Thatcher suggested 'Cromwell solution' for Northern Ireland

[DonViejo]

From The Guardian Saturday 16 June 2001 02.04 BST

Thatcher suggested 'Cromwell solution' for Northern Ireland

A year after Brighton bombing, PM saw mass shift of Catholics from Ulster to Irish Republic as a way to end the Troubles

Special report: Northern Ireland

Margaret Thatcher horrified her advisers when she recommended that the government should revive the memory of Oliver Cromwell - dubbed the butcher of Ireland - and encourage tens of thousands of Catholics to leave Ulster for the south.

A year after she was nearly killed in the IRA's 1984 Brighton bomb, the then prime minister expressed dismay at Catholic opposition to British rule when they could follow the example of ancestors who were evicted from Ulster at the barrel of a Cromwellian gun in the 17th century.

Lady Thatcher's extraordinary solution to the Troubles has been disclosed by her advisers at the time of the negotiations on the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement.

Sir David Goodall, then a diplomat who was one of the most senior British officials negotiating with the Irish government, told a BBC four-part documentary, Endgame in Ireland, that Lady Thatcher made the "outrageous" proposal during a late night conversation at Chequers.

"She said, if the northern [Catholic] population want to be in the south, well why don't they move over there? After all, there was a big movement of population in Ireland, wasn't there?

"Nobody could think what it was. So finally I said, are you talking about Cromwell, prime minister? She said, that's right, Cromwell."

more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jun/16/northernireland.catholicism

[bemildred]

1. Perhaps they could re-introduce the potato blight as another way to diminish the "problem". nt

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. But the potato blight actually causedmigration and with it

a large percentage of people of Irish descent living outside of Ireland.

[bemildred]

6. I'm one of them. nt

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. Same here, but I am also a dual citizen.

Sixth generation American on one side. Second generation Irish American on the other.

[bemildred]

8. Similar here.

My Daddy was born in Glasgow. My Mom goes way back, mongrel Celtic, with a healthy dose of Scandinavia. I like the English except when they are Lording it over their subject peoples.

[leveymg]

2. Modern term for Cromwell Solution = "ethnic cleansing" (genocide). What did Obama say about her?

President Obama hails Thatcher as "great champion of freedom."
Source: The Guardian

Barack Obama led tributes from the United States to the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, whose death on Friday led to an outpouring of remembrances that went well beyond normal courtesies.

Obama described Thatcher as "one of the great champions of freedom and liberty" and a true friend to the US. Former president George HW Bush and the Republican House speaker John Boehner also paid generous tributes.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-dies-tributes-obama

[bemildred]

9. The British Empire was quite fond of such solutions.

Partitions and population movements I mean, Cyprus, India, Ireland, to name a few, and all sorts of indigeous peoples were moved around.

Thatcher was a champion of the British Class System is what she was, the Empire's last blather.

[leveymg]

10. America, of course, embodies the spirit, legacy and methods of such Cromwellian solutions.

Last edited Tue Apr 9, 2013, 02:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Just ask those who were here before, and what we continue to do around the world.



RESPONSE TO POST:
Thatcher suggested 'Cromwell solution' for Northern Ireland
From The Guardian Saturday 16 June 2001 02.04 BST

Thatcher suggested 'Cromwell solution' for Northern Ireland

A year after Brighton bombing, PM saw mass shift of Catholics from Ulster to Irish Republic as a way to end the Troubles

Special report: Northern Ireland

Margaret Thatcher horrified her advisers when she recommended that the government should revive the memory of Oliver Cromwell - dubbed the butcher of Ireland - and encourage tens of thousands of Catholics to leave Ulster for the south.

A year after she was nearly killed in the IRA's 1984 Brighton bomb, the then prime minister expressed dismay at Catholic opposition to British rule when they could follow the example of ancestors who were evicted from Ulster at the barrel of a Cromwellian gun in the 17th century.

[bemildred]

12. Indeed we do. May I suggest a book?

http://www.amazon.com/Cousins-Wars-Religion-Politics-Anglo-America/dp/0465013708

Relates Cromwell, the American Independence War, and the Civil war in a very illuminating way. We are the most successful of all the British overseas colonial efforts, and we are still very fond of their methods.

[leveymg]

11. The British were at their best when they traded Empire for Beatles.

Last edited Tue Apr 9, 2013, 12:43 PM - Edit history (1)

I think Britain's greatest time was when they were actively giving up their Colonies and military hold over the Commonwealth, and realizing the benefits. That period reached its height in the 1960s. Exit Oliver Cromwell and Queen Victoria, enter John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

It was also a time that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency actively meddled in the political and electoral processes in the United Kingdom and several Commonwealth Countries, particularly Australia, in efforts to remove and replace certain Labour leaders and governments perceived to be too Left-wing and hospitable to rapproachement with the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc.

Aside from a brief reflowering in the mid-1990s, all that has followed has simply been reversal of fortune and further decline into morbid decadence.

So it seems to be going for America, as well.

[life long demo]

3. The more we learn about Thatcher the more we

dislike her. <I'm being kind here.

[idwiyo]

4. Hey, she is "one of the great champions of freedom and liberty" according to Obama.

Cromwell solution for NI is not that much different than Salvador Option for Iraq, and you don't see Obama denouncing or prosecuting anyone for implementing that, do you?

Now, edit your OP to something more fitting, like "Maggie was The Greatest! YAY!"

[Nye Bevan]

13. She spearheaded and signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement

which paved the way for the peace that Ireland enjoys today.

I hate to think how George W Bush would have responded to the Irish situation.