IRA Naivety takes the bloom off Rose

[doubleshiny]

I am generally suspicious of headlines.  I always check quotations, context and tone when I'm told that someone has said something 'outrageous', so when I read on BBC News that actress Rose McGowan had announced that she would have been in the IRA if she was in Belfast in the 1980s I checked out the real sources. The quotations simply said 'My heart bleeds for the cause', which is nothing unusual. American IRA sympathy is something which makes me balk but it's been around for so long that you can hardly still get upset about it.  She was promoting her new film 50 Dead Men Walking, an account of the life of a British intelligence mole who infiltrated the IRA in the 1980s. She plays a 'femme fatale' IRA member, laughably.

Unfortunately, with a little searching I also found this quotation : "I imagine, if I'd grown up in Belfast, I would have 100 percent been in the IRA". (The First Post).

What Ms McGowan doesn't understand is that if she'd have grown up in Belfast she would have 100% have been in danger of having her body parts blown off by the very people who were trying to 'free' her from the clutches of British rule. Let's not beat around the bush here, the IRA (more accurately the Provisional IRA) were terrorists. They killed indiscriminately with bombs and also discriminately with guns. They did not have right on their side because of the British Army's presence in Northern Ireland, and they represented a tiny minority of Irish people.

I have only ever met a couple of Americans who were intent on believing that the IRA were simply brave freedom fighters rising up against an oppressive nation, but they were deluded in the extreme and  very vocal about it. Mickey Rourke gave money to the IRA, some American businesses used to routinely collect for the IRA during the eighties. A relative of mine, an Irishman in the British Army told of his disgust that when ordering in McDonalds in America, he was told to take the money for his meal out of the IRA collecting tin because he had a Dublin accent. That's as offensive as saying "Oh, you're from Iraq? Well, give this money to Saddam with our best wishes". Thankfully the Americans I know are informed enough to know what the IRA did to innocent people in the UK.

Rose McGowan's comments are obscene given the atrocities that took place during the Troubles. Imagine a terrorist group assassinated a relative of George W. Bush, bombed Wall Street and then tried to blow up the hotel where the Republican Convention was being held. Would you expect British celebrities to get away with saying they would have been a part of this? Absolutely not, but the fact is that the IRA assassinated Lord Mountbatten, car bombed Canary Wharf and tried to bomb the Conservative Party Conference and kill Thatcher, and still  money rolled in through Noraid.

Ever wonder why there are no bins in UK train stations? It's because up until 2000 they still had a habit of exploding thanks to the 'freedom fighters' of the IRA. If Rose McGowan's 'heart bleeds for the cause' I wonder whether her heart will bleed after reading this list :

1973 Two of four car bombs explode, killing 1 and injuring 180.

1974 MP Ross McWhirter shot dead in his home.

1974 Bomb explodes on army bus killing 9 soldiers and 3 civilians.

1974 Bomb explodes at the Tower of London killing 1 and injuring 44.

1974 Guildford pub bombing kills 5 and injures 54.

1974 Woolwich pub bombing kills 2 and injures 28.

1974 Birmingham pub bombings kill 21 and injures 162.

1975 Bomb explodes at the London Hilton killing 2 and injuring 63.

1979 MP Airey Neave killed in car bomb outside the Houses of Parliament.

1981 Bomb at Chelsea barracks kills 2 and injures 40.

1981 Bomb disposal officer killed whilst diffusing bomb on Oxford St.

1982 11 soldiers killed and 50 soldiers and civilians injured in bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park parades.

1983 Bomb explodes on December 17th outside Harrods killing 6 and injuring 87.

1984 Brighton hotel hosting the Conservative Party conference bombed. 5 dead and 6 permanently disabled.

1989 Deal barracks bombed, 11 killed.

1991 Bomb kills 1 and injures 38 at Victoria Station, London.

1992 Bomb kills 3 and injures 91 in London.

1992 Sussex Arms pub bombed, one killed, four injured.

1993 Truck bombed at Bishopsgate, one killed, 43 injured.

1993 Warrington city centre bombed, 2 children killed and 53 people injured.

1996 Truck explodes at Canary Wharf, 2 killed 40 injured.

This list is incomplete, and only features fatal attacks in England. If I were to list all of the attacks by the IRA, and those in which people were 'only' injured I'd be here all day.

If Rose McGowan thinks that she would be '100%' happy to be a part of cowardly, indiscriminate violence like this, she's either stupid or evil. I think stupid is the closer option.