The Mater Hospital on Eccles Street in Dublin opened its doors in 1861. Since then it has been powered by the kindness of the people of Ireland… caring people like you and your great, great grandparents…
The Mater Hospital MATER HOSPITAL FOUNDATION
James Sullivan shares the fascinating history of the Mater Hospital in Dublin and how the compassion that was the driving force behind this story continues today through the Mater Hospital Foundation…
Will you step back in time with me for a moment? I want to share the story of Ireland’s Mater Hospital, and how it’s been powered by kindness like yours right from the very start…
Put yourself in the crowd gathered on Eccles Street in Dublin, on a chilly late September morning in 1861.
It’s the aftermath of the Famine…
….thousands of families fleeing hunger have been forced into tenement slums.
….the death rate in Dublin is the highest in all of Europe.
Choosing the people and causes you want to remember with a special gift is a matter for your heart alone.
And, of course, your family is your first concern.
But after your loved ones are taken care of, a gift of just 1% or 2% of your estate to the Mater Hospital Foundation would see your love and compassion — the most beautiful and essential parts of yourself — live on within our centuries-old walls for hundreds of years to come.
It’s hard for us to imagine now just what the opening of the Mater Hospital meant to our great, great grandparents.
You see, before the Mater, there was hardly a person in Ireland with access to healthcare…
And if you were poor you had no chance. Were you or your child to get sick, your chances of survival were thin. It was as simple and brutal as that.
And it was that very injustice that Sister Catherine McAuley made it her mission to fight all those years ago. The Mater threw its doors open to all. It would be a hospital for the people.
Our hospital. Yours and mine. And nobody suffering would be denied care, no matter what. And although the modern Mater Hospital today looks very different to how it did in 1861…
…There remains one constant.
Because it was generous, resilient, and principled people like yourself who gave what little money they had so their hospital could endure for their children and grandchildren…
… for you and me.
And it’s kindness like yours that still powers our work to this day.
James Connolly was born in Edinburgh on June 5, 1868. PUBLIC DOMAIN
“The Irish people will only be free, when they own everything from the plough to the stars.” – James Connolly.
“If Pearse was the soul of the Rising,” wrote Joe Good in ‘Enchanted by Dreams,’ “James Connolly was its heart.”
Connolly was born in Edinburgh on June 5, 1868, to Irish parents. He grew up in the slums and his hardscrabble beginnings turned him into a fervent socialist.
In 1896, after working in Scotland and a stint in the British Army, he came to Dublin to work for the Dublin Socialist Society. It was his first time in Dublin and he was immediately dismayed that the Dublin working class did not have the same fire in their bellies that he had. So, as he had a family to support, he moved to America in 1903.
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Seven years later, he returned to Ireland to head up the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in Belfast. After the disastrous general strike of 1913 and Jim Larkin’s departure for America, Connolly came to Dublin to head up the local ITGWU—and its Citizen Army.
The Citizen Army became his obsession. Although only 220 in strength, he drilled them until they became, in his words, “a real revolutionary army.”
The boys at the Irish Volunteers kept a wary eye on Connolly and his army. They were drawing up plans for a Rising and were afraid that Connolly might preempt them. In January 1916, they decided to “kidnap” him. For three days, he was briefed by members of the Military Council of the IRB—men like Clarke, MacDiarmada, and Plunkett. At first, Connolly was very angry, but as details of the planned Rising were made known to him, he became an enthusiastic supporter.
On Easter Monday, he was named Vice-President of the Provisional Government and Commandant-General in the Army of the Irish Republic. He marched at the head of his Citizen Army to the GPO and, finding his inner-Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, commanded his troops: “Left turn. CHARGE!”
After Pearse read the Proclamation Connolly exclaimed, “Thanks be to God, Pearse, that we have lived to see this day.”
Pearse may have been the titular “Commander-in-Chief,” but Connolly was calling the military shots from the GPO. He was fearless, venturing out into the streets to direct his men. It was on one of these sorties to Liffey Street, far away from the GPO near the Ha’penny Bridge, that he was seriously wounded in the leg. He made his way back to the GPO and helped plan the evacuation to Moore Street. After the surrender, he was removed to Dublin Castle for treatment for his wound which had developed gangrene.
His condition was such that his trial was held at Dublin Castle. After he was found guilty and condemned to death, he made this statement: “We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire and to establish the Irish Republic. We believe that the call we thus issued to the people of Ireland was a nobler call in a holier cause that [sic] any call issued to them during this war having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavoring to win for Ireland their national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium.”
“As long as that remains the case the cause of Irish freedom is safe. Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence in any one generation of even a respectable minority of Ireland ready to die to affirm that truth make sure Government forever a usurpation and a crime against human progress.
“I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irishmen and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were equally ready to affirm that truth and seal it with their lives if necessary.”
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His last hours were spent with his wife Lillie and daughter Nora.
“My mother and I . . . were driven to Dublin Castle,” Nora said.
“On entering we were directed to a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs were six soldiers with fixed bayonets, and on the floor, about a dozen more were lying on mattresses.
“We passed through the soldiers and entered an enclave where there were two soldiers with fixed bayonets. They stood aside to let us enter the door. When we entered my father was lying in the bed with his head turned to the door.”
“Well,” said Connolly to his wife, “I suppose you know what this means.”
Lillie responded, “Not that James, not that.”
Nora continued: “My father said, ‘Yes, for the first time I dropped off to sleep. And they wakened me to tell me that I was to be shot at dawn.’ ”
Lillie said, “Your life, James, your beautiful life.”
“Well, Lillie,” he answered, “hasn’t it been a full life, and isn’t this a good end?”
Nora informed him of the executions of Pearse, MacDonagh, and the others. “He was silent for a while. I think he thought that he was the first to be executed. Then he said, ‘Well, I am glad that I am going with them.’ ”
He was removed to Kilmainham. There, Father Aloysius asked him to forgive the men of the firing squad. “I do, Father,” said Connolly. “I respect every man who does his duty.”
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It is at this time that Connolly went from martyr to legend. Because his wounds were so severe he could not stand, so they tied him to the chair. Dominic Behan (brother of Brendan and nephew of Peadar Kearney, who wrote the Irish National Anthem, “Amhrán na bhFiann”) remembered Connolly in his popular ballad, “The Patriot Game.”
They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair,
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare.
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game.
But it may have been much more gruesome than that. The Sacristan to the Parish of St. James had this description of the execution: “In giving a description of James Connolly’s execution Father McCarthy told me that the prisoner, who was in a bad condition, elected to stand like the rest but failed. He was then tied to a chair but slumped so much that he overbalanced. Finally, he was strapped to a stretcher and placed in a reclining position against the wall…The sight left an indelible impression on Father McCarthy.”
Perhaps the greatest tribute to Connolly came from one of his officers in the GPO during Easter Week, a young Cork rebel named Michael Collins: “Of Pearse and Connolly I admire the latter the most. Connolly was a realist, Pearse the direct opposite. There was an air of earthy directness from Connolly. It impressed me. I would have followed him through hell had such action been necessary.”
*Dermot McEvoy is the author of “The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising and Irish Miscellany” (Skyhorse Publishing). He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. You can check out his website here or follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook.
A judge was left to clear up a dangerous mess created by MLAs who then failed to fix it, even when they knew it was disastrous
This newspaper covered the problem extensively, as did the BBC and others. No one in power was unaware of the severity of the problem.Justice Minister Naomi Long
Sam McBride
Yesterday at 03:00
What unfolded in Belfast High Court yesterday morning was a devastating exposure of the failure of the Stormont system: The Executive and legislature had created a gross injustice and then failed to rectify it, leaving a judge to do so for them.
Last September, part of a new Stormont law came into force which made it a jailable offence to identify anyone who has been investigated by police but not charged in relation to sexual offence allegations.
An individual in that position — such as the notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile — could not be named during their lifetime, with no chance for an appeal by anyone other than the police.
They were protected even after death for 25 years, unless the media or a victim went to a court and succeeded in getting permission.
It was an outrageous situation, criminalising both journalists and victims of sexual abuse who chose to waive their right to anonymity.
One MLA, Robbie Butler, to his credit, accepted that he had made an error in voting for the law, which had sailed through unanimously with scant scrutiny, and said he would bring a private member’s bill to the Assembly to have it overturned.
The TUV and SDLP said they would support the law being changed. But neither the DUP, Sinn Fein nor Alliance committed to repealing this situation. The arithmetic of the Assembly meant that without the support of bigger parties, this law wouldn’t be changed.
Late last year, the Belfast Telegraph began a legal challenge which was joined by The Irish News. A separate case was taken by The Times, the BBC, and other London-based media organisations.
For a regional newspaper like this, judicially reviewing a law is virtually unheard of. It involves huge expense, and the prospects of success are scant.
Even a very bad law is unlikely to be struck down by a judge unless it involves some glaring illegality.
Yesterday’s culmination of the case which began before Christmas confirmed such glaring illegality.
Legal challenge by Belfast Telegraph to sex offence suspects anonymity successfully overturns law
It was 45 minutes into Mr Justice Humphreys’ judgment when it became fully clear that he was finding in our favour.
In the wood-panelled surroundings of courtroom one of the Kings Bench, the judge said that Stormont’s failure to recognise the impact on public interest journalism “means that a fair balance between competing rights has not been struck”.
In classic Stormont fashion, there was what the judge described as a lack of “contemporaneous explanations” as to why MLAs did what they did. There were arguments made in court which weren’t backed up by any record from the time. The judge found that unconvincing.
There’s nothing in that which suggests any dark conspiracy; rather, this is how Stormont operates, with a culture of oral government where basic record keeping is either an afterthought or in some cases actively discouraged. One of the many problems with such a situation is that a department can struggle to defend itself in court.
As the judge went on, his language became more explicit, and politely excoriating.
The department argued that it was essentially none of the court’s business how the Assembly had come to make the law. The department, quoting from the legislation which established devolution, emphasised that the way in which MLAs went about their work “shall not be called into question in any legal proceedings”.
Mr Justice Humphreys dismissed this, making clear he wasn’t questioning the validity of Assembly proceedings, but examining the “quality” of MLAs’ actions.
Having done so, he found proper scrutiny was “manifestly lacking” and “clear shortcomings” in the debate.
In essence, MLAs hadn’t even considered the serious problems of the law they were passing. What he didn’t say, but which is equally concerning in a political sense, is that four months after devolution returned, and despite being well aware of the problem, neither the Executive nor the Assembly had acted to rectify the problem.
There was, he said, “disproportionate interference” with the human rights of journalists wishing to publish information which is in the public interest.
That meant that what Stormont had done was “not in accordance with law” because it was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
At a time when journalism is under intense financial and political pressure, Mr Justice Humphreys delivered a refreshing defence of our right to inform you of what is happening around us, saying: “Public interest journalism serves a vital role in any democratic society. The role of the press as watchdog, and the role of journalists in facilitating and prompting police investigations is fully evidenced in these cases [such as Kincora, cited by the Belfast Telegraph in legal argument].”
When the Belfast Telegraph first covered this problem, we discovered that both Mrs Long and her officials had misled the Assembly.
Mrs Long said on the floor of the Assembly that what she was proposing would “implement four recommendations from Sir John Gillen’s report”. That was inaccurate, because Sir John’s report — a review of the law in this area after the high profile rugby rape trial — did not recommend what this legislation did.
When we reported that this misled the Assembly, Mrs Long suggested she might take legal action — despite the fact it was true, despite the fact we had put the evidence to her before publication, and despite the fact we carried her response.
She tweeted: “I refute the accusation that I misled the Assembly and the matter is now with my solicitor for review.”
Two months later, a member of the public asked if Mrs Long had sued. Implicitly accepting that she had not, Mrs Long gave the impression she was still considering it, saying: “Yet. The key word is yet.”
Seven months after the article was published, we have received no legal claim from Mrs Long.
Yesterday’s judgment emphasises the accuracy of what we reported. Mr Justice Humphreys noted a claim made by the barrister representing Mrs Long that part of the provisions now ruled unlawful were necessary to implement the Gillen report.
That, he said, was “quite wrong when one reads the Gillen Review in full”. He went on: “There is nothing in the Gillen Review which supports the contention that only the suspect or the police ought to be able to make such applications [to name a suspect during their lifetime].”
I don’t for a second believe that Mrs Long deliberately misled MLAs. Nor do I believe that this entire episode was anything other than a catastrophic blunder. But when mistakes are pointed out, how someone responds speaks to something much deeper than the issue at hand.
What happened yesterday is also somewhat awkward for Sir John Gillen. In emails disclosed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the court in evidence, Sir John appeared dismissive when concerns about the law were raised.
Last November, in response to this newspaper’s coverage, Sir John told the department it was “quite wrong to suggest, as has been done, that I did not recommend our new law or that Minister Long misled MLAs about my report”.
However, he then went on to state quite clearly “I did not recommend the 25 year prohibition after death” — but he said he was happy with it nonetheless, because it was consistent with “the spirit of my report”.
A report either makes a recommendation or it does not. We are in Kafkaesque territory if a non-existent recommendation can be used as the basis for a dangerous law based on the retrospective assessment of the individual involved that it is in “the spirit” of what they intended.
Another email from Sir John, sent to the DoJ last December, dismissed the significance of the law for a case like that of Jimmy Savile, something raised by this newspaper and the BBC.
He said this was a “disingenuous” example because “inevitably on his death a court would hold it in the public interest to publish his name on application of the media” and that if lots of victims had come forward during his life, “the police might have applied to the court to publish his name”.
He claimed that “Savile would be a classic example of our legislation working perfectly”.
That fundamentally misunderstood the situation. It is only now obvious that Savile was a prolific abuser because of media coverage.
When the first victim came forward, that was not obvious. In circumstances where the abuser is still alive, and is a powerful figure, it is far from clear that the police who had ruled out charging the individual would then go to court to allow the media to name him.
Mr Justice Humphreys recognised that leaving this power solely in the hands of the police was impossibly problematic.
In cases such as Kincora or high-profile cases involving the Metropolitan Police, it is the police who are allegedly either involved in abuse or covering it up to protect agents or for some other improper reason.
To therefore rely solely on the police to do the right thing in those circumstances is illogical and unjust.
Mr Justice Humphreys said that while “in certain cases, the interests of the police and the media may coincide”, that argument failed to recognise that the right to freedom of expression is conferred on everyone, and is “its exercise is not to be determined by agents of the state such as the police except in clearly defined circumstances”.
He said that in media reporting “time may be of the essence”, with the need to make an application rather than seeking to persuade someone else to do so.
He also stressed that “there may be many cases where the interests of the media and the police do not coincide. For instance, the allegations may relate to sexual offences allegedly committed by police officers or may be suggestive of a want of proper police investigation. In such cases it would be entirely inappropriate for media outlets to be obliged to approach the police in an effort to have the prohibition removed.”
This was a withering judgment which has dispensed with a law that should never have been anywhere near the statute book.
What happened here is a textbook example of how good intentions can produce bad law.
It should not have taken newspapers to spend thousands of pounds on a legal challenge in order to be able to say “Jimmy Savile was a paedophile”.
At a time when Stormont’s budget is hopelessly short, how was it that the Department of Justice spend public money seeking to defend such a law?
Mrs Long should now say clearly that she will not be appealing this judgment or seeking to reinstate these provisions through new legislation.
When I asked the minister if she would commit to that, the response was a glorified ‘no comment’. Her department said it “notes the judgment” and is “carefully considering” it.
If Mrs Long does want to appeal, that will now have to secure the approval of the Executive, because it is demonstrably controversial.
That means she would likely need the DUP and Sinn Fein’s support. Both parties have been strikingly quiet on this issue.
Sinn Fein said last November that the law should be “monitored and improvements brought forward where necessary” — but didn’t actually say it believed changes were necessary.
The DUP, to the best of my knowledge, has said nothing on this at all. That’s utterly baffling in political terms.
The DUP leader, Gavin Robinson, is facing a strong challenge from Mrs Long in next months’ General Election. Even prior to that, the DUP was losing ground to Alliance and had every incentive to highlight what was obviously a significant Alliance error.
We took this challenge because it criminalised journalism. But we had the resources to do so; some of those hurt even more personally by this law could not do so.
Many of those who will benefit most from yesterday’s ruling will never even realise that because it would never cross their minds that as victims of sexual crime they could have been jailed for saying so.
An independent media and an independent judiciary are crucial to democracy. Yesterday one acted to uphold the rights of the other.
Communities have say on criminals controlling them and the societal issues they exploit to fuel their activity
UDA mural on the Newtownards Road in BelfastA UDA/UFF mural in the loyalist Rathcoole estate in south east Antrim. Pic: PacemakerMasked men at a funeral at Roselawn crematoriumThe UDA has been linked to an attack in which a man was nailed to this fence in BushmillsNorth Down UDA muralUDA mural on the Newtownards Road in BelfastA UDA/UFF mural in the loyalist Rathcoole estate in south east Antrim. Pic: Pacemaker
Niamh Campbell
Not a month goes by in Northern Ireland, where either the UDA or UVF don’t make any headlines, and quite often, people here don’t really bat an eyelid,
At an event exploring Paramilitary Intimidation Within Communities in 2015, Professor Liam Kennedy from the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast said there is a “degree of acceptance to dehumanisation over half a century”.
This could explain why so many residents in paramilitary-dominated areas appear to be desensitised to their activities.
However, in the last fortnight, more members of the public have been displaying outrage at the bizarre and brazen acts some paramilitary members have been carrying out, with seemingly no worries of consequences or reproach.
Earlier this month, the Belfast Telegraph revealed that six masked men in paramilitary uniforms carried the coffin of Andrew ‘Andy’ Best, a former member of the UDA’s 3rd Battalion based in Tigers Bay.
Despite the paramilitary funeral, sources in Tigers Bay say Best was at one time subjected to a punishment attack from the organisation he had been a member of since his early 20s, and police now say they are investigating images of the masked men at the funeral, which took place in April.
On Friday, a 37-year-old man was arrested by police investigating a ‘crucifixion’ attack in which a man was nailed to a fence in Bushmills, Co Antrim, during the early hours of May 5. Police confirmed on Saturday morning that he had been released from custody following questioning.
The group had previously issued threats and there had been accusations of criminality against individuals painted on walls in the area.
According to PSNI data, between 2022 and 2023, there were 23 casualties as a result of paramilitary-style assaults carried out by loyalist groups, and four loyalist paramilitary shootings.
And last October, an academic told MPs that there are more loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland today than there were 30 years ago.
South East Antrim UDA mural in Glengormley, north Belfast
Dr Aaron Edwards, a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, said: “The political dimension has lessened since the ceasefires (in 1994), however since the Brexit referendum and subsequent protest actions on the streets, we have seen new life breathed into these old antiquated paramilitary structures.”
Dr John Kyle, a former veteran unionist politician for east Belfast, says that throughout his 16 years of sitting on Belfast City Council, he never felt that paramilitary activity was waning.
“I didn’t feel that it was going away, despite all the good work being done, including the good work being done by those who used to be involved with these organisations,” he explained.
“Some of them are doing really good work, and have done really work over past decades – those such as The Resurgam Trust in Lisburn, Act Initiative on the Shankill and Alternatives Restorative Justice [all community organisations dedicated to building communities and tackling anti-social behaviours].
“But, the loan sharks, protection racketeering, threatening and coercive control was – and is – still not going away.
“Part of the problem is that the sentences that are being given out in court to drug dealers are a laugh. They are totally inadequate. These people are getting short and suspended sentences, when they should be getting put away for years, because they’re destroying lives and corrupting societies.”
In Northern Ireland, judges are bound by sentencing guidelines and must take into account mitigating circumstances, such as early guilty pleas, co-operation with police and remorse, as well as aggravating factors, such as intent and excessive violence.
Dr Kyle continued: “Communities, politicians and churches can’t deal with them – the criminal justice system needs to.
“It is time for paramilitaries to leave the stage. It is absolutely essential that they transition into full civilisation in the next year or two, because otherwise they’re just giving cover to these criminal gangs.”
Dr John Kyle. Picture: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker
Understandably, when approached for their views on this type of behaviour, many people from within communities deemed as loyalist or unionist don’t want to be named, because they are still living in fear or don’t want to be criticised and targeted for seemingly ‘stepping out of line’.
One community worker, who has been volunteering his time to work with children in certain areas of east Belfast for over 10 years, says he feels like he is “losing a battle to paramilitaries every single hour, of every single day’.
He believes loyalist gangs are worse than their republican counterparts, as they “hide in plain sight”.
“These loyalist paramilitaries are embedded in everything now; pubs, community centres, football clubs, darts teams, pool teams, boxing clubs – if they control everything, how do clubs outside of that get sponsorship?
“They use these outlets as a way of good PR for themselves – ‘look at the good we are doing for our community and for the kids here’ – but really, they are means to control those neighbourhoods from within, and a means to launder their illegal money.
“People don’t realise their kids are being groomed quite literally, to become drug dealers and drug addicts themselves, through these organisations.
“They also get the local chippy or taxi firm or whatever to sponsor said teams, but it’s not really sponsorship money, it’s protection money.
“Japanese knotweed can destroy houses, it destroys foundations, and it takes over.
“The paramilitaries are Japanese knotweed to the community. They get in, and you can’t get them out.
One woman from north Belfast, whose father was in the UDA during the Troubles, stressed that exactly what the late PUP leader said, is “what we are seeing today”.
“The fact is, these are criminal gangs using loyalism and the organisations as coverage. That’s not what loyalism is,” she said.
“A lot of loyalists are doing fantastic work and I know that they are doing it quietly. A lot of them have transitioned since the 80s and 90s, and have done so successfully.
“We are also seeing intergenerational trauma, poverty and social disadvantage, which I have to say, the Executive has failed to address.
She added that the government and unionist politicians have failed the people they are supposed to represent, but noted that the same goes for republican communities.
“Just look at north Belfast. You have Tiger’s Bay on one side of the road and the New Lodge on the other. The working class people are suffering the same.
“In fact, a north Belfast women’s group led by the Shankill Women’s Centre, produced a photography book several years ago. They compared the photos from both areas and found they had the same issues.
“Poverty, lack of appropriate housing, lack of amenities and a lack of things for young people to do – that is what allows these gangs to thrive.”
QUESTIONS: Eugene Thompson is stilling looking for answers into his brother Paul’s murder 30 years ago this month
IN the dying hours of the inquest into the killing of Paul Thompson, the legal representatives of the Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State worked to the last minute to prevent Eugene Thompson, Paul’s only surviving relative, from getting a ‘gist’ of withheld papers which may have been relevant to the murder.
The Coroner fought tooth and nail to provide Eugene with this gist, despite the Secretary of State, but it was not to be. The inquest ended unfinished and the Coroner is writing to the same Secretary of State to request a public inquiry.
Nothing could have prepared Eugene Thompson for this process. Nothing could have prepared us for the Legacy Act, the denial of fundamental rights, the arrogance of the enablers of the Act, or the legal representatives of the British state who left Paul Thompson’s brother, their late mother Margaret’s surviving son, sitting in that court as the lights went off, without the inquest finished.
The Legacy Act has created an environment where the British state has reasserted its own legal primacy and its shield of sovereignty, regardless of the devolution of criminal justice or policing. Connected to that is the notion that we will frame our understanding of our conflict through the lens of Britain’s own discovery and history processes.
Last week we were treated to the spectacle of a ‘public’ history project which will now write the official history of British policy in Ireland. This new project will be like the new ICRIR processes. They are promised unprecedented access to documents unavailable before. They are promised goodwill, never seen before. And if you believe that, I hope the Tooth Fairy filled your pillow cases with the gold at the end of the rainbow that Santa collected when he rode in on a unicorn.
We are ready for what that means. No-one believes that there is a different state to the one that devised the Legacy Act and sent its hyena-like lackies into the courts to deny gists of hidden reports to bereaved relatives like Eugene, Bridie Brown, Chris Moran, Christine McCusker or Bernie McKearney; one that will now suddenly emerge in all of its beneficence. No-one believes that the British state will now begin the processes of opening up the files written by Frank Kitson, disclosure of which were denied to Mary Heenan, wife of Paddy, killed by Ginger Baker.
It is not only because we are not the thick Paddies some would like us to think we are, or that we are a bit cynical after decades of lies, denial and delays. No, we do not believe any of this guff because of all of that – and because the British government in its current Tory embodiment told us that their plan is exactly the opposite. They put in their manifestos and made public promises to their veterans that they will protect veterans and their narrative of the British state’s role in our conflict. And these dead-hand bodies are how they will do it.
What we can expect now is exactly what we have seen for decades in the absence of British good faith. Families and communities recording the truth, sharing the truth and fighting for the better day to come. Never giving up.
