Wow, I just managed to waste an entire Sunday! The only productive thing I did all day was go to the Co-op, which barely counts. I guess I was recovering from NAQT yesterday.

Just got off the phone with Sean who's going to Derry next week to do some research. He raised some interesting questions about the Troubles. Is violence ever justified? Yes, of course. We were justified in destroying the Nazis, the IRA was justified in fighting the Black and Tans in the 1920s, people like Nat Turner and John Brown were justified in raising armies to terrorise slave owners. I think we are justified in fighting to protect our own lives or those of others. But this answer leads to a million more questions, none of which I can answer as easily. I can justify the actions of the IRA in the Irish war for independence because I believe in national self-determination. But, by the same token, national self-determination is what led to the partition of Ireland (I know the British manipulated the voting districts, but I'm not really sure that changes the argument), so the PIRA's actions aren't justified by that argument, at least in my mind. I'm ultimately not sure that civil rights abuses are that bad in the north of Ireland today, and I don't believe that violence should be used to redress past wrongs. But I can see that the Troubles have had a generally positive effect on political and economic freedom for Catholics. Without them, I believe there would still be an all-Protestant Parliament at Stormont, that Catholics would hold no high government offices and would be discriminated against in education and employment. The more or less peaceful street marches of the late 1960s (modelled on American civil rights marches) had little practical effect. But-- the ends don't justify the means, right?

Ironic facts of the day: The British soldiers were deployed in the north of Ireland in 1969 to help defend the Catholics against the Protestants, and were originally welcomed by the Catholic community. It wasn't until Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972) when British soldiers fired on unarmed civil rights marchers that most Catholics opposed their presence.
Also, until Cromwell's time, the province of Ulster was the most "Irish" part of the continent. Barons like Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill led successful campaigns against the English from Ulster, even when the rest of the country was basically pacified and Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell also fought the English until 1605.