THE JOURNALIST AND THE EDITOR: A ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE STORY
Posted by Jim on February 6, 2015
A Belfast Telegraph article by Ruth Dudley Edwards mocked Americans for their support of Ireland’s struggle for freedom. Her ire was principally aimed at Martin Galvin, a Bronx based attorney selected as an Aide to the Grand Marshal of the 2015 NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He was for decades Publicity Director of the Irish Northern Aid Committee and a former Editor of the IRISH PEOPLE newspaper. Ms. Edwards depicts herself as a journalist, satirist, free-lance writer and historian. However, when the subject is her native Ireland she is a British apologist, a character assassin and a propagandist. She is badly informed on Northern Ireland.
I worked alongside Martin for many years exposing Britain’s corrupt and violent legacy in N. I. Ms. Edwards sees Galvin and “stupid NORAID people” as arrogant Americans who had some cheek interfering with Britain’s internal colonial affairs. Like some fossil aristocrat from a DOWNTON ABBEY episode, she longed for the days when internment, censorship, the police and the British Army could keep Catholics in their place in the North.
She claimed NORAID peddled “hate filled propaganda” but offered no examples. The loyalists were taught to hate Catholics. The best example of how well they were taught was the daily attacks in 2001 on primary school girls at Holy Cross School in North Belfast. It’s only parallel in America would be the white supremacists of Alabama taunting and injuring black students seeking an education. She has little to say of those like Rev. George Seawright who called for the incineration of Catholics or the daily and violent intimidation of Catholics in the workplace. Loyalists, she insists, are the real ‘victims.’
Rages Edwards: Who was Martin Galvin to appear at a peaceful protest in Belfast after Her Majesty’s Government had banned him? A violent police rush through the seated crowd to stop Galvin resulted in the unlawful and unjustified killing of Sean Downes. She glibly excuses his death as justified by a loyalist judge. Instead of relying on press releases, she really should read LETHAL ALLIES by Ann Cadwallader, the de Silva report of the murder of attorney Patrick Finucane, or British police reports by John Stalker and Sir John Stevens all of which document the lawless, corrupt and murderous actions of the police and British Army. Galvin did.
She cites Martin’s support of dissidents opposed to the 1998 “Good Friday” pact as encouraging those who months after planted a bomb in Omagh killing 29 civilians. Edwards neglects to mention that British police and MI-5 knew the target and tracked the bombers but chose to do nothing to stop the slaughter. You see it wasn’t only dissident Republicans who had doubts about the Agreement. So did MI-5 and the Royal Ulster Constabulary who had the most to lose if peace came to the North. In 1974 the British Army operatives delivered and detonated car bombs in the shopping centers of Dublin and Monaghan in the largest mass murder ever in Ireland. Britain hides behind the Official Secrets Act and refuses to disclose details of these ‘ bookend’ bombings which framed the conflict. Mums the word from Ruth Dudley Edwards!
This conflict would still be raging were it not for American voices like Martin Galvin’s opposing U. S. arms for the lawless RUC, supporting the MacBride Fair Employment Principles, advocating for a visa for Gerry Adams, protesting prisoner treatment, demanding an end to internment and, yes, raising questions about the ‘reformed’ RUC and the malevolent forces still covering up the legacy of British misrule.
Most American and Irish citizens, and I would add, most British Subjects, know little of Britain’s ham fisted rule in Ulster. It is that swamp of ignorance in which she thrives and which Galvin sought to eliminate. His gritty determination, personal sacrifice and courage are what makes America great. It will one day rid Ireland of those who have divided the people of Ireland and still work to postpone reconciliation and peace.
Michael J. Cummings