Des Bishop
speaker
287 appearances
5 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2024
last heard 3 Jun
Des Bishop’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
to get the peace process over the line, to sign the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, right? And part of that Good Friday Agreement was the sense of that we all have to accept that there has been horrible things that have happened throughout the process, and we need to try to find a way forward.
And then when they took the case against Jerry Adams over Gene McConville and the missing because of the Boston tapes, which is its own controversy in itself, but without even getting into the recordings, the fact that they decided to go after him for that specifically was so dangerous because it's like, oh, so how come we're not relitigating
almost all of the past except for this one thing and this guy happens to be the guy that's the head of Sinn Fein and they're getting powerful in the Republic of Ireland because at that time Sinn Fein was really starting to get powerful in the south as well as in the north you know like why is it just we go after him and again I know Jerry Adams but I am no great defender I've never understood why he keeps denying that he's in the IRA I think it's really just a fuck you I'm never going to admit it now but like everybody everybody knows that he was you know like yeah
That part's not even that controversial because everyone knows that he was, but he just does that for whatever reason and that's fine. But why that one was okay to relitigate, but not all the other ones. And that's so dangerous because you have a situation where peace is so delicate.
Because everyone's pissed off. Everybody has grievance. On every side of the community, there is grievance.
but now you're going to allow one grievance to surface because you can actually just bring everybody's grievances back in and then we're back to square one so I thought that was a bit irresponsible the court case that happens late in the series say nothing however what I will say is that it's an exceptionally good series about the worst part of the troubles and you'd be hard pressed
To criticize anything from like the first five or six episodes. And it's very intense. Yes. Watching the suffering of Dolores Price and her sister. And it's very intense watching them have to do things that in hindsight are fucked up. Fucked up. Fucked up. And a lot of it's fucked up.
I mean, the bomb is fucked up, you know, but like, but they don't feel bad about the bomb, you know, but anyway, like, you know, it's, it's a great series. Just the last two episodes are, are, are, I have a big reconcile.
I have a big problem with them and I'll, I did a bit of research on it and like the people behind the Boston tapes, particularly Ed Maloney, you know, he's written a lot of different histories of the IRA, but he was very against the, And he was very against Jerry Adams. And here's the thing.
It really makes it seem like there was a divide down the middle of people that didn't want the peace process, people that didn't. That's not a fair reflection. It doesn't even mention Martin McGinnis, who's Jerry Adams' partner in all this, who's like, he was... like officially the leader of the Derry Brigade of the IRA. He wasn't hiding that he was a leader of the IRA.
He's not even mentioned in the whole thing. So it's not even like good history because to really go at Jerry Adams, and a lot of people don't like Jerry Adams. I'm sure there was a lot of people that were delighted with the way that Jerry Adams was tarnished there. But like... They go after Jerry. They don't even mention Martin McGinnis as also part of the peace process part.
Not the Gene McConville part, but the peace process part. Like Martin McGinnis is like front and center on all that. So the last two episodes. Yeah. Yeah, the last two episodes are like a little bit agenda driven. But honestly, the first six, I would say, is one of the better shows about the troubles.
Sure, as most things.
That's not what's happening in the North. The truth is that the North is about truth and reconciliation. It's not about unsolved crimes. So it becomes a series about an unsolved mystery. I don't disagree with you. It's a story vehicle. In real terms, that's not what's going on. everybody knows that Jerry Adams denies being in the IRA.
When they say that he's denying being in the IRA, it makes it seem like he's saying he wasn't involved in this shit. Like, we all know he was involved in this shit.
Yeah.
But it's a horrible 30 years for nothing. You know, like, that's actually, it's an interesting sort of loop back to what we were talking about before, is that like people take for granted, civil society holding. People in Ireland, even the north of Ireland. Ireland's had quite a violent history, but in the 1950s in the north, there was sectarianism. There was bad shit being done to Catholics.
It wasn't an equal society. But even amidst like the fight for civil rights that actually was the precursor to the Troubles, nobody could have imagined that this would lead to 30 years of violence, like 30 years of instability, of people being moved out of their houses. Nobody could have imagined that.
And nobody could imagine that still to this day, the city is divided, like there's literally a peace wall. And that's what I think sometimes when people are just so... haphazard with antagonistic language. And then our leaders are haphazard with antagonistic language. It's like, it can break down. It's not as, it's not as solid as you think it is. Exactly.
Well, actually, can I just, since we're talking about watching stuff, if you actually want to watch a movie about the hunger strikes, you know, because the 12 IRA men, you know, died. Yeah. But it's called Hunger. Michael Fassbender plays Bobby Sands. He was the first guy to die in a hunger strike. And it's very good, very intense.
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