Issue #8: Ireland Special

Day 4,850, 14:46 Published in United Kingdom Greece by Ebrietas


What with the heating up of eUK-eEire relations and a period of extreme boredom, I decided that I'd resurrect this years-dead newspaper for a special edition on the troubled UK-Ireland history and some famous figures around it.

Theme: UK and Ireland

“In the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town, and, I think, that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men”

“I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.”

- Oliver Cromwell, two quotes regarding the indiscriminate massacre at Drogheda


“There is no crime in detecting and destroying in wartime the spy and informer. They have destroyed without trial. I have paid them back in their own coin.”

- Michael Collins, on Bloody Sunday 1920


“It is not fear of losing more lives that has compelled a reluctant offer from England but it is the shame of any further imposition of agony upon a people that loves liberty above everything else"

- Mahatma Gandhi, probably giving Britain too much credit regarding the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921


“They won't shoot me in my own county”

- Michael Collins, shortly before being shot in his own county


“It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.”

- Éamon de Valera


“I do what I think is right.”

- Éamon de Valera, when asked about his offering of condolences to the German representative to Ireland regarding the death of Hitler


“If ever a community had a right to demonstrate against a denial of civil rights, Derry is the finest example. A Roman Catholic and Nationalist city, it has for three or four decades been administered – and none too fairly administered – by a Protestant and Unionist majority, secured by a manipulation of the ward boundaries for the sole purpose of retaining Unionist control.”

- Edmund Warnock, Unionist MP regarding the situation in Derry, 1968


“It was all ‘the Catholics this and the Catholics that’ [with Loyalists] living in poverty and us lording it over them. People looked around and said, ‘What, are they talking about, us? With the damp running down the walls and our houses not fit to live in.’”

- Unnamed Protestant housewife


“Sinn Fein is committed to promoting and enhancing reconciliation, and in recent years, I and other members of my party have taken a number of significant initiatives aimed to advance this process.”

- Martin McGuiness


“In 2016, let us all join the Rising, and the only final message is this very clear: Up the Rebels. Up a sovereign and independent Irish republic.”

- Martin McGuiness


“We don't believe that winning elections and winning any amount of votes will win freedom in Ireland. At the end of the day, it will be the cutting edge of the IRA which will bring freedom.”

- Martin McGuiness


"I believe that Northern Ireland has come to a time of peace, a time when hate will no longer rule. How good it will be to be part of a wonderful healing in our province"

- Ian Paisley


“They breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin”

- Ian Paisley, on Catholics


“Save Ulster from sodomy!"

- Ian Paisley, against the decriminalisation of homosexuality


“Obviously, Ian Paisley and I were regarded as very bitter opponents. When we decided in March 2007 to govern together, both of us understood that we weren't going to change our views but that we had to work with one another if we were to end the conflict and move forward.”

- Martin McGuiness

If anyone has any quotes they'd like to have added, comment them and I'll put them below here.