Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army/Archive 3

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 → Archive 10

I have no problem with using "manslaughter". You'll have to find something else to look forward to.

Lapsed Pacifist 14:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


How strange, why do you object to the word "murder". Was the intent not to kill anyone? in which case why didn't they warn the authorities? Paul Weaver 21:03, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


It's an interesting point. You could develop it to include the thousands of children throughout Europe killed by bombs in the 40's. Unless you think it makes it easier on the parents if the bomb falls from a plane.

Lapsed Pacifist 21:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you could very well do, unless you belive that war is lawful

Paul Weaver 22:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

    • the notion that it could be developed to describe the deaths of children killed in wars is clearly ridiculous, civilians were not deliberately targeted, and bomber crews are members of bona-fide national armed forces jamesgibbon 20:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Whew! If there's one thing I've learnt about Ireland/Northern Ireland/the struggle/the war call it what you will, it's that pedantry rules! More than that, it (pedantry) seems to be used at every available opportunity in order to bring any progress to a halt. My point? First off, I admit to knowing nothing about the situation. I've no axe to grind. My views are that I guess I kind of think that all or Ireland should probably be all of Ireland and not divided into two. I also feel that planting a bomb in a pub and killing a score of people is, however you might like to cut it, murder. (I'm sure if I were to do the same thing, I'd be put on trial for murder and not manslaughter). Anyway.. my point. I think the article is OK. It doesn't show bias to anyone (like me) who is more or less ignorant of the whole thing. Neither paints the IRA in a better or worse light. And isn't that supposed to be the point of this talk? To decide if the article is bias or not? Well, I say not. --Marcus22 13:39, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

At the top of this discussion section is the sentence 'Involved in the killing of two children'. I would say that using 'killed', 'killing' or 'kill' would be a true NPOV. In some ways, using 'manslaughter' or 'murder' is.. unneccesary? Do you see my point? If you look at using 'kill' and its forms first, and THEN look at how manslaughter and murder work in the same sentence and context - I'd say that 'kill' is much less likely to introduce implications, slants or tone of writing unsuitable to an encyclopaedia. I'm just thinking of the following points:

1) We have a implication of accepting a judgement that some unmentioned judiciary body having already classified it as 'manslaughter' or 'murder', upon using these terms. Unfortunately the terms will always carry the judiciary implementation of meaning with them. Is it neccessary to add this layer of meaning, however unintentional? If not, I'd say that 'kill' is accurate enough.

2) I believe much of the discussion here essentially revolves around implied justificiation of the killings, against and for. I would say that the moment 'murder' or 'manslaughter' is used, to maintain accuracy we'd have to include who calls it murder and who calls it manslaughter. In other words, if we're not interested in including this level of detail, 'kill' is perfectly functional and accurate.

The problem is that some words will always carry emotion, will carry layers and tones. I'd say that in general Wikipedia should strive to help eliminate this layer of nonexplicit meaning by standardising some words. I'd say kill, killing and killed is one set of them; 'murder' and 'manslaughter' would, for accuracy of truth , always need the above information alongside. 155.69.4.223 08:38, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that "kill" is the only accurate, NPOV word. Murder is a value judgment. Some people think abortion is murder, some don't. Obviously the Provos did not recognize the British courts and considered themselves to be the true "state" army of Ireland fighting a justified (legal) war. Obviously the British courts did not recognize PIRA as legitimate, as they tried and convicted those responsible of "murder," "manslaughter," etc. That's why political status for prisoners was such a controversial issue, and why it was a demand in the blanket protest and hunger strikes. This is probably what needs to be written in the article. Not to explain that "group A thinks X, and group B thinks Y" would be POV, regardless of how crazy X or Y might be. Yes, this means "alternate versions of reality," as below. Otherwise we'll be left with an article that's nothing more than "those murdering bastards don't want to be called murdering bastards" which is accurate enough for some newspapers but not objective by intelligent standards.

I quote from above:

"The IRA is the military force of a country. It is the military force of Ireland. It was the military force of Ireland in the last nationwide election held, the second Dail. Thus in not only a national sense, but a democratic sense, they are the only legitimate army of Ireland. They are also the only army which has been engaged in trying to extricate foreign Anglo-Saxon armies from the soil of Ireland."

It needs to be clearer that this is the alternate version of reality in which Sinn Féin/IRA live. Imagine if a terrorist group in the UK called itself the "British Army"?

You don't get it, you can't brand anything 'crazy' or make it sound like people live in their own world, thats OPINION. There is NO way to prove with FACT that the IRA are not the army of what they consider Ireland, because there is no all Ireland government. The UK govt can say they are 'terrorists' the govt of the repub. of Ireland can call them 'terrorists' but based on what they consider Ireland, that means nothing. Imagine a country that is made up of two provinces, a and b they have some sort of a 2 level government a federal govt and two provincial govts, the federal govt says that some group is there official army, but then this federal govt goes on vacation for the summer, then the governments of a and b decide that the same group is not the army of their country, but they obviously cannot make that decision, its the same thing.

This latest statement should worry people, as one wonders what is in store if SF/IRA think they can acheive their aims entirely by the ballot (worrying enough that over 10% of voters in the Republic voted for them despite their not recognising the legitimacy of the Republic of Ireland anymore than the British rule in the North of the country).

zoney ♣ talk 17:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)