told me that the majority of incidents are usually caused by kids throwing stones etc at eachother. They have also told me that many of these so-called dissidents are in fact hoods themselves which usually make up the majority of the rioters around marching time. There is no doubting that in an area like North Belfast it will take a long time for the scars of the past to heal as basically the two sides live on eachothers doorsteps. Not sure how these issues will be resolved but further violence or joining groups on either sides are not the answer. I have spoken to some high profile Republicans and they have told me that the biggest problem at the moment is young people feeling that they have missed out on something or feel that they have not had their chance to fight against the Brits. It is also clear that with the amount of failed attacks by dissidents that it is not the hoods thay need to worry about passing information to police etc, its their own members as they are so heavily infiltrated.

It has always been my opinion and that of many people i know that Belfast 'Republicans' feel that they have suffered more, contributed more than anyother areas etc. If they want to complain about how much they have suffered or how tough they have had it i would urge them to go to somewhere like Cappagh to see what suffering was.

NSG this is not meant as a dig at you because i am sure you have genuine concerns for your area but whilst i was only 15 at the time of the first ceasefire i can say things are far better now than they were in the late 80's or 90's. I would have to agree with TC that many of the problems in North and West Belfast are more social than political problems

I responded with the same ageist arrogance you met me with, its a well known fact the most likely person to be killed during the "troubles" was a white catholic between 18 and 15 from north belfast, we faced the murder gangs of the shankhill in the in every decade the shankhill butchers wasnt just one, what im getting at with you, is that its not just what happened 40 years ago and this patronising bull **** is only sending kids to be more extreme that they wouldnt know etc, why does anyone every stop to ask them what they do know, why did they join?

Samin, i agree with much of what you said, i feel the putting in about hoods for dissidents is a bit of a silly political talk comment, i mean have you met many? I was a dissident activist in a group but now act independently, you need to go deeper than the local boys, i dont deny there isnt hoods but there was hoods in the Provos also dont forget!

The dissidents in ardoyne are called upon now for nearly all anti social behaviour and the clean up theyve done over the past 5/6 years is unreal, it went from kids on the street taking drugs in the middle of the day light to them being unable to act without the fear of political activists knocking their door to inform them they arent wanted in the area.

North Side Gael wrote:I responded with the same ageist arrogance you met me with, its a well known fact the most likely person to be killed during the "troubles" was a white catholic between 18 and 15 from north belfast, we faced the murder gangs of the shankhill in the in every decade the shankhill butchers wasnt just one, what im getting at with you, is that its not just what happened 40 years ago and this patronising bull **** is only sending kids to be more extreme that they wouldnt know etc, why does anyone every stop to ask them what they do know, why did they join?

Samin, i agree with much of what you said, i feel the putting in about hoods for dissidents is a bit of a silly political talk comment, i mean have you met many? I was a dissident activist in a group but now act independently, you need to go deeper than the local boys, i dont deny there isnt hoods but there was hoods in the Provos also dont forget!The dissidents in ardoyne are called upon now for nearly all anti social behaviour and the clean up theyve done over the past 5/6 years is unreal, it went from kids on the street taking drugs in the middle of the day light to them being unable to act without the fear of political activists knocking their door to inform them they arent wanted in the area.

There certainly was but they were usually dealt with by their own which does not seem to be the case with dissidents. Unfortunately it is not a political comment, around my local area most people know who these so called Republicans are. In some cases they were put out of the town by the provos in the 90's and early 00's for anti social behaviour. Most Republicans in the area would have very little to do with them. Granted there are laso those who have lost family members or have served long jail terms who feel they have unfinished business (i can to an extent see their side).

I dont think this is the place to reveal that you were a member of a dissident group, but if it was to try and rid your area of drug dealers or other scum then more par to you but if its to try and fight the British and force a withdrawal then im sorry lad but your p*****g in the wind.

dont be aruging over we had it worse than yous it looks very foolish , a lot of innocent people were murdered its a very sad part of our history the people who committed and colluded in these crimes have to live with this guilt for the rest of their lives .