Martin Hurson – Died July13th, 1981

Posted by Jim on July 13, 2018

A hard-working and extremely likeable republican

IN THE early hours of Tuesday morning, November 9th, 1976, a series of British army and RUC swoops in the Cappagh district of Dungannon in East Tyrone led to the arrest from their homes, under Section 10 of the Emergency Provisions Act, of three young local men: Pat Joe O’Neill, Dermot Boyle and Peter Kane. Two days later, November 11th, in similar dawn swoops in the area, four other men, James Joseph Rafferty, Peter Nugent, Kevin O’Brien and Martin Hurson, were arrested from their homes.

Over the next few days all seven men were held in Omagh RUC barracks, interrogated about IRA operations in East Tyrone since 1972, and systematically tortured by detectives from the newly established Regional Crime Squad.

The men had their hair pulled, their ears slapped, they were made to stand for prolonged periods in the ‘search position’ against a wall, they were kicked and punched and forced to do exercises for lengthy periods.

INJURIES

Finally, two men, Peter Nugent and James Rafferty, were released without charge, Rafferty to Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh where he spent four days recovering from his injuries. The remaining five were charged (and subsequently convicted) on the sole basis of statements made during that interrogation.

One of the five is now in the cages of Long Kesh, the other four became blanket men in the H-Blocks.

Four-and-a-half years later with revealing ironic insight into the nature of the British judicial system in Ireland, while four RUC detectives involved in those Omagh interrogations were awaiting trial on charges of assaulting James Rafferty during interrogation, in the prison hospital of Long Kesh, one of those convicted on the basis of a tortured ‘confession’ – Martin Hurson – lay dying on hunger strike for political status.

CAPPAGH

Edward Martin Hurson was born on September 13th, 1956, in the townland of Aughnaskea, Cappagh, near Dungannon, the eighth of nine children: six girls and three boys.

Both of his parents, John, aged 74, a small hill farmer, and Mary Ann (whose maiden name was Gillespie) who died in April 1970 after a short illness, came from the Cappagh district, and the whole of their family – including Martin – were born into the white washed farmhouse perched precipitously on top of the thirty hilly acres of rough land that make up the Hurson farm.

The Cappagh district is a wholly nationalist area of County Tyrone, composed mainly of farmers, and comprising between two and three hundred closely knit families. The land is infertile, lowland hills, good only for grazing cattle and rearing a few pigs, yet the roots of families like the Hursons stretch back maybe two or three hundred years. The land may not be much but it is theirs.

Over by Donaghmore, a few miles away, where the fields are bigger and the grass more lush, most of the farmers are loyalists.

Martin was close to the land as he grew up. Although he went first to Crosscavanagh school in Galbally, and then to St. Patrick’s intermediate in Dungannon, when he was not at school he was more often than not helping out about the farm, driving a tractor, helping to rear ‘croppy pigs’ or looking after cattle.

A ‘typical’ country lad in many ways, part of a very close and good humoured family, Martin was a quiet, very religious, and easy going young man, who nevertheless, before his arrest, enjoyed social pursuits such as dancing and going to the cinema, and enjoyed the company of other people, among whom he had a well-earned reputation for being a practical joker and a bit of a comedian.

Like many others, he was capable of being very outgoing and talkative on occasions, while remaining essentially a rather shy and quiet personality.

Perhaps because he was one of the youngest of the family, Martin was particularly close to his mother, whose premature death in 1970 when he was only thirteen, came as a deep shock to him.

It was Martin who returned home one day to find his mother taken seriously ill and who ran to a neighbouring farm to ring a doctor. That day, a Saturday, Mrs. Hurson was taken to Omagh hospital, and from there to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where she died the following Thursday, April 30th.

Martin was so shocked by the tragedy that he lost his memory completely for a week, only regaining it when a tractor he was driving up a steep slope, with his father, overturned, throwing the pair to the ground, this fresh shock dramatically restoring his memory.

That period of his life was also the time when ‘the troubles’ began to have an impact.

Although the family did not discuss politics, and internment did not affect anyone from the Cappagh area, it was impossible not to be keenly aware of British oppression so close to Dungannon which – spearheading the civil rights campaign through the late sixties – had fostered such a strong current of republicanism in the process.

However, Martin’s personal resistance to that British repression and his subsequent intense suffering at the hands of it were not to occur for several years. In his teens his great delight was to play practical jokes on his family and neighbours, particularly on April Fool’s Day and on Hallowe’en.

JOKE

“He liked a joke and a laugh” remembers a long-time friend of Martin’s. “Him and Peter Kane were a comical match”. Or, as his brother Francis remembers with a laugh, “If he thought it would make you mad he would do it”.

Like the time he ran breathless to Paddy Donnelly’s to tell him that Sylvie Kane’s cows had toppled his milkchurns and the milk was going everywhere. And as Paddy dashed down to save his milk, Martin called out, “Hey Paddy, April Fool” before disappearing through a gap in the hedge.

Leaving school, Martin started work as an apprentice fitter welder at Findlay’s, and after a stint there he went across to England for a while, living in Manchester with his brother Francis and his wife, and working for McAlpine’s. But not long after Francis and his wife returned to Tyrone, Martin too returned when the particular job he was working on had finished at Christmas in 1974, rather than move to another job.

He had spent almost a year-and-a half in England but wasn’t particular about it, a view confirmed early on after his arrival, when he was forced to spend two weeks in hospital having been struck by one of McAlpine’s mechanical diggers!

Back in the farmhouse at Cappagh, Martin bought himself a car on hire purchase and got himself a job in Dungannon at Powerscreen International. He paid for the car within a year, having always had a gift for scraping money together.

As a child, whenever he managed to get hold of a penny or a shilling, here or there, instead of spending it he would take it to a nearby farmer and family friend who put it into a box for him until he had enough to buy, once, a white cob, or a pig to rear. He was ‘old fashioned” in that way, his brother Francis recalls.

He also loved to work and was a “great riser” in the morning, his father says, never missing a day’s work until his arrest.

BERNADETTE

Late in 1975, he met and started going out with Bernadette Donnelly, at the wedding of her sister Mary Rose to a cousin of Martin’s, at which he was best man.

Bernadette, aged twenty-three, comes from Pomeroy: she was extremely active in the hunger strike campaign, along with members of Martin’s family, appearing on rally platforms and taking part in marches and pickets all over the country.

Before his arrest, Martin and Bernadette were often both behind the practical jokes he loved playing. His brother Francis was often the victim.

On one occasion, Francis, his wife, and their two children, were asleep in a caravan in the Donegal resort of Bundoran. They awoke however to find themselves not on the caravan site but on an adjacent road, Martin and Bernadette having towed it off-site during the night.

On another occasion the pair borrowed Francis’ almost new cine-camera to film the wedding of a friend, Seamus McGuire, in Donegal. Somewhere along the route back from Donegal they found out they’d lost the camera and lost it remained.

Afraid to tell Francis, they kept quiet about the camera for several weeks, before Francis remembered to ask for it back. Instead of owning-up, Martin gave Francis an almost identical replacement hoping he wouldn’t notice. But when he did, Martin, not lost for words, just explained: “I left it into a shop for fixing, but they said it wasn’t worth fixing.”

RUC

But those relatively light-hearted and easy-going days were coming to an end.

East Tyrone, like many other areas in the North, was a centre of highly proficient republican operations against the enemy forces.

To combat the level of republican military activity, deputy chief constable of the RUC Kenneth Newman (shortly to be promoted to chief constable), was one of those behind the restructuring of the RUC in early 1976, which led to the setting up of what were called Regional Crime Squads.

Their primary function was to ensure convictions for all ‘unsolved’ republican activity by extracting signed statements, in effect to ‘clear the books’ of an embarrassing list of unattributable republican operations.

Under the torturer Newman, and the then direct-ruler Roy Mason, the Regional Crime Squads only responsibility was to ‘get results’ (a guarantee of promotion) without undue regard to the methods they employed. One method they did employ was torture.

TORTURE

Martin was arrested and taken to Omagh RUC barracks on November 11th, 1976, along with the six others arrested that day and two days previously.

He was badly, and professionally tortured in Omagh for two days, beaten about the head, back and testicles, spread-eagled against a wall and across a table, slapped, punched and kicked. He heard Rafferty’s screams as he was tortured in the adjoining room.

To escape the torture Martin signed statements admitting involvement in republican activity.

He was then transferred to Cookstown barracks, but as soon as he arrived he made a formal complaint of ill-treatment. Back in Omagh barracks, chief inspector Farr, realising this could prejudice the admissibility of Martin’s statements at his trial, got the Cookstown detectives to re-interrogate Martin and extract the same statements, which they did by threatening to ‘send him back to Omagh’.

On Saturday night, November 13th, Martin was charged, along with Kevin O’Brien and Peter Kane. Dermot Boyle and Pat Joe O’Neill had been charged the day before.

Martin was charged with a landmine explosion at Galbally in November 1975. This charge was later dropped, but he was then further charged with IRA membership, possession of the Galbally landmine, conspiracy to kill members of the enemy forces, causing an explosion at Cappagh in September 1975, and possession of a landmine at Reclain in February 1976 which exploded near a passing UDR landrover.

STATEMENTS

Even though the alleged speciality of the East Tyrone active service unit operating around Cappagh was explosives, the RUC offered not one shred of forensic evidence, against any of the five men, merely signed statements extracted by torture.

These statements, however, were good enough for Judge Rowland at the trial of the five men in November 1977, after a year on remand in Crumlin Road and in the remand H-Block of Long Kesh.

Admitting as evidence the statements Martin made in Omagh, and dismissing doctor’s evidence about the extent of Martin’s injuries, Judge Rowland sentenced Martin to twenty years for possession of landmines and conspiracy, as well as two other sentences of fifteen and five years respectively, the sentences to run concurrently.

The other four men received sentences ranging from fifteen to twenty years.

Martin appealed his conviction on the grounds that the judge had ignored medical evidence about his ill-treatment. The appeal was dismissed but he was granted a retrial.

At the four-day trial in September 1979, before Judge Munray, the Omagh statements were ruled inadmissible, but instead of Martin walking free the judge went on to accept the admissibility of the Cookstown statements, themselves extracted under threat of renewed torture.

One of the consequences of the retrial was the further postponement of the enquiry into James Rafferty’s allegations of brutality in Omagh, on the grounds that it might prejudice the retrial (to the RUC’s detriment!).

The enquiry had been reluctantly acceded to by the RUC Police Authority following the persistent endeavours of Authority member, independent Dungannon councillor, Jack Hassard. He, however, later resigned from the Authority, describing it as being “as independent as a sausage without a skin” when the tribunal which was set up failed to begin its enquiries. The tribunal finally collapsed earlier this year when the RUC detectives from Omagh refused to give evidence to it on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves!

Subsequently, four of the detectives who tortured James Rafferty, Martin Hurson and the others at Omagh that November: chief inspector Harold Colgan, and constables Michael O Neil, Kenneth Hassan, and Robert McAdore were charged with assaulting Rafferty.

Those four torturers, however, are only convenient scape-goats representing the tip of the iceberg in what was an orchestrated and widespread attempt during the Roy Mason era to jail republicans on the flimsiest of pretexts by means of torture extracted statements. Such men make up a substantial proportion of those political prisoners in Britain’s Northern and English jails today.

Martin Hurson went straight on the blanket after his first trial, and following his retrial he appealed once again against conviction, challenging the admissibility of the Cookstown statements, but his appeal was disallowed in June 1980.

HUNGER STRIKE

On May 29th, this year, Martin joined the hunger strike, replacing South Derryman Brendan McLoughlin who was forced to drop out because of a burst stomach ulcer.

In the Free State general election in June, Martin was a candidate in Longford/Westmeath, and although missing election, obtained almost four-and-a-half thousand first preference votes, and over a thousand transfers, before being eliminated at the end of the sixth count, outlasting two Labour candidates and a Fine Gael contender.

Barely one month after election the Free State government’s bolstering of Britain’s barbaric intransigence led to the death of Martin Hurson, the sixth hunger striker, at that stage, to die.

Having seriously deteriorated after forty days on hunger strike, he was unable to hold down water and died a horrifically agonising death after only forty-four days on hunger strike, at 4.30 a m. on Monday, July 13th

Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on July 9, 2018

May under threat as top Tories quit over Brexi

Posted by Jim on

Boris Johnson has resigned as British Foreign Secretary, following the
departure earlier today of Brexit Minister David Davis, amid a growing
crisis within the Conservative Party over London’s Brexit strategy.

Johnson said the Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless
self-doubt”, days after the Tory cabinet had appeared to agree to
support Theresa May’s Brexit plan. “We are headed for the status of a
colony,” Johnson declared in his resignation letter.

In his own letter, Mr Davis said he did not “believe” in the Brexit plan
and he was not the best person to deliver it. Prominent Leave campaigner
Dominic Raab has been appointed to replace him.

Speculation continues that internal discontent by Brexiteers could lead
to an early vote of no confidence against Theresa May. However, at a
meeting this evening of the ‘1922 Committee’, the parliamentary group of
the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, May was reported to have
received “strong backing”.

The committee has not said that it has received the necessary indication
from 48 Tory MPs to trigger a motion of no confidence, meaning that
under parliamentary rules, May’s leadership is secure for now.

However, the conflict seems far from over, and the trickle of
resignations continued this evening with the departure of Chris Green,
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the British Department For Transport.
Conor Burns MP, Parliamentary Secretary under Boris Johnson, has also
quit. Uncertainty remains about the stance of other senior Brexiteers,
such as Liam Fox and Michael Gove.

Even if the current wave of dissent comes to nothing, the fate of the
Irish border hangs in the balance amid doubts over the detail of May’s
Brexit plans.

Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald has said that Ireland must not become
collateral damage amid the Tory ‘civil war’. The Sinn Fein president was
speaking after meeting business leaders in Belfast.

“Our sole priority is the protection of Irish interests north and
south,” Ms McDonald said.

“The civil war within the Tory Party is a matter for the Tories, and let
no-one imagine that Ireland will be the collateral damage for the Tory
Brexit or for that matter that we will pick up the tab for the Tory
civil war.”

The Sinn Fein leader also warned that Britain should not “persist with a
strategy that is about brinkmanship”.

“We need an answer to the Irish question, Europe has provided that
answer by way of the Irish protocol [maintaining the current border
regulations by default]” she said.

“Mrs May seems still to be at sixes and sevens and is causing confusion
in terms of what her and her Government’s position is.

“They say they are leaving the customs union and the single market, we
know that the stated objectives of protecting the Good Friday Agreement,
avoiding a hardening of the border, protecting citizens’ rights, demands
that specific arrangements are agreed for the north of Ireland.”

Asked for her view on the Chequers deal, Ms McDonald said it appeared to
be selective about the freedom of movement of goods.

“I don’t imagine that the European negotiators will countenance that,”
she said. “You can’t cherry-pick the internal market, and Europe can’t
and won’t break its own rules.”

She said she would await the publication of the British government’s
white paper.

“But all of this gets set to nothing if Mrs May insists the north of
Ireland must exit the customs union and the single market.

“You can’t make that assertion on one hand, and on the other hand insist
that you will ensure there is no hardening of the border and protect the
Good Friday Agreement.

“That is a contradictory position.”

She added: “We didn’t choose Brexit, Brexit is a British phenomenon and
Mrs May, or whoever the prime minister is, needs to keep their word and
their stated position in protecting the Good Friday Agreement.”

Policing in Northern Ireland: how the past threatens the futu

Posted by Jim on

By Paul Nolan, 09 July 2018

The UK government is holding a consultation on plans to deal with the legacy of the Troubles. But Paul Nolan examines how the lengthy delay in tackling the issue has undermined the new beginning to policing in Northern Ireland.

ONE perspective on the special nature of policing in Northern Ireland can be found in the most recent Europol Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. Terrorism is the flashing red light for police forces across Europe, and this annual monitoring exercise provides the basic data to allow for the coordination of police efforts across national boundaries. The 2017 report showed that in the previous year there had been a total of 142 failed, foiled and completed attacks reported by eight member states. Of the 142 the majority (76) were in Northern Ireland and were the work of dissident republicans. Most of these fell into either the ‘failed’ or ‘foiled’ categories rather than ‘completed’; moreover one measure of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) success in frustrating their efforts is that in January of this year one of the most dangerous of the dissident groupings, Óglaigh na hÉireann, decided to call off its campaign.

This isn’t the only area of success for the PSNI, though some of the biggest achievements may be hard to spot. A quick pointer on how to detect them can be taken from Sherlock Holmes. In the story Silver Blaze Holmes, investigating a burglary, draws the attention of a Scotland Yard detective to the curious incident of the dog in the night. But the dog didn’t do anything, replies the hapless detective. That, says Holmes, was the curious incident. There have been many such curious incidents in Northern Ireland in the past year, many dogs that didn’t bark and many others that lost their bite. For the fourth year in a row the marching season passed off peacefully. Not one plastic bullet was fired, there was no large-scale disorder, and water cannon was never used. This form of normality may be taken for granted elsewhere, but in Northern Ireland this all makes for quite a remarkable achievement.

The good news doesn’t stop there. It may not be widely known but Northern Ireland has the lowest crime rates in these islands. The most recent figures issued by the Northern Ireland Crime Survey (NICS) estimate that 9% of households were victims of at least one crime in the preceding 12 months; the corresponding figure for England and Wales was 15%. It is difficult to make direct comparisons with the Republic of Ireland as crime totals are not aggregated by the Central Statistics Office in the same way, but on serious crimes like homicide the Northern Ireland rate is much lower. For example, in 2017 there were 14 murders in Northern Ireland compared with 42 in the Republic. What’s more, the Northern Ireland crime rate has been steadily falling. If a comparison is made with 1998, the year of the Good Friday Agreement, today’s crime rate is just three-fifths of what it was 20 years ago.

This may go some of the way to explain why approval rates for the PSNI are at a record high. The NI Statistics and Research Agency conducts a rolling annual survey and the latest results, published in December 2017, show that 90% of respondents said they had either a total, a lot, or some degree of confidence in the PSNI’s ability to provide an ordinary day-to-day service, and that 93% felt either very, or fairly, safe in their local community. These figures take a little unpacking of course, because when the questions zone in on particular aspects of policing the approval rates dip. That happens in all surveys on policing: people tend to make a distinction between their local policing experiences and concerns, and the way they think about the police as an institution. The good news for the PSNI in these figures is that even when people’s direct experience of policing has been poor it does not dent their support for the PSNI as a body. In fact, when Pablo de Grieff, the UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice and Reparation, issued a report on Northern Ireland last year he drew attention to the “extraordinarily high levels of public trust” in the PSNI, and adjudged policing reform to be the part of the Northern Ireland peace process as the area where “the greatest achievements have been made.”

Loyalist flag protesters pictured outside Belfast City Hall in 2014.

Policing also happens to be the area where some of the greatest problems are concentrated. Problems that politicians can’t solve leach out of the debating chambers and are then played out on the streets. When the parties were unable to agree on the flying of the union flag at Belfast City Hall in December 2012 the result was four months of public disorder that resulted in 160 police receiving medical attention. The ‘thin blue line’ was stretched to breaking point, with 2,980 ‘occurrences’ recorded in one night at the height of the protest. On occasion, as at the time of the G8 summit, additional officers have been brought in from English police forces, and the bills have been paid out of PSNI budgets. That would not be an option if there was a large-scale challenge to public order today. There simply isn’t the money to cover the costs; over the past three years the PSNI’s budgets have been slashed by £180 million. As a result, the number of officers has reduced by 8% since 2012. The Patten Report which in 1999 produced the blueprint for policing in Northern Ireland had recommended a standing total of 7,500 officers for peacetime policing. The peace that was envisaged never arrived: nineteen years later some 27% of the budget still has to be given over to security-related issues, and the total number of officers is down to 6,689.

The PSNI currently has 6,711 officers despite the Patten Report recommending a level of 7,500 officers during peacetime.

One consequence of the budget squeeze has been a cutback in local neighbourhood policing. Researching this article I found a consensus that took in sources as diverse as the Police Federation and Sinn Féin around this key concern: neighbourhood policing needs a larger share of resource. The argument is a compelling one. If money was front-loaded into having a friendly police presence in each local community, it would reduce crime and the investment would return larger dividends than money spent on the detection and prosecution of crimes further down the road. The senior command of the PSNI is aware that this view has political traction, but feels it doesn’t take into account changes in the nature of crime. Put simply, crime has been moving indoors. There has been a steady decline in the traditional forms of acquisitive crime such as robbery, car theft and burglary, and a steady increase in intimate crimes, such as those relating to domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse. In addition there are new internet-driven crimes that were unknown even ten years ago – blackmail as a result of sexting, fraud and cyber-crime – things that officers on the beat can’t be expected to police effectively.

But the PSNI has another problem in its relationship with communities, or rather with the extent to which it is representative of the whole community. This is the problem that has dogged policing in Northern Ireland since the foundation of the state. The committee which sat in 1922 to advise on the setting up of the RUC recommended that Catholics should make up 30% of the police force in order for it to be representative of the whole community. That never happened, and in fact by the time the Patten Commission delivered its report in 1999 on the future of policing Catholics made up only 8% of the force. The quota system introduced by Patten guaranteed that year-on-year 50% of new recruits would be Catholic, but in March 2011 the then Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, decided that with overall numbers standing at 30% the upward trajectory was secure and the quota system (strongly resented by unionists) could be dropped. The trajectory did not continue in the way Paterson expected. Instead the Catholic percentage has more or less flatlined at just over 30 % – today’s total is 31.5% when, if it was really representative of the working age demographic, it would be 50%.

There is one more problem that may in fact dwarf all the others. James Joyce wrote that history is the nightmare from which we are trying to awaken; substitute the word ‘legacy’ for ‘history’ and that describes the PSNI’s deepening crisis. The Patten report of 1999 was actually titled A New Beginning, and the hope was that a line could be drawn under the past and a new start made. It explained that its central purpose was ‘restorative not retributive’. That still left some questions as to what was to be done about murders and other crimes committed before the Good Friday Agreement. The decommissioning process of 2005 allowed for the physical destruction of paramilitary armories, and with them the forensic evidence needed for successful prosecutions. What then was supposed to happen? The first Chief Constable to face the post-accord dilemma was Sir Hugh Orde who frequently demanded from politicians the answer to the question: were the police supposed to clear up the 3,200 historic murders still on the books, or to put their resources into present-day policing? There was never a clear answer on how to deal with this dilemma, and over time the horns of the dilemma have grown longer and more pointed. An amnesty has never been a realistic political option, nor has amnesia. The past keeps bursting through into the present. First there were the official inquiries like the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday, then the campaigns taken by individual families, followed by the group campaigns like those taken by the relatives of the Ballymurphy shootings or the Loughinisland killings. The Chief Constable currently has 300 claim letters on his desk, and these are no longer coming just from the nationalist side: re-opening the past is now a concern for unionist communities, anxious for new police investigations into events like the Enniskillen bomb.

The largest inquiry is the one called Operation Kenova, which was announced in May 2016. This five year investigation will take into account approximately 50 murders by the alleged IRA informer known as Stakeknife. Even that, however, pales beside the possibility of a wholesale review into the activities of the notorious UVF unit, the Glennane Gang, linked to security force members and responsible for as many as 100 killings. The PSNI has been given an order by the High Court to re-open investigations into these killings as a themed inquiry, one that would almost certainly cost double the £35 million dedicated to Operation Kenova.

Had the raft of measures in the Stormont House Agreement been rolled out then there would be an Historical Investigations Unit in place with its own dedicated budget and, alongside it, a large-scale societal process of truth recovery. Those proposals, gratefully accepted by the PSNI, were made four years ago. Now the Secretary of State has launched a new, four month consultation on how to deal with legacy issues. Already, the parties have re-opened the old divisions that the Stormont House Agreement had resolved, principally around the respective weight given to state actors and non-state actors. Moreover, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Barra McGrory, has declared the proposed arrangements “unworkable in practice”. Without a new consensus emerging the problem is going to leave policing marooned in the icy waters that have proved so difficult to navigate. What is foreseeable – because it has already begun to happen – is that the ship will collide with the iceberg. A police force that was designed for the future may yet founder on the past.

• Paul Nolan is an independent researcher who writes on the Northern Ireland peace process and the problems of post-conflict societies. He is also a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, though writes in a personal capacity. This article forms part of a project marking the 20th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement produced by The Detail with Queen’s University Belfast.

NEW YORK STATE FREEDOM for ALL IRELAND BULLETIN  

Posted by Jim on July 8, 2018

FFAI ISSUES UPDATE

A-Pat Finucane family in Supreme Court appeal-The family of murdered civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane, took the fight for an independent judicial inquiry to the Supreme Court in London. Pat Finucane battled for justice in the British non-jury Diplock courts which replaced Internment, despite threats by British Minister Douglas Hogg, and Royal Ulster Constabulary members telling clients “Finucane would not be alive to finish your case”. Brutally murdered in front of his family on February 12,1989,British Army and RUC agents who were involved had warned crown officials of the planned murder. The case broke open denials of collusion. The family has been fighting for a public inquiry, where their lawyer could question witnesses, instead of a crown appointed judge merely reviewing documents.  Counsel Barry MacDonald called it “murder by proxy whereby the state engaged in terrorism through loyalist paramilitaries”. Geraldine Finucane pledged her family “had come for an inquiry and for justice. We will never stop”. A decision is expected in the fall.

B-Choice of Drew Harris as Garda Commissioner alarming-Civil rights and legacy groups are critical of the choice of the crown’s Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris as Garda Commissioner heading  Irish police in the 26 counties. Harris was a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary before its name was changed to Police Service of Northern Ireland and worked closely with MI5

British intelligence . His father was a high ranking RUC officer killed by the IRA. Harris has been a major obstacle on legacy truth. Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice said “Drew Harris has had a stranglehold on legacy and has acted partially and with vested interest at all times not least concerning incidents of shoot-to-kill and collusion carried out by the state during the conflict”. The Irish government thought Harris’ appointment would be favorably received by unionists. Harris oversaw the decision to arrest, rather than interview former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and veteran Republican Ivor Bell in connection with the Jean McConville case. Because Ivor Bell refused to inform on Adams, he still faces charges despite serious medical issues.

C-British troopers stonewall Ballymurphy Inquest- There are fears that the inquest into eleven Ballymurphy murders, scheduled to begin on September 11th,may be further delayed because British trooper witnesses refuse to comply. The “Ballymurphy Massacre” took place over a three day period, beginning on August 9,1971.Ten people, were fatally shot including Catholic Priest Fr. Hugh Mullan, and mother of eight Joan Connolly. An eleventh victim died from a heart attack after a mock execution. Victims were shot as many as 14 times. The British crown blamed all killings on the victims, claiming the Paratroopers were under fire, despite  no British casualties nor IRA weapons found. British news broadcast crown accounts. Some troopers took part in Bloody Sunday,5 months later. British troopers and veterans groups are trying to delay the inquest, crying “witch-hunt”, and refusing legal requests for testimony or contact information. Families of the victims have been fighting almost 47 years for a chance to prove their loved ones innocent.

D-Orange marching season hinders Stormont moves– While the  Stormont Assembly deadlock continues, attempts at new talks will be hindered by the onset of the Orange marching season. The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, after an eleven year interval, will meet on July 25th.This meeting would allow the governments to publish suggestions for new talks. The Orange marching season, extending through the summer will include huge bonfires where Irish flags, pictures of the Pope and various nationalist politicians  are burned. British and loyalist flags  fill towns and more than 4,000 parades will be held. This year the Mid-Ulster District Council, with its nationalist majority will be a special target. The Council voted to add signs in Irish to Council properties and wants to regulate bonfires located on council land. Loyalists responded by distributing specially made Mid-Ulster Council flags to be burned atop bonfires across the six counties. Last February the DUP backed out of an agreement, which would have put Arlene Foster back as First Minister, merely because it included an Irish language Act subject to a Respect for Languages Act and in tandem with an Ulster Scots Act. This was too much for unionists. No DUP compromises are expected in this political atmosphere.

                  EMMET MONUMENT REDEDICATION

The words “Emmet Monument” have a special place in Irish history. In the nineteenth century when all hope of freedom seemed to have been crushed, Emmet Monument Societies were created. The subtle joke was clear to any Irishman or woman. Robert Emmet told Norbury, known as the  “hanging judge”, that he wished his epitaph to be inscribed on his tombstone only after Ireland  “takes its place among the nations of the earth.” Emmet Monument Societies meant freeing Ireland from British rule, and became the forerunners of the Fenians and other patriot groups which made 1916 a reality.

On Sunday July 22,2018 the anniversary of Robert Emmet’s rebellion, there will be a special rededication and unveiling of a monument to the Emmet family in Beechwood Cemetery ,New Rochelle at 3pm.

The family plot includes the graves of Thomas Addis Emmet, an exiled United Irish leader, among other family members who were patriots of Ireland, as well as the United States. There will be a reception afterwards at the Heritage on McLean Avenue. For information call-718-877-0345.

Many of the organizers are young AOH members who started a new Division. This should be a great event.

TOM CLARKE-KATHLEEN DALY CLARKE MEMORIAL

During the Suffolk County meeting on July 18th,the framed certificates from the Tyrone AOH in appreciation of the Tom Clarke -Kathleen Daly Clarke Memorial will be formally presented to our State President Vic Vogel and to the Suffolk County members who built and maintain this great memorial.

                   NATIONAL CONVENTION

Looking forward to the National Convention, meeting FFAI leaders from around the Country and sharing some of the ideas that have worked for us in New York with other states!

Please contact me at MGALVINESQ@AOL.COM.

Martin Galvin