Posted by Jim on March 5, 2018
Irish News Editorial. Belfast.Monday, March 5, 2018.
IF Theresa May is seeking further advice on the full implications of Brexit for Ireland, north and south, it must be hoped that she pays more attention to George Mitchell than Boris Johnson.
The British prime minister, in a BBC interview yesterday, declined to address her foreign secretary’s astonishing attempt last week to compare the enormously sensitive questions associated with the Irish border to the process of driving from one London borough to another.
An immensely better informed intervention in the wider debate was made at the weekend by Mr Mitchell, the former US senator who was the central architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
He said it was not inevitable that the possible imposition of a hard Irish border – as a result of the chaotic British approach to negotiations with the EU- would have violent consequences, although he described the associated risks as `high enough’.
However, Mr Mitchell was considerably more concerned about the change in attitudes on all sides which would follow the reintroduction of security measures covering the labyrinth of road links between the two parts of Ireland.
He said: “If you reinstate a hard border, you go back to the days when stereotyping resumes, demilitarisation resumes and people turn inward as opposed to outward and they lose the benefits that come from open borders.”
What Mr Mitchell was really saying was that the all the political gains of the last two decades, and the advances in community relations along the way, will be thrown into doubt by the wrong outcome to the Brexit talks.
Mr Mitchell of course has walked the walk across our region, in sharp contrast to Mr Johnson who would certainly benefit from a number of visits here before offering his insights on the jagged line between Derry and Newry.
If Brexit moves to the next stage, which is far from certain, another key Irish issue which will arise immediately is the representation in the European Parliament of the majority of northern citizens who firmly vote to remain in the EU.
The arguments from two academics which we report today in favour of extending the electorate the opportunity to return MEPs from both sides of the border deserve to be carefully considered by the Irish government.
Mrs May insisted yesterday that she remained confident of reaching an eventual deal with the EU, although the Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney provided a noticeably cool assessment of her prospects.
If progress is to be made, Mrs May will have to firmly distance herself from Mr Johnson and demonstrate instead that she fully understands the dangers which were so starkly set out by Mr Mitchell.
Posted by Jim on March 4, 2018
Sometimes there are simply no words for the silliness of some English politicians on Ireland.
Rees-Mogg, a good Catholic boy, is the latest example. In this article from the Sunday Express, he claims it is the Irish Government and the EU that are threatening the Good Friday Agreement! Now that takes chutzpah, as we say in Fermanagh.
With a straight face, and without the slightest indication of any shame, he talks about “territorial integrity of the UK”—never mind the fact that England never respected the territorial integrity of any country (which is the very meaning of Empire), Ireland being the first example. And then— almost as if he enjoys having no shame— he worries “that the Province should be detached from the rest of the country.” The “Province” being Northern Ireland and “the rest of the country” being not Ireland but Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales—three countries not one).
Apparently, no realization whatsoever that it was England that tore the Six Counties (Northern Ireland) from the rest of Ireland in 1920, creating the damn Border that Rees-Mogg is writing about.
Rees-Mogg, unfortunately, reminds us of the sad old quote we’ve tried to forget, in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement:“The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.”( English cleric, Anglican, writer, and philosopher Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845).
—Fr. Sean Mc Manus
- ‘It’s ABSURD!’ Jacob Rees-Mogg attacks EU and ‘ vote-chasing’ Ireland PM over border stance
JACOB Rees-Mogg has accused Ireland and the European Union of risking a “no deal” Brexit with their “absurd” suggestion that Northern Ireland should be in a common regulatory area with Brussels to avoid a hard border on the island.
Belinda Robinson. Sunday Express. England. Saturday, March 3, 2018
The leading Tory Brexiteer blamed “irresponsible, vote-chasing immaturity” from Irish premier Leo Varadkar and “clear disregard” for the Good Friday Agreement from EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier in an scathing attack on the Irish border row.
The MP said it was clear a solution cannot be found to maintain a soft Irish border until Britain and the EU have finalised their future trading relationship.
Theresa May has already rejected the EU’s demand, arguing it would threaten the constitutional and territorial integrity of the UK by keeping Northern Ireland in a de facto customs area with Brussels, which the rest of the country would be outside.
The Prime Minister has instead called for either a customs partnership, under which the UK “mirrors” EU requirements on goods from around the world, or a streamlined customs arrangement, using technology and “trusted trader” schemes to do away with the need for customs checks.
Writing in the Belfast News Letter, Mr Rees-Mogg praised Mrs May for rejecting Brussels’ demands “firmly and unalterably”.
He said: “The thing she said no to was the egregious act of aggression by the European Commission, under its lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, that a friendly European state should be dismembered at its behest.
“This will not happen. Our union has endured rather more unpleasant threats than a policy paper out of Brussels which the Prime Minister has rightly rebuffed.
“But the presumption of Brussels in even proposing this is an unfriendly act.”
He went on: “Then there is the further problem in what this absurd suggestion – that the Province should be detached from the rest of the country and become a protectorate of Brussels – in fact means.
“It means that Brussels is still not being serious, and that vital voices in Europe actually seem to want a ‘no deal’ Brexit. For it can be inescapable now for everyone in Europe that no deal could ever seriously be contemplated on these preposterous terms. So why even suggest them unless no deal is your objective?”
Mr Rees-Mogg also attacked Mr Varadkar as he added: “I cannot see how it is in the Republic’s interests for its current prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to posture in this way, not least by endorsing the fantasy proposals of Michel Barnier this week, which would do such comprehensive harm to the Belfast Agreement and risk No Deal, which would be more damaging to the Republic’s economy than to any other European state.”
Mr Rees-Mog’s comment comes after Mrs May declared it would be “unacceptable” for the EU to break up the UK over Northern Ireland at Mansion House on Friday.
The Prime Minister said: “Our departure from the EU causes very particular challenges for Northern Ireland, and for Ireland.
“It is not surprising that our decision to leave has caused anxiety and a desire for concrete solutions.
“It is not good enough to say ‘we won’t introduce a hard border, if the EU forces Ireland to do it, that’s down to them’.
“We chose to leave. We have a responsibility to help find a solution.
“But we can’t do it on our own. It is for all of us to work together.”
Continue reading »
Posted by Jim on
A former military intelligence whistle-blower in the British Army has
offered to give evidence in secret court hearings about murders and
collusion by the British Army.
Fred Holroyd has said he is willing to supply evidence of collusion in
the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, in which 33 died.
Holroyd, who lives in England, says that even though now in poor health,
he is determined for the truth to be exposed regarding his deployment
between 1973 and 1975.
One of his roles was as liaison between the British Army and the RUC
(now PSNI) police.
He says his testimony will also include an allegation that British Army
experts made the bombs the UVF used in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
He is also set to testify that British Army Captain Robert Nairac killed
an IRA Volunteer in the 26 Counties.
Holroyd has said Nairac boasted to him about killing IRA member John
Francis Green at a farmhouse in County Monaghan in January 1975.
“I think Robert thought that I was like them, you know, that I was part
and parcel of the shoot-to-kill syndrome,” he said.
Nairac outlined details of the killing and showed him a photograph he
claimed to have taken afterwards. “It was quite distinctive the
photograph. First of all it was colour Polaroid, only the SAS got colour
Polaroid, nobody else did, we all got black and white, the other
intelligence people. ”
Such evidence would be given using a controversial legal process known
as ‘Closed Material Procedures’, which became law in the Justice and
Security Act 2013.
It allows material deemed to be a potential risk to British security to
be heard secretly behind closed doors by a judge and a so-called
“special advocate”. The advocate is not allowed to reveal precise
details of the evidence, but can provide a loose summary of what has
been said.
His lawyers say Holroyd wants to give evidence using Closed Material
Procedures to avoid being arrested for breaching the Official Secrets
Act.
The Belfast based law firm KRW Winters has opposed the use of Closed
Material Procedures, but says it can see some merit if the process is
also available to those wishing to provide evidence about wrongdoing by
the state.
Holroyd is also currently suing Britain’s Minister of Defence over being
forced from his job in the 1970s — and illegally detained at the
British military psychiatric unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital — for
making public allegations of collusion.
He was asked by the BBC why he had offered to take part in the ‘closed
material’ process.
“There is just a faint chance that they might be able to do something
about what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
“That the judiciary will turn on the government and say this was wrong,
it shouldn’t have happened, we apologise, you will apologise for this
and we’ll make sure that there are methods and systems that are brought
in to stop this happening again.”
Posted by Jim on
One of the most shocking loyalist atrocities of the conflict — the
murders of two lifelong friends, one a Protestant, one a Catholic —
made headlines around the world 20 years ago this week.
The double murder by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) drew
international interest after it emerged Philip Allen and Damien Trainor
were from different religious backgrounds. They were killed on March 3
1998, just weeks before the Good Friday peace Agreement was signed.
The pair were sitting close to the door of the village pub in
Poyntzpass, County Armagh, when the gunmen burst in and ordered them to
lie on the floor, before killing them both. Two of Mr Allen’s brothers
were also in the bar when the gang struck but managed to escape with
their lives.
Loyalists Stephen McClean and Noel McCready laughed and joked in court
as they were sentenced to life for the savage murders, with a judge
saying it “will be remembered as one of the most heinous events in the
history of Northern Ireland”.
Ryan Robley also pleaded guilty to his part in the killings and was
given a long jail term, while a fourth man, suspected state agent David
Keys, was killed in jail by the LVF just days after the attack.
Bernie Canavan, now aged 84, was behind the bar in her family’s pub that
night. She recounted how two masked gunmen rushed in and opened fire,
striking the frame of a door as she made her escape.
“It wasn’t long till they started to shoot,” she told the Irish News.
“They said ‘lie down’ but then they just started to shoot and I ran up
the stairs – they take you into the living room where my husband was.
“I ran in and I turned off the lights.”
She believed at the time she might have been the target of the killers.
“I thought they were going to follow me, I don’t know why, it must have
been the first reaction – it was me they were looking for.
“I didn’t even think who they were, it’s just I thought they were going
to follow me with these guns. I went to turn off the lights and I said
‘They are shooting, they are shooting in the bar’.”
After returning downstairs a short time later she said there was a lot
of panic.
“We thought the ambulance never would come,” she said. “I was up and
down to see was it coming. They actually said they didn’t die until they
were up the road but Damien must have been unconscious. He never spoke.”
Her son, former Armagh manager Brian Canavan, was training with the
squad when he got a call to tell him there had been a shooting at the
bar.
Mr Canavan says he has concerns about the circumstances of the attack,
especially around the role of David Keys.
“The bit I could never understand was the police had an informer in the
car,” he said.
“One of the drivers was an informer. He maintained he didn’t know where
they were going… so I don’t know what happened there. They knew the
car was stolen in Dromore two days before it.
“The police knew a whole lot afterwards when you started to quiz them,
not that they like to be quizzed too much, they knew a bit, they knew
there was something going to happen.”
He believes there are still questions that need to be answered.
“I suppose maybe the families don’t think the way I think but I would be
more curious – they had an informer,” he said.
“Then you see all these stories coming out now about collusion and
everything else you wonder to yourself, well, did somebody inside know
anything? You don’t know, you will never know because the informer was
killed in prison.”
Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice, who has worked with families of
LVF victims, said it was “no coincidence that the formation of the LVF
occurred in the context of a wider securocrat agenda that was also
opposed to the peace process”.
“The securocrat agenda was largely driven by the tunnel vision of some
within the security, military and intelligence community that sought to
militarily defeat republicans rather than engage in the changing
political dynamic that the IRA ceasefire created.”
Philip Allen’s mother Ethel is the last surviving parent of the two men
who were killed. She said that she can never forgive the killers and
believes the men took part in the murders to clear a drug debt to the
LVF.
“I don’t know why they picked Philip and Damien but I was told that they
owed #1,000 for drugs and if they killed two Catholics that was their
bill paid for. And that came from a reliable source,” she said.
“But they didn’t kill two Catholics, they didn’t care. Why was them
boys’ two lives only worth #500? A life is worth a hell of a lot more
than that.”
She sid she wanted one question answered about the attack. “The pub was
full because there was sale on, there was plenty of other ones there –
why was it just them two?”
Posted by Jim on
“Unionism opposed Home Rule, even to the extent of taking up arms [1912-1914], but it later settled for exactly that when Irish partition gave Unionists their own state. However, the Stormont government opted for political repression and anti-Catholic discrimination. … Its present weakened state dates from the misuse of Stormont’s one-party rule and the failure of successive Unionist leaders to move away from its overriding adherence to political dominance since then….As long as they stay there [Westminister] and not in Stormont, it looks like a continuing case of withering Unionism.”
Fr. McManus
Patrick Murphy. Irish News. Belfast. Saturday, March 3, 2018
The civil rights movement threw Unionism into confusion and the Anglo-Irish Agreement propelled it into chaos.
Stormont’s collapse last year placed it firmly in crisis and just when it thought things could not get worse, the EU this week suggested re-locating The North’s post-Brexit customs border to the Irish Sea.
In 50 years, Unionism has declined from having a monopoly in northern politics to being unsure of what it is selling, uninformed about its customer base and apparently devoid of a future business plan.
For almost a century, it has had an in-built majority, in a state specifically designed to protect that majority. If Unionism took the wrong turn when Terence O’Neill said in 1968, “Ulster stands at the cross roads”, it has taken every possible wrong road since then. Another wrong turning and it risks political insolvency.
So what exactly does modern Unionism stand for? How did it get into such a weakened position and where, if anywhere, does it go from here?
Although it is conservative in nature, Unionism is not quite a political philosophy. It tends to be more a state of mind. For centuries Ireland has been subject to various overseas influences, invasions and plantations, but in most cases the new arrivals gradually merged into the Irish way of life.
The Anglo-Normans blended seamlessly into Irish society. The Tudor plantation of Munster effectively failed and more recent arrivals from Africa will soon be among our finest GAA sportsmen and women.
The one exception was the Ulster plantation, which reflected religious rivalry from the start. Although radical Presbyterianism in the 18th century offset some of that division, it later converted to Unionism, mainly through the influence of the Orange Order.
Unionism opposed Home Rule, even to the extent of taking up arms, but it later settled for exactly that when Irish partition gave Unionists their own state. However, the Stormont government opted for political repression and anti-Catholic discrimination.
In response, the Nationalist Party sat silent in Stormont while the IRA, in Peadar O’Donnell’s words, formed fours in dark corners in fields. When the civil rights movement demanded basic democratic rights for all (including unionists) unionism came under pressure for the first time. Repression ultimately destabilized the state.
Terence O’Neill’s response was to have tea with reverend mothers in convent school parlours. Arlene Foster used the same tactic last year (although there are fewer reverend mothers these days) to show how Irish language-friendly she was. (Unionism is not good at coming up with fresh ideas.)
Its present weakened state dates from the misuse of Stormont’s one-party rule and the failure of successive Unionist leaders to move away from its overriding adherence to political dominance since then. Although it had absolute power, it combined religious elitism with a political siege mentality, encapsulated in that self-imprisoning phrase, ‘Not an inch’.
O’Neill failed to respond to the civil rights demands, because he allowed himself to become a prisoner of Paisley’s crude anti-Catholicism. Paisley was not a mainstream unionist, just a religious bigot who, because he was never faced down by a single unionist leader, distorted unionism into something resembling a quasi-religious cult, with him as leader.
When he gave an inch in his thirst for power, he was soon dumped by the party and the Church he founded – a man devoured by his own rhetoric.
In some ways the current criticism of Arlene Foster is pointless, because no previous Unionist leader has done anything differently and survived. She is a prisoner of the Unionist mind set, which states that the leader can never go faster than the slowest party member.
Already she is being outflanked by those outside her party. In a letter to the press, a ‘civic unionism’ group with more than 100 people has challenged what it says is a Nationalist assumption that qualities such as rights, truth and equality are not inherent within Unionism. They have a good point, but it is difficult to say if they can progress beyond letter-writing.
So whither Unionism from here? Home Rule in Stormont seems remote as the DUP settles for political influence at Westminster, a short-term arrangement while Theresa May is in power. That has transformed them from Ulster unionists into English conservatives.
This hardly represents the best interests of their working class Protestant support, but a bit of flag waving will soon take care of that. Unlike Scottish and Welsh unionism, the rump of Irish unionism has abandoned devolved government, settling instead for the Tory benches at Westminster.
As long as they stay there and not in Stormont, it looks like a continuing case of withering Unionism.