Talk:Billy Fox (politician)

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[edit] Circumstances surrounding murder

The article states that "On 12 March 1974, while visiting the home of his fiancé in rural county Monaghan, he accidently stumbled across an IRA arms dump and was shot dead." I recall reading in an article in Magill that the IRA raided his fiancé's home because they suspected that her family were storing weapons for the UDA or the UVF. They didn't find any weapons stored there, but shot Billy Fox as he approached the house. I don't have that article handy (or access to back issues of Magill or newspapers from this period) so I won't make any edits in case my memory is faulty. Can somebody who has access to reliable sources of information check this? Additionally, after this is checked, this part of the article should be reworded to make it clear that he was killed by the IRA.(posted by M.Lane 30 March 2006)

You are correct. There was no IRA arms dump. 13 IRA men lay in wait for him to visit his girlfriend. The IRA falsly claimed that George Coulson (his girlfriend's father) was a quartermaster for the UVF. The IRA burned the house and the mobile home. ClemMcGann 09:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Death

He was killed by the Official IRA, not the provisionals.--padraig3uk 13:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

And who says? Tim Pat Coogan? Padraig3uk, a wealth of evidence points to the perpetrators of this killing. I've provided references which are far more authoratative than Tim Pat, who let's remind ourselves, is a journalist and not a historian. If you want more references on the killing of Billy Fox, they can be provided.
There are also other factors which would discount the Official IRA theory, namely:
1. While it did not mean it stood its units down completely, the Official IRA called a ceasefire in 1972; the Fox killing occured in 1974.
2. The people convicted of killing Billy Fox were all associated with the Provisional movement. There have been very few cases of Officials convicted of particular crimes later going over to the Provisionals and vice versa. An Phoblacht, which championed the release of those involved in the killing of Billy Fox, has never been in the business of supporting Official IRA prisoners.
Your reliance on one author and utter disregard for more authoritative sources reminds me of a previous episode where you tried to convince others that the Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland) was called the "National Party of Northern Ireland" (see [Talk:Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)]. Again, this spurious claim was based on the claim of one book, and stood in contrast to the actual version of the name the party used as well as every other book on NI politics.
On the basis of that incident and this current one, methings you need to read around a bit and tone down the Provo-revisionism on this site and elsewhere.--Damac 20:23, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Seamus Costello was killed in 1977 by the Official IRA are you saying they didn't do that either. As for your comment on the Nationalist party, I have since found another source that refers to them as the Nationalist Party of Northern Ireland, but that is a different issue to Billy Fox. If the Provos killed him as you claim then provide a source where they have claimed that they did.--padraig3uk 20:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

This article fails WP:NPOV by a mile. A reliable source (Tim Pat Coogan) states that he was killed by the Official IRA.

From WP:NPOV

The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions.

Specific issues with the article:

  • "until he was killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in March 1974" in the lead - gives undue weight to the sources that say he was killed by the Provos.
  • "though some dissenting analysts" - I refer you to "pejoratively". Who has claimed TPC is a "dissenting analyst"? That sounds awfully like someone putting their own opinion into the article.
  • "widely considered to be the authoritative source" - more opinion. Combined with describing TPC as a "dissenting analyst" is a serious breach of NPOV.
  • Republican News link - proves nothing. What was to stop him swapping his allegiance to the Provos after he escaped in 1974? It's a tenuous link at best, but worth a mention in some form.

My proposed solution is to say which sources say what in non-perjorative language, and let the reader draw their own conclusion. Anything else is POV. One Night In Hackney303 21:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Another aspect of this is the fact that Fox knew several leading members of the provisional IRA leadership with whom he had met on several occassions, and he was very vocal about cross border intrusions by British Army patrols and undercover British units. So he hardly fitted the bill as a target for the IRA.--padraig 22:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Based on the above contrabutions, I would agree with ONIH proposel. --Domer48 (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Most sources just state he was killed by the IRA they don't specifiy either the provisionals or the officials. The provisionals also made statements saying that they had no involvement, in fact it was one of the local leaders of the provos that reported the shooting to the Gardai believing in was a cross border intrusion by either Loyalists or uncover British security forces.--Padraig (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)