Posted by Jim on January 8, 2019
We publish a round-up of the state papers declassified at the turn of
the year by the Dublin and London governments, dating from 1988 and
1994. Please note that, as usual, some papers have not been released for
reasons of ‘state security’.
Papers released in Dublin and London show that discussions between
Thatcher and Haughey in 1988 focussed on the repeated demands by
Thatcher for increasingly oppressive policing measures against
republicans and the rapid extradition of “terrorists”.
In turn, Haughey raised British injustices. A request by him for
clemency for the Birmingham Six was rebuffed immediately by Thatcher.
Three years before the convictions were quashed — leading to
compensation for the six men — Thatcher told Haughey she was “totally
convinced” by a 1988 court ruling rejecting their grounds for appeal.
During another meeting, Thatcher descended into a racist rant, brought
on by Mr Haughey’s arguments in favour of a united Ireland.
“You talk of unity and I ask would that be better? I say no, there
would be the worst civil war in history, she said.
“And it would spread to the mainland. Your people come over to us. I
wish they wouldn’t. They come looking for housing and services. If
there was a vote tomorrow they would vote to stay with us. They have
better conditions in Northern Ireland and in England.”
A press release dated after the meeting said that “a great deal of
useful work had been done”.
Haughey even suspected the Thatcher government was working with the
opposition in Dublin, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats, to
undermine his political position.
The British ambassador took exception to the suggestion.
“I have not spoken to [PD leader Des] O’Malley. I exchanged two
sentences with Mr [Alan] Dukes [then leader of Fine Gael] on the margin
of a rugby match. Please don’t entertain that suspicion,” he said.
A declassified state paper claimed that Danny Morrison, former Sinn
Fein publicity director, met the 26 County government’s “usual contact”
in April 1988 and told them that tensions over IRA funerals had been “a
godsend” for Gerry Adams’s re-election efforts, and that Sinn Fein was
happy to see confrontations with the RUC at funerals continue.
The paper also claims that Morrison alleged that “Martin McGuinness had
been personally involved in the planning and execution” of a
high-profile incident in Derry the previous year, in which a final
salute was fired over the coffin of IRA Volunteer Gerard Logue outside
a church.
The identity of the alleged “contact” remains unknown. In a response
this week, Morrison has said he is “seriously sceptical about the
truthfulness of this report”.
A confidential note, entitled “mood at Westminster”, was written by
Irish Embassy official Richard Ryan after he spoke to some 20 MPs of
“all shades” days after a particularly violent period in March 1988
which began with then SAS ambush in Gibraltar and ending with the
deaths of two British soldiers at the hands of the IRA after they drove
into a republican funeral in west Belfast.
The diplomat said many MPs who did not take an active interest in Irish
affairs became “puffed with outrage and conviction” about doing
something. He said suggestions ranged from demands for a tougher and
revised policy of policing funerals to a demand for internment
throughout Ireland and, in “more cases than previously”, to a demand to
setting a date for withdrawal from Ireland “in order to let the Irish
get on with butchering each other”.
The UVF held secret talks with the IRA army council in 1988 to discuss
the prospect of a federal Ireland, state papers in Dublin have claimed.
The meetings were facilitated by Father John Murphy, a chaplain in the
Long Kesh.
One memo, to the Taoiseach’s office in November 1988, said that Fr
Murphy was anxious to keep the meetings secret and listed the three
opponents as “the NIO, the RUC and the DUP”.
“Fr Murphy was frankly surprised at the speed with which events had
moved and was particularly surprised at the signs of apparent
flexibility being shown by the UVF in this exercise where they
demonstrated a willingness to at least talk about a wide range of
possible future arrangements for Ireland, not excluding concepts like a
federal Ireland,” Brendan Mahon, of the Anglo Irish Division wrote.
Mr Mahon said Fr Murphy’s understanding of the concept of a federal
Ireland was “based on the four provinces including a nine-county Ulster
with a separate province-type arrangement for Dublin similar to the
District of Columbia in the US”.
The US administration in 1994 voiced concern at reports of a pact
between Conservatives and Ulster Unionists at Westminster, fearing any
such deal would impact negatively on the North of Ireland.
American ambassador to London Ray Seit said that “considerable
suspicion would exist in Ireland and nationalist circles that [the
British government] had done some deal incompatible with the objectives
of the peace process”.
Then British Direct Ruler Patrick Mayhew insisted that no deal had been
done. The ambassador had accepted this but observed “that there would
be considerable interest in Irish-American circles and that anything
that was bugging Boston would soon be conveyed to the White House”.
An announcement that former taoiseach Albert Reynolds was to start a
lecture tour in the US after he left office in December 1994 was met
with “deep gloom” by British diplomats who wanted him stopped.
Roderic Lyne, then private secretary to prime minister John Major,
expressed alarm at the possibility that Reynolds might make revealing
statements to an American audience.
“I think that we should keep a careful eye on Reynolds’ movements. If
he showed signs of heading for America sooner than March or April, we
should at least consider whether there is anything we might do to
mitigate the likely damage.
“The range of options could include a direct appeal to Reynolds to be
statesmanlike, either by HMG [her majesty’s government] or by an Irish
intermediary (both probably in the realm of wishful thinking); and some
steps to shadow the Reynolds tour and try to counteract its influence
on gullible American opinion.”
In 1994, Ian Paisley junior wanted a devolved Stormont government which
could negotiate with the 26 Counties, including possible changes to the
border, according to files declassified in London.
Mr Paisley jnr, then a 27-year-old aide to his DUP leader
father, told diplomat Larry Robinson that the DUP would be happy to
re-enter peace talks at Stormont provided that Sinn Fein was kept out
and the Dublin government committed to a referendum on removing the
articles of the constitution which made a territorial claim on the
north.
The record noted Mr Paisley’s hope that a “devolved government in Northern
Ireland would have full powers to negotiate any agreement with the
Republic including (I gather Mr Paisley swallowed at this point) border
adjustments”.
Ireland has a “moral claim” to a priceless trove of impressionist
paintings, including world-famous works by Renoir, Monet and Manet, its
British keepers admitted.
Previously secret files show top-level negotiators from the National
Gallery in London “verbally” agreed Dublin’s right to the 39 works at
the centre of a 100-year-old row as far back as four decades ago.
Cork-born art collector Hugh Lane, who died on board the Lusitania when
it was sunk by a German torpedo off the coast of Ireland in 1915,
originally left the collection to London.
It was later discovered that he had written a codicil, or amendment, to
his will shortly before his death, stating that he had changed his mind
and instead bequeathed the paintings to Dublin.
The legality of the codicil was challenged by the National Gallery in
London, who were allowed to retain possession of the paintings.
Posted by Jim on
The safe arrival of a major civil rights march into Derry, after it had
come under repeated attack by the B-Specials, inspired Liam Hillen to write
one of the most famous slogans of the conflict. Liam passed away this
week, almost 50 years to the day after those historic events.
The march had been organised by the People’s Democracy movement,
inspired by the Selma to Montgomery marches in the United States led by
Martin Luther King.
Forty people, many Queen’s University Belfast students and graduates,
had left Belfast for Derry on New Year’s Day. Their numbers grew as they
marched, harassed by loyalists and rerouted by the Royal Ulster
Constabulary (RUC).
A number of those who marched recalled the events in a recent interview
with the Irish Times.
On January 4th they were ambushed at Burntollet, near Derry. “There was
a police jeep in front of us, and a group of 5 or 6 RUC men who stopped
the jeep and took out shields and helmets and put them on, and that’s
when I realised something more serious was happening,” said Michael
Farrell.
Stones began raining down. Up to 300 loyalists swarmed on to the narrow
country road. “I saw clubs, but other people saw clubs with nails
through them, and iron bars.
“The police moved back from the side of the road, leaving the march open
to attack,” says another marcher, Vinny McCormack. “It was almost like a
military operation, and that’s what startled us. The rocks came first of
all, and then the attackers.”
Soon, they were being attacked with batons. Many of the attackers wore
the white armbands used by the auxiliary police force, the B-Specials.
McCormack took refuge in a freezing river. “I was very frightened. So
long as we were in the river we seemed to be fairly safe, but I was
very, very frightened,” he says.
“I could see people with blood pouring out of their heads,” says
Farrell, “and people were saying to me that so many had been taken to
hospital.
“I saw several police vehicles there with police sitting in them. And
there was a crowd of guys with white armbands on [B Specials], with
their clubs, smoking, and having a rest and some of them were chatting
to the police.”
Farrell was shocked. “There had been a very brutal attack, and here the
police were just sitting fraternising with the attackers.”
SENSE OF VICTORY
The attacks continued as the marchers made their way into Derry city
through the predominantly Protestant Waterside – at Irish Street, and at
Spencer Road.
A then 13-year-old schoolboy, Paul O’Connor, remembers walking out with
two friends, still dressed in his St Columb’s College uniform, to meet
the marchers.
“A lot of people were bleeding, a lot of people were injured, and they’d
clearly just gone through something pretty awful. My vivid memory is of
us all bolting down that road, everybody shouting, ‘Run, run’.”
O’Connor was unhurt; Farrell was hit “by a big chunk of stone” and
knocked unconscious: “I remember one of the nurses saying to me, ‘You
people deserve this, bringing trouble into our town’.”
However, several thousand people had gathered in Guildhall Square to
welcome the remaining marchers. “It was a big moral victory,” says
O’Connor. “It was very emotional.”
Bernadette Devlin (now McAliskey) says that, when speaking from the
stage, she used the phrase, ‘We have marched from the capital city of
Northern Ireland to the capital city of its injustice.’
Hours after the march had reached Derry, at about three o’clock in the
morning on January 5, 1969, word went out that the B-Specials were
planning to move into the Bogside.
CORRECTING THE RECORD
In an interview with the Derry Journal, Liam Hillen, who has recently
passed away, recalled that he was with veteran activist Eamonn McCann
and a few others in the freezing cold when he happened to see this house
with a light coming from the living room.
“Myself, Eamonn McCann and a few others went inside to get a bit of a
heat. I said to Eamonn: ‘Do you know something, I am fed up standing
around doing nothing’. He said to me, ‘why don’t you put a slogan up on
the wall’. A few suggestions included, ‘We Demand Free Beer’ and ‘RUC
Out’.
Eamonn then said: ‘Why don’t you write: you are now entering Free Derry.
There was a young boy with us and he told us that his granny lived
nearby so off we went and got some paint.
“When we came back, I remember saying to McCann, ‘Is there one or two rs
in entering?’ That was when I painted, ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’
on the gable end. It was perfect.
“I think it was a few months later that the Defence Association
commissioned ‘Caker’ Casey to paint over my slogan but I was the first
person to write the words on the wall.”
Eamonn McCann was among those to pay tribute to Mr Hillen this week.
He said: “Liam made a significant contribution to the way the civil
rights period is remembered today.
“Liam is the man who first wrote, “You Are Now Entering Free Derry”, on
a gable wall in the Bogside, early on the morning of January 5, 1969.
“I spoke last week to some of those still around about what sort of
ceremony or gathering at Free Derry Wall would be suitable for marking
the 50th anniversary. But it wasn’t to be.
“I feel it important to acknowledge Liam’s role because, on account of a
misunderstanding, I failed to do so when my book, ‘War And An Irish
Town’, was first issued in 1974. The book was republished just a month
ago. A preface to the new edition tries to set the record straight.
“Sometimes inaccuracies which seemed too trivial to matter turn out to
matter very much to somebody. I attributed the writing on a gable wall
of the slogan, ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’, to Bogside activist
‘Caker Casey’.
A few years ago, I was approached in a city centre pub by a man saying,
‘I have a bone to pick with you, McCann.’ He introduced himself as Liam
Hillen. It was he who had inscribed the slogan, he insisted. ‘Do you not
remember me coming over to you and asking, “Is there one r or two rs in
entering?”
In a flash, the memory came back. “Free Derry Wall has assumed iconic
status in the meantime,” he said. “It’s right that Liam’s role should be
acknowledged.”
Posted by Jim on
British intelligence knew in advance about the Enniskillen bombing of
1987 and altered the timing to kill civilians and create a “massive
backlash” against the IRA, according to an anonymous letter by an MI5
agent, written 30 years ago and declassified this week in Dublin.
Twelve people were killed when an IRA bomb exploded prematurely, for
reasons which have never been explained. Six days after the bombing, an
anonymous, typed letter was sent to then Tanaiste and 26 County
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan. It has now been released
as part of the 1988 State papers.
The letter was sent by a man who wrote that he was an MI5 agent
operating in the North of Ireland for 18 months and that he worked in
the special section which was set up to infiltrate republican armed
groups.
He stated that his section of MI5 knew in advance of IRA plans to plant
a bomb in Enniskillen on Remembrance Day. He said British intelligence
knew when and where the IRA gang were going to plant the bomb, its size
and technical make-up.
“Our section decided to change the timing device and let the explosion
take place so that the IRA would score an own goal and create a massive
backlash against itself,” he wrote.
“Our section also calculated that in the climate of a backlash against
the IRA all kinds of security measures could be implemented including
extradition.”
The self-admitted MI5 operative also revealed that MI6’s involvement in
the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which had killed 33 civilians in
1974 and were blamed on the UVF, had been “well established” in his agency.
He listed ways in which British intelligence sought to target
republicans, including the covert bugging of arms dumps. British ‘dirty
tricks’ had included efforts to manipulate Irish National Liberation
Army leader Dessie O’Hare through his wife, and the murder of Mary
McGlinchey, the wife of another INLA leader.
He said he had no concern for “terrorists”, but that “the results of
our interference with the Enniskillen bomb absolutely shocked and
horrified me.”
He added: “I am not even sure that I am doing the right thing, but I
feel I must do something to make people aware of what is happening, and
get it stopped. If I had more courage I would come out openly and prove
with more detail what I am now saying.”
It is not known what investigation took place into the claims, if any.
No official documents on the allegations have ever been released.
Posted by Jim on
BLACK SUNDAY MEMORIAL MASS
On Saturday, January 19, 2019, at 1100 hours, E-46/L-27 will have a Memorial Mass honoring the memory of Lt. Curtis W. Meyran, B-26, Lt. John G. Bellew, L-27 and Lt. Joseph P. DiBernardo, R-3, all of whom made the supreme sacrifice as a result of injuries sustained while operating at Bronx Box 3-3 2997, January 23, 2005. The mass will take place in quarters, 460 Cross Bronx Expressway, Bronx, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019, at 1000 hours, E-290/L-103 will have a Memorial Mass honoring the memory of Firefighter Richard T. Sclafani, L-103. The mass will commemorate the 14th anniversary of his supreme sacrifice and will take place at St. John’s Church, 479 New Jersey Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
On Friday, February 1, 2019, at 1100 hours, a WTC Plaque Dedication Ceremony will be held honoring the memory of Lieutenant Edward T. Meehan, Ladder 22. The dedication will take place in the quarters of Engine 76 & Ladder 22, 145 West 100th Street, New York, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
Posted by Jim on January 2, 2019
The killing of eight people at Loughgall by the SAS and the murder of Raymond McCord by Loyalists are among the cases in the backlog.
The scene following an IRA attack on Loughgall RUC station in Co Armagh
The sister of one of eight IRA men killed by the SAS at Loughgall in 1987 has said she hopes a fresh inquest into his death will prove there were alternatives to what happened.
The case is one of a number of historic cases from Northern Ireland’s troubled past that are awaiting or undergoing new inquest proceedings.
In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Press Association, Northern Ireland’s Courts Service provided a database of the cases currently running and those which have been delayed.
It revealed 44 legacy inquest cases, some of which are incidents involving multiple deaths. More cases are believed to be under consideration.
A lack of funding has caused some of the delay.
A £150 million package to deal with legacy issues was agreed at Stormont House talks in 2015. However, that money is not set to be released until politicians agree a way to deal with the past.
As part of the FoI response, the Lord Chief Justice said he is committed to hearing legacy cases in line with his five-year plan when funding is made available.
The inquests currently running include one into the murder by republicans of 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmill in 1976, and one into the shooting of 11 men and women in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in 1971. Soldiers are believed to be behind those killings.
The Kingsmill inquest has been running since 2016 and remains ongoing.
The Ballymurphy inquest officially opened in November 2018 after several years of preliminary hearings and will continue in 2019 with military witnesses set to be called.
But scores more inquests have been delayed despite numerous preliminary hearings having taken place.
These include the the Stalker-Sampson cases into an alleged RUC shoot-to-kill policy in the 1980s which involved nine deaths, the shooting of four IRA men at Clonoe, Co Tyrone, in 1992 and the murder of Raymond McCord Junior by the UVF in 1997.
Mairead (left) and Roisin Kelly, sisters of Paddy Kelly, one of eight IRA men killed in an SAS ambush at Loughgall nearly 30 years ago, outside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast (Niall Carson/PA)
Mairead Kelly, whose brother Patrick was one of eight IRA men killed at Loughgall on May 8 1987, said she is hopeful that inquest will start in 2019.
An inquest previously took place into the killings of the eight along with civilian Anthony Hughes in 1995.
She told the Press Association they first applied for a fresh inquest in 2011 and she hopes the outcome will be that there was an alternative to what happened.
The families took a judicial review earlier in 2018 to secure the release of funds to enable the inquest to start.
The eight-man IRA unit killed in a shootout with SAS soldiers following the bombing of the Loughgall RUC station, Co Armagh, in May 1987, (clockwise from top left) Gerard O’Callaghan, 29, Antony Gormley, 25, James Lynagh, 32, Eugene Kelly, 25, Declan Arthurs, 21, Patrick McKerney, 32, Seamus Donnelly, 21 and Patrick Kelly, 30 (PA Archive)
Ms Kelly was 25 when her brother, a 30-year-old father of four, was killed.
She described Patrick, the only son in her family, as someone who could do no wrong in their mother’s eyes.
The family had lived for many years in Carrickfergus before having to leave the Co Antrim town following threats from the UVF.
Ms Kelly acknowledged that many will have different opinions to her brother’s killing because he had been a member of the IRA.
But she said she wanted to see Anthony Hughes’ name cleared as he was a civilian.
“People judge the Hughes because of the situation they ended up in,” she said.
“My brother was an active IRA man who was on an active IRA operation, people will have opinions on that, it may not be my opinion, but they are entitled to that.
“But it is very wrong to judge the Hughes family.”