[FuckingRotter]

Would things have changed in Northern Ireland without the Provisional IRA? We can only speculate. However, we can look to South Africa, Eastern Europe, even southern states of the USA for clues. There, movements that used varying degrees of lawful and unlawful protest, violence, were all suppressed, but in the end won through.

It wasn't just Irish nationalists that wanted change in Ulster.

Taking your comment about Derry, South Armagh and West Belfast. You are probably aware that these weren't the only no-go areas for police during the 1980s and 90s. Whilst there may well have been hostility towards British rule and military presence in those places, does that actually translate to support for terror and violence? Did the people who wanted troops out of Northern Ireland also automatically support knee-cappings, beatings, murder and bombing?

Did the people of places like Brixton, Tottenham, Toxteth, North East Bristol, that feared and loathed the police, also support drug dealers and other criminals that made it almost impossible for the law to operate in such places?

If you ask me, for decades, between the man them and the terrorists and criminals, people in many of our poorest inner city areas were pretty fucking stitched up. If they were allowed to say what they really thought without fear of getting the shit kicked out of them or worse, they would probably have been as happy to see the IRA and yardie gangs fuck of as they would the army and police.