Blog Round-Up: IRA Decommissioning

The Northern Irish blogosphere lit up yesterday with opinion pieces on the IRA decommissioning. Here’s a quick round-up from some of my favourite reads:

The Unionist Viewpoints

It’s all been a bit of an anti-climax for Beano over on Everything Ulster. However, he believes that power-sharing is almost an inevitability, and ends by suggesting that a better system of power-sharing is needed.

Northern Irish Magyar, Paul, isn’t grateful to the IRA for this “Historic” act. The problem with symbolic decommissioning is that it’s taken so long to become a reality, while in the meantime Republicans have shown themselves to be completely immersed in criminality. He also believes that the majority of Unionists no longer support the Good Friday Agreement and that this needs to be addressed.

David and Andrew on A Tangled Web refuse to be duped. Always inflamatory, ATW - particularly Andrew’s post on Provo Claus - doesn’t say anything new, just a little more harshly. Here’s a snippet:

even taking such a shallow enterprise at its word, there is no IRA permanent disbandment or an end to a criminal empire that now has the potential to stretch from Connolly House to the shores of the Black Sea coast

From The Nationalist Bench

On the Nationalist/Republican side, Chris Gaskin heralds the act of decommissioning, and anticipates confusion in the Unionist ranks when the IRA bogeyman has gone away. In a more sober follow-up post, he acknowledges that whatever happens both communities need to learn to live together:

Republicans need to be sensitive to Unionist fears and mistrust because some of them are legitimate fears

United Irelander has a really funny predictive post about the media frenzy that surrounded the announcement. My favourite bit:

Sir Reg will firstly inform the media who he is and why he’s worth listening to, then he will question the evidence. He will probably ask for time to reflect on what has happened. A common unionist tactic of avoiding acknowledging a positive development.

Saved The Best For Last

Big Ulsterman doesn’t post his thoughts on a daily basis, so the Internet doesn’t own him just yet. However, his posts are very well considered and he hammers his point home in a few simple paragraphs. Unlike me

In his first post on the situation, he explains why there is no applause for the IRA, while advocating that a future partnership between traditions must be sought out to our mutual advantage. In a later post, he questions the credibility of the de Chastelain statement and accuses the General of being a student at the Dawson Bailie School of Media Management.

Many of these articles have lively discussions in their comment sections, definitely worth checking them out!