'if lynch had of invaded' (35)

This interests me greatly, the unanswered question is what if?
and i think if lynch had of crossed the border his men would have been slaughtered, I am a republican but there is no question about it the british army is 1 of the best armies in the world next to the americans of course, My father can tell me in great detail that lynch gathered his troops at the adelphi cinema in dundalk to plan the invasion but it was a very wise decision to call it off, it would have been a pointless exercise and target practice for the brits, We irish or should i say the IRA perfected guerrilla warfare and this was a far more successful tactic than a blatant invasion

You're correct in what you said...Today Ireland would be very different not only politically or economically..but also the geography would be very differnt..Like I said in a pervious post..Ireland, today would be a 32 democratic socialist republic.

Derry, Fermanagh, Tyrone and South Armagh could have been held with out a great deal of efford. As for Belfast it would have ended up more like Berlin than the patchwork quilt it is today.

During the early days of the troubles both the OIRA and the PIRA 'held out'...Not by using modern warfare...even they knew that was futile. But employing the tactics they did, they where able to defend catholic-nationalist areas very successfully...When the small catholic enclave The Short Strand came under attack Biily Mckee and a handfull of PIRA men stopped the area from being razed to the ground...In the Ardoyne armed with only a couple of Lee Enfields 303's and a shot gun they (PIRA) kept hundreds of loyalist and gunmen a bay by firing one shot down 'interface' streets to give the impression they were more heavily armed than they were.

Getting back to the border regions...It was proven that the British Army couldn't stop or control what was going on...

I'll try to put into some sort of context...Just how many British army personnel are stationed in Afganistan today???? or Iraq???

For Operation Motor man there was something like 22,000 armed soilders, UDR, RUC used to gain control of the 'no go' nationalist areas....

If Jacko went a head with his planned invasion..today the border wouldn't exist..

And I agree with Charlie when he said the North is a failed political entity...The only way it will be sorted is when the country is one not split.......

Wolfe Tone

"To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, that was my aim"......

The answer lies somewhere in the above....

Simple today there would be a 32 county socialist demorcratic republic...Instead we have a country seperated by a gerrymandered border...





The British army is pound for pound the best trained army in the world..The Americans have more military hardware....





What was so successful about the armed campaign employed by the provisional republican movement????

What was it they said..Not a bullet, not an ounce.... or hey'll never accept or sit in Stormount not to mention the countless number of innocent people killed...or How they (PIRA/PSF) allowed themselves to be infiltrated by the British...

SO what was so successful about the Ballot box in one hand and an Armilite in the other strategy????

I fail to see it....

PIRA were not stupid, they new full well that an open battle with british would be a pointless exercise, all I`m saying is they perfected guerrilla warfare particularly in South Armagh, for years Brit armed forces were forced to travel by chinook because patrolling the roads was too dangerous. In that regard it was successful because they couldnt police the area effectively

right guys lets look at it rationally! if the free state army had of invaded yes it would of been a bloodbath! but what this programme didnt point out was the fact that the brits wouldnt have just being fighting the free state army, they would have also encountered the I.R.A. and the nationalist people of the north in one unbeliveable violent rebellion! so if the brits for all their superior air support had bombed civilians as well as irish soldiers! then the international opinion would have been different than what the program invisaged! so in other words it just might have been the catalyst for an all irish republic! but still were going into the realms of imagination! we'll never know for sure!

But hasn't it always been so in the history of Irish republicianism...the minority always expel the majority...The provisional movement ended with the signing of the GFA...it carried on for a few years...And wern't the provisional the extremist end of the officials....



There would have been a lot of dead people..but didn't that happen anyway with out the invasion..And maybe if Jack invaded the border wouldn't be there today..

deiseboy, go and re-read what you posted...because if you leave out the words the free state army...thats what happened in the North..The British encountered the IRA and the ire of the nationalish community in what has been the longest uprising every in the histroy of Irish Republicianism...while the 26 countys stood by and paid lip service...bit like now...



Not really they (british) didn't bomb the north and south (Dublin/monaghan '74)...by air but by employing loyalist terror squads to do their work for them...but they bombed Ireland...

The main (one of ) reason as to why international opinion never got to here about a lot of what was going on is because the British controlled the media...Read like I said before the book on Counter insurgency my Frank Kitson...

yep! sorry should have explained myself a bit better! in the program they were talking about bombing the irish positions from the air to demorilise the irish troops and kill what was left in one big ground offensive!thats what a british army officer said they would have done in the event of an invasion from the south!