Royal row could damage relations

[Bilk]

bearhunter said:

Because unionism is an automatic negation of nationalist aspirations that's why.
And I reached my braod sweeping conclusion from watching years upon years of rioting, protest, striking and general uproar whenever Unionism's protected status was challenged, so it's based on observation.

And nationalists/republicans stood bye peaceably while these marauding unionists were doing all this I suppose. They (the unionists/loyalists) were, in their idiotic stupidity sometimes, defending what they perceived to be a right, which the aforementioned were doing their damnedest to take away from them. The fact that they (nationalists/republicans) appeared to be succeding in doing that by the very means you accuse unionists off doesn't seem ironic to you, somone I thought a right thinking person.

[earl]

wasp said:

Earl on another thred you stated'Yes WASP, Swallow the lies that the BT spreads. I seen the President talking about this last night on the news. They had the full interview on it, and I can tell you that she's been mis-quoted.

She had stated that the idea of a Queens Dublin visit would be the icing on the cake for devolution, and that the governments were the ones who had really come to this decision about the queen's visit.

the president does as she's told by the government. That's just common sense. Mary has little input in this decision. T

Quote:
And the DUP's Stephen Moutray said it seemed almost every statement by Mrs McAleese actively sought "to antagonise the unionist population."

Looks like unionists winding themselves up again to me. Do Unionists not understand that the decision of when the queen visits is not even a decision the queen can make, nevermind the president! The governments decide when she visits, and all Mary can do is repeat what she's been told. Some common sense please!!'

Now take a look at part of an article below please.

With the Irish government having confirmed to the News Letter that its policy is for a royal visit not to take place until policing and justice powers are devolved to Stormont, Sir Reg questioned simply why this politicisation of the visit is necessary.

In an editorial on Friday, one of the Republic's influential daily newspapers said "the only u
nusual aspect of a visit to the Republic by Queen Elizabeth II, mooted this week after her meeting in Belfast with President McAleese, is that it has not happened yet".

It also warned the Irish government that it is making "the whole issue far more fraught than it needs to be" by still delaying on a visit six years after Mrs McAleese first made an informal invitation to the Queen.

I was basing that on the interview I had seen with the President. I didn't get the impression that it was a precondition, and still don't. A precondition to who? The impression I got from the interview was one of the whole peace process being executed and rehearsed like some extravagant play, and that this would be some meaningful and symbolic final act. Reg is just fishing for votes.

[bearhunter]

Right, let me try again. Firstly, I am not condoning riotous violent behaviouor by any side. OK?
Secondly, Unionist "outrage" over the president's rmearks is a massive overreaction to someone who is simply stating Government policy. Why should Reg feel offended by the policies of what he himself sees as a foreign country. And why reach for the outrage button when his own party have made statements that people in the Republic could feel offended at over the years and it has never bothered him? Is it only offensive if it is something Unionism disagrees with? And I know the counter-argument to this: a dose of whataboutery involving bleats of "Oh but Nationalists/Republicans are always getting offended over this or that...", but that is not the issue here. My issue is why exactly Reg finds the statement of government policy offensive.

[Wasp]

Maybe Reg is and if so I don't care. That is not the point.

[Bilk]

bearhunter said:

Right, let me try again. Firstly, I am not condoning riotous violent behaviouor by any side. OK?
Secondly, Unionist "outrage" over the president's rmearks is a massive overreaction to someone who is simply stating Government policy. Why should Reg feel offended by the policies of what he himself sees as a foreign country. And why reach for the outrage button when his own party have made statements that people in the Republic could feel offended at over the years and it has never bothered him? Is it only offensive if it is something Unionism disagrees with? And I know the counter-argument to this: a dose of whataboutery involving bleats of "Oh but Nationalists/Republicans are always getting offended over this or that...", but that is not the issue here. My issue is why exactly Reg finds the statement of government policy offensive.

No you are not going to get a dose of whataboutery from me BH. If I quote ver batum what people have done in the past, I try to be very careful and make sure there re no skeletons lurking in my own cupboards, because if I don't, I can expect to get whataboutery.
My point in this whole issue is that both, Mary McAleese and the queen are, or at least should be, above politics. You will not hear the queen spouting politics of any kind. What she thinks she keeps to herself politically. The Irish goverment should recognise that and treat her accordingly. They should not drag a head of state into our seedy political arguments, or try to gain political capital from the visit of a head of state from another country. Or if they do it should be done in private not in the media for full public view. Can you imagine the outcry there would be if say the chinese head of state where to pay a public visit to Ireland. And the prsident and government of Ireland were to make their views on human rights in china so public an issue.
All this would never happen with any other head of state, the celtic tiger would lose it's ability to growl if it did. It was a blatant attemp to push the republican cause and nothing else, that is why it's offensive.