Posted by Jim on July 1, 2013
by Anthony McIntyre (for the Pensive Quill)
Yesterday, 36 years after his original conviction, Pat Livingstone was acquitted of killing Samuel Llewellyn in West Belfast in 1975. Mr Llewellyn, a resident of the Shankill Road, was shot dead by the IRA after being kidnapped while carrying out emergency repairs to homes in the area in the wake of a loyalist bomb attack. It became known as the “Good Samaritan killing”.
Looking at a photograph of ‘Big Liv’ yesterday after his acquittal was soothing, seemingly far removed from the days when it was customary for a West Belfast man to merely turn up in a suit and as a result be labelled ‘the accused.’
Now the worm has turned and Liv stands vindicated, able to point the finger at those who conspired to unjustly secure a worthless conviction.
The accused in the case of Samuel Llewellyn are the British judiciary and the RUC.
It was clear to everybody remotely interested from the outset that the charge against Pat Livingstone was tenuous to say the least. Convicted on a concocted verbal statement he was fallaciously said to have made outside the jurisdiction of the RUC, it was easy after that for the legal process that disposed of unwanted members of the public to grind into action. Equipped with neither brake nor reverse gear, the conveyor belt trundled on relentlessly until justice had been pulverised.
Prejudice not evidence was sufficient to call it in a Diplock Court.
Other than immediate family few cared about an unsafe conviction.
Immediately after the Llewellyn killing Pat Livingstone had been the target of a smear campaign by members of the Provisional Movement making it clear to all and sundry that it was hanging him out to dry.
Livingstone was a former internee so it was all too easy to presume his culpability rather than prove it. Conferring on him the status of an unwanted member of the public made it all the easier to remove him from public view. Journalists were whispered to from Provisional offices and when the judge sentenced him to serve the rest of his natural life in prison, (illegally as well), there was a collective shrug of indifference. ‘Throw away the key’ was the cry from the British and unionist establishment, made sufficiently loud to drown out the sound of other concerns.
In prison Liv endured the ardours of the blanket protest and because of the sentence he received was unable to attend the funeral of his 14 year old sister Julie who was brutally killed by British state forces the same evening Frank Hughes died on hunger strike.
I never met him during the blanket. We were held throughout in separate blocks. Once it was over, we became close prison friends. Not of the temperament to be academically inclined – that type of discipline had little appeal to him – he was extremely intelligent. Armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge he sustained himself throughout his lengthy spell of imprisonment by reading every type of literature, an activity he combined with following the progress of Glasgow Celtic whom he adored. He was wickedly sarcastic and the two of us shared a wry perspective on jail matters, rarely showing the slightest inclination to take at face value anything from officialdom, whether Provisional or penal.
Once coming back from the visits in 1982 in a prison van he was being dropped off at his block before me. As he was about to get out he turned around and backed out, gesturing to Willie McGrath of Kincora infamy while commenting to me ‘don’t get out with your arse facing him.’
Whether the prisoners or the screws guarding us laughed most is still something I have yet to figure out. But that was Liv, quick and never one to miss an opportunity to make a witty remark.
On rare occasions in our lives we have written to each other, usually when the chips were down for one or the other. That affinity would never have stopped him ripping the back out of me. Typical Liv, just his way, as natural and as frequent as Irish rain.
There was no justification for the killing of Samuel Llewellyn. A non combatant, he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What his family thought they knew about his death has now been shattered by the combined efforts of the RUC and British judiciary in securing a verdict for which there was no justification. Its role often overlooked, the northern judiciary was complicit in crimes against society and it is unfortunate that no proper investigation has ever been conducted into its role. The judiciary was as cavalier about law and rights as Anglo Irish bankers were about the economy. And now the relentless determination of a former blanket man has, in the court of public opinion, moved judges from the bench to the dock.
Posted by Jim on June 28, 2013
June 27, 2013
Dear Senator,
As the National President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America Inc., the oldest and largest Irish American organization in the United States, I send you the sincere thanks on the Senate’s resounding passage of Senate Bill No. S. 744, Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. On behalf of our many thousands of members and their families across the US and in our home state, New York,I offer the heartiest congratulations to you, your colleague Senator Schumer, the Gang of Eight, and all the Senators who supported the Bill, for championing our Nation’s need to realistically address immigration reform. Senator, both you and your staff have our gratitude for your dedication to ending the disparity that was created when Irish visa quotas were removed in the 1965 US Immigration and Nationality Act and in aiding our 50,000 Irish undocumented.
We feel that these contributions to the security and reform measures engendered in the current Bill lead us to confidently and respectfully urge House members to pass this legislation.
Yours truly,
Brendan Moore
Posted by Jim on June 27, 2013
This summer, I am proud to host another great line up of concerts and invite music lovers and neighbors to be a part of these great evenings of music. It’s time to grab a beach chair, or a blanket, and head to our local parks on most Tuesday and W
ednesday evenings.
Posted by Jim on June 22, 2013
A new video installation in Derry has been criticised as an attempt to rewrite the history of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre.
Footage showing General Michael Jackson’s response to the Saville Report was included in the installation at the Guildhall, the headquarters of Derry city council headquarters, which opened to the public last week after a renovation.
The exhibit is one of several new “interpretation panels” installed in the Guildhall during the recent refurbishment as part of Derry’s rebranding as “UK City of Culture” for 2013.
In the clip, General Jackson says the vast majority of soldiers “behaved admirably often in the face of severe provocation”.
Mickey McKinney, whose brother William was among those murdered in the Bogside on January 30, 1972, hit out strongly at General Jackson’s role in the atrocity and the British Army cover-up which followed.
Jackson is the man who organised and orchestrated the original cover-up of the Bloody Sunday killings. It was his so-called “shot-list” which was sent out around the world within hours of the massacre to libel the dead and wounded and to exonerate the killers of the Parachute Regiment.
Mr McKinney said the writing of the fake ‘shot-list’ was the “battering ram that they used to beat us with for 40 years afterwards”.
“Is it really suitable for him (General Jackson) to be included in the Guildhall?” he asked.
A statement from nine further people, Kate Nash, Linda Nash, Liam Wray, Joe Friel, Damien Donaghy, Micheal Bridge, Jackie O’Reilly, Mona Bradley and Tony Deery, echoed Mr McKinney’s sentiments.
“We have been angered, distressed and insulted to find that the installation just unveiled at the Guildhall includes a contribution from General Michael Jackson.”
The group said the so-called ‘shot-list’ was sent out around the world within hours of the massacre “to libel the dead and wounded and exonerate the killers of the Parachute Regiment.”
“We want the reference to Jackson removed without delay.”
The group also expressed further concerns at attempts to rebrand the Bloody Sunday Inquiry as ‘The Saville Inquiry’.
“The effect is to present British role as benign – as far from the truth as it would be possible to get,” they said.
“We would like to know who designed this memorial and decided what would be included. Certainly, we were not involved.
“Members of the families are also angry that no mention is made of the shadow left by The Bloody Sunday Inquiry on the memory of Gerard Donaghy
– found, in contradiction of the overwhelming evidence, to have probably been carrying a nail bomb when shot down.
“We cannot put the Bloody Sunday killings behind us until all the Bloody Sunday dead are vindicated. The Guildhall must acknowledge the fact that the search for the full truth of Bloody Sunday continues.”
A spokesperson for Derry council confirmed today that the audio visual element of the exhibit “has been temporarily switched-off as it is currently being reviewed.”
Posted by Jim on June 17, 2013
Obama urges peace, reconciliation ahead of G8
US President Barack Obama urged schoolchildren and politicians in the North to work towards a more lasting peace and an end to sectarian divisions.
Fifteen years after the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement, which saw Sinn Fein join unionists in a partitioned, Six-County administration and lend their support to the British security forces, the US president said the world was watching for the next stage of the process.
In a 30-minute speech at Belfast’s showpiece Waterfront Hall, he suggested it was time for an end to segregated education and housing.
He said: “You need to get this right. You set the example for those who are seeking peace to end conflicts of their own.
“You are their blueprint to follow. You are the proof of what is possible. Hope is contagious. They are watching to see what you do next.”
There was extremely high security in Belfast for Obama’s visit, with several main routes closed during the night, although they have since reopened.
During the heavily orchestrated event in front of an invited audience of media, dignitaries and school students, Mr Obama lauded the North’s peace process as a model and promised that the USA would continue to support “Northern Ireland” and the Stormont political system.
He said Belfast was a “changed city”, with pubs full of people asking each other: “what’s the craic?”
He said this generation could now travel without the burden of checkpoints or soldiers on patrol. People could be friends with and fall in love with whoever they wished.
But he said it was up to the next generation to build a genuinely reconciled society. “The previous generation brought the ceasefires and the Agreement. The next stage in the process was up to the next generation present in the hall.”
He added: “Peace is not just about politics. It is about attitudes, a sense of empathy and breaking down barriers in hearts.”
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, the First and Deputy First Ministers of the Stormont power-sharing executive, greeted the president on arrival at the Waterfront and held a brief private meeting before Mr Obama appeared on stage.
Mr Obama acknowledged the challenges that exist.
“There are still people who have not reaped the rewards of peace, there are those who are not convinced that the effort is worth it.
“There are still wounds that have not been healed and communities where tension and mistrust hangs in the air. There are walls that still stand, there are still many miles to go.”
He said it was within his audience’s power to change that.
“Whether you are a good neighbour to someone from the other side of past battles, that is up to you,” he warned.
“Whether you treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve, that is up to you.
“Whether you let your kids play with kids who attended a different church…that is up to you.”
Mr Obama travels today to the G8 summit in Fermanagh, where he is seeking international backing for a new military intervention on one side of Syria’s sectarian civil war, as well as continued support for US involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.