Only to have someone worse to come along in her place. That’s what happens anytime there’s a martyred leader. Don’t get me wrong though. I had a few drinks to celebrate when she died, as I’m sure many Irish and British people did. However, if she had been killed, we would probably still be waking up to news headlines of bombs in the North each week, having watchtowers and checkpoints still at the border, a few more Omaghs perhaps, and probably even harsher policies than the Witch herself had put into force.

The peace process, as we can now see owing to the declassified papers, was almost derailed by the bombing. If she had been killed, the process would have been entirely destroyed. On top of that, Thatcher would have become a martyr in the eyes of a huge chunk of British voters. The next election would have resulted in a large radical vote to the Tories, or worse even.

Just like how now, Le Front National in France is gaining because of recent attacks. People see France under threat, therefore they feel they must vote for the radical party to feel protected. In the 1980s, British people saw their country as under attack from Irish terrorists. Killing off the Prime Minister would just have made things a whole lot worse, both politically and in day-to-day life for the Irish in Britain in general.

The IRA never assassinated Paisley, despite his endless incendiary rants because that would make him a martyr.

Were they not concerned about making Thatcher a martyr, if the bomb had “succeeded?

Yes those are my sentiments exactly. She is an amazing woman and is doing something I certainly couldn’t do

I wonder would he have gone back and disarm the bomb if thatcher had cancel her plans of staying in the hotel .

There was nothing in NI on par with South Africa, if you want to criticise Stormont then by all means do so but try and put a bit of honesty in your statements.

The south wasn’t exactly a utopia for protestants either after partition, their religion was constantly marginalised and hindered by the Catholic Church. They were murdered and forced of their land by republicans during the war of independence and civil war. If you are going to tell a story then tell it in its entirety.

And the PIRA were fighting to restore Irish national sovereignty across 32 counties, in other words “Brits out” and a full implementation of a socialist Irish Republic. That objective failed. If their original aim was to take their seats in Stormont and Leinster house (two parliaments they deemed illegal) then I’ll happily admit that they won, that wasn’t the case though.

When all this madness was taking place up here too the majority of Irish nationalists voted for the moderate SDLP so that gives an insight into the support the IRA and SF had, it only grew as a party after the guns were taken out of the equation, the PUL side was the same too, and political party aligned with terrorists got very little support, even the hardline DUP only gained more support when they decided to go the power sharing route along with SF. What’s in there now are two extremist parties that couldn’t agree on the colour of s****, they want their big share of the spoils but also want to live in the past. That’s why the peace process to date has been a farce.

Mary Lou was in nappies when that bomb went off.

Her Fuher wasn’t.

What is Gerry Adams bloodlines B-Egan?

It is quite hypocritical that the original IRA General Collins, Cosgrove our first taoiseach, De Valera etc are Irelands eternal hero’s and those soldiers who were screwed by the treaty and forced into a gerrymandering sectarian state and continued to fight are deemed something else by people who by pure luck found themselves on the right side of a invisible line.
Every person in Ireland should ask themselves what if it was they who woke to find themselves on the wrong side of undemocratic line plucked out if the air and at the mercy of a bunch of sectarian bigots. Food for thought.

IRA are gone too and no United Ireland, I know unionists are usually too stubborn to admit it but they should be happy enough with the outcome of the conflict. The British army were only here because of republican violence, all republicans had to do was cease it they really wanted the troops out. Hardly rocket science is it.

Aye it was that easy,catholics went the peaceful route remember?and when they did they were shot by the paras,what kicked off the troubles?bombay street,catholics being burnt out of their homes,the republic setting up refugee camps etc,its an unfortunate pill to swallow, violence may not have achieved the united ireland fought for,but it certainly got the british to the table,brute force is all they understand,collins fought them the exact same way,politics were never going to cut it with the brits

Except to the sales of HB ice cream and Chivers jelly ;)

Things like this give him and the IRA a degree of credibility when it’s no way deserved, the victims are the only ones deserving of credibility but more often than not they are classed as being lower than those than made them victims to begin with. It’s a funny old world sometimes.

the IRA’s degree of credibility comes from its victory against one of the biggest, richest and dirtiest armies in the world.

No one went into the ballot box with them. They didn’t have to vote but they freely did. A vote doesn’t come with conditions attached.

The idea of election pacts are to maximise the vote for a certain candidate, the unionists do it too in order to try and beat SF, the UUP and DUP will let a Unionist independent stand instead of their own candidates, it takes the split out of the Unionist vote, same happened with Sands. It happens in elections all over the world.