Police Must Take Open Approach in the North of Ireland

Posted by Jim on June 2, 2015

by Friends of Sinn Fein

THURSDAY’S BBC Panorama programme has raised fresh concerns about the nature and scale of security force collusion with paramilitary agents during the Troubles.

Chief Constable George Hamilton has also come in for criticism over remarks made about former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan while the discovery in a London museum of a missing assault rifle used in the Sean Graham’s massacre has understandably incensed bereaved relatives.

Some of the most appalling examples of state collusion involving notorious loyalist killers has been well documented but there remains a lingering concern that the full picture has not yet been revealed.

The fact that attempts to hold inquests into some of the most controversial killings have been continually delayed and frustrated only adds to the sense that the British government and state agencies do not wish the entire truth to be told, even decades later in some cases.

Mr Hamilton has taken issue with Baroness O’Loan over her assertion that “hundreds and hundreds” of people died because police and British army informants were not brought to justice.

The chief constable challenged this claim and said the work of informants had saved “thousands of lives”.

He added: “It was her job to investigate this stuff.”

Given the public concern that exists over collusion it is important the most senior police officer in Northern Ireland sends out a clear message on this issue.

There will also be disquiet over the revelation that a Czech-manufactured assault rifle used in the killing of five people in a betting shop on the Ormeau Road in 1992 and which was believed to have been destroyed, was actually on display in the Imperial War Museum.

The museum said the gun had been supplied to them by the RUC’s weapons and explosives research centre.

However, according to Relatives for Justice, the RUC, PSNI and Historical Enquiries Team had told families that this gun – part of a consignment imported by agent Brian Nelson – no longer existed.

It is little wonder victims lose confidence in the police when they hear of unacceptable incidents such as this.

It is essential that a detailed inquiry uncovers the circumstances surrounding this matter and how incorrect information could be given to relatives by investigating authorities.

But of course, this is just one instance among many which continue to cause deep unease.

What is needed from the police is not a defensive attitude but an open, frank and pro-active approach to ensuring the full story of collusion is finally told

FLORIDA SENATE POLLED ON ANTI-IRISH AND ANTI-CATHOLIC ATTITUDE – Fallout from Mac Bride Principles repeal

Posted by Jim on

Capitol Hill. JUNE 2, 2015— Florida’s repeal of the Mac Bride Principles legislation, passed in 1988, continues to cause political waves and provoke strong emotions.

Governor Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 7024,which repealed Mac Bride  on May 21, 2015

Florida’s action shocked and outraged Irish-Americans who regard the Mac Bride Principles as sacrosanct— and as the most effective campaign ever against anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland.

Fr. Sean Mc Manus— President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, which launched the Mac Bride Principles on November 5, 1984— did not hesitate to brand the Governor’s and the Senate’s action as, in effect, anti-Irish and anti-Catholic— whatever the intention.

And now Fr. Mc Manus has written to Governor Rick Scott and all forty Florida State Senators polling them on the issue: “Surely you had to be aware that repealing Mac Bride— passed in 1988 to ensure that Florida dollars would not subsidize anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland— would inevitably be seen as anti-Irish and anti-Catholic? Would you have been similarly complicit in an act that would be seen as anti-Cuban-American, anti-Jewish-American or anti-African-American?

Fr. Mc Manus explained:“ I am aware that the Governor and the Senators may have been duped into being complicit, and we want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Back in 2002,  there was a similar sneak attack against the Florida Mac Bride Bill, but we beat it back. This time, however, the sneak attack succeeded but we must not allow it to stand. Mac Bride must be reinstated. This is a matter of justice— and of Irish-American honor and fidelity.”
END

What the secret police files on the 1916 Rising reveal

Posted by Jim on

Members of the Irish Republican Army photographed during the 1916 Easter Rising.

The National Archives of Ireland has released 100-year-old secret police files compiled by the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) that reveal year-long surveillance of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.

 In a project named “Movement of Extremists,” the DMP compiled daily reports on the actions and whereabouts of some of the Rising’s biggest names, targeting a massive 230 people. Names included the future Proclamation signatories Thomas Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada and Thomas MacDonagh, Professor Eoin MacNeill and Bulmer Hobson.

The files have been available in the National Archives for years but could only be viewed by specialist scholars on request. They have now been digitized and documents will be made publicly available in chronological order right up until the Rising’s centenary next year.

 

The available reports begin on June 1, 1915 with a detailed account of the movements of J.J. Walsh and founder of the Irish Volunteers, Prof. MacNeill.

“J.J Walsh left 37 Haddington Road at 11.30am and proceeded to MacArthur’s House Agents, 79 Talbot Street where he remained for 20 minutes. He afterwards inspected a vacant shop at 20 Blessington Street,” reads the report.

It continues, detailing Prof. MacNeill’s visit to Thomas Clarke at his shop in 75 Parnell Street. Among the others seen entering the shop were the future President of Ireland Sean T. O’Ceallaigh and Frank Fahy, who was sentenced to death for his part in the Easter Rising.

The reports show that the DMP had a particular interest in Thomas Clarke and kept his shop under strict surveillance. Clarke was a veteran republican and had previously spent 15 years in jail in England. It has been argued that he is the person most responsible for the Rising. The first five days of reports begin with details of the visitors to Clarke’s shop.

Some of the reports include publications of the time, such as a copy of the socialist publication “The Workers Republic” dated June 5, 1915 and an issue of the Republican newspaper “Ná Bac Leis” dated May 29, 1915 where translations of the leading paragraphs have been included for the authorities in Dublin Castle.

As well as monitoring individuals, the DMP also kept surveillance on many events throughout 1915 and 1916 where there were many republicans in attendance. These included the funeral of veteran Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in August 1915, the annual convention of the Irish Volunteers, and anti-recruitment / anti-conscription rallies.

Any congregation of “Sinn Féin” Volunteers was noted. The entry for June 4 reads: “Thirty members of the Sinn Féin Volunteers without rifles assembled at 25 Parnell Square at 8.30 pm and afterwards in charge of P. Beasley went route marching towards Fairview. They returned at 10.30 pm. About the same hour 44 Sinn Féin Volunteers without rifles and in charge of Frank Fahy marched from 41 Parnell Square towards Glasnevin. They returned at 10pm. and dismissed without further parade.”

The extent of the surveillance is surprising considering that when the Rising took place the British Army was taken by surprise and was unprepared for the rebellion. The lack of knowledge about the Rising was seen as a massive failure of intelligence. Long-serving chief secretary to Ireland Augustine Burrell was blamed for the failure and resigned a few weeks later.

The release of the documents is part of a larger digitization project undertaken by the Irish Department for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for Ireland 2016, the commemoration program for the Easter Rising centenary.

Director of the National Archives John McDonough told the Irish Times that the chronological release of material allows for the public to fully understand the lead up to the Rising. “People will be able to read how key players were identified, followed, and put under surveillance, and read the thoughts of the detectives tracking them,” he said.

The original documents can be viewed here on the National Archives website.

In Northern Ireland, not every murder is treated the same

Posted by Jim on May 31, 2015

Niall Carson/PA

A BBC Panorama programme about state killings in Northern Ireland did not reveal much more than most local people already knew, but it told a lot more people in Great Britain what they did not know at all.

The programme alleged that the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch knew that their informers, within both the Provisional IRA and Loyalist paramilitary organisations, were involved in murders but did nothing to stop them. Protecting informers to glean more information was the higher gain. Some of these murders were of other security force personnel but they were mostly innocent civilians – and the bulk of them were Catholics.

The disgusting but rather popular idea that there is a victim hierarchy is shattered by these revelations. The distinction made between victim and victim-maker that has stymied the award of pensions to those injured in the Troubles because Unionist politicians could not stomach giving money to perpetrators of violence, now collapses.

Who now is the victim-maker? The bomber and gunman or their security-force handler who did nothing to prevent murder?

The Panorama allegations of collusion pose are another challenge to the dismissive and flippant response of many Unionists, who have denied similar allegations made in the past. We can anticipate they will be dismissed again.

I am confident in this prediction because one of the features of the peace process is a moral recalibration that results in only selective condemnation. This has stooped so low as to distort the meaning of justice in Northern Ireland.

Justice past and present

Justice is one of the key principles on which to build a better future. Not the only one – there is also the need for fairness, equality of opportunity, hope, social betterment and the alleviation of human need and want – but justice is amongst the keystones. But justice looks backwards as much as forwards; it is about dealing with past injustices as well as making improvements for the future.

This means justice is much broader than merely its criminal applications. It is is not just about prosecuting past criminal wrongs; it is about ensuring that past wrongs are not repeated. And the wrongs that need to be avoided are not only criminal acts; they are all previous social, political, cultural and economic practices which ended up in people being treated as second-class citizens, without regard to their common dignity as human beings.

With this approach, justice is truly blind. All people are of equal worth. All people have equal dignity. All people should be treated fairly. No one is above the law and no one deserves less justice than anyone else.

Justice, sadly, can also be one-eyed, when only some people’s rights to justice are accorded privilege, or when some people’s injustices get attention and other’s injustices are forgotten. When we pursue only some people’s past wrongs, or only some kinds of past wrongs and not other kinds of past wrongs. When this happens, justice is no basis on which to build a better future; it is merely a way to use the past selectively.

Same crime, different outcome

Let me cite just one example of the different treatment accorded to the murder of two innocent mothers. Everyone in the UK has heard of Jean McConville. She was a mother of ten, abducted and murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1972. It is a case used to highlight the inhumanity of the IRA. Gerry Adams was arrested and released without charge over his alleged involvement.

But who is Joan Connolly? She was a mother of eight shot by the Parachute Regiment in the unprovoked killing of 11 civilians in Ballymurphy in West Belfast in 1971. The secretary of state for Northern Ireland has refused an enquiry into these murders. Justice for these two mothers is not equal.

This is the true significance of the Panorama allegations. State or state-sponsored killings are looked at differently. But when those who make the law break the law, there is no law – and when there is no law, there is no morality. When justice is unjust, morality itself is undermined. Justice that is one-eyed is no justice at all.

Why we should call it the Great Hunger and not the Irish Potato Famine

Posted by Jim on

Casey Egan @irishcentral May 31,2015

Is ‘Irish Famine’ or ‘The Great Hunger’ the better term?

The years spanning from 1845 to 1852 – also known as the Irish Potato Famine – were among the most tragic, but also the most formative in Irish history.

During this time, over one million Irish died and close to two million emigrated – forever altering the course of Ireland’s future and setting the wheels in motion for Ireland’s powerful and extensive diaspora.

Debate continues today about whether these years should be referred to as a famine, due to the potato blight, or whether to label it as merely a famine brushes under the carpet all the political and social maneuvers and decisions that were also at play.

Some claim that “Irish Famine” is the more straightforward, better understood term.I believe that the Great Hunger, which stems from “an Gorta Mór” in Irish, is the proper, more respectful, and fully representative term.

True, it was Phytophthora infestans (the potato blight) that set the chain of events in motion. The fungus arrived in Ireland in 1845, and when crops began failing that year they were believed to be isolated events. Most were able to weather the first year of blight, with reserves set aside from the previous harvest. Then the blight spread, and for the next four years, potato crops, the staple element in the diets of Ireland’s lower classes, particularly in the west, failed.

 

The lack of potatoes was devastating, but to say that this brought about a population loss of over 3 million is to make a vast over-simplification.

As many leading scholars on the Great Hunger, including the late Cecil Woodham-Smith and Professor Christine Kinealy, currently the Director of the Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, have noted, one of the most devastating actions taken during these years was the continued exporting of food out of Ireland.

To quote Woodham-Smith, writing in “The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849,” “…no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation.”

And, as Kinealy revealed, during 1847 – the worst year of the Hunger, so bad it is remembered as “Black ’47,” while 400,000 men, women and children died, almost 4,000 ships carried food away from Ireland. Exported commodities included “peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue and seed,” as well as butter.

This, combined with the shocking regulations and lack of aid put in place by the British government during the Great Hunger, shows that it was not simply just the potato blight that caused such tragedy and chaos.

We should not oversimplify, but explain and educate.