Army

Everything in this post may be wrong.

In the usual way I post this bollocks because I believe it to be right. If it isn't, then no doubt one or both of my readers will post something to that effect, or offer me a penis extension or wonderful, new and exciting investment opportunity. I don't censor anything.

It's about Lord Saville, the IRA, and the British Army.

The reason I'm writing it is because I think some people don't really understand what's happened. Those people might well include me. But it seems that some are up in arms about the IRA receiving an apology from our Prime Minister, David Cameron.

This is how I see it.

Northern Ireland is somewhere I've neither visited nor want to visit. It's full of Irishmen with quite distinct accents. I've met some of them. Some are quite nice, some are quite nasty, and that could be said of almost anywhere, even the office in which I'm sitting, typing this.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Some people there would like it not to be. They are Catholics. There are other people there who want to be British. They are protestants. They share a religion, although the former have an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope as well as some of the other traits of Python's Spanish Inquisition, including fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency.

Sadly, because The United Kingdom doesn't tend to let go of anything it previously stole, the Catholics were on a hiding to nothing. Nobody listened to them. So they decided to go the way of violence, as so often happens in these cases (see Twin Towers for details).

It was partly (and a large part, to boot) the fault of the United Kingdom, as they don't listen, they don't negotiate, and they tend to get all big boy about it. That makes things worse. Because the Catholics don't have their own huge army and matching budget and tanks and stuff, the only choice left open to them was to become covert pains-in-the-arse and, to that end, they formed the Irish Republican Army, or IRA. Secret people, in scary balaclavas, they devised plans to terrorise the United Kingdom. Their trademark was the "kneecapping", a horrendous torture involving a Black and Decker hammer drill (cheaper than a tank and uses less fuel) and masonry bit, applied to the victims knee which would not only be extremely painful but would also cause him (or her, they're not fussy) to walk with a pronounced and painful limp.

To combat this, the brave United Kingdom deployed a bagload of troops, fully kitted out, to the streets of Northern Ireland.

Alongside the IRA an organisation known as Sinn Fein grew. This was the "Political Wing" of the IRA, basically run by some pretty horrible scumbags including Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness and possibly someone called Gerry Mandering, but I'm not sure about that one. Because it would be unseemly for a bloke to turn up to chat to the Northern Ireland Secretary wearing a balaclava and packing a Black and Decker, these scumbags instead wore suits and claimed that they supported the cause and not the violence. Bollocks they didn't.

Now, on Sunday Bloody Sunday, sometime in 1972 (I remember it well though through a haze of Newcastle Brown and Number 6) a demonstration took place. The demonstration was a march of "freedom" by Catholics - nothing wrong with that.

Some members of the Parachute Regiment (Paras) were on hand to see fair play and to route the march somewhere safer than the route intended by the Catholics. They were armed, to the teeth, which in the circumstances was pretty sensible.

These Paras are "well 'ard". They are trained to jump out of aeroplanes and land in some hostile places to sort out shit on behalf of the government. Most of them are Scottish, many of them are thugs, and I have had dealings with them. If I wanted to start a fight I wouldn't choose them to start it against. But, alongside the bravery, these Paras are basically "lads". And they are not out for the sunshine, they're expecting trouble, because that's why they're there.

The shit hit the fan when some pratt started shooting. The pratt in question may or may not have shot at the Paras. He may have done it for a laugh, but very likely he did it to start off the trouble. I've heard a machine-gun. It's a noisy bloody thing, it doesn't sound like it does in the films. And these Paras would have shat themselves when it went off. They may or may not have shot at the gunman. At the end of the day they shot several people, innocent people, unarmed people. Shit happens. If you don't want to get hurt, then don't tempt fate. I wasn't there, but I can imagine what it was like, having been in some pretty nasty scrapes. People like Cold Steel Rain will tell more about this, he will know exactly what it was like.

The people who died can't be brought back. It was a cock-up, and it shouldn't have happened. Since then, relatives and friends of the victims have tried to get what they call "justice". What they really wanted was to nail someone in the Paras, but that's not going to happen. What they were actually yelling yesterday was "innocent". We never thought they were guilty. Nobody did.

And Cameron apologised on behalf of the government, to the victims, their relatives and friends. He did NOT apologise to the IRA - had he done so, I'd be inclined to shoot him myself.

So everybody's as happy as they can be, especially Lord Wotsit who has made himself a tidy living out of producing 5000 pages that nobody will ever read, and spent the fat end of 200 million quid in the process.

There is one unanswered question, though. Who was the pratt with the machine gun? I, and many others, would dearly love to know.