Attempted assasination of the queen of England

[gf0012-aust]

I don't understand the support a terrorist organisation like the IRA has in places like Australia and Boston..

I've never heard of the IRA having support in Oz - and I'm on the starboard side of middle age... :)

The Republican agenda has only had currency recently, and I'd say generally speaking most people certainly up until recent times saw the queen as ok (or they were ambivalent) - in fact right up until the mid 90's the pro monarchists would have outweighed the republicans by some margin...

[tankie]

I think we're suffering from a loss in translation here or are you getting snippy??

I'm aware that it was HM and that it was 40 years ago. My point was that if they wanted an easy hit on the royal family in Oz (over the years - not just then), then a hit on charles and di in the early 80's was a much easier thing to achieve.

I was on relief in Pt Pirie when they did their tour - I remember there being bugger all security and thinking how easy it would have been to knock them off.

as for the Lithgow event, the claimant is stating that some of his claims can be supported by the police station logs. NSW Police have already indicated that from their perspective, because it was 40 years ago, its a non event.

The claim is that someone placed a log on the track to derail her train.
1) the line had a cow catcher sweeper go through hours before and there was nothing on it
2) it was a remote piece of area - implying that access was easier for those with intent
3) that because it was an uphill gradient, the train was going slow enough to nudge it along - and hence not fast enough to go bang and derail
4) that the loc was an area that if the train had derailed then it would have gone over the cliff and everyone would have perished

thats what I know :)

No mate not snippy , vodka,d up maybe , i have edited my last post ,appols ;)

[GraniteForge]

Damn Australian IRA sympathisers.

I don't understand the support a terrorist organisation like the IRA has in places like Australia and Boston.

How would the Australians, Bostonians or other Western people like it if the British sympathised with Al Qaeda?

There are a lot of Irish pubs in the Boston area, staffed in large part by illegals from Ireland. They usually offer a pretty nice atmosphere, full of friendly people and, usually, some decent food. I don't wear my politics on my sleeve, and if smiling, raising a glass, and singing along gets me free pints, or some private time with a pretty young barmaid, then I am happy to join in a chorus of "Come Out You Black and Tans," or "The Men Behind the Wire." Yes, there are some true supporters in the area, but many just want to feel some superficial camraderie over an issue of which they are only dimly aware.

The same is true of Al Qaeda. Most people in the area have only the vaguest awareness of the existence of such a group, and are misty on the details of the whole topic. They are concerned with the local sports teams, the Mayor, the weather, how the economy is affecting the mutual fund industry, and where Whitey Bulger is hiding. And, being a bastion of the Left, there are many in Boston who feel that AQ is just misunderstood, a champion of the downtrodden standing up to the bullying of the Great Satan.

So, you shouldn't read too much into such reports of support, or let it bother you. Its mostly smoke rather than substance.

[tankie]

This is the first time I have ever heard of such an attempt. Would you have any information about the other attempts?

I heard that their is always at least two Met Police Royalty Protection Branch officers with H&K MP5 submachine guns outside her bedroom door every night. I would imagine the security for the Royal Family approaches the level of our US Secret Service and that it would be pretty hard to knock them off.

You would think so wouldnt you , please read this Chris , this is not an attempt to kill her but it shows up scary security issues,google, intruder at the palace , for more stories like this one :)


Intruder Enters Queen Elizabeth's Bedroom

Early on Friday morning, July 9, 1982, Queen Elizabeth II woke to find a strange man sitting at the end of her bed. The man, dressed in jeans and a dirty T-shirt, was cradling a broken ashtray and dripping blood onto the royal linens from a lacerated hand.

The Queen kept calm and picked up the phone from her bedside table. She asked the operator at the palace switchboard to summon the police. Though the operator did pass the message to the police, the police didn't respond.

Some reports say the intruder, 31-year-old Michael Fagan, had planned to commit suicide in the Queen's bedroom but decided it wasn't "a nice thing to do" once he was there.1 He wanted to talk about love but the Queen changed the subject to family matters. Fagan's mother later said, "He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems."2 Fagan thought it a coincidence that he and the Queen both had four children.

The Queen attempted to summon a chambermaid by pressing a button, but no one came. The Queen and Fagan continued to talk. When Fagan asked for a cigarette, the Queen again called the palace switchboard. Still no one responded.

After the Queen had spent ten minutes with the mentally disturbed, bleeding intruder, a chambermaid entered the Queen's quarters and exclaimed, "Bloody hell, ma'am! What's he doing in there?" The chambermaid then ran out and woke up a footman who then seized the intruder. The police arrived twelve minutes after the Queen's first call.

How did he get in there?

This wasn't the first time that protection of the royal monarch had been found lacking, but it had supposedly been increased since the 1981 attack on the Queen (a man fired six blanks at her during the Trooping the Color ceremony). Yet Michael Fagan basically walked into Buckingham Palace - twice. Only a month before, Fagan had stolen a $6 bottle of wine from the palace.

Around 6 a.m., Fagan climbed the 14-foot-high wall - topped with spikes and barbed-wire - on the southeast side of the palace. Though an off-duty policeman saw Fagan climbing the wall, by the time he had alerted palace guards, Fagan could not be found. Fagan then walked along the south side of the palace and then along the west side. There, he found an open window and climbed in.

Fagan had entered a room housing King George V's $20 million stamp collection. Since the door to the interior of the palace was locked, Fagan went back outside through the window. An alarm had been set off both as Fagan entered and exited the Stamp Room through the window, but the policeman at the police sub-station (on palace grounds) assumed the alarm was malfunctioning and turned it off - twice.

Fagan then went back as he had come, along the west side of the palace, and then continuing along the south side (past his point of entry), and then along the east side. Here, he climbed up a drainpipe, pulled back some wire (meant to keep pigeons away) and climbed into Vice Admiral Sir Peter Ashmore's office (the man responsible for the Queen's security).

Fagan then walked down the hallway, looking at paintings and into rooms. Along his way, he picked up a glass ashtray and broke it, cutting his hand. He passed a palace housekeeper who said "good morning" and only a few minutes later he walked into the Queen's bedroom.

Normally, an armed policeman stands guard outside the Queen's door at night. When his shift is over at 6 a.m., he is replaced with an unarmed footman. At this particular time, the footman was out walking the Queen's corgis (dogs).

When the public learned of this incident, they were outraged at the lapse of security around their Queen. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher personally apologized to the Queen and measures were immediately taken to strengthen palace security

[GraniteForge]

tankie,

Here I am responding to your deleted post:

I have only seen that being done in a pub once, in person, and it was just theater for the media that was there. Once the cameras left, it became clear that virtually no money had really been collected, and what little had truly been donated was going to be consumed locally in "administration."

The suspicion I developed over time was that there were actually only a tiny number of large contributors, wealthy individuals yes, but possibly also corporations, or even foreign governments, and that all the "fund raising" you saw in the news was actually a front for laundering those few large payments.

[tankie]

tankie,

Here I am responding to your deleted post:

I have only seen that being done in a pub once, in person, and it was just theater for the media that was there. Once the cameras left, it became clear that virtually no money had really been collected, and what little had truly been donated was going to be consumed locally in "administration."

The suspicion I developed over time was that there were actually only a tiny number of large contributors, wealthy individuals yes, but possibly also corporations, or even foreign governments, and that all the "fund raising" you saw in the news was actually a front for laundering those few large payments.

Ok mate , thanks for that , i deleted it as i didnt want to stir up old flames ;)

[captain]

I've never heard of the IRA having support in Oz - and I'm on the starboard side of middle age... :)

Don't I recall some auto weapons found in the hands of the IRA about twenty years ago, that had been sourced in Australia...Owens I think!
Could have been supplied just to make a buck though I suppose.

The Republican agenda has only had currency recently, and I'd say generally speaking most people certainly up until recent times saw the queen as ok (or they were ambivalent) - in fact right up until the mid 90's the pro monarchists would have outweighed the republicans by some margin...

Heaven forbid we should have to go through the republic debate again, but I would have some doubts about it getting up in round 2.
Ambivalence and, a healthy mistrust of the motives of the republicans may see the shamozzle fail again.

As hard as I try, I can't see how my life would suddenly become better if we became a republic tommorrow.

Cheers.

[GraniteForge]

Ok mate , thanks for that , i deleted it as i didnt want to stir up old flames ;)

Fair enough, but I don't think the anger was unjustified. I just wanted to let you know that my impression was that I was watching a choreographed show, not what was purported to be taking place.

I'm just glad that whole thing seems to be over. Too many good people were made casualties, and -- the part that pisses me off the most -- too many bastards got rich off of other peoples' misery.

[tankie]

I'm just glad that whole thing seems to be over. Too many good people were made casualties, and -- the part that pisses me off the most -- too many bastards got rich off of other peoples' misery.

Agreed there..

[Red Seven]

Damn Australian IRA sympathisers.

I don't understand the support a terrorist organisation like the IRA has in places like Australia and Boston.

How would the Australians, Bostonians or other Western people like it if the British sympathised with Al Qaeda?

I never could understand the homage some of my fellow Americans use to pay to Che, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, either, but I just chalked it up to ignorance and a desire to appear rebellious.

There were some quiet IRA fundraising efforts going on in Boston after Bloody Sunday in Derry in '72. But that was then...over these intervening years I think most Americans of Irish descent have come to see the IRA in it's true colors, as a band of thugs and killers.

[ChrisF202]

tankie,

Here I am responding to your deleted post:

I have only seen that being done in a pub once, in person, and it was just theater for the media that was there. Once the cameras left, it became clear that virtually no money had really been collected, and what little had truly been donated was going to be consumed locally in "administration."

The suspicion I developed over time was that there were actually only a tiny number of large contributors, wealthy individuals yes, but possibly also corporations, or even foreign governments, and that all the "fund raising" you saw in the news was actually a front for laundering those few large payments.

I have heard rumors that back in the 1970s and 80s that several local bars would donate an amount of their proceeds to the IRA. Supposedly the FBI got involved at one point but I don't know the outcome of their investigation. Many bars here on Long Island are run by "Irish-Americans" (I dislike hyphenation) and like Boston, we have a significant population of illegal immigrants from Ireland who work in the restaurant and bar industry especially out on the East End in the Hamptons during the summer months.

[gf0012-aust]

Don't I recall some auto weapons found in the hands of the IRA about twenty years ago, that had been sourced in Australia...Owens I think!
Could have been supplied just to make a buck though I suppose.

20 years ago the IRA was "buying to order" - I would have thought Owens might have been on the "give us anything you have " list 40 years ago - but not 20.

Either way, I can't recall the IRA having any visible sympathisers in Oz - in the 70's to current time I would have bet that if anyone knew they would have been shopped pretty quickly.

The most violent irishman I ever saw was one who got molly the monk with a dutchman at the local and they were both carrying on about coming to Oz to get away from royal families.....

Heaven forbid we should have to go through the republic debate again, but I would have some doubts about it getting up in round 2.
Ambivalence and, a healthy mistrust of the motives of the republicans may see the shamozzle fail again.

As hard as I try, I can't see how my life would suddenly become better if we became a republic tommorrow.

Cheers.

WOFTAM. It'll sort out when it's ready.

[captain]

20 years ago the IRA was "buying to order" - I would have thought Owens might have been on the "give us anything you have " list 40 years ago - but not 20.

Yeh you are probably right about the "40 years" . Gawd I didn't realise I was getting that old so damn soon.

The only reference I can find to it now is a book called "The dirty war" by Martin Dillon where he interviewed IRA cammander Brendan Hughes.
Hughes was apparently hiding explosives and weapons in flats in middle class prodestant suburbs and was particularly keen that the authorities did not find one cache that contained an Australian machine gun that could have been traced back to the supplier and thereby jepardising further shipments.

Other than that, a 4 corners program seems to stick in my mind.

No big deal anymore anyway.:)

The most violent irishman I ever saw was one who got molly the monk with a dutchman at the local and they were both carrying on about coming to Oz to get away from royal families.....

Your obviously a very talented fella if you could understand a word of what they were saying unless of course you were John Bull along with them witch does tend to help the communication process sometimes.;)

WOFTAM. It'll sort out when it's ready.

Zactly.

Cheers.

[gf0012-aust]

Your obviously a very talented fella if you could understand a word of what they were saying unless of course you were John Bull along with them witch does tend to help the communication process sometimes.;)

when you're molly things either sound inciteful - or like absolute crap. :)

[Speedy]

A log across the tracks??

Sounds like a kids prank to me.