There was a chap on the wireless this morning with a thick Northern Irish Protestant accent who was going on and on and on (speaking very slowly, with elaborately flowery language, apparently in the hope of talking-out the interview) about how the £12,000 which is, we are told, to be awarded in each case of bereavement resulting from ‘The Troubles’ is not, repeat not, quite definitely not, ‘compensation’.
He tried a number of alternatives to this distressingly legal term (the payment of ‘compensation’ does rather imply ‘liability’, doesn’t it?), the most absurd of which was ‘recognition payments’, which sounds like something to do with the murky dealings of 1970s trades unions.
A number of points arise from this (notwithstanding the most commonly remarked-upon one about the ethical difference between any of a number of innocent bystanders, Seamus O’Trocitaigh of the IRA, and Michael McArbre of the UVF).
When did ‘The Troubles’ start? Was it in 1968, when the Army was deployed? or in 1920, with the Government of Ireland Act? Was it at the Easter Rising of 1916? Or was it when the once happy (according to their legends, but then what would one expect?) island of Ireland first attracted the attention of the ‘Old Cromwell’? Wikipedia’s first date is 1608, for the Plantation; would this be a better place to start? Will this, in fact, ever be defined at all, or will each case be judged on its political merit?
It is possible to suffer loss or damage from a terrorist campaign (or from a colonial war, depending on one’s view of it all) without being killed; I used to work with a chap who had had a leg blown off by the IRA (at the Ideal Home Exhibition, of all places; he was standing near the dustbin they’d put the bomb in). Does this sort of thing not count at all?
The fellow said that this ‘recognition payment’ idea was supposed to eliminate very costly and time-consuming enquiries. Does this mean that people still making a fuss about their bereavements are being paid (roughly the average compensation for death as the result of industrial accident) merely to shut up, and that no further claims will be entertained?
I don’t take sides on the Irish Question, just as I don’t on the Middle Eastern Question. I’ve been to Northern Ireland a great many times, and every time I’ve been there someone has told me that I ’simply don’t onnerstand the sittyation’. So I probably don’t. But perhaps someone will inform me.
‘When did “The Troubles” start?’
Exactly so…it is adventitous filthy obsession in other words that keeps us all mired in the horror of History — and, the greedy wallowing in atrocity upon atrocity, all in the name of the sufferings of forebears. ‘The’ holocaust, Arial Sharon, Ham Ass, you name the outrage, /all/ are merely so many dirty little excuses, for more thieving and more agony. Drat these universal wretched ‘victims’!
Hmm. I’m quite in favour of History myself, provided that it’s not taken too seriously. 1066, and all that…
King John is sometimes regarded as the most enlightened ruler of Ireland. he left it laregly to itself, backtracking on the adventures of his father Henry II. Go figure!
It does wonder me how ever this crass nonsense about dishing out cash for heartbreak ever got going in the first place? And then it turns into a haggle over the exact amount — a surefire guarantee of even more insults:
‘Twelve thousand of these ‘ere quids it it?’
‘Now THAT’S small beer…,’
‘Like Hell, too bloody HIGH for an Irishman I’m telling you!’
As Navarth, the Mad Poet, said: “It never ends!”
DD: ‘That government is best which governs least.’ [Jefferson]
Emmett: I’m not sure when it started. It makes sense in some circumstances (such as industrial accidents which deprive a family of its breadwinner), but the liable party in such cases is not the government.