Posted by Jim on November 18, 2018
“ This in another “must-read” article for Members of Congress on Northern Ireland and Brexit. Distinguished author and journalist Susan McKay is from a Unionist/“Protestant” background in Northern Ireland. No writer understands The North better than she does.”—Fr. Sean McManus
The DUP is exposed, clinging to pathetic ‘No surrender’ politics
All that matters to the party is the old game of betrayal and defiance, but it’s all cod[nonsense/rubbish]
Susan McKay.Irish Times. Dublin. Saturday, November 17, 2018. (Susan McKay is from a Unionist/“Protestant” background in Northern Ireland.)
It seems like no time ago that the DUP’s Sammy Wilson was loudly advising the British that “the blackmailing burghers from Brussels” and the “cheap political opportunists” from Dublin must be met with a “tough” response during the Brexit negotiations. “If the gloves are off, it is time we went into the fray with a no surrender attitude,” he declared.
Ian Paisley,Jr. likewise told the then Brexit minister that what was needed was to shout “No surrender” at the EU. “Stand up to them, man,” he instructed. Thus, would the steadfast men of Ulster, “see off” the foreign enemy, and the traitors, and restore the Empire to its former glory.
That was back in Spring, when the party was buoyant. The prime minister had bought its 10 parliamentary votes and, in defiance of her responsibilities to the Belfast Agreement, was acting as if the DUP was the one-party government of Northern Ireland. On demand, she would murmur sweet words about her dedication to “our precious, precious union”. Just like the old days, when Ulster was the “Imperial Province”.
When Edward Carson armed a militia to resist Home Rule in 1912, the leader of the British Conservative Party, Bonar Law, promised his support. He told the Ulster Volunteer Force: “Once again you hold the pass, the pass for the empire. You are a besieged city. The timid have left you; your Lundys have betrayed you; but you have closed your gates.” He was referring, of course, to the siege of Derry in 1689, when the Protestant apprentice boys shut the gates of the walled city against the Catholic forces of King James. Lundy was the pragmatic governor who, having failed to convince them they should negotiate and compromise, scarpered.
Indignant voices
I grew up hearing indignant voices in my community protesting that Unionist leaders, faced with the civil rights movement and then the IRA, were poised to “sell us down the river”.
During a political crisis in the 1990s, I remember asking the late David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, if he would respond to some dire warning Ian Paisley, Sr. had just issued. “What’s he saying?” he asked. It was a catastrophe. There was to be Armageddon, I said. His reply was succinct: “Again?” he said and laughed. Ervine tried to break the mould, but it was made of stuff as hard as cannonballs.
DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted that whatever else about Brexit, there must be “no border down the Irish Sea”. That, she said, was her party’s red line. “The red line is blood red,” she stressed. This was both chilling and disingenuous – the DUP is happy to use the Irish Sea as a Border to keep Northern Ireland safe from human rights provisions such as gay marriage and the right to choose abortion.
Nor would it be troubled by the reinstatement of the hardest of hard Borders between the six counties and the Republic. A British YouGov poll in June found that 83 per cent of people who voted for Brexit thought that the unraveling of the peace process would be worth it to “take back control.” The DUP is among those who are not averse to crashing out of the EU with no deal. Its British allies are the worst of the Brexit fanatics. What matter if the people end up on a siege diet of horseflesh, dogs, rats and tallow? At least we’d have closed our gates.
Gloomy Wilson
The DUP MPs cut a sorry dash on their House of Commons bench on Thursday. Their leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds, struck a pose more in sorrow than in anger, as he spoke with downcast eye of the prime minister’s betrayal. The United Kingdom would be wrecked, it would become a “vassal state” if May’s deal with the EU was adopted, he said.
Wilson was slumped and gloomy. He’d had his say already – before he had even had time to read the agreement, he had been out comparing what the EU was trying to do to Northern Ireland with 40 years of IRA terrorism. He also claimed that this was “all about a punishment beating for the UK because they dared to leave the EU” and that the prime minister had permitted this.
Paisley was absent. His period of banishment from parliament for corruption is not quite over. Jeffrey Donaldson said Northern Ireland would be left behind, and – another warlike metaphor – entrenched.
It was all cod[nonsense/rubbish] The party knew and had been told over and over that the Belfast Agreement made it inevitable that the backstop preventing a hard Border would be included in any deal. However, inevitably, certain excitable loyalists with a penchant for blood-red lines started harking back to how Carson, faced with the threat of a sellout to Dublin in 1912, established the UVF to fight it.
Meanwhile business and farming leaders from across the Northern Irish community – unionist, nationalist and other – were cautiously welcoming the deal and finding in it the kind of advantages that were incensing Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. The DUP does not care. All that matters is the old game of betrayal and defiance, the pathetic sectarian politics of “No surrender!
Posted by Jim on
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Sean Mallory with what he hopes is not a premature tarah to Theresa May.
Goodbye Dolly Gray….. (Theresa May)
“Goodbye Dolly I must leave you, though it breaks my heart to go
Something tells me I am needed at the front to fight the foe….”
Goodbye Dolly Gray was a music hall song written around the time of the Spanish – American War at the end of the 19th century and at the turn of the 20th century. It became more popularised with the Boer War and later became associated with the Great War.
100 years ago the canon fell silent forever more on the fields of Flanders and a little red flower with a black heart began to grow, oblivious as to the future political vitriol it would be inadvertently culpable for.
Little Belgium had been saved and by men no less than those of the Ulster Division, UVF one and all. No more ran the lines of Ulster blood (9 counties in those days).
100 years later, a slim-lined Ulster and the poppy hugging successors to those forefathers who haste to face death for King and Country was heartlessly and savagely accommodated and sacrificed by the British Establishment for the well-being of the Empire once again find themselves being sacrificed by the Establishment for the well-being of the nation. Only this time certainly not in Little Belgium’s favour!
Unlike the brutality and cruelty of Europe’s Flanders 100 years ago, good old fashioned lying and deceit (politics and dialogue to you and me) has replaced the art of war between the powerful European states, and the descendants of the Ulster Rifles are now demanding the right to run away very fast from Brussels, threatening their blood red lines will flow again if they are refused … however only on paper.
Although paper cuts can be quite nasty but not as nasty as charging a machine gun nest or having 500lb explosive shells (not sea-shells) fired at you, but nonetheless they can be painful enough!
Theresa May, bless her little socks, and much like the British high command 100 years ago in Flanders, was initially ignorant of her staffs actions at the front in Brussels learned late on Tuesday afternoon that her Brexit negotiating team had actually secured an exit agreement of sorts with Brussels.
Pleasantly surprised by the initial discovery, Theresa’s mood of developing elation flat-lined on being informed of what the agreement actually contained.
Immediately she set about ordering her staff to discontinue communication with her coalition partners the DUP – Ulster Rifle descendants who were intent on running away from Flanders to Zeebrugge for transport back to Blighty could not be counted on.
Her immediate task was how the hell she was going to sell it to her Cabinet especially since her Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab who negotiated the deal was having reservations about it. Reservations that would later lead to his resignation.
I suppose when you appoint someone who has no idea about the importance of the transport link between Dover and Calais, and places very little personal value on their own ability then this is the type of intelligent reaction to expect from a cabinet minister who presents a deal that took 2 and ½ years to negotiate, signs off on it and then finds fault with his own work.
With the Deal announced but not disclosed, rumours and leaks abounded as to its contents. Reports of what Sabine Weyand had disclosed to European ambassadors led William Hague in a pique of Raabitis to haughtily dismiss these revelations and advised the public to wait and see what is actually in the agreement. No need to worry about leaks from “somebody you’ve never heard of before” announced William flippantly.
Any person who has been following the Brexit negotiations closely knows exactly who Sabine Weyand is – she is the EU deputy chief negotiator to Michel Barnier! Well said William!
The Brexiters having got wind of a sell-out begged Theresa’s Cabinet to rebuff the agreement. The DUP having discovered that their one and only blood red line had been crossed and unlike their forefathers, they had missed the boat in Zeebrugge leaving them stranded on mainland Europe indefinitely, threatened even louder than before to blow May’s house down but decided on a curve ball and blamed Leo Varadkar’s aggressive attitude for all the turmoil.
Varadkar responded by rubbing garlic (not salt…too English!) in their wounds with his very optimistic assessment of what his ambassadors had achieved for Ireland.
Theresa having scraped her agreement past her Cabinet knowing that resignations were surely to follow at some stage then invited the DUP to meet with her to discuss their concerns. After an hour or so of burning the candle the DUP along with the Downing Street cat found themselves on the doorstop – none the wiser but just as angry. Theresa headed off to bed and to dream of her rousing speech and accolades to come from the House the following day on her announcement of the deal.
A dream that quickly turned to a nightmare as firstly resignations of unheard off junior ministers who held posts no one knew they had begun to fly and then Raab and Esther McVey (Work & Pensions Secretary).
Finishing off with letters calling for a vote of no confidence … all from the usual suspects and expected to reach its quota over the weekend.
As the day wore on Michael Gove turned down the offer of replacing Raab due to his demands not being met by May and left the public guessing as to whether he would resign. Next morning he announced much to everyone’s dismay at the Environment Department that he was staying as their Minister. Damn, just when we all thought that things couldn’t get any worse!
Later in the day his hopes of being repaid for his insincere loyalty to Theresa with a supportive ticket from the Brexiteers in his run for leadership were severely dashed when they made it clear that if he didn’t resign he could kiss that idea goodbye. Gove is now contemplating his next move.
Meanwhile Foster, smiling and not snarling as usual but displaying as much ineptitude as a party leader as she was as a Stormont minister, and completely failing to understand the gravity of the situation, had hoofed it off to Dublin to spend the evening watching her fellow Orange State take on Varadkar’s Free State in a soccer friendly.
As she sat in the area reserved for heads of state, which unknowing to Foster she isn’t one, Simon Convey courteously welcomed her to the game.
A game that turned out like her party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Tories – a game her Orange State should have won but didn’t!
And so: as the poppies begin to wilt, just like Theresa Mays tenure as British Prime Minister, and as Arlene’s blood red lines begin to clot, we can rest easy in our beds knowing that TGIF!
All together now to the tune of Goodbye Dolly Gray:
1, 2, 3,
Goodbye Arlene I am leaving, your boilers warms my heart to go
I’ve had enough of your DUP scheming, but Barnier tells me the EU already know
You see the Brexiters are already marching and I must depart for I cannot stay
I hear the no confidence vote a calling, so it’s goodbye confidence and supply and fare thee well from
Theresa May
Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist
Posted by Jim on
By Emma DeSouza
For most people, their identity is not something that can be taken away
from them or questioned. Identity is complex, it’s personal, it’s, for
me, unexplainable.
The UK government maintains that it is fully committed to the Good
Friday Agreement whilst simultaneously contesting the treaty through the
courts. It reassures both the Irish government and EU that it will
uphold its commitments whilst fighting to break them.
Described as ‘the condition of being oneself’ and protected in countless
treaties worldwide, identity has been long accepted as a basic human
right. It was an overriding principle in Northern Ireland throughout the
Troubles and paramount to the Good Friday Agreement -and it is here
where it carries an even greater significance and weight.
The treaty affords the people of Northern Ireland the right to choose
their identity; a choice that was essential in bringing peace and one
which is being habitually diminished, challenged and refused by the UK
Government.
I am an Irish citizen, born in Northern Ireland whose Good Friday
Agreement right to identify as such has been repeatedly denied by the UK
Home Office. An identity that I didn’t chose or consider in a place
where religion is often synonymous with it. Even as a child, I knew when
I was safe or unsafe and understood the reason for that was my Irish
identity.
The political landscape and attitudes have changed massively but the
divisions of my childhood created in me a unique affinity for my
identity. Its true worth and importance wasn’t something I often thought
of until I began the process of stabilising my non-EU spouse’s status
when I’d find myself questioning the validity of my lifelong self.
In 2015, I applied for a European Economic Area (EEA) residence card for
my husband as the spouse of an Irish national. This was refused by the
UK Home Office who claim that I am “automatically a British Citizen” as
I was “clearly born in the United Kingdom.” The Good Friday Agreement
states that the people of Northern Ireland can chose to be Irish or
British or both. The right to self-identify and, in my case, the right
to not be British is central to the agreement itself.
The department offered, as it oftentimes does, the option to renounce
this unclaimed citizenship. The first line of the form is a declaration
‘I am a British citizen.’ It seemed to me, that in the eyes of the UK
Government my choice to be Irish was wrong, lesser, unimportant and
irrelevant, a feeling that has not subsided.
Appealing came at an immeasurable personal cost, no freedom of movement
for 2 years being one. The judge ruled in our favour stating that: “The
constitutional changes effected by the Good Friday Agreement with its
annexed British-Irish Agreement, the latter amounting to an
international treaty between sovereign governments supersede the British
Nationality Act 1981 in so far as the people of Northern Ireland are
concerned.
“He or she is permitted to choose their nationality as a birthright.
Nationality cannot therefore be imposed on them at birth.”
The UK Home Office now seek to overturn this ruling, one that has
already been upheld in a second decision. The department claims the
judge “misconstrued the effect of the British-Irish Agreement,” stating
that “a treaty to which the UK government is a party does not alter the
laws of the United Kingdom.” A worrying argument.
The UK government maintains that it is fully committed to the Good
Friday Agreement whilst simultaneously contesting the treaty through the
courts. It reassures both the Irish government and EU that it will
uphold its commitments whilst fighting to break them.
During the three years of our marriage – and the three years of this
legal battle – we’ve uncovered a systemic, institutionalised disregard
for the Good Friday Agreement. The failings within the Home Office are
at every level. We’ve seen citizens be told they’ve obtained their Irish
passport by fraud, that their child has no right to residence in
Northern Ireland, that they have no right to residence with an Irish
passport.
A community within Northern Ireland is, in the here and now, being
marginalised, penalised and discriminated against, the effect of which
is catastrophic. And the cause is their identity.
This presupposition taken by the UK Home Office further cements not the
citizenship clause of the Good Friday Agreement, but the fear that
people of Northern Ireland will become second class EU citizens after
Brexit.
The people of Northern Ireland did not vote for Brexit and a simmering
disquiet can be felt across the country as the deadline approaches,
evidenced in the Letter to Leo campaign of which I was a signatory. The
campaign directly calls on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to stand by his
government’s commitments. As co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement,
the Irish government has a responsibility to protect the interests of
its people north of the border.
The atmosphere is palpable – and the fear growing – that the future
Northern Ireland has been working towards will be taken apart by Brexit.
We have no guarantees and no protections; just a clear gradual erosion
of the treaty each side is promising to protect. No matter which way I
look at Brexit, it is set to breach the treaty. If it isn’t the border
issue, then it’s citizenship rights where there can be no detrimental or
differential treatment between the two communities of Northern Ireland.
The intention or motivation behind the UK Home Office relentlessly
appealing this court ruling remains unclear. What is clear, however, is
there is a price on an Irish identity in Northern Ireland. It is losing
your right to work. It is losing your right to travel. It is losing the
right to be at your grandmother’s side as she passes. It is losing your
right to be who you are. You have to ask yourself, ‘what is your
identity worth?’
We return to court on November 26th with the argument that identity is
tantamount to the Good Friday Agreement. In the words of Bill Clinton in
1998, “In the days to come there may be those who try to undermine this
great achievement. All the parties and the rest of us must stand
shoulder to shoulder to defy any such appeal.”
* Emma and Jake deSouza have launched a fundraising campaign to assist their
legal battle. It is online at:
Posted by Jim on
(By ireland-calling.com)
Bridget Dirrane is a remarkable person in the history of Ireland. She
associated with key figures in the Easter Rising of 1916, including
Padraig Pearse and Countess Markievicz. She knew Maud Gonne, the
beautiful actress who broke the heart of W B Yeats.
Dirrane later helped President Kennedy’s election campaign in America.
Throughout her life she survived two World Wars, seven Popes and was
involved in several significant historical events.
Dirrane was born on 15 November 1894 on Inishmore, the largest of the
Aran Islands off Galway. She was the youngest of the eight children and
enjoyed a happy childhood with her brothers and sisters.
She was a staunch republican who managed to listen in on a conversation
involving Padraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and other republicans as they
planned the Easter Rising. Dirrane was carrying out her household tasks
and overheard the men talking. Speaking about the conversation she
heard, Dirrane said:
“They were talking about a rebellion, and I knew the way they were
talking that they didn’t want anyone to hear them but of course big
ears, I heard every word they said. Padraig Pearse was a very nice
gentleman. Very nice if you were to listen to him, but I wasn’t supposed
to listen.”
While working in Tipperary, she joined the Cumann na mBan, the
republican women’s organisation. She went on to train as a nurse in
Dublin.
Dirrane was visiting Claude Chevasse, a political campaigner for Irish
nationalism, at the same time the British raided his home. She was
arrested along with all others present.
Dirrane refused to be intimidated by the British troops. She was told
that if she were a man she would be killed, and that she should suffer
the same fate. She turned to the official and told him: “Shoot me if you
can, because there’s a thousand lives to give for the same cause.” The
official didn’t shoot her and she was arrested.
She was put in Mountjoy Gaol and protested by going on hunger strike.
She spent her time dancing and singing in Gaelic. When asked by one of
the guards why she was so happy Dirrane replied: “I’m so happy because
I’m doing a little bit for my country.”
She was released without charge after nine days. She later joked that
was too much trouble for them to deal with so they let her go.
Dirrane was part of the Cumann na mBan vigil outside Mountjoy the day
that IRA volunteer Kevin Barry was hanged. Barry had been involved in an
attack on an army tank in Dublin and arrested. He refused to reveal the
names of his comrades to the British, despite being tortured. He was
executed on 1st November 1920. Dirrane remembered the moment vividly:
“We heard the death bell and then there was silence.”
In 1927 Dirrane emigrated to America where she worked as a nurse in
Boston. She met and married a fellow Aran native called Ned Dirrane.
During the Second World War she tended to wounded American soldiers in
Mississippi. Dirrane was tragically widowed in 1940 when her husband Ned
died.
She returned to Boston after the war and embraced the advance in
technology by getting a driving licence and buying herself a car. She
drove up and down the country in her Chevrolet Bel Air to attend various
nursing assignments and do voluntary Catholic work.
During the 1960s, Dirrane was an active canvasser for John F Kennedy’s
presidential campaign and made a lasting impression on the party. She
was present when Hillary Clinton was made the first free woman of Galway
City and former US Ambassador Jean Kennedy-Smith and Senator Edward
Kennedy also later visited her in Ireland.
“What I will leave is the sunshine to the flowers, honey to the bees,
the moon above in the heavens for all those in love and my beloved Aran
Islands to the seas.”
Dirrane moved back to Aran in 1966 and married her late husband’s
brother Pat. Never one to be afraid of new experiences, she was one of
the passengers on the first aeroplane to ever fly to the Aran Islands.
After the death of her second husband Pat in 1990, Dirrane moved to St
Francis’ Community Nursing Unit in Newcastle, Galway. She wrote her
autobiography, A Woman of Aran with the matron, Rose O’Connor.
In recognition to her life of service to others, Dirrane received an
honorary degree from NUI, Galway in 1998 at the age of 103.
It is unclear as to whether Dirrane was ever officially the oldest woman
in Ireland, but a nurse at her care home stated she was “certainly in
the top two or three”.
The Irish Independent were convinced and celebrated her 108th birthday
calling her “Ireland’s oldest woman, Bridget Dirrane”.
She credited her long and active life to her religious faith, a good
upbringing and a healthy diet. Bridget Dirrane passed away on New Year’s
Eve 2003 at the age of 109.
Posted by Jim on November 17, 2018
A shocking British military archive discovered by a grandson of victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 1971 proves that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary police originated and disseminated “a line” falsely stating
that the atrocity was an IRA ‘own goal’, just over 4 hours after the
bombing.
An entry in a high-level British Army log on the night of the attack
states that the “RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb
designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by
Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have
a line on it – NI should deal with them”
No police investigation has ever confirmed that the genesis of the
McGurk’s Bar disinformation was the RUC itself and it was this agency
which disseminated the false information so quickly after the attack. No
police investigation has been able to substantiate or even provenance
the initial falsehood that the McGurk’s Bar bombing was the result an
IRA “mistake”.
The families have challenged PSNI Chief George Hamilton to substantiate
the lie now or admit the police created it.
“It is obvious from this startling document that the British Army washed
its hands of the RUC “line”, according to Ciaran MacAirt of the Paper
Trail charity, who carried out the research.
“Normally British Army PR handled ‘terrorist-related’ questions from the
press but had referred all queries to RUC press office for the ‘line’
deliberately invented by the police.”
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) document also reveals that the
British Army had initiated a vehicle checkpoint operation within 3
minutes of the bombing to try to snare a suspicious car that was
reported to have been involved in the attack — and that loyalists were
suspected.
The British Army Brigade and HQNI Command also received an expert report
confirming the bomb had been placed in the ground floor entrance.
The file with the new information was only discovered as a result of a
year-long battle via the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr MacAirt, whose grandmother was murdered in the attack and his
grandfather badly injured, said the documents were “the final, horrific
proof that the police originated and disseminated the heinous lie” that
the McGurk’s Bar bombing was an IRA own-goal.
“I demand that the Chief Constable proves the provenance of this lie and
substantiates it as the RUC in effect criminalised the innocent victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and allowed the perpetrators roam free and
kill again. If he cannot, he will be forced to admit that the police
quite simply created the lie to suit the police’s own warped and
sectarian agenda.”
The now defunct police Historical Enquiries Team (HET) has previously
claimed there was no evidence of bias in the original RUC investigation,
contradicting the finding of the Police Ombudsman.
Mr MacAirt said the families were still fighting the police after a
nearly four-year battle to quash the series of reports by the HET, all
of which sought to exonerate the RUC and perpetuate the cover-up.
“Yet again, it has been left to the family of victims to discover this
significant evidence,” he said. “We have had no faith in so-called
professional police investigators investigating the police cover-up of
the massacre. This latest discovery of vital evidence proves why we were
correct not to trust them.”
He said the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation Branch and the Director of
Historic Investigations at the Office of the Police Ombudsman had failed
to respond to his correspondence on the matter, and that a legal action
would be undertaken on behalf of the families.
“These actions include demands that the police quash its ludicrous HET
report into the atrocity and that the Attorney General gives our
families the proper inquest they rightfully deserve.”
A shocking British military archive discovered by a grandson of victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 1971 proves that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary police originated and disseminated “a line” falsely stating
that the atrocity was an IRA ‘own goal’, just over 4 hours after the
bombing.
An entry in a high-level British Army log on the night of the attack
states that the “RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb
designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by
Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have
a line on it – NI should deal with them”
No police investigation has ever confirmed that the genesis of the
McGurk’s Bar disinformation was the RUC itself and it was this agency
which disseminated the false information so quickly after the attack. No
police investigation has been able to substantiate or even provenance
the initial falsehood that the McGurk’s Bar bombing was the result an
IRA “mistake”.
The families have challenged PSNI Chief George Hamilton to substantiate
the lie now or admit the police created it.
“It is obvious from this startling document that the British Army washed
its hands of the RUC “line”, according to Ciaran MacAirt of the Paper
Trail charity, who carried out the research.
“Normally British Army PR handled ‘terrorist-related’ questions from the
press but had referred all queries to RUC press office for the ‘line’
deliberately invented by the police.”
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) document also reveals that the
British Army had initiated a vehicle checkpoint operation within 3
minutes of the bombing to try to snare a suspicious car that was
reported to have been involved in the attack — and that loyalists were
suspected.
The British Army Brigade and HQNI Command also received an expert report
confirming the bomb had been placed in the ground floor entrance.
The file with the new information was only discovered as a result of a
year-long battle via the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr MacAirt, whose grandmother was murdered in the attack and his
grandfather badly injured, said the documents were “the final, horrific
proof that the police originated and disseminated the heinous lie” that
the McGurk’s Bar bombing was an IRA own-goal.
“I demand that the Chief Constable proves the provenance of this lie and
substantiates it as the RUC in effect criminalised the innocent victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and allowed the perpetrators roam free and
kill again. If he cannot, he will be forced to admit that the police
quite simply created the lie to suit the police’s own warped and
sectarian agenda.”
The now defunct police Historical Enquiries Team (HET) has previously
claimed there was no evidence of bias in the original RUC investigation,
contradicting the finding of the Police Ombudsman.
Mr MacAirt said the families were still fighting the police after a
nearly four-year battle to quash the series of reports by the HET, all
of which sought to exonerate the RUC and perpetuate the cover-up.
“Yet again, it has been left to the family of victims to discover this
significant evidence,” he said. “We have had no faith in so-called
professional police investigators investigating the police cover-up of
the massacre. This latest discovery of vital evidence proves why we were
correct not to trust them.”
He said the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation Branch and the Director of
Historic Investigations at the Office of the Police Ombudsman had failed
to respond to his correspondence on the matter, and that a legal action
would be undertaken on behalf of the families.
“These actions include demands that the police quash its ludicrous HET
report into the atrocity and that the Attorney General gives our
families the proper inquest they rightfully deserve.”
