Sinn Fein leader arrested over 1972 IRA killing

Posted by Jim on May 1, 2014

by Shawn Pogatchnik

Adams was arrested on suspicion of ordering the killing of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 in his Catholic west Belfast power base in 1972. That was the deadliest year in four decades of bloodshed, when the outlawed Irish Republican Army was committing killings daily — and Adams was already a commanding figure.

The IRA branded the 38-year-old woman a British spy but killed her secretly and told her children, who ranged in age from infants to teens, that she had abandoned them.

If Adams, 65, is charged with the murder of McConville — who disappeared without trace until her bullet-shattered skull was found near a Republic of Ireland beach in 2003 — it would be a profound surprise and deal a damaging shock to Northern Ireland’s precariously balanced peace.

Adams’ track record suggests he won’t be.

He was arrested and interrogated repeatedly in the wake of IRA bombings and shootings in the 1970s and 1980s, and even met British government leaders face to face as an IRA representative for failed cease-fire talks in 1972, followed by the IRA’s biggest car-bomb offensive on Belfast. Yet he insists he’s never held any position in the underground army and has been convicted of only one IRA offense, a failed escape when imprisoned without trial.

Adams gave every impression he intended to walk free again, giving TV interviews shortly before delivering himself to a Belfast police station Wednesday to begin an interrogation he has anticipated for months, if not years.

“I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family,” Adams said. “Well publicized, malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject these. While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs. McConville.”

The difference, this time, is that key potential witnesses against Adams have been speaking, on tape, from their graves.

Police investigating the long-unsolved killing of McConville have been making arrests based on tapes of interviews with IRA veterans that they obtained, after a two-year U.S. legal fight, from Boston College. Its Belfast Project involved the collection of audio interviews with 26 IRA veterans detailing their own and colleagues’ careers. They spoke on condition their words be kept secret until their deaths.

Detectives sought access to all of the tapes after one of the interviewees, Adams’ one-time IRA confidante Brendan Hughes, died in 2008. His Boston College interview became the subject of a 2010 book, “Voices From the Grave,” by project coordinator and IRA expert Ed Moloney.

Hughes said he led the IRA team that “arrested” McConville, but her fate was sealed following a policy argument between Adams and the man who succeeded him as the IRA’s Belfast commander, Ivor Bell.

He said Bell wanted McConville’s body to be put on public display to intimidate others who might consider helping the British, but Adams wanted her killing kept a mystery, and she was buried in an unmarked grave.

“There was only one man who gave the order for that woman to be executed,” Hughes said in the audio recording, which was broadcast on British and Irish television in 2010. “That man is now the head of Sinn Fein. I did not give the order to execute that woman. He did.”

Adams and Hughes were arrested together in July 1973, when the British army pounced on an IRA commanders’ meeting in West Belfast. Both were interned without trial, the British policy at the time; IRA members did not face criminal trials until 1976.

After a protracted legal wrangle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Northern Ireland police last year received many more of the IRA tapes from Boston College. Last month, they used the taped interviews of Bell to arrest the now 77-year-old and charge him with aiding McConville’s killing.

Adams, sensing his own arrest was imminent, announced he would be happy to answer police questions and his lawyers negotiated Wednesday’s police appearance.

Moloney argues that the police investigation is designed not to bring justice but to claim the political scalp of Adams, who is Europe’s longest-serving party leader. He has led Sinn Fein since 1983 and used its growing popularity and clout to deliver IRA cease-fires in 1994 and 1997 and, eventually, a formal renunciation of violence and disarmament in 2005. Today Sinn Fein is the main Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, where Adams has taken a back seat to fellow IRA veteran Martin McGuinness. Since 2011, Adams has led Sinn Fein’s lawmakers in the Republic of Ireland parliament.

Moloney, author of the definitive “A Secret History of the IRA,” said in a phone interview that he doubted the taped accounts could be used effectively to prove any criminal charge, but the political damage to Adams would still be done when, as is expected, McConville’s children sue him for civil damages.

“Unless Gerry Adams actually breaks down and confesses and says ‘I did it,’ I think it’s very unlikely they’ll be able to charge him,” Moloney said.

Even if Adams were convicted of murder, he would win speedy parole under terms of the Good Friday peace accord. It offered quick freedom for all those convicted of pre-1998 IRA crimes.

Yet Adams’ murky IRA past has been repeatedly cited by Irish political opponents to undercut his message and credibility. He suffered embarrassment when two of his close colleagues, party mandarin Denis Donaldson and IRA internal security enforcer Freddie Scappaticci, were exposed as British double agents.

Worse followed last year when his brother was convicted of raping his daughter in the 1970s and 1980s, and Adams testified that he had known of the crimes since 1987 but did not tell Belfast police because they were his enemies.

Long before Wednesday’s arrest, some within his party have wondered when he would give way to a successor with no IRA pedigree, so that the party could grow stronger in the Irish Republic.

Moloney said Adams’ arrest and future threats of lawsuits would “strengthen the argument inside Sinn Fein that it’s time for people to retire and move on. There are too many of these ghosts from the past that keep haunting them.”

Others more concerned with maintaining stability in Northern Ireland warn that Sinn Fein must retain its reformed warlords in the leadership, lest room be created for a new generation of IRA die-hards to resume full-fledged violence against the British state.

The wild card in any prosecutions could be Bell, who had a bitter split with Adams in the mid-1980s, when Adams steered the party toward seeking and taking seats in the Irish parliament, a first step toward wider acceptance of political compromise. Bell was expelled from the IRA and joined those who criticized Adams’ acceptance of a 1998 peace deal that won prison paroles for hundreds of IRA convicts but kept Northern Ireland firmly within the United Kingdom.

Bell’s taped confessions, if accepted as admissible evidence, could be used against Adams because Bell is still alive. Those of Hughes and another IRA veteran who died in 2013, Dolours Price, might be harder to use because they cannot be cross-examined.

Before she died, Price told journalists she had driven the car that delivered McConville to her death. She said another IRA member ordered her to kneel and fired a single rifle shot through the back of her head. She recalled attending a meeting with Hughes, Adams and Bell to discuss how to handle McConville and others suspected of passing intelligence tips on IRA movements to the British Army.

Reflecting the embarrassment associated with killing a widowed mother, the IRA did not claim her killing until 1999, when it admitted responsibility for nine slayings of long-vanished civilians and IRA members, all branded informers. The IRA offered to try to pinpoint their unmarked graves, though with little success. An independent investigation by Northern Ireland’s police complaints watchdog in 2006 found no evidence that McConville had been a spy.

McConville’s children, who had been divided into different foster homes and grew up barely knowing each other, took turns keeping a vigil during months of digging at a beach specified by the IRA some 55 miles (80 kilometers) south of Belfast, but nothing was found.

Finally in 2003, a dogwalker stumbled across her remains protruding from the ground on a grassy slope above the shifting sands.

Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf

Posted by Jim on April 13, 2014

Posted by Neil F. Cosgrove in The Wild Geese

While the rest of Europe plunged into darkness with the fall of the Roman Empire, the light of learning and western civilization was kept flickering in Ireland, preserved in the monasteries established by the followers of St.  Patrick.   However, it would only be a matter of time before the “light” attracted the unwanted attention of those more interested in plunder than learning.  A period of warming weather and a population explosion in what we now know as Scandinavia combined to unleash upon Europe a terror the likes of which had never been seen before: the Vikings.

In 795, the Viking attacks on Ireland began with the sacking and burning of a monastery on  Rathlin Island .  Hit and run raids along the Irish coast would continue for the next forty years.  The Viking tactics changed however in 837; sixty Viking longboats appeared in the river Boyne while another sixty appeared in the river Liffy and began to raid inland and plunder the great monasteries such as Clonamacnois.  In the winter of 841-842 the Vikings wintered in Ireland at a defensive position they had established: Dublin.  The Vikings were now no longer raiders, they were occupiers and colonists.  The Vikings began building fortified towns, longphorts, near the sea which was the source of their strength.   These Norse settlements would be the basis for the future Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Wicklow, Limerick and Stangford.   The drawback to these settlements for the Vikings is that they provided fixed targets for the Irish to attack.  The result was the establishment of a chaotic and often violent status quo, with Viking Jarl and Irish Chieftain making and breaking  alliances as part of ongoing power struggles in both communities

One of the contributing factors to the success of the Viking invasion was that the Ireland of that time was made up of dozens of small kingdoms and competing kings and chieftains.  Brian was the younger son of Cennedi  (Kennedy), the King of the Dal Cais of north Munster, what would be equivalent to modern  County Clare (“Boru” was not a family name, but a cognomen given  after Brian’s death; either a reference to “Béal Bóruma” a fort where his family held sway or the Gaelic “bóruma” meaning “of the tributes” indicating a powerful lord to whom homage was to be paid.).  The Dal Cais had recently risen in power due to the strategic position of their lands straddling the river Shannon, which combined with knowledge gained from Norse tactics allowed them to become a formidable military force.  Brian’s older brother, Mathgamain, succeeded to the kingship of Munster and successfully captured and sacked the Viking settlement of Limerick.  Mathgamain success was short lived; he was betrayed by supposed allies and murdered.  Brian avenged his brother’s death and assumed the throne of Munster.

For the next twenty years Brian would increase his power with a vision of becoming Ard Ri, “High King “of  a united Ireland.   The title of Ard Ri was an ancient one, that had long been held by the O’Neill’s of Ulster, but it was more honor than substance, with the minor kings giving or withholding support as suited them.  This was to change with Brian.  In 999 Brian captured Dublin, the last of the Viking cities yet to fall under his control.  Brian became High King in name and fact with the submission of the then current High King, Malachy the II, in 1002.

The next decade was a period of relative peace and prosperity in Ireland.  Under Brian’s protection, the plundered monasteries were rebuilt.  It is said that Brian sent emissaries abroad in an attempt to acquire and return treasures and artifacts that had been taken from Ireland.  Relative peace and stability gave rise to a new golden age of Irish culture.

However, such a Golden Age would not last long.  In an attempt to consolidate his power through reconciliation, Brian had allowed Sitric, the Viking King of Dublin, and Mael Mordha King of Leinster to retain their positions after swearing fealty to Brian.  Combining forces along with Viking allies that had been recruited by Sitric from the Orkney Islands Sitric and Mael Mordha decided to challenge Brian at  Clontarf, located outside of what was then Dublin, on Good Friday April 23, 1014.  What resulted was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Dark Ages.  The battle swayed back and forth throughout the day when finally Brian’s forces gained the advantage.  The result was a slaughter ;  Sitric  and Mael Mordha killed and many of the Orkeny Vikings drowning as they attempted to flee in panic to  their Longships as the tide was coming in. Out of an estimated force of 6,500-7,000 Vikings who fouht that day nearly 6,000 were killed; such was the magnitude of the route by Brian’s forces,    However, in winning the battle the Irish had also lost heavily; Brian’s son and grandson were both killed in the battle.  Legend says that Brian, now an old man in his seventies, was killed by a fleeing Viking who found the old man at prayer for his lost son, grandson and in honor of Good Friday.  Without Brian’s strong leadership and the succession of his house in shambles, Ireland rapidly reverted to the disjoint and feuding kingdoms that had preceded Brian’s reign.

Legends says that Brian Boru drove the Vikings out of Ireland.  Brian’s victory at Clontarf did mark the last time the Vikings would attempt a major landing in Ireland, but  the Norse of the longphort’s had been in Ireland for generations and had become, and would continue to be, an integral part of Irish Society.  At the same time the descendents of Vikings that settled in France, the Normans whose name was a corruption of “Norse Men“,  invaded Ireland 55 years later and would begin another conquest of Ireland. One wonders what might have been the result if Brian Boru’s united Ireland had been able to persist longer, could the Normans have conquered a united Ireland rather than playing minor kings off against each other as events transpired.

It would be equally wrong to view the end of Brian’s High Kingship at Clontarf as a hollow victory that brought to an end Brian’s vision of a unified Ireland on that Good Friday 1014.  It was memories of the Golden Age of Brian’s reign that would keep alive the vision of Ireland’s nationhood in the face of conquest and oppression; that would inspire the volunteers who rose in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916, not far from where Brian had asserted Ireland’s right to sovereignty  900 years before, and set Ireland once more on the path of independence and unity.  On another Good Friday, 984 years later, 10 April 1998, the light of the promise of a free, peaceful and united Ireland was lit again with the Good Friday agreements.  Despite the winds of politicians and voices of division that light continues to flicker and we must nourish and protect that small flame of freedom  until all of Ireland bask in the light of freedom as it was in the time of  Brian Boru.

Gerry McGeough – 2011 Conviction Unsafe

Posted by Jim on

On meeting monarchy

Posted by Jim on

By Jim Slaven (of the Edinburgh-based James Connolly Society)

“Fellow-workers, stand by the dignity of your class. All these parading
royalties, all this insolent aristocracy, all these grovelling,
dirt-eating capitalist traitors, all these are but signs of disease in
any social state – diseases which a royal visit brings to a head and
spews in all its nastiness before our horrified eyes” – James Connolly

So Martin McGuinness has finally met Betty Battenberg. It is obviously a
matter for Sinn Fein who they meet but from the outside this looks like
another ‘leadership initiative’ which has nothing to do with improving
the material conditions of the working class or advancing towards the
Republic. It does however put republicans outside Ireland in the
position of having to decide whether to show solidarity with this act or
not. For our part the James Connolly Society have been critical of the
SNP leaderships decision to come out as monarchists and abandon their
party policy of holding a post independence referendum on the future of
the monarchy. This is because we believe monarchy, and hereditary power
and privilege they represent, have no place in a democratic society and
the role of republicans is to actively oppose monarchy and advocate the
establishment of a republic where people are sovereign.While Sinn Fein have not went as far as the SNP their decision to meet
the British monarch is one many of us outside Ireland are unable to
support. Many people have sought to justify this decision on the basis
that the meeting is just symbolism. This is disingenuous in the extreme.
While the constitutional role of the monarch in the UK state may be
symbolic the British monarchy also plays a key ideological role. The
monarch’s visits to Ireland (and Scotland) like their weddings or
jubilees are used by the state to reinforce its influence and power. The
monarchy serves to strengthen and legitimise British hegemony on these
islands.

This meeting has been on the cards for some time and the JCS have been
discussing its inevitability and its consequences. During one of these
discussions one joker pointed out that I had actually led the way on
this issue as I had met Betty Battenberg back in 1999. The occasion was
the opening of the Scottish parliament and I should clarify something at
this point by pointing out that we were not invited but thought we had
something to contribute anyway.

The JCS thought it was disgrace that the British monarch was invited to
open the new Scottish parliament and decided to let her know. At the
same time the residents of Garvaghy Road were living under siege from so
called ‘Loyal Institutions’ such as the Orange Order and we decided
support for the residents should be central to the protest. The whole
story of that day has never been told and sadly there is not room to
tell it here. However this protest was organised with the full knowledge
of Sinn Fein who at that very time were in negotiations with the British
government and Unionist leaders at Stormont. In fact the JCS had made a
decision the previous evening to call the protest off if an agreement
was reached in those overnight negotiations. On the morning of the
protest we spoke to Sinn Fein who confirmed no deal had been reached and
the rest as they say is history.

All the protesters were resplendent in JCS ‘Disband the RUC’ t-shirts
and ‘End the Siege of Garvaghy Road’ placards. Evading the cops we made
our way over the barriers and past the royal protection squad. Once I
was on the carriage I saw old Phil trying to get out the other side and
noticed Betty could not take her eyes off my Disband the RUC t-shirt. I
only found out later that Charlie was sitting opposite. He was very
quiet. I still had the placard in my hand and despite the best efforts
of the armed cops in fancy dress on the back of the carriage me and
Betty shared a moment.

The conversation must remain between the two of us (for now at least)
but suffice to say I made my point robustly. Our discussion was
interrupted by one of the JCS shouting my name and just as well really
as I was about to be attacked by a horse or more accurately someone
dressed as a Beefeater on a horse. At this point I decided to make my
excuses and leave. What happened next is for another day but it involved
special forces, a gun on a string, refugees in Kosovo, terrified cops,
handcuffs that didn’t lock and Tommy Sheridan.

All of that was thirteen years ago and as many people never tire of
reminding us much has changed in the intervening years. And indeed it
has but much remains the same, such as the British state’s continued
denial of the Irish people’s right to national self-determination.
Another thing that remains the same is the JCS’ commitment to the
political philosophy of James Connolly and our commitment to working
with others to end the monarchy and breakup the British state. At this
political-economic conjuncture the UK state is in constitutional flux
and desperately trying to reconfigure itself for the 21st century. Now
is the time for republicans to be bold, principled and ambitious not to
pander to anachronistic and sectarian manifestations of Britishness and
elitism such as monarchy.

Had Martin sought my advice one tip I could have given him was that if
he wanted to speak to Betty Battenberg in a language other than English
he would have been better brushing up on German. I also could have
advised him that, in my experience of such meetings, republicans would
be better taking the James Connolly Society’s approach rather than Sinn
Fein’s when it comes to meeting monarchy.

“What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has
been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed
by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest
and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from
the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its
gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the
pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.” – James
Connolly

McGuinness salutes the queen at royal banquet

Posted by Jim on April 10, 2014

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness this evening stood for the British
national anthem and toasted the “health and happiness” of the English
queen in the most symbolic gesture yet of his party’s support for the
status quo in the north of Ireland.

Mr McGuinness was attending a banquet at Windsor Castle in honour of
the 26 County President Michael D Higgins, the first official state
visit by an Irish head of state to the English capital.

The visit was described by government press officers in Dublin and
London as the “final step to normal relations” between the two states,
and follows the infamous visit by the English royals to Dublin in 2011.

The queen said that the “heightened relations” which followed that
visit had pleased her. “Even more pleasing, since then,” she said, “is
that we, the Irish and British, are becoming good and dependable
neighbours and better friends; finally shedding our inhibitions about
seeing the best in each other.”

Earlier today, President Higgins addressed the Westminster parliament
— another first for a 26 County President — before being driven in a
ceremonial carriage to the castle to prepare for the royal banquet.

But amid the tightly choreographed pageantry, it was the actions of
Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander and now Six County Deputy
First Minister, which proved the most controversial element.

McGuinness sat just 15 places away from the queen, close to the centre
of the 160-foot long table which seated all 160 guests.

His participation infuriated Irish republicans ahead of the anniversary
of the 1916 Easter Rising. His unexpected decision to toast the queen
— a gesture which Irish citizens have historically refused to join —
was described by traditionalists as “a gratuitous insult” to Ireland’s
patriot dead.

Socialists in Ireland and Britain have also pointed to the inequity of
highly paid government officials enjoying a sumptuous menu of
delicacies — Isle of Gigha Halibat and tournedos of Windsor estate
beef were among them — while welfare cuts have forced people into soup
kitchens or emigration.

In his speech, President Higgins made reference to the queen’s visit to
Ireland, in which she “admirably” did not “shy away from the shadows of
the past”.

He said: “Your gracious and genuine curiosity, your evident delight in
that visit, including its equine dimension, made it very easy for us to
express to you and, through you to the British people, the warmth of
neighbourly feelings.”

People had been “moved” by the Windsors’ “gestures of respect” at sites
of national historical significance in Ireland, he said. “These
memorable moments and these moving words merit our appreciation and,
even more, our reciprocity.”

As a sign of that ‘reciprocity’, officials in Dublin and London are
understood to be planning for Windsor to stand alongside President
Higgins during the centenary Commemorations of Easter 1916, as a
symbolic gesture of Anglo-Irish unity.

Whole endorsing McGuinness’s actions, Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams also
said minds should be on the need for political leaders to resolve “all
of the outstanding issues in the peace process.”

He said that peace needed to be “celebrated on the streets as well as
in the palaces and the big houses”.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party was more critical. It said that
“unlike other actions since 1998 this move cannot be spun as a
concession for the good of the peace.”

They said as “an active move” by Sinn Fein to “seek engagement with the
highest echelons of the British establishment whilst normalising and
copper-fastening the economic and physical occupation of the Island”.

The Republican Network for Unity said McGuinness’s actions were
“incompatible” with “even the basic ideals of Republicanism” and that
they had “given legitimacy” to “monarchy, privilege and the class
system”.

“In these times of austerity, rising poverty and enforced inequality
across Ireland, England and beyond; the hosting of a one-time
revolutionary leader in the residence of the British monarch represents
a victory for the enemies of freedom and working class struggles
everywhere,” they said.
“All progressive thinking people – including Sinn Fein members – will
be disheartened by this farcical decision. RNU shares their
sentiments.”