Your opinion of Gerry Adams

[TeePee4Prez]

Just after spotting this thread and I don't know where to begin. It seems the facade still holds up among many in the US that I and the rest of the island are living in small thatched cottages living off subsistance farming on a small plot of land hoping to catch a leprechaun.

Brian from Family Guy you are incorrect when you say birth control is illegal, it is not. Condoms, the pill, whatever. Abortion is prohibited unless the life of the mother is threatened (including a risk of suicide). That is the status of Irish law, please do not misrepresent it. The Catholic Church has lost all moral authority is recent years and is not set to recover. Whats more your self proclaimed moral superiority and condesending attitude are more troubling than your misrepresentations. You condemn the lack of social liberalism here but ignore such things as the fact that health care is available to all here and education is state funded up to and including university level.

As to Gerry Adams, and I should point out I am not a Sinn Féin supporter at all, it is questionable whether of not Northern Ireland would be as peaceful as it now is without his, and of course many others, work over the past two decades. A case could also be presented that were it not for the actions of the IRA, Northern Ireland may have retianed it's status as a Unionist statelet treating Catholics within Northern Ireland as second class citizens. This is not a defence of their actions, but I believe it is not hyperbole either.

On NI, everything Al has stated I agree with. Though I must put the point that the partition of Ireland was not put to the Irish people for their approval. Emsworth's suggestion that NI chose to remain within the UK is not entirely accurate. In 1921 when it occured a significant amount of NI (certainly Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry city, South Armagh, altogether about half of NI geographically) were substantially in favour of Irish nationalism, as electoral returns from the time will validate.

I hope that you would agree that it is highly impractical to let each city vote on whether it wants to be part of the UK or Ireland. There's nothing wrong with taking the will of the whole of NI into account.

I would ask Emsworth whether or not it was right to partition the island in 1921 without taking the whole island's will into account. I would also ask if partitioning Ireland in 1921 was valid, why would a re-partition not be valid, allowing majority nationalist areas to unify with th Republic?

Apart from that ,I should say that following the Belfast Agreement and the decommissioning of the PIRA, NI is a much nicer place for both sides. (BTW I would place the unionist-nationalist split as around high 50's-low 40's myself and no party or grouping of any standing has called for indendence in the past 20 years.)

I stand corrected.  Sorry, a girl I know has been to Ireland and she said Birth contrl was illegal.  I agree Ireland is much better than the US with regards to health care and postsecondary education.

[Јas]

I would ask Emsworth whether or not it was right to partition the island in 1921 without taking the whole island's will into account. I would also ask if partitioning Ireland in 1921 was valid, why would a re-partition not be valid, allowing majority nationalist areas to unify with th Republic?

The original partition was not necessarily a good idea. However, the partition is finished, and the decision need not be revisited. What matters is what will occur from now onwards.

I agree with this sentiment, my point was simply that I feel the original partition, even if one believes it to be justifiable in theory as a solution, was not carried out fairly and resulted in great injustice for a large section of the population.

[AuH2O]

The IRA is a marxist group that gained much of its strength from Soviet support during the Cold War. It is similar in many ways to the ANC; the difference between Adams and Mandela is mostly context, whereby in Mandela's case, his opponents simply surrendered for no reason. Adams had to actually do some work to bring about change-- and in his defense, his influence has been at times respectable. Mandela is moderate in comparison to the ANC rank-and-file, but that doesn't make him very moderate.