A GAY VIEW ON KINCORA .......
By Sean McGouran .
First published in 'FORTNIGHT' Magazine , May 1984 .
READERS PLEASE NOTE : This article was apparently penned by a gay supporter of McGrath / TARA / Kincora Boys Home . It is published here to give you a taste of the 'spin' which some people attempted to put on that issue ; read it with that in mind ..... Sharon. )
This is a link to the 'objectives' of the TARA loyalist paramilitary organisation with which William McGrath and Roy Garland were associated .
Sir George Terry , in his report into the affair , slates the press for their handling of it , but does not mention the never-ending quality of the whole thing . For more than two years every single day every single medium regaled us with another Kincora fable - we very rarely got a fact . Public figures tumbled over themselves to prove that they were cleaner than clean .
Meanwhile , the Social Services Department were in the grip of paranoia ; gay women and men went in fear of their livelihoods - some had their private lives insultingly closely scrutinised . A number were made to assent to humiliatingly intimate physical examination . Non-gay people were just as deeply affected as the suspicion was all-pervasive .
Sir George Terry lays most of the blame for the actual events at the Kincora Home on the Eastern Health and Social Services Board , unjustly , one feels . This body could only be expected to work with the material to hand . This included that inherited from the Belfast Welfare Committee ; both bodies , like all such bodies , had to depend on the good will and the good faith of their employees .......
(MORE LATER).
SINN FEIN ALONE .......
As Sinn Fein has become more active , members of the government parties have sought to isolate the Provos politically .
The record shows , however , that some of those politicians have for years sought support from Sinn Fein - and some continue to do so in so far as it is politically expedient .
By JOHN McHUGH .
First published in ' MAGILL ' Magazine , September 1984.
(FS) Minister of State Paul Connaughton (Fine Gael) feels that the two Sinn Fein Councillors and himself were elected to the same local authority and that in order to do his job as a local representative he has to attend meetings at which Sinn Fein members are present .
He is not so sure about his continued participation in the electoral alliance which has elected a member of Sinn Fein and members of Fine Gael to the position of Chairman in the past - he says that he would have to seriously consider the question of whether or not he would vote for one of the Sinn Fein Councillors for that position in the future .
He feels that the position has changed since 1979 and that Sinn Fein now has a much closer relationship with the IRA . He would , he says , talk to a delegation from the Council , with Sinn Fein members present , in Galway , so long as they were dealing with local issues .
However , if such a delegation were to try to meet him in Dublin the question of whether or not he would meet them would be a matter for Government and he would abide by that decision .......
(MORE LATER).
HUNGER-STRIKING AGAINST SHOW-TRIALS.......
From 'AP/RN' , 2 January 1986 .
No By-Line .
Most of Harry Kirkpatrick's 27 victims have already spent several years on remand . Gerard Steenson , detained on the word of a succession of paid perjurers , who later withdrew their statements , had been held in jail for almost four years before his trial .
The defendants fear that their appeals could be delayed for several years , even if the courts were eventually to release them for cosmetic reasons . Bobby Tohill , who was on remand for two and a half years , had earlier , in 1982 , been imprisoned without trial for six months on the word of paid-perjurer Jackie Goodman , but was released when Goodman retracted .
During Tohill's detention , his wife Cathy has had to cope with their four-year-old son , Michael , who has cystic fibrosis and requires daily medical care and has had numerous spells in hospital ; according to Cathy Tohill -
- " My husband could rot in jail for two and a half years waiting for his appeal the way the 'Black' defendants have . And then he would face the same system and could lose even though in England Kirkpatrick's evidence would'nt be accepted .... " .......
(MORE LATER).
