Posted by Jim on February 22, 2018
No Stone Unturned”
Monday, March 5, 2018. 7 P.M. Free admission. Open to the public.
Capitol Visitor Center, First St., NE (Beneath the East Front plaza of the U.S. Capitol at First Street and East Capitol Street), Washington D.C. 20515.
“No Stone Unturned” is the documentary film on the 1994 Loughinisland Massacre. Loughinisland is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland.
Six Catholic men were shot dead by Loyalist/Unionist/Protestant paramilitaries as they watched in a pub the World Cup football match between Ireland and Italy. The Massacre is another blatant case of British Government/police collusion in assassinations in Northern Ireland.
“No Stone Unturned” is a must-see documentary film. It is authentic, powerful and deeply moving.
No Stone Unturned is the latest work of Alex Gibney —the American documentary film director and producer—and Oscar-winner (“Taxi to the Dark Side”; “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All,” etc., etc.). Esquire Magazine has said he “is becoming the most important documentarian of our time.”
Posted by Jim on
MARTIN GALVIN – ATTORNEY AT LAW
EDITOR
IRISH NEWS
113-117 Donegal Street
BELFAST ,Northern IRELAND
February 9,2018
Re: Trevor Ringland -Sympathies lie with victims and families of Loughinisland atrocity
February 2,
With Sympathies Like These Who Needs Enmities
A chara
Trevor Ringland writes his ‘Sympathies lie with victims and families of Loughinisland atrocity.'(February 2nd) He advises these families to shun republican minded supporters and stop blaming Britain, if British troopers, constabulary, or agents murdered loved ones. With sympathies like these who needs enmities?
Mr. Ringland wants families to accept that British troopers or constabulary who murdered, acted “outside the law” are “innocent until proven guilty’, and no excuse for holding Britain accountable. His alternative facts show the deep divide keeping legacy justice a fundamental issue.
Did British troopers, constabulary or agents act “outside the law” at Loughinisland, Ballymurphy etc.? Certainly they acted outside the letter of British law. Certainly anyone charged by the crown should be presumed innocent and get a fair trial (unlike Internment.)Why do families believe that the killing of their loved ones, while outside the letter of the law was part of actual British policy?
Look at Loughinisland. “NO STONE UNTURNED” names and shows recent film of suspects, then reveals, besides DNA evidence available from the recovered car, weapons, and clothing, the wife of one of the gunmen had telephoned and written confessing her involvement and naming the gunmen.
No one was ever charged. Are families promised “no stone unturned” then stonewalled, wrong to believe killers were not “innocent until proven guilty”, but innocent by British state immunity?
Look at Ballymurphy. These families say that British troopers murdered innocent people, including a Catholic priest, and mother of eight. After taking 11 innocent lives, and parents from 57 children the British massacred the truth. Victims became posthumous gunmen. The crown made their troopers innocent and the dead guilty.
Families fought for their right to establish truth at a British inquest. Now Britain moves towards pardons dressed up as statutes of limitations, for British troopers and constabulary. Have families no right to believe that the British are putting their undeclared immunity into law?
Former RUC officer and Glenanne Gang member Peter Weir, said the British government at “the very highest level”, was aware of the murder gang’s activities.(IRISH NEWS, August 28,2017)Despite promises and Court orders, these families have not gotten their right to an overarching investigation. Can these families not ask whether a full investigation might show Weir was right?
The divide over legacy justice is deep. Clearly the mechanisms agreed in the past failed to work. Any new agreement on legacy mechanisms must give real truth to victims. Families must get more than hopes of justice, followed by disillusionment.
Slan, MARTIN GALVIN
Posted by Jim on February 20, 2018
“Varadkar’s government is now paying the price for Enda Kenny’s complete detachment from The North, and years of letting the British and DUP do what they like. As far as Kenny and his government were concerned, the more difficult things were for Sinn Féin the better. The more he could embarrass Gerry Adams with reference to failure in The North the more points he scored in the Dáil. All the while the Good Friday Agreement atrophied as Kenny’s government never asserted its right to be involved or consulted even in economic matters.”
Inept governments at heart of latest failure
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, February 21, 2018
When you think about it, people in The North have been on this merry-go-round for six years now.
It began to revolve in 2012. Perhaps it was the census results that spooked unionism or the loss of control in Belfast or both. Whatever it was, since then there have been years of talks and talks: the Haass talks, the Stormont House Agreement, the Fresh Start Agreement and then the past year of five sessions of what were really Sinn Féin-DUP talks.
On each occasion the DUP either walked out, walked away or after reaching an agreement reneged on it. The DUP always denied they were the problem but this time they’ve been caught out and have provoked universal exasperation.
Micheál Martin had a point in the Dáil when he laid the blame for the present impasse at the door of the two governments, but then ruined it because he couldn’t resist the obligatory dig at Sinn Féin and the DUP as ‘dysfunctional’.
Nevertheless, there’s validity in Martin’s criticism. True, he can’t have it both ways blaming London and Dublin but also taking a side swipe at the two main parties here. The fact is that since 1985 until 2010 it’s been an axiom that together London and Dublin supervise and jointly manage what happens here. Since then, Martin said, the Irish government has taken their foot off the accelerator. That’s putting it mildly.
Here are the facts. David Cameron, now shown up as one of Britain’s worst prime ministers, an arrogant, careless dilettante, a fitting precursor for the useless, spineless excuse for a Premier we suffer under now, openly sided with the DUP. He destroyed any pretence the British government claimed to be even-handed about this place[Northern Ireland]. Secondly, both he and May sent political nonentities here as proconsuls. [Prime Minister]May selects ciphers, abject in their loyalty to her who had worked for her in the home office including the present incumbent, ciphers who wouldn’t say boo to a goose in case they annoy their benefactor.
May completed Cameron’s work by unforgivably tying the Conservative party – note not the British government – formally to the DUP thereby removing any ability of herself or any hologram she sends as proconsul to act as mediator, honest broker, arbitrator or guardian of the Good Friday Agreement.
For their part the Irish government simply disengaged from The North. Eamon Gilmore, a former Stickie who had, shall we say, issues with Sinn Féin, hardly took the place under his notice. Charlie Flanagan could only see northern Nationalists through the magnifying glass of Sinn Féin in the Dáil. Sometimes you could hardly distinguish his contributions at talks in Stormont from the British line. Can you remember a single word he said about The North?
In those circumstances leaving it up to Sinn Féin and the DUP to make a settlement on their own, which is what has been going on for a year now, is completely irresponsible. The major fault lies with the British, of course, as the sovereign power because no proconsul can act as mediator being already compromised by the infamous Tory-DUP deal. Worse, any independent mediator daft enough to accept an invitation to try to reach a deal will find the DUP can pick and choose what they like since the British government will exert no pressure on them.
Varadkar’s government is now paying the price for Enda Kenny’s complete detachment from The North, and years of letting the British and DUP do what they like. As far as Kenny and his government were concerned the more difficult things were for Sinn Féin the better. The more he could embarrass Gerry Adams with reference to failure in The North the more points he scored in the Dáil. All the while the Good Friday Agreement atrophied as Kenny’s government never asserted its right to be involved or consulted even in economic matters.
So perhaps the next time Micheál Martin gets up to blame the failure of the two governments since Kenny became taoiseach in 2011, he might consider what he would have done in Sinn Féin’s position faced with an overtly biased British government and a disengaged Irish government.
