neal.rey

@IrishLeagueOTD @Glentoran @_footyheritage @amcleanbookies @GallahersBlues @GlentoranFanCam @IFBMedia @Mitchell_GFC @Glentoran_1690 @1882_glentoran Greatest Cup Final goal on film? Who beats it? ⚫️🟢🔴🏆

🚨 Irish League - On This Day 🚨 4 May 1996 @Glentoran win the Irish Cup with a 1-0 over Glenavon at Windsor Park. A fantastic strike from Glen Little was enough to win the game for The Glens

@IrishCentral And in 1970 The Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland officially lifted their ban on Catholics attending Trinity College Dublin.

On this day in 1794, Trinity College Dublin opened its gate to Irish Catholics, a turning point that still took 79 more years to fully equalize. irishcentral.com/roots/history/…

@brenwalsh66 @irelandbattles Lots of evidence if you choose to look for it. Gaelic culture & language arrived circa 600-500 BC supplanting the Bell-Beaker culture. There is no 'Irish' DNA btw, just clusters of similarities with Munster & Ulster prominent and clear Iberian, NW French & West Norwegian origins.

@NealRey @irelandbattles No evidence whatsoever. There was no invasion. Irish DNA set in stone since the Bronze Age. Bell Beaker people with a smattering of Anatolian Neolithic.

#OnThisDay 1169 The Normans landed on Bannow Bay, Wexford. This contingent was led by Robert FitzStephen to reinstate Dermot MacMurrogh to his Leinster kingdom. They quickly took Wexford & when reinforcements came, Waterford & Dublin. The rest is history. #Ireland #History

@brenwalsh66 @irelandbattles Circa 500BCE, pushed the indigenous population to the margins and grafted their culture on top.

@NealRey @irelandbattles Gael’s invasion?

@tsrunseen Should have been much bigger. 'Hollow Heart' was exceptional.

Who remembers Birdland?

@ireland_society "The City Toilet Club"? Am I reading that right?

Arthur Square. Belfast. c1906. Looking towards William Street South on the left and Arthur Street on the right. facebook.com/share/1Am98taL…

@Stadium_Dreams @theballisround @Glentoran @GlentoranFanCam @saveglentoran @3089c786bc2c4d6 @GFCfancast @GlentoranF @GlensUnofficial @GlentoranH @GlentoranL @glentoran_daily Home of the first ever European Champions from the UK. 🏆🔴🟢⚫️1914

🏟 The Oval 📍 Belfast, Northern Ireland 📶 Capacity 26,500 👕 Glentoran 📸 @theballisround

@JohnMar90718642 @BBCNewsNI My family on both parents sides were forced from Leitrim and Donegal. The non-catholic minority was decimated, through intimidation, violence, ostracisation and boycott as the FS slid into quasi-theocracy.

@BBCNewsNI Was it intimidation that drove them out?

One of the most significant demographic shifts in the early years of the Irish Free State was the drop in the country's Protestant population, papers from a 100-year-old census have revealed. bbc.in/4sI6KTx

@SenecaQuote Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) - A powerful death bed meditation on the pursuit of a "proper" life based on societal expectations being hollow and often crass.

What’s one book that stayed with you long after you finished it? Philosophy, fiction, memoir. Which one?

@Glentoran @FBAwayDays Glentoran at Cliftonville tonight

A noise like no other 💚 Bring that energy to the final 3 games, we'll need you every step of the way. #COYGlens

@rory_donaghy @irelandbattles Nationalist myth #26 My family on both parents sides were forced from Leitrim and Donegal. The non-catholic minority was decimated, through intimidation, violence, ostracisation and boycott as the FS slid into theocracy. Home Rule did mean Rome Rule, the unionists were right.

@NealRey @irelandbattles Most of those who fled were English protestants who were administering British rule at the time. Civil servants, administrators, aristocracy ect... They retreated home when Britain pulled out.

#OnThisDay 1922 The Arnon Street Massacre. Six civilians were murdered by the RIC in Belfast. WW1 vet Joe Walsh's head was smashed in with a sledgehammer & his 7 y/o son shot dead (pic). William Spallen (70) who'd buried his wife that day was shot dead. #Ireland #History

@rory_donaghy @irelandbattles In 1920 the non-catholic pop of what became the FS 26 was 12%, in 1922 it was 3%. Prolonged periods of intimidation, violence & boycotts meant 60,000 Protestants fled, most to NI. I guess initiating a violent sectarian insurrection in 1918 was a painful catastrophe for the island

@NealRey @irelandbattles In 1920, 10000 catholics were forced from their jobs in Harland and Wolfe. 1922, thousands of Catholics fled to Dublin, with 30,000 Northern Catholics passing through Dundalk as refugees alone.

@rory_donaghy @irelandbattles And in the weeks before that 40 Protestants in border areas were dragged from their homes & families at gunpoint by the IRA and held hostage. The day before, the IRA (nominally on truce) massacred 4 constables in Clones...and the post-Treaty cycle of violence was initiated.

@NealRey @irelandbattles In the weeks before that the police threw a grenade into a group of children playing in weaver street. When the parents came out to tend to them they were shot. Four little girls and two mothers were murdered.

@Deccx2 @irelandbattles Scant evidence this was a police killing, some witnesses claimed some men were in 'uniform', some were not. No claims were ever substantiated & no prosecutions followed. The OP often presents the received Nationalist view of events unquestioned & without nuance or context.

@NealRey @irelandbattles Igniting reprisals. This was a police force. Why would a police force kill random Catholics

@LeatherPaddy @irelandbattles Context is important, if Collins hadn’t instantly broke the 1921 Treaty & launched the IRA into a sectarian killing spree in NI then the violence & hardening of divisions that followed may have been avoided.

@NealRey @irelandbattles Two wrongs don’t make a right

@FBAwayDays Glentoran Glentoran Cliftonville The Oval

I want to know… 1. Who do you support? 2. Who does your Dad support? 3. Who does your Grandad support? 4. What is the nearest football ground to your house?

@SageDespatches Don’t agree with your every utterance @SageDespatches though always find you an intelligent & interesting poster….but this knocks it outta the park! Bravo sir, very well put 👏👏

Due to the fact that I oppose terrorism, that I state rather obvious facts such as the IRA terrorist campaign failed, and that I think a genuine effort at reconciliation is essential before even attempting a united Ireland, this has a triggering effect on people of the fundamentalist Irish Republican persuasion. For my efforts I have been called such things as "sectarian", a "Loyalist", a "Planter" (who apparently is supposed to "go home") etc etc etc. You get the idea. Needless to say, the abuse doesn't have any impact on me but it's interesting to watch sectarian bigotry in action. The sweeping generalisations, negative stereotyping, the general ignorance about Irish history or at least the embrace of a highly selective and distorted version of it, amongst people who want being Irish to be central to their identity, the foundation upon which everything else is built. Some of them need to be Irish so much that they feel the need to self-identify as "indigenous Irish", which must be some kind of deluxe version of being Irish, perhaps in the same way that you can pay to get faster broadband speed. It's also amusing to be taking flak of that nature from united Ireland fundamentalists, who don't seem to care about reconciliation. I was born in Belfast but part of my family tree is from County Monaghan and that predates partition. I also have relatives on both sides of the border and I have relatives who are Protestant and Catholic. I'm probably more representative of a united Ireland than most of the Sinn Fein voting, IRA supporting, "800 years of oppression" whining muppets who have actually made victimhood central to their identity and self-image, rather than being Irish. Here's a thought. If you have to try that hard to be Irish, to be overtly Irish, to be the most Irish person in the room, maybe that's revealing something about your psychology, your lack of self-confidence, your lack of self-worth, your lack of understanding about who you are, your history and your place in the world. If you are genuinely Irish, comfortable with who and what you are, you don't need to prove it to anyone. It should be self-evident to those around you. You won't need to indulge in tribalism. You won't need to base your identity on supposed differences with people who were born on the same island as you. Based upon the fact that I don't have records of a family tree stretching back several thousand years, I'm quite happy to just roll with being British, Irish and Ulster-Scots, but I'm open to the idea that there might be some Viking or Norman in the mix. I think that covers most of the likely elements of my gene pool. It's all very interesting but none of it determines what I do on a day to day basis. And in closing, dear English people, you are forgiven. Don't worry about it, you were not alive centuries ago when various things happened. Feel to get on with your lives, completely free of guilt.

@BabaYoungblood Feelin'...Way Out...Looking Glass....all class, but the peerless Timeless Melody wins. No more appropriately named song in world history

This weekend sees the 35th anniversary of The La's biggest show: their hometown performance at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre. What's your favourite song by Lee & the lads? My pick: "LOOKING GLASS" 👁