Monday, September 9, 2019 With the Brexit impasse deepening, the Christian Churches need to step up to the mark and act as a voice of calm in the community, according to religious commentator, Dr John Coulter, in his Fearless Flying Column today. Great War commemorations are now a regular part of many community calendars, and ithas often been said – there were very few atheists in the trenches before thewhistles blew and the troops went ‘over the top’ into battle. Taking that World War One ethos as a benchmark, the Christian Church needs to move to the forefront of community life and take up a forward position as a calming influence in what is becoming an increasingly volatile and toxic political climate. That is not to say that the Christian Churches should adopt political positions on Brexit, but that they must recognise that their flocks contain many Brexiteers and Remainers – and a lot of very worried and parishioners afraid of the future. The Brexit challenge for the Christian Churches reminds me of the situation which faced congregations in 1998 in the aftermath of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, when many clerics found themselves facing a split church between the Yes and No camps, especially in the Protestant community. During the Great War, the Army padres and chaplains played a key role in maintaining morale among the troops in the face of such needless slaughter. The Christian Churches need to adopt thismorale-boosting role amid the severe political uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Of course, many churches and clerics will maintain they are already doing this using the strategy of intercessory prayers during worship, but mumbling a few prayers for common sense in governmentduring a Bible study event cannot be classified as pro-active – especially among the unchurched. During times of perceived threats to the Union, many Christians who were active in Unionist politics organised Days of Prayer in town halls and Orange halls. Some of those opposed to Brexit have called for campaigns of civil disobedience and passive resistance. This has the potential to end up being hijacked by extremists and militants resultinginviolence against the police. However, just as the Peace People held rallies for peace in Ireland in the late 1970s, perhaps the Christian Churches could help defuse tensions by holding peace rallies whereby those Churchescould use such demonstrations to reach out to their communities, especially to folk who have no faith, cannot or do not attend worship. One factor is certain – the clergy cannot hide in their pulpits and, like Pontius Pilate of Biblical times, wash their hands of the Brexit debacle. Now is a time for action by the Churches, not fluffy bunny-style words of comfort. The Churches on this island cannot simply leave it to the governments in London and Dublin to prepare for either a ‘do deal’ or ‘any deal’ or ‘some deal’ Brexit. The Churches must have their plansin places, especially if Brexit does go economically ‘pear-shaped’ and communities have financial hardships, with austerity and even homelessness rapidly rising. Some individual places of worship are going to have to swallow their pride and snootiness and open up their church halls for the homeless and those who cannot afford to pay rent or mortgages and haveto leave their homes. Likewise, if there are food shortages, churches will have to organise soup kitchens to feed the needy if existing food banks cannot cope. People who are starving or who have lost their homes throughno fault of their own do not want, or need, pious Christians fobbing them off with platitudes, such as ‘we will remember you in our thoughts and prayers’! These needy people want food and a place to sleep. Similarly, the Churches must maintain a politically neutral stance; they must avoid the scenario whereby the public gets the perception – that’s a pro-Leave denomination, or that is an anti-Brexit or Remain fellowship. The empty stomach of someone who voted Leave is just as challenging as the empty tummy of a person who voted Remain. Likewise, just as some people turn to their faith and church in a time of crisis, the Christian Churches must also be ready to help those who blame God for their predicament as a result of Brexit turningbad. There is the real danger that if things go bad for some families, they could actually turn away from their faith. The Churches must be read – not to judge or condemn these people with their pewgossip, but to ensure these people are helped. There is also the added danger that if the Churches do not step up to the mark in combating any austerity as a result of Brexit, that the so-called ‘black marketeers’ will step into the vacuum andcharge crazy prices either for food or a place to sleep. The ‘super rich’ in society may be able to soak up any severe austerity challenges caused by a Brexit backlash, but not those currently living on the breadline, or caught in an existing poverty trap. Indeed, some denominations may even have to consider the unthinkable to afford to carry out their Christian civic responsibilities – they may have to sell their riches to give to the poor! Some Christian denominations may have acquired tremendous wealth and treasures over the centuries which could be converted into hard cash to buy food, clothing or provide shelters. Would such denominations be prepared to sacrifice this wealth and follow the advice of Jesus and donate that money to the poor, or would they be like the rich young ruler in Biblical times who didnot want to follow Jesus because he wanted to keep his wealth. In the coming months, it will not just be the politicians who will have searching challenges to face; the Christian Churches will – not might – find themselves on the spot in combating austerity. In hard practical terms, if a person turned up on their doorstep of a church, cold, hungry, in dire need of food and rest – what will the ‘suited and booted’ worshippers do? In reality, the key questionwhich the Christian Churches must ask themselves is – what would Jesus do?
A secret memo written by a British Army general during the early years
of the current conflict refers to Britain needing to find a way to
“gradually escape” from its involvement in the north of Ireland.
The memo was discovered by researchers working for a documentary series
for BBC TV’s Spotlight programme. It was written by Michael Carver, who
was providing advice to the British government in 1972 as the British
Army’s chief of staff. There is no indication if the document was read
or if there was any response.
The former chief of staff wrote: “If I am right, and we want a lasting
solution, it must lie in finding a way in which HM Government can
gradually escape from the commitment to the border.”
He suggested a “plebiscite”, or poll, organised “in such a way that it
shows up the inequity of the existing border”.
The researchers also documented a new allegation of paramilitary
involvement against Ian Paisley Sr, who went on to become DUP leader and
First Minister.
A former senior British Army officer, David Hancock, told the programme
Paisley had personally paid for a unionist paramilitary bombing in
Kilkeel in 1969.
Targeting a viaduct carrying water to Belfast, the UVF bomb was blamed
on the IRA, but was in fact part of a loyalist campaign designed to
destabilise the Stormont regime of Six County Prime Minister Terence
O’Neill.
The unionist leader was considered by Paisley and his supporters to be
too moderate. At the time, O’Neill was said to be preparing reforms to
meet some of the demands of the civil rights movement.
Mr Hancock, who was stationed nearby, actually heard the viaduct
explosion and said it did “not have the footprint of the IRA”. He said
the then RUC police had shown him evidence that Paisley, at that time a
fundamentalist preacher and prominent unionist extemist, had supplied
the finances for the explosion.
Mr Hancock recalled: “I was good friends with the district inspector
down in Kilkeel. He showed me the evidence that they had of the
involvement of money from Paisley into what was then called the UVF,
where they got the explosives from, how it was carried out, who did it,
and why.”
Paisley’s links to loyalist paramilitarism over the years are well
known, particularly in the 1960s, but no charges were ever brought
against him for direct involvement in paramilitary violence.
His son, North Antrim MP Ian Paisly Jr said he was “not surprised at all
by the depths to which the BBC would sink in its hatred of my late
father and my family”.
A BBC spokesperson said they had “complete confidence” in the integrity
of the programme.
Raymond McCord has launched a legal challenge claiming the Prime Minister’s threat to leave with or without an agreement on October 31 is unlawful.
Raymond
McCord outside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)
By
Michael McHugh, PA. Belfast Telegraph. September 6, 2019
A
no-deal Brexit would cause chaos in Northern Ireland, a legal challenge in Belfast
heard.
Prime
Minister Boris Johnson is trying to act oppressively and contrary to the
constitutional position of the country, counsel for Troubles victims campaigner
Raymond McCord alleged.
The
anti-Brexit activist claims Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s threat to leave
the EU on October 31, with or without an agreement, is unlawful.
His
barrister, Ronan Lavery QC, praised the EU for its contribution to peace
as Northern Ireland tried to become less tribal.
He
said: “To leave without a withdrawal agreement would create chaos and economic
misery and a real threat to the peace process in Northern Ireland – it would be
madness.”
Mr
McCord’s legal team began a judicial review at Northern Ireland’s High Court on
Friday.
His
son, Raymond McCord Jr, was murdered by loyalists from the Ulster Volunteer
Force in North Belfast in 1997.
He
has repeatedly voiced concern about the impact of Brexit, which was rejected by
a majority in the region, on the peace process.
All-island
co-operation deepened following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which largely
ended the 30-year conflict.
Campaigners
are opposed to the creation of a hard Irish border after Brexit, which senior
police officers believe could provide an opportunity for dissident republicans.
Mr
Lavery said Northern Ireland was trying to move forward on a cohesive and
non-tribal basis and was a model for what could be achieved when people put
aside their differences.
He
added: “The EU is a peace project.”
He
said the EU withdrawal process should serve the interests of the people of
Northern Ireland.
“Generous
means generous to the people of Northern Ireland; it cannot mean generous to
the pursuit of English nationalism, it can only be something which serves the
people of Northern Ireland.”
He
claimed there was no specific provision for leaving without a deal.
The
barrister said the next step after the rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement by
Parliament was for a statement to be made by the Government about how it
proposed to proceed and making the policy clear.
Instead,
he said, the policy was having to be divined from statements to the media as he
scrutinized the legislation surrounding Brexit.
“Our
very simple proposition is that, when you take this piece of legislation,
nothing sanctioned or authorized the executive (government) to take the drastic
step of leaving the EU without a deal.
“That
needs to be expressly sanctioned by Parliament and it has not been.
“Any
withdrawal is premised upon a deal.”
He
said the Prime Minister was seeking to act in a way which was “oppressive” to
the people of Northern Ireland and contrary to the constitutional position.
Mr
Lavery added: “I am not asking the court to do anything radical, I am simply
asking the court for the law to be applied.”
He
said it was not possible for the UK to leave the EU outside the terms of
legislation.
Lawyers
whose clients oppose no-deal joined forces during Friday’s hearing, claiming
the UK’s Brexit negotiations were a “sham”.
They
said the Government needed statutory underpinning from law for its powers.
Judge
Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey observed that the Council of Europe, comprising
leaders of the EU states, could not be compelled to do anything.
The
case is due to continue on Monday when a barrister for the Government will
outline his case.
Aaron Edwards writes in the Belfast Telegraph that the deaths of Lord Mountbatten in Sligo and 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint 40 years ago this week marked a watershed in the fight against the Provisional IRA.
Forty years ago the Provisional IRA carried out two of its most audacious attacks. In Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, they exploded a bomb on the boat of the former UK chief of defence staff and cousin to the Queen, Lord Louis Mountbatten – killing him, two teenage boys and his daughter-in-law’s mother. Later that afternoon, at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint in Co Down, the Provisionals struck again, this time exploding two huge bombs on a military convoy carrying soldiers from the Parachute Regiment.
The pathologist who arrived on the scene shortly after the attack at Narrow Water, Arthur Orr, later told the inquest into the soldiers’ deaths that he had “never seen such carnage”. For Orr it was “the most distressing incident” he had ever encountered in his 25 years as a coroner.
It later emerged that gardai had stopped and arrested two young men from Crossmaglen, who were riding a motorcycle on the Republic’s side of the border near the detonation point in Omeath. At the Smithwick Tribunal, which investigated allegations of collusion between Irish police and the IRA, it was revealed that a forensic report recorded how, even though swabs had been taken from both men, police could not tie the suspects conclusively to the attack and they were released.
No one has ever been brought to account for the murders of the soldiers that day.
Thirty years after the Warrenpoint ambush I met one of the soldiers who survived the massacre, Paul Burns, at the launch of his memoir, A Fighting Spirit. Paul was travelling in a four-tonne truck with seven other paratroopers when the first explosion happened. A massive fireball engulfed the vehicle and he lost a leg in the blast.
“And I do not hear the bang, nor the screams that follow,” he wrote. “I do not smell the stench of burning flesh, or witness the confusion. All I know is darkness.”
While Paul suffered horrific injuries on that day, he would remain in the Army until 1991 and become a tireless advocate for the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association (now Blesma, The Limbless Veterans).
Paul’s story is like so many others I’ve heard about Warrenpoint. One former soldier, who had been on an earlier tour with the men killed and injured in the attack, recalls hearing the news while he was stationed in an Army camp in Antrim:
“I was in the ops [operations] room at the time and it brought back memories of ’73. The IRA had that well planned, with the secondary device.”
Another veteran, Parachute Regiment officer David Benest, recalled. “I was on leave. I turned up the day after to a battalion in shock. Soldiers thinking: ‘Crikey, that number of people being killed in one incident?'”
Relations between the Army and RUC were badly strained by Warrenpoint. It was said that the General Officer Commanding Sir Timothy Creasey “freaked out” when he heard the news and tried to wrest back control of security operations from the Chief Constable, Sir Kenneth Newman. Recognising the discord within the security forces, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher flew to Northern Ireland to calm tempers.
“The people of the United Kingdom will wage the war against terrorism with relentless determination until it is won,” she told reporters.
Thatcher had been personally affected by the Troubles when the INLA assassinated her long-time friend and political mentor, Airey Neave, in 1978. She was renowned for taking an uncompromising public stance; after Warrenpoint she sanctioned an intelligence-led response to IRA violence.
One of the most visible signs of this new approach came when she appointed the recently retired chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield as security and intelligence co-ordinator in Northern Ireland. He arrived in Belfast in October 1979.
Former RUC Special Branch officers have admitted to me that intelligence “coverage” was limited in south Armagh prior to Sir Maurice’s arrival. One officer even suggested to me that “Oldfield’s job was to hold people’s hands” through a process of change.
That change was Thatcher’s decision to keep the RUC in the lead against the terrorists, with the Army in support under the mantra “policy primacy”.
Sir Maurice believed that the best way to deal more effectively with the IRA was to turn its own members against the group. To “start a cancer and watch it spread”, as one veteran RUC spymaster put it. In this Sir Maurice had some success.
The “supergrass” trials of the early 1980s were part of his legacy after his retirement from the post; so, too, was the comprehensive infiltration of the Provisionals by agents. The direction given to these moles was to disrupt IRA activity and to help move the group down a political path.
Sir Maurice also believed – as did Thatcher – that the only way to tackle IRA terrorism was to work closely with the authorities in Dublin. The Irish border had long been porous and IRA members and smugglers crossed it with ease, despite the presence of a number of crossings manned by security forces on the northern side.
Interestingly, Omeath, where the Provos responsible for Warrenpoint had detonated their bombs, would become a key hub of IRA activity over the coming years. It was the place where the Provisionals’ internal security unit (or “nutting squad”) once took suspected “touts” for interrogation. And it was the place where the IRA also kept a major bomb-making factory in the 1980s. These borderlands were synonymous with the political dispute at the heart of the Troubles.
As we remember the 18 soldiers and one civilian killed near Warrenpoint four decades ago, it is also worth keeping in mind how it represents a Pyrrhic victory for the IRA.
Within a decade of the killings the group came under intense pressure from the security forces and had even moved towards secret talks with the British aimed at ending its armed campaign.
Nowadays some republicans have desecrated the poppy wreaths left by the roadside to commemorate the soldiers who died at Narrow Water.
But attempts to dismantle the visible symbols of their past atrocities can never fully eradicate the memories of such evil deeds, nor of militant republicanism’s ultimate strategic surrender.
⏭ Dr Aaron Edwards is the author of UVF: Behind The Mask (Merrion Press, 2017). He is currently writing a new book for Merrion on Britain’s secret intelligence struggle against the Provisional IRA.
