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PICS: Dimock Proud - fracking and community in Pennsylvania

Photographer Sean Breithaupt travelled to Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania and spoke to people who have had their lives impacted by fracking.

DIMOCK TOWNSHIP IN Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, is a rural town at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

With a population of 1,497 at the last census in 2010, its rolling hills and expansive fields are home to many farmers, and people who enjoy the lifestyle that living in a remote area offers. In the early 2000s, companies began to approach homeowners there to see if they could undertake hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on their land.

This controversial drilling procedure is aimed at extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Formation, sedimentary rock across parts of North America. The limestone layers under the Marcellus have trapped natural gas reserves in the rock, and hydraulic fracturing literally involves creating fractures in it using a pressurised fluid.

The resulting fractures can encourage gas and petroleum to move to reservoir rocks, and the hope with fracking is that countries can use this instead of fuel from other countries, thereby saving money and encouraging local industry.

Dimock Township

From 2009, some residents of Dimock Township began complaining that fracking on their land had caused issues with their water. In May of this year, water treatments were placed in some homes, and methane and arsenic was found, Reuters reported at the time.

The EPA tested water at 61 homes in Dimock, and in early May said that the results their sampling showed did not give them a reason to take further action. America's Environmental Protection Agency issued the first national air pollution regulations for fracking in April 2012. In 2005, fracking was exempted by the American Congress from the Safe Water Drinking Act.

Dublin-based photographer Sean Breithaupt found out about fracking last year and decided to go to Dimock to find out more. While there, he met with community members who spoke - some on condition of anonymity - to him about their experiences.

The money paid to people who allow fracking on their land is not small - thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be of huge benefit to householders for paying off mortgages and keeping up farm work.

In Dimock, water from the Susquehana river is used during fracking, with 16 per cent of its supply allocated to the industry and each site using 14 million litres per day. Some locals say the drilling and the flare which is used to burn off the gas cause noise pollution. A number of those Breithaupt spoke to said that the fracking had changed their lives, and not for the better - but that they had neighbours who were perfectly happy with how things had worked out for them.

Fracking has created jobs and industry in the township, and for some people, fracking is patriotic; for others it is a way to earn money. A 2010 documentary, Gasland, focused on the stories of some people who had experienced fracking on or near their land, including in Dimock county, and many of the issues raised are also seen in the interviews with the people Breithaupt met.

Fracking taking place at night. (Video: Sean Breithaupt)

Larissa

Speaking to Breithaupt, Larissa said that her family had had to sell their cows from their dairy farm due to the effect of the water on their health after fracking took place on their land. She claimed that high barium levels led to a drop in milk production.

Larissa said that the first landowners the gas companies went to reach out to were farmers, particularly the dairy farmers, as they owned most of the land and were in the most financial trouble.

She said that farmers have had their land leased out for natural gas drilling several times over last 100 years, and nothing ever came of it before, so they assumed this time it would be similar. "We did not realise that drilling actually would happen," she said.

Her family let the company use 550 acres of their land for $50 an acre. Her family do not have water filters for their drinking water, but other families were offered this, she said. They have been drinking bottled water ever since, but their cows drank unfiltered well water, and she said milk production decreased after they began drinking it.

Larissa's mother has taken complaints to the EPA. The family want to get out of their current lease and re-sign it with water protection, but so far this has not worked out.

This is not a bad industry. the problem with it though is that most of people they’re dealing with don’t know what they’re getting into; don’t know what to look for.

Often, when people signed their leases they didn't know to ask about water protection, air noise quality and other aspects of fracking, said Larissa. "This industry makes a lot of money, they have the ability to do things properly," she said. For her, it is not a black and white issue.

I believe we’ve got to make them do it the right way, we’ve got to make them do it properly, and when they screw up they've got to pay for it properly.

For her, fracking has the opportunity to be of financial help to a lot of struggling communities - but it shouldn’t be "at the cost of these communities".

Rebecca

Rebecca told Breithaupt that she and her husband received notices asking would they give the go-ahead for fracking on their land in 2004, and went on to sign a lease in 2006 with a company. She says they were told there would only be drilling for a short period of time, and is unhappy with how the arrangement worked out.

Roter says she has seen fracking impact on the local community. "I think this was an insulated static community that hadn’t had a lot of change. You didn’t have to lock your door. I felt so safe." She said there was low crime, and not much traffic, and now that has changed. There are a lot of transient workers, and the crime rate has also gone up.

"If you have people who aren't vested in this community then they are willing to sacrifice it," she said, adding that she and others had commissioned community-designed billboards on the issue that were not put up in the local area.

She said that the noise from the flaring at night during frackong "is unbelievable". "All these kinds of things break down unspoken contracts of civility in the community," she said.

Bret and Susan

Bret's water supply contains such a cocktail of chemicals that it has been cut off, and he has a separate water buffalo - filled by a local charity - to provide his family with water to shower. The gas company originally supplied that water but stopped.

He cannot sell his house, while the local swimming spot nearby bubbles with methane.

Another homeowner, Susan, also has problems with her water, and told Breithaupt she had experienced elevated barium in her water supply.

Below are photos that Breithaupt took while in Dimock, showing the many different sides to the townland, including fracking sites. While there, he took portraits of some of the locals on their land, as well as sites which have been marked for fracking, indicated with a row of bunting, and those on which fracking is taking place - such as near a graveyard.

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Read: Natural gas field in west Clare confirmed as prospective fracking site>

Read: EPA fracking study reveals potential impact on groundwater and earthquakes>

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36 Comments
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    Mute Brian Hunt
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:07 PM

    Maybe peer pressure, but I suspect a bit of the old culture is still there!

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    Mute Vincent Alexander
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:21 PM

    @Brian Hunt: That’s the attitude that will keep the country divided.

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    Mute J B
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:13 PM

    @Vincent Alexander: good

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    Mute sean weir
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    Feb 12th 2025, 4:14 AM

    @John Murphy: so are you saying over half the population of the 6 counties don’t work ???
    You don’t half talk a load of old bollocks

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    Mute sean weir
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    Feb 12th 2025, 4:15 AM

    @J B: why is it good pray tell???

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    Mute qffaffaf affrafrfraf
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:09 PM

    No surprise, tis full of prods and run by prods, and is beholden to the Brit government

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    Mute Vincent Alexander
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:24 PM

    @qffaffaf affrafrfraf: Reply was to qff****. That’s the attitude that will keep the country divided.

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    Mute Jay Kay
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:45 PM

    @qffaffaf affrafrfraf: There’s only one way to change that.

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    Mute Tim Brennan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:30 PM

    @qffaffaf affrafrfraf: Belfast Army Council is more attractive to the shinners.

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    Mute sean weir
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    Feb 12th 2025, 4:17 AM

    @Tim Brennan: are the shinners in the room with you now ?
    You thick bollocks

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    Mute Be Lucky
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:31 PM

    Why didn’t the UK give NI back to Ireland in the 1960s it gave many countries back.

    It should of also been a condition to join the EU in the 70s.

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    Mute Tommy
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:18 PM

    There needs to be All Island police force and justice system that can enter both jurisdictions without being told “we’re approaching the Irish invisible line” as crime doesn’t stop here at this invisible line, it gets worse.

    The GFA/BA should have included this in 1998 that we would have a united front on these Departmental issues from Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Justice and Law Reform Enforcement, Transport and Sport, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Health

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    Mute Ger Whelan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:02 PM

    @Tommy: Eh no thanks. Regardless of what you think Ireland isn’t a country it’s an island. An island with 2 separate countries which means 2 separate police forces. Let’s keep it that way thanks

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    Mute Lulu
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:15 PM

    @Ger Whelan: Northen Ireland isn’t a country, just 6 counties of the 9 counties province of Ulster.

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    Mute Ger Whelan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:23 PM

    @Lulu: Northern is indeed a country. 1 island 2 countries on the island

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    Mute sean weir
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    Feb 12th 2025, 4:19 AM

    @Ger Whelan: feck me ,thank god you weren’t around in 1916,you would have ran to help the Tans

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 12th 2025, 12:13 AM

    does anybody else think the journal releases very (and i hate to use the word) triggering articles in the late hours of the eve to get the comments section going…? lol .. the journal staff are on the ball I have to say..

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    Mute Uí Braonáin
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:28 PM

    Public Relation nonsense. The RUC trying to convince us that they’re interested in native recruits while today they’re still fighting tooth and nail in the courts so the families of victims that were killed by Loyalist paras, British army and themselves don’t get the information they deserve.

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    Mute sean weir
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    Feb 12th 2025, 4:24 AM

    @Uí Braonáin: PSNI not RUC,but yes you are correct,the organisation itself is completely corrupt,it was set up to properly up the British state and that is all it has ever done ,which makes it all the more astonishing that the top 2 jobs in the Garda are held by two ex RUC .

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    Mute Isla Carabine
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:19 PM

    Colour me seacht

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    Mute Robert Halvey
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:32 PM

    15 years of tory government, The assembly not sitting for years and the grubby deal done between the Dup and the tories has stagnated any really change up north

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    Mute Vincent Hickey
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:41 PM

    Who would want to join that inbred bigoted organisation who couloided with loyalist terrorists in the murder of innocent nationalists civilians. It is a cesspool of vipers

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    Mute J B
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:44 PM

    Had to relocate up to brookbourgh just outside Enniskillen for 10 mths from south,,returned south last June. I couldn’t get back fast enough. Minute heard accent some literally turned heel . Once a month orange lodge doors down had parade passing my bungalow on road,, literally death stares at me looking out window. My Southern reg vehicle was constantly gobbed on. Enniskillen town itself was better but still had my moments. The hatred is well and truly alive above unfortunately.

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    Mute Gerry Ryan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:02 PM

    @J B: That place is so bad that even many on the nationalist side could have gobbed on the car, many of them hold the southern Catholics a very close second to their Unionist neighbours in the hate stakes. The whole place is a cess pit.

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:51 PM

    @J B: Seems like you have some hatred yourself . Sure there’s no hate from people in the 26 counties towards people in the North is their .

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    Mute Oweke 68
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:59 PM

    @J B: when you call Ireland. The south and keep.saying southern reg no wonder you get funn y looks . You moved from the republic and had an Irish reg. Get it right.

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    Mute J B
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:11 PM

    @Jack Moss: nope,,grew up almost in Portadown during 80′s/90′s as older brother married girl from there. He lived above 18 years during troubles. Seen hatred then esp at checkpoints returning up from south at hands of British soldiers on my brother and mother so know exactly what went on. I just taught maybe it had changed since but f me I was wrong. Hatred is very much alive and their blood runs orange.

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    Mute J B
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:13 PM

    @Oweke 68: your typing is horrendous.

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    Mute Oh Mammy
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:48 PM

    No way!

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    Mute Jack
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:51 PM

    Maybe they should adopt the approach. We have down here by giving loads of public senior jobs to people from Northern Ireland essentially forcing forcing the move towards 32 counties. If the chief of police was from the 26 counties and he was Catholic that might encourage more Catholics in the north to join

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    Mute Caoimhghin Phelan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:30 PM

    More targets the RUC have missed I see :-)

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    Mute Dan The Man
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    Feb 11th 2025, 8:09 PM

    I’d image it’s police work in general that is off putting not anyone’s religion. Not for half a million a year would I do it. Give me a handy gig typing scutter in a cozy office anyday with weekends and big holidays off all the time.

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:16 PM

    Why would you . In 40 yrs time when you’re an OAP the relatives of terrorists and criminals will be hiring solicitors to have you prosecuted for doing your job . Apparently the IRA were soldiers fighting a war but when one of their soldiers was killed by the security forces then it was murdered . Your easy pray for the compo generation and their army of solicitors and the government won’t back you up .

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:00 PM

    @Jack Moss: start from the start jack.. the British island of Scotland Wales and England is basically across the water from Ireland.. its different country completely …. so one has to think wtf are you lot even doing in Ireland? did the irish invite the British army over to murder the Irish and take their land?

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 12th 2025, 12:37 AM

    @Stiles: The British army was form up on both islands . The Irish were the British army . The armies history goes back about 350 yrs . There was 21 Irish infantry regiments based in Ireland . Many of them were older than English regiments. The problem with Irish people today is that they can’t accept who they were in history .

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 12th 2025, 1:56 AM

    @Jack Moss: so we invaded ourselves and then starved a million of ourselves. thanks Jack. I’ll update the books on the morn . FO..

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:58 PM

    I served with the RUC when I was a soldier in NI . Very professional people . 56 people were killed by the RUC during the 26 yrs of the troubles . 44 Catholics 9 Protestants 3 not from NI . It clearly shows their respect for human life in the conditions they had to operate in . The IRA murdered over 300 Catholics .

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    Mute Uí Braonáin
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:20 PM

    @Jack Moss: Considering the RUC was made up of Loyalist paras I’d also like to thank you and them for your respect for some human lives.

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:20 PM

    @Jack Moss: and how many innocent irish died by the hand of the British government.. let’s make it easy for you and round the famine of at a million.. how many counties wud we have in the Republic today is it wasn’t for the irish people fighting back.. they’re wudnt be a republic ..it wud just be another part of the colonial kingdom … you can’t simplify the actions of the IRA without context..

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    Mute Tim Brennan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:31 PM

    @Stiles: Rubbish get over yourselves

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:46 PM

    @Tim Brennan: I only stated facts Timothy .. difficult as you might find it to accept them.. I’d ask you to read a history book not written in England… same for Jack above.. believe it believe not, the British government didn’t send their army over to our island to help us, as I’ve read in British history books.. jokers trying to rewrite history.. GFY ..

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:02 PM

    @Stiles: The majority of people that died in the famine died from contagious diseases. Smallpox , Cholera, Fever and Dysentery were the big four killers . 10 yrs after the famine Ireland was one of the first countries to get the Smallpox vaccine . Everyone was vaccinated free of charge . It was the first vaccine that was giving to the world and Ireland was one of the first countries to get the vaccine . The 32 counties came about between the 13th and 17th centuries. Wicklow was the last county in 1608 . There has never been an independent 32 county country called Ireland . Ireland only became one Irish nation in what is the UK today .

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    Mute Fergus Peter Smyth
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:27 PM

    @Jack Moss: lies and propaganda. While there was never a 32 county United ireland there was an independent Irish kingdom loosely under the control of a high king, who was at least nominally the king of Ireland.

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:32 PM

    @Jack Moss: oh yeah now I have it… the fact that the British regime withheld irish food taken from irish farmlands (that the British had taken over by force) and sent same food back to Britain had nothing to do with the million starving irish people that died during the famine.. hmm yeah ok. ? ya prk… Jack FO…

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    Mute Stiles
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    Feb 11th 2025, 11:43 PM

    @Stiles: Jack’s bs just shows how easy it is to rewrite history,.. he’s just spouting what he’s been taught/and read… like I said English history books are completely different than ours.. Jack’s incorrect condensending replies are the very reason most country’s despise English Tuesdays.. but in reality its not their fault. it’s what they’ve been taught..

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 12th 2025, 12:40 AM

    @Fergus Peter Smyth: Ireland was not one country before the Norman conquest of 1169 . It was split up into 5 provinces that were broken up into 150 kingdoms that was knocking the shite out of each other . No 32 counties or one Irish nation . Ireland has only ever existed as one Irish nation in what is the UK today . The ROI that exists today is a breakaway state of the UK that form its own government and became an independent sovereign nation for the first time in the history of the island of Ireland.

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 12th 2025, 2:11 AM

    @Stiles: Actually I was educated in a Christian brothers school in N Dublin .

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    Mute Alan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:21 PM

    No Catholics join. Then complain it’s all Protestant lol

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    Mute Tim Brennan
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    Feb 11th 2025, 10:29 PM

    The shinners need to get off the fence and encourage nationalists to join

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    Mute John Kenny
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    Feb 11th 2025, 9:41 PM

    We can send them up Muslims Arabs all sorts down here

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    Mute Whichsideruon Saoirse
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    Feb 12th 2025, 5:48 AM

    The Six-County state is abnormal, undemocratic and deeply sectarian, no amount of window dressing will change that fact. Changing the name and the cap badge does not change the nature of what is a colonial police force

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Feb 12th 2025, 8:24 AM

    @Whichsideruon Saoirse: The 26 counties was a 98 percent Roman Catholic state govern by republican parties . Northern Ireland is a shared state made up of Catholics and Protestants . Its political system is made up of unionist and nationalist political parties . You sure you got it right about which part of Ireland is sectarian.

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    Mute Thesaltyurchin
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    Feb 12th 2025, 9:40 AM

    Religion is a crackpot. No surprise here.

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    Mute K H
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    Feb 12th 2025, 8:09 AM

    North of Ireland actually…apparently Trump wants to own it and turn it into the Riviera of Ireland . Clown

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