FETCH ....... !
By Gene Kerrigan .
Four years ago this month the RUC began trying to put JOHN O' REILLY away . Four 'Supergrasses' failed to do the job . O' REILLY is now in Michael Noonan's custody . The RUC have demanded that Noonan "...bring him forthwith .. " to answer the accusations of HARRY KIRKPATRICK .
From 'MAGILL' magazine , February 1986 .
John Grimley's accusations against John O' Reilly kept O' Reilly in jail for more than a year ; by the time the Grimley supergrass trial began , in November 1983 , John O' Reilly had been in jail for a total of twenty-two months .
When Grimley's record of robbery , violence , mental disorder , sexual assualt and lies was untangled the trial collapsed and the presiding judge , Lord Justice Gibson , called a halt , declaring that "...absolutely no reliance.. " could be placed on John Grimley's evidence . The twenty-two people , including John O' Reilly , who had spent long periods in jail , were discharged .
By then , however , the RUC had turned up Harry Kirkpatrick , who , himself , had been 'fingered' by the informers Jackie Goodman and John Grimley , became another INLA supergrass ; he in turn 'fingered' thirty-one people , including John O' Reilly . In the Grimley trial it had been alleged that the RUC had a list of people they wanted to put away and were soliciting accusations against those people from suitable supergrasses , with promises of easy treatment and shortened sentences .
John Grimley , after the collapse of his trial , alleged this against the RUC : Grimley , however , was a proven liar .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Jack Lynch , 26 County Taoiseach , moved his troops up to the border ; Harold Wilson , British Prime Minister , moved British soldiers onto the streets of the North of Ireland . Gerry Fitt in Belfast welcomed the British Army , and Bernadette Devlin in Derry opposed them .
The RUC were removed , and eventually (temporarily) disarmed but , says Derryman Michael Canavan , now SDLP spokesman on security , the first mistake had already been made by Britain - " Control of the British Army was left in the hands of Stormont . " ('1169... ' Comment - that was by no means Britains 'first mistake' : that occured over 800 years before then ).
Effectively the Unionists had been handed an even more powerful weapon with which to assert their 'authority' ; that 'authority' was copperfastened by the removal of Harold Wilson and his replacement as British Prime Minister by Edward Heath of the ' Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ' (sic) in June 1970 . Bernadette Devlin and Gerry Fitt were both returned in that election .
Gerry Fitt went over to England to sit in even more obscurity , on the Opposition Benches behind the British Labour Party ; Bernadette Devlin , upon re-election , went straight into Armagh Jail to serve a six month sentence for her part in the ' Battle of the Bogside' . Derry rioted for three more days . Two weeks later , on July 3 1970 , a rifle was discovered in a house off the Falls Road and British soldiers sealed off the entire surrounding area .
Residents were put under curfew for the weekend and three men were killed ; Captain John Brooke , a Stormont Minister , arrived in a truck with the media horde and the British Army escorted them on a televised tour of the suppressed area .......
(MORE LATER).
A DECADE OF CENSORSHIP .......
Bernadette Quinn looks at the development of SECTION 31 of the Broadcasting Act , used by the Free State government to suppress the Republican viewpoint on state radio and television - and extended by Radio Telefis Eireann itself into a regime of self-censorship .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
Eamonn McCann stated re Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act : " It's like covering the Middle-East without allowing any mention of the fact that the Palestinians want a homeland . It's ridiculous . It would be far better and more honest if journalists at RTE were to refuse to cover stories which involve republicans and republicanism , rather than cover them in the inadequate and inaccurate manner which Section 31 forces on them .
For instance , recent coverage of the informer phenomenon has been seriously distorted because the view of the biggest element centrally involved cannot be included in any account .
Even if the majority of RTE journalists find that for whatever reason they could not go along with blacking coverage altogether , then it would still be useful if the union made it clear that any journalist refusing to implement Section 31 on an individual basis would have full and automatic union support if the RTE management tried to retaliate . "
[END of ' A DECADE OF CENSORSHIP '].
(MONDAY 6th : ' Ups And Downs For RUC's Perjurer Strategy' - from 1983).
