Sinn Fein had the IRA. The Republican Party has their own "IRA" (militias, ProudBoys, Boogalloo, etc.)

@Really Not to take shot at your grandfather but there are have been some very well meaning people who thought they were genuinely saving the world and making it a better place while at the same time justifying some of the most horrific actions imaginable. rudyard kipling comes to mind.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I doubt that my granddad would have consciously condoned killing or cruelty; but many Protestant folk genuinely feared that Catholicism (with its big no-birth-control families and with practices he - and I - would find unacceptable) could be intent on becoming a majority and taking over. Bear in mind it wasn't all that many generations earlier that there had been real bloody wars on the British mainland, over religious choice. What was happening in Ireland would do nothing to quiet any fears. I think people like grandpa likely saw the Orange Order as a bulwark; a demonstration of staunch Protestant solidarity rather than a potential militia. Some others on both sides were street thugs glad of an excuse to bash at each other.

Oh, Rudyard Kipling - not a pacifist by any means! Some stirring martial verse. If you were a navy man wouldn't you love
'[i]The strength of twice three thousand horse that serve the one command[/i]'.
Yet he wrote what became the Boy Scouts hymn; patriotic yes but with lines like

[i]'Teach me delight in simple things,
and mirth that has no bitter strings'[/i]

A hypocrite or just a complex human, born of his time?

@Really I don't disagree. But "the greater good" is how people have been able to ignore atrocities as "enemy propaganda" or as a "necessary evil". And if you know the history of the order it was very much a religious crusade organization. People forget the protestant side started with Dutch and Scots religious fanatics and mercenaries and the British crown very much used the religious extremism for their own geopolitical goals. I think a modern equivalent would be the US trying to us Bin Laden to screw with the Soviets to advance US foreign policy. Now I am not trying to blame Protestant Irish for actions in the 1600s but that is the events that created a mess that has gone on for generations.

In NI the Order also marches with the UDA and other so called loyalist militias so there is no illusions there to my mind of what it was about.

And I brought up Kipling on purpose. He was tied both to Scouting which I benefited from a child but he is also the same man who White Man's Burden and supported military officers responsible for massacres in India.

Honestly I think in all of the cases here it is not about hypocrisy but the level to which indoctrination can drive a person to justify horrible things.

I remember in the 90s reading an article that suggested that a part of what led to the end of the Troubles was the internet. For the first time really in forever people from both sides saw that people in other countries coexist just fine and done kill each other in the street over what church you attend.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow [quote][i].... the level to which indoctrination can drive a person to justify horrible things[/i][/quote]

A good point. I look back on my youth, my then-encultured intolerance & nationalistic jingoism with embarrassment. Besides being amazed now, that my thinking could change so much over a lifeteime, I often wonder what factors determine whether a person either succumbs to indoctrination & bad example, or rebels against it. I don't mean as a result of growth by life experience, but by conscious decision in early adulthood. Generally alcoholics are said to produce alcoholic children but I had relatives whose father was a roaring drunk and they grew up absolute abstainers.