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 .
The (Free State) Supreme Court was deliberately misled into believing that the RUC had a case against Dominic McGlinchey for the murder of an elderly woman , Hester McMullen ; this murder was handed to the court as a vicious crime which it could declare non-political : McGlinchey might well have been accused of being the Yorkshire Ripper . The crime he was accused of did'nt matter as long as it provided sufficient grounds for the (FS) Supreme Court to hand him over .
The RUC had not one sliver of evidence against Dominic McGlinchey in connection with that crime ; only after the extradition , when they had him in custody , did they begin building a case , and an extremely flimsy one , so flimsy that it fell apart in court ! The embarrassment for the Free State Supreme Court was deepened in cases which followed , including the Shannon and Burns cases .
Increasingly it was clear that the (FS) Supreme Court was being treated as a device , much like a supergrass , to jail people by questionable methods . The RUC said " Fetch ! " and it was done , whether by John Grimley or a Supreme Court Justice , on equally discreditable evidence .
In the John O' Reilly case , unlike, for instance , the McGlinchey and Shannon cases , the North of Ireland Authorities are seeking to implicate the (FS) Supreme Court in the discredited supergrass system .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
1973 opened with a British 'White Paper' that suggested the formation of an Assembly to which power would be devolved if it was shared between Protestants and Catholics (ie Nationalists and Unionists) ; an election was called for June 1973 and exactly one week before polling day Gerry Fitt received a phone call from RUC Assistant Chief Constable Sam Bradley - " He asked me if I had thirty pounds , and I said I had , and he said he was sending a detective up right away with a gun and a permit . 'It won't stop the loyalists killing you , Gerry ' , he said , ' but if you fire it in the air when they come at you they'll have to put a bullet through you . They won't get close enough to cut your throat' . " (' 1169... ' Comment - why should the RUC seek to arm and protect its 'enemy' .... ?)
He got the gun on Friday night and set off from Belfast with Senator Paddy Wilson for a tour , as leader of the SDLP , of the country constituencies : " I paid £28 for the hire of a car and Paddy drove me round . A police (RUC) sergeant in Cushendall , a pal of mine , took me up into a quarry and taught me how to fire it . We came back to Belfast on Monday night . Paddy met a bird in a pub and went off up the Cave Hill in a car . The butchers followed him into a quarry ... " Both bodies were stabbed and mutilated from top to bottom . Gerry Fitt identified them in the morgue .
The Assembly was formed and though more votes were cast for the dissident Unionist parties of Paisley and Craig than were cast for the unionist party of Brian Faulkner , the former Stormont Premier went off to Sunningdale to engage in talks with the SDLP and the Alliance parties .
Between them these three parties cobbled out a power sharing agreement , under the direction of Edward Heath ; they returned to the North of Ireland to form an Executive which took office on January 1 , 1974 .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
British Lord Chief Justice Lowry rubbed salt into the wounds of incredulity by using his summation for the purposes of a policy statement on the use of perjurers , in which he formally signalled the willingness of the Northern judiciary to accept uncorroborated evidence of an 'accomplice witness ' as the sole basis for a conviction .
Arguing that the judiciary was , and remained , independent of the (Westminster) ' Northern Ireland' Office and was not in any form of collusion , Chief Justice Lowry stated - " The resort to supergrasses has been described by some people as a method of convicting suspected terrorists . But the expression 'method of conviction' is a complete misnomer , since it is likely to give the impression that the Executive and Judges are together implementing a trial process with the joint object of convicting and imprisoning suspects .
It is for the Executive to prosecute a case if , on the available evidence , that seems to be the right course . But the function of the Judges , acting quite independently , has not altered ; it is simply to decide whether or not in any individual case the allegations of the prosecutor have been proved . "
Two days before Lowry made the above statement , the British Attorney-General , Sir Michael Havers , had spoken about the " financial arrangements ... " made with those informers .......
(MORE LATER).
Thursday, June 09, 2005
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 .
The (Free State) Supreme Court has a little egg on its face from its involvement with extradition : the policy of Southern governments since at least the fall of Sunningdale has been to de-politicise the Northern conflict and treat its paramilitary violence as simple 'criminality' . Occasional doubts about the RUC and the Northern courts were voiced , but these were pragmatic attempts to placate Northern nationalists and combat the drift to Sinn Fein .
A (Free State) Government source was quoted in 'MAGILL' magazine in November 1984 as saying - " It's a side road for a year or eighteen months or so to pick up a problem . Once we've dealt with the repairs we'll be back on the main road again . " ('1169... ' Comment - that same attitude , as expressed 21 years ago , is prevalent today from those in Leinster House ; they will occasionally pay 'lip service' to events in the Six Counties [depending on the event] but will not push the issue . There are no votes in it for them .)
The "...main road .. " was the depiction of the RUC and the Northern judicial system as 'normal bodies adhering to accepted standards' - the same political 'wind' was blowing through the (FS) Supreme Court and the door to extradition was opened . The Dominic McGlinchey case was the 'jemmy' that opened the door .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
On March 24 , 1972 , Stormont was prorogued to the sound of guns and bombs as the North of Ireland was engulfed in the cross -fire between the British Army , the UDR , the RUC , UVF , UDA , UFF , Official IRA and Provisional IRA ; Gerry Fitt and Bernadette Devlin were the only two anti-unionists left with political status , and even they were forbidden from negotiating with anybody .
While the politicians chaffed at redundancy , people who were in jail as a result of the war chaffed at their criminalisation : a hunger strike was called and Gerry Fitt was instrumental in persuading Northern Secretary Willie Whitelaw to grant , in June , 'special category status' to prisoners convicted of political offences . This , coupled with a mass release of internees , and the famous talks in London with IRA leaders , who included Gerry Adams (specially released from internment for the talks ) , broke the political deadlock . ('1169... ' Comment - Gerry Adams has since publicly declared that he is not now , nor was he ever , a member of the PIRA . As he gave that statement , a cock could be heard crowing for the third time in the background ... )
The IRA declared a ceasefire and the way was open for the SDLP to return to constitutional politics : the IRA ceasefire lasted nine days . Within a month of the granting of 'special category status' , the Provos were responsible for the bombing of Belfast on 'Bloody Friday' and the bombing of the village of Claudy . Many civilians died . The Shankill Butchers were also out that July with knives and many Catholics died . It seemed to Gerry Fitt , who lived in the 'Murder Mile' that stretched from Carlisle Circus up along the Antrim Road where he lived , that every time he opened his front door , or his newspaper , somebody was dead .
Whatever sympathetic links had ever existed between him and 'the people' who defended the area where he lived - "...the vigilantes only ever stood in my front garden with big sticks , in 1969 and 1970 .. " - were well and truly broken . The year 1973 opened with an offer from the British .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
But if the RUC's optimism for the potential of their perjurer strategy has been tempered by a series of retractions in recent months - Walter McCrory (Derry) , Charles Dillon (County Derry) , Robert Lean and Patrick McGurk - and if they have been forced to the realisation that it will continue to be an imperfect strategy , with perjurers as much subject to the persuasion of the nationalist community's abhorrence of their actions as they are to RUC threats and inducements , nevertheless the third major event in this momentous week ensured the continued successful use of paid perjurers as a means of securing convictions .
It was an event that marked a further and fundamental diminishing in the standard of evidence required in Diplock Courts for conviction : (British) Lord Chief Justice Lowry's sentencing of seven men on IRA charges , in Belfast Crown Court , on Wednesday 26 October , on the uncorroborated evidence of Kevin McGrady , was incredible even by Diplock 'standards' . Three weeks earlier , on October 5th , he had released two of the ten defendants and thrown out 13 of the original 45 charges (including charges of murder) , saying that in respect of those he found Kevin McGrady's evidence "...so unsatisfactory and inconsistent that I could not contemplate allowing myself , as a tribunal of fact , to say that guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt . "
Yet in his final summation on the 25th , despite acknowledging that McGrady's evidence had contained "...some glaring absurdities .. " and was "...contradictory , bizarre and in some respects incredible .. " , and despite finding the remaining eight defendants innocent of a further 19 charges , Lowry nonetheless returned verdicts of guilty against seven of them on the remaining 13 charges .
In one case , the former Sinn Fein National Organiser , Jim Gibney (28) , was sentenced to terms of 12 years and 5 years on two charges , even though he was cleared of no less than 20 other charges on Kevin MGrady's " bizarre " 'evidence' .......
(MORE LATER).
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 .
The (Free State) Supreme Court has a little egg on its face from its involvement with extradition : the policy of Southern governments since at least the fall of Sunningdale has been to de-politicise the Northern conflict and treat its paramilitary violence as simple 'criminality' . Occasional doubts about the RUC and the Northern courts were voiced , but these were pragmatic attempts to placate Northern nationalists and combat the drift to Sinn Fein .
A (Free State) Government source was quoted in 'MAGILL' magazine in November 1984 as saying - " It's a side road for a year or eighteen months or so to pick up a problem . Once we've dealt with the repairs we'll be back on the main road again . " ('1169... ' Comment - that same attitude , as expressed 21 years ago , is prevalent today from those in Leinster House ; they will occasionally pay 'lip service' to events in the Six Counties [depending on the event] but will not push the issue . There are no votes in it for them .)
The "...main road .. " was the depiction of the RUC and the Northern judicial system as 'normal bodies adhering to accepted standards' - the same political 'wind' was blowing through the (FS) Supreme Court and the door to extradition was opened . The Dominic McGlinchey case was the 'jemmy' that opened the door .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
On March 24 , 1972 , Stormont was prorogued to the sound of guns and bombs as the North of Ireland was engulfed in the cross -fire between the British Army , the UDR , the RUC , UVF , UDA , UFF , Official IRA and Provisional IRA ; Gerry Fitt and Bernadette Devlin were the only two anti-unionists left with political status , and even they were forbidden from negotiating with anybody .
While the politicians chaffed at redundancy , people who were in jail as a result of the war chaffed at their criminalisation : a hunger strike was called and Gerry Fitt was instrumental in persuading Northern Secretary Willie Whitelaw to grant , in June , 'special category status' to prisoners convicted of political offences . This , coupled with a mass release of internees , and the famous talks in London with IRA leaders , who included Gerry Adams (specially released from internment for the talks ) , broke the political deadlock . ('1169... ' Comment - Gerry Adams has since publicly declared that he is not now , nor was he ever , a member of the PIRA . As he gave that statement , a cock could be heard crowing for the third time in the background ... )
The IRA declared a ceasefire and the way was open for the SDLP to return to constitutional politics : the IRA ceasefire lasted nine days . Within a month of the granting of 'special category status' , the Provos were responsible for the bombing of Belfast on 'Bloody Friday' and the bombing of the village of Claudy . Many civilians died . The Shankill Butchers were also out that July with knives and many Catholics died . It seemed to Gerry Fitt , who lived in the 'Murder Mile' that stretched from Carlisle Circus up along the Antrim Road where he lived , that every time he opened his front door , or his newspaper , somebody was dead .
Whatever sympathetic links had ever existed between him and 'the people' who defended the area where he lived - "...the vigilantes only ever stood in my front garden with big sticks , in 1969 and 1970 .. " - were well and truly broken . The year 1973 opened with an offer from the British .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
But if the RUC's optimism for the potential of their perjurer strategy has been tempered by a series of retractions in recent months - Walter McCrory (Derry) , Charles Dillon (County Derry) , Robert Lean and Patrick McGurk - and if they have been forced to the realisation that it will continue to be an imperfect strategy , with perjurers as much subject to the persuasion of the nationalist community's abhorrence of their actions as they are to RUC threats and inducements , nevertheless the third major event in this momentous week ensured the continued successful use of paid perjurers as a means of securing convictions .
It was an event that marked a further and fundamental diminishing in the standard of evidence required in Diplock Courts for conviction : (British) Lord Chief Justice Lowry's sentencing of seven men on IRA charges , in Belfast Crown Court , on Wednesday 26 October , on the uncorroborated evidence of Kevin McGrady , was incredible even by Diplock 'standards' . Three weeks earlier , on October 5th , he had released two of the ten defendants and thrown out 13 of the original 45 charges (including charges of murder) , saying that in respect of those he found Kevin McGrady's evidence "...so unsatisfactory and inconsistent that I could not contemplate allowing myself , as a tribunal of fact , to say that guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt . "
Yet in his final summation on the 25th , despite acknowledging that McGrady's evidence had contained "...some glaring absurdities .. " and was "...contradictory , bizarre and in some respects incredible .. " , and despite finding the remaining eight defendants innocent of a further 19 charges , Lowry nonetheless returned verdicts of guilty against seven of them on the remaining 13 charges .
In one case , the former Sinn Fein National Organiser , Jim Gibney (28) , was sentenced to terms of 12 years and 5 years on two charges , even though he was cleared of no less than 20 other charges on Kevin MGrady's " bizarre " 'evidence' .......
(MORE LATER).
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
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 .
There was evidence that the informer Harry Kirkpatrick was coached by the RUC ; British Justice Carswell solemnly advised himself that it would be unsafe to convict on such evidence - he then rejected his own advice (!) and gave ten of the defendants life sentences . The rest got between eight and twenty years apiece .
Harry Kirkpatrick's accusations against John O' Reilly are that he was a member of the INLA and that in April 1981 he conspired to murder Kenneth Schimeld , a civil servant . A bomb was attached to the bottom of Schimeld's car , fell off and was safely detonated by the British Army .
Kirkpatrick alleged that O' Reilly attended a meeting at which the murder was discussed . He also said that someone else later told him that someone else had in turn said that John O' Reilly placed the bomb under the car . There is no other evidence against O' Reilly . If someone says you did something you go to jail ; if someone says someone else told them you did something you go to jail . Then , after two or three years in jail , you can receive a long sentence , even when the person pointing the finger is known to have an intimate relationship with the RUC and has a vested interest in putting you away .
Proceedings which accept such evidence , from such a source , in a mass trial format , bear only a satirical resemblance to due process of law and have been condemned by lawyers here and in Britain . The 'supergrass system ' of jailing people has been condemned by all political shades on the island , unionist and nationalist . The Southern government , through its representative at the Anglo-Irish Conference , Peter Barry , has repeatedly criticised the system .
Nevertheless , the Free State Minister for Justice , Michael Noonan , has already given the nod for the extradition proceedings to proceed against John O' Reilly . In the next few months the case will be appealed through the Free State High Court and almost certainly into the Free State Supreme Court .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
'Bloody Sunday' , January 1972 : " It's a United Ireland now or nothing . " The words of John Hume , as he ' raised' the first green flag ('1169...' Comment - verbally , only ... ) . Bernadette Devlin punched Reginald Maulding in the face on the floor of Westminster and nationalist politicians withdrew even from the lowest form of political engagement , local government , in the North . It was all too much for Gerry Fitt , the 'political in-fighter' , to bear : never an electoral pacifist , he hated seeing Unionists step into uncontested City Council seats as one by one the anti-Unionist Councillors withdrew from the 'ring' or were counted out for non-attendance .
He dashed down to City Hall , signed the attendance sheet , made a token attendance and dashed home . Paddy Devlin persuaded the SDLP to ignore this breach of the rules , but even he had to restrain Fitt publicly when Unionist jeers about Fitt's token presence in City Hall provoked Fitt to throw down a challenge that he could resign altogether , fight as an abstentionist and still beat them .
When the other Dock seat fell vacant , with the prospect of a Unionist setting foot in the the political 'birthplace' of Gerry Fitt , he " ... went mad with frustration altogether and walked that floor like a lion .. " , his wife Anne recalled . " He and (Stormont) Senator Paddy Wilson set off down town to scour the pubs . Gerry swore he would find somebody to fight the seat before the night was out . Towards closing time I got a call from him . " " I've found someone , Anne " , he said : " Great ! " , I said . " It's a women , Anne , " he said . " Even better , " I said . " It's you , Anne ... " , he said . Unable to wiggle out of the party bonds that tied him down , Gerry Fitt watched with delight while Anne toured the streets handing out the election address which she wrote herself -
- " When elected I will not be attending City Hall but I will be preventing a bigoted Unionist from doing so in your name . " Anne Fitt won by 2536 votes to 288 , obtaining a larger vote than her husband ever did in that ward . But a battle of a different kind was about to commence .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
The informer Robert Lean escaped from RUC 'protective custody' but was arrested under Section 12 on leaving a press conference ; he was held in Castlereagh for seven days . Apparently the RUC seriously intended to charge him with a killing on 'new evidence' obtained from the perjurer , William Skelly , who had originally implicated Robert Lean , in a revenge act for his retraction , but the RUC finally changed their minds . It is highly improbable that the (British) Crown Prosecutor could have persuaded even a Diplock Court that the informer William Skelly had forgotten this 'evidence' until after Robert Lean retracted , and then miraculously remembered it !
The inference that the RUC had been aware of 'evidence' linking Lean to a killing at the outset , but had suppressed it in order to do a 'deal' with him , and so imprison prominent Republicans , would have been unavoidable . Most damaging of all from the RUC's viewpoint was Robert Lean's assertion that his 'deal' for immunity was to sign statements already prepared by the RUC incriminating specific individuals wanted 'out of the way' by them . Top of the list was Gerry Adams , but it seems the RUC were unable to charge him because Robert Lean refused to co-operate with a face-to-face confrontation .
On their release , two of those actually imprisoned on Lean's statements - Edward Carmichael and Ivor Bell - confirmed that they had also been offered immunity if they would incriminate Sinn Fein elected representatives , Adams , Danny Morrison and Martin Mcguinness . Additionally , Edward Carmichael had been offered £300,000 and Ivor Bell was told to "...name my own figure .. " .
The RUC were not having a one-hundred per cent success rate with their informer/perjurer strategy : but they were not prepared to give up on it .......
(MORE LATER).
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 .
There was evidence that the informer Harry Kirkpatrick was coached by the RUC ; British Justice Carswell solemnly advised himself that it would be unsafe to convict on such evidence - he then rejected his own advice (!) and gave ten of the defendants life sentences . The rest got between eight and twenty years apiece .
Harry Kirkpatrick's accusations against John O' Reilly are that he was a member of the INLA and that in April 1981 he conspired to murder Kenneth Schimeld , a civil servant . A bomb was attached to the bottom of Schimeld's car , fell off and was safely detonated by the British Army .
Kirkpatrick alleged that O' Reilly attended a meeting at which the murder was discussed . He also said that someone else later told him that someone else had in turn said that John O' Reilly placed the bomb under the car . There is no other evidence against O' Reilly . If someone says you did something you go to jail ; if someone says someone else told them you did something you go to jail . Then , after two or three years in jail , you can receive a long sentence , even when the person pointing the finger is known to have an intimate relationship with the RUC and has a vested interest in putting you away .
Proceedings which accept such evidence , from such a source , in a mass trial format , bear only a satirical resemblance to due process of law and have been condemned by lawyers here and in Britain . The 'supergrass system ' of jailing people has been condemned by all political shades on the island , unionist and nationalist . The Southern government , through its representative at the Anglo-Irish Conference , Peter Barry , has repeatedly criticised the system .
Nevertheless , the Free State Minister for Justice , Michael Noonan , has already given the nod for the extradition proceedings to proceed against John O' Reilly . In the next few months the case will be appealed through the Free State High Court and almost certainly into the Free State Supreme Court .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
'Bloody Sunday' , January 1972 : " It's a United Ireland now or nothing . " The words of John Hume , as he ' raised' the first green flag ('1169...' Comment - verbally , only ... ) . Bernadette Devlin punched Reginald Maulding in the face on the floor of Westminster and nationalist politicians withdrew even from the lowest form of political engagement , local government , in the North . It was all too much for Gerry Fitt , the 'political in-fighter' , to bear : never an electoral pacifist , he hated seeing Unionists step into uncontested City Council seats as one by one the anti-Unionist Councillors withdrew from the 'ring' or were counted out for non-attendance .
He dashed down to City Hall , signed the attendance sheet , made a token attendance and dashed home . Paddy Devlin persuaded the SDLP to ignore this breach of the rules , but even he had to restrain Fitt publicly when Unionist jeers about Fitt's token presence in City Hall provoked Fitt to throw down a challenge that he could resign altogether , fight as an abstentionist and still beat them .
When the other Dock seat fell vacant , with the prospect of a Unionist setting foot in the the political 'birthplace' of Gerry Fitt , he " ... went mad with frustration altogether and walked that floor like a lion .. " , his wife Anne recalled . " He and (Stormont) Senator Paddy Wilson set off down town to scour the pubs . Gerry swore he would find somebody to fight the seat before the night was out . Towards closing time I got a call from him . " " I've found someone , Anne " , he said : " Great ! " , I said . " It's a women , Anne , " he said . " Even better , " I said . " It's you , Anne ... " , he said . Unable to wiggle out of the party bonds that tied him down , Gerry Fitt watched with delight while Anne toured the streets handing out the election address which she wrote herself -
- " When elected I will not be attending City Hall but I will be preventing a bigoted Unionist from doing so in your name . " Anne Fitt won by 2536 votes to 288 , obtaining a larger vote than her husband ever did in that ward . But a battle of a different kind was about to commence .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
The informer Robert Lean escaped from RUC 'protective custody' but was arrested under Section 12 on leaving a press conference ; he was held in Castlereagh for seven days . Apparently the RUC seriously intended to charge him with a killing on 'new evidence' obtained from the perjurer , William Skelly , who had originally implicated Robert Lean , in a revenge act for his retraction , but the RUC finally changed their minds . It is highly improbable that the (British) Crown Prosecutor could have persuaded even a Diplock Court that the informer William Skelly had forgotten this 'evidence' until after Robert Lean retracted , and then miraculously remembered it !
The inference that the RUC had been aware of 'evidence' linking Lean to a killing at the outset , but had suppressed it in order to do a 'deal' with him , and so imprison prominent Republicans , would have been unavoidable . Most damaging of all from the RUC's viewpoint was Robert Lean's assertion that his 'deal' for immunity was to sign statements already prepared by the RUC incriminating specific individuals wanted 'out of the way' by them . Top of the list was Gerry Adams , but it seems the RUC were unable to charge him because Robert Lean refused to co-operate with a face-to-face confrontation .
On their release , two of those actually imprisoned on Lean's statements - Edward Carmichael and Ivor Bell - confirmed that they had also been offered immunity if they would incriminate Sinn Fein elected representatives , Adams , Danny Morrison and Martin Mcguinness . Additionally , Edward Carmichael had been offered £300,000 and Ivor Bell was told to "...name my own figure .. " .
The RUC were not having a one-hundred per cent success rate with their informer/perjurer strategy : but they were not prepared to give up on it .......
(MORE LATER).
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
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 .
On November 4 , 1985 , John O' Reilly was again arrested under Section 30 , this time in Limerick ; the ostensible reason for this arrest was to question him about a robbery which had taken place . In Portlaoise he had been questioned for forty-eight hours , having been lifted so that his identity could be checked in case of a motoring offence .
Now , ostensibly on a matter of armed robbery , he was held for just five hours ; he was then released . As he attempted to leave the Garda Station , however , he was arrested on the RUC warrant . He was committed to Portlaoise Prison and remains there awaiting extradition .
By fleeing South , John O' Reilly had missed taking part in the 'famous' Harry Kirkpatrick trial ; had he not skipped bail he would have been one of twenty-eight defendants tried simultaneously on 201 charges arising from thirty separate incidents - all to be heard before one judge who would remember and weigh the 'evidence' on all 201 charges as applying to each of the twenty-eight defendants !
Had such a trial taken place before a jury , involving even one defendant on one charge , the judge would have been legally bound to warn the jury that the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice would be an unsafe basis on which to convict . The jury , having weighted the 'evidence' , would be free to reject the judge's advice .
The case against the twenty-seven defendants , minus John O' Reilly , went ahead : the judge , Justice Carswell , described Harry Kirkpatrick as " ...a man of bad character and low moral standards (given to ) a series of lies and evasions .. " .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
In July 1971 , during a stone-throwing riot , the first two Derrymen were shot dead by British soldiers : John Hume (SDLP) insisted that his party withdraw from Stormont in protest : Gerry Fitt , never a man for abstention , disagreed . But Hume won the argument and went a step further , setting up an alternative Parliament in Dungiven , so far west of the Bann that the Glenshane Pass had to be negotiated to get to it . Gerry Fitt had no car , could'nt drive , and they wanted him down there to consider abstractions .
In August 1971 internment was introduced and hundreds of Belfast Catholics were lifted from their beds ; Gerry Fitt endorsed the SDLP decision to not even discuss things with the British government and flew off to America to counteract the propaganda being put about by a Tory Minister who had gone over to disinform .
A British soldier was shot on the Louth/Armagh border while both men were in America , and Gerry Fitt said of this on TV that it was "...one more regrettable and tragic incident which we have to expect while the Border exists and the British troops continue to carry out the sectarian will of the Unionist government . "
He raised funds among Irish Americans for the campaign of civil disobedience , including the witholding of rent and rates , upon which the entire nationalist community had launched , with the united backing of both Republicans and the SDLP . Then came 'Bloody Sunday' , January 1972 .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
The informer Patrick McGurk had implicated nine Dungannon men as far back as February 1982 , five of whom had been held on remand for twenty months - the longest remand period involved in any of the perjurer cases . On September 20 1982 , the RUC , apparently doubtful that Patrick McGurk would go through with his 'evidence' if produced in court , instead invoked the obsolete 'Bill of Indictment' to by-pass the preliminary enquiry stage of the case against the nine accused . This meant that , until his return to Dungannon on Wednesday 26th October , Patrick McGurk had been held incommunicado , without access to family or friends , throughout the 20-month period .
If , as seems to be the case , Patrick McGurk was unwilling to testify but was prevented by the RUC from retracting and prevented from contacting his family , it makes a nonsense of RUC assertions that - once having been given immunity from prosecution - their perjurers ( or 'converted terrorists' in RUC jargon !) are 'free agents' voluntarily in protective custody . Not surprisingly , some of the defendants in the McGurk case are said to be considering suing the RUC for wrongful imprisonment .
The Robert Lean episode , too , has gone a long way to publicly undermining propaganda about 'converted terrorists' and 'free agents' : not only did Robert Lean feel so unfree that he felt it necessary to escape from 'protective custody' in Palace Barracks , Hollywood , County Down , by climbing out of a window and stealing the car of his RUC 'minder' , but , on leaving a press conference in West Belfast the following afternoon , he was immediately arrested under Section 12 and held in Castlereagh for a further seven days .......
(MORE LATER).
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 .
On November 4 , 1985 , John O' Reilly was again arrested under Section 30 , this time in Limerick ; the ostensible reason for this arrest was to question him about a robbery which had taken place . In Portlaoise he had been questioned for forty-eight hours , having been lifted so that his identity could be checked in case of a motoring offence .
Now , ostensibly on a matter of armed robbery , he was held for just five hours ; he was then released . As he attempted to leave the Garda Station , however , he was arrested on the RUC warrant . He was committed to Portlaoise Prison and remains there awaiting extradition .
By fleeing South , John O' Reilly had missed taking part in the 'famous' Harry Kirkpatrick trial ; had he not skipped bail he would have been one of twenty-eight defendants tried simultaneously on 201 charges arising from thirty separate incidents - all to be heard before one judge who would remember and weigh the 'evidence' on all 201 charges as applying to each of the twenty-eight defendants !
Had such a trial taken place before a jury , involving even one defendant on one charge , the judge would have been legally bound to warn the jury that the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice would be an unsafe basis on which to convict . The jury , having weighted the 'evidence' , would be free to reject the judge's advice .
The case against the twenty-seven defendants , minus John O' Reilly , went ahead : the judge , Justice Carswell , described Harry Kirkpatrick as " ...a man of bad character and low moral standards (given to ) a series of lies and evasions .. " .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
In July 1971 , during a stone-throwing riot , the first two Derrymen were shot dead by British soldiers : John Hume (SDLP) insisted that his party withdraw from Stormont in protest : Gerry Fitt , never a man for abstention , disagreed . But Hume won the argument and went a step further , setting up an alternative Parliament in Dungiven , so far west of the Bann that the Glenshane Pass had to be negotiated to get to it . Gerry Fitt had no car , could'nt drive , and they wanted him down there to consider abstractions .
In August 1971 internment was introduced and hundreds of Belfast Catholics were lifted from their beds ; Gerry Fitt endorsed the SDLP decision to not even discuss things with the British government and flew off to America to counteract the propaganda being put about by a Tory Minister who had gone over to disinform .
A British soldier was shot on the Louth/Armagh border while both men were in America , and Gerry Fitt said of this on TV that it was "...one more regrettable and tragic incident which we have to expect while the Border exists and the British troops continue to carry out the sectarian will of the Unionist government . "
He raised funds among Irish Americans for the campaign of civil disobedience , including the witholding of rent and rates , upon which the entire nationalist community had launched , with the united backing of both Republicans and the SDLP . Then came 'Bloody Sunday' , January 1972 .......
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .......
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
The informer Patrick McGurk had implicated nine Dungannon men as far back as February 1982 , five of whom had been held on remand for twenty months - the longest remand period involved in any of the perjurer cases . On September 20 1982 , the RUC , apparently doubtful that Patrick McGurk would go through with his 'evidence' if produced in court , instead invoked the obsolete 'Bill of Indictment' to by-pass the preliminary enquiry stage of the case against the nine accused . This meant that , until his return to Dungannon on Wednesday 26th October , Patrick McGurk had been held incommunicado , without access to family or friends , throughout the 20-month period .
If , as seems to be the case , Patrick McGurk was unwilling to testify but was prevented by the RUC from retracting and prevented from contacting his family , it makes a nonsense of RUC assertions that - once having been given immunity from prosecution - their perjurers ( or 'converted terrorists' in RUC jargon !) are 'free agents' voluntarily in protective custody . Not surprisingly , some of the defendants in the McGurk case are said to be considering suing the RUC for wrongful imprisonment .
The Robert Lean episode , too , has gone a long way to publicly undermining propaganda about 'converted terrorists' and 'free agents' : not only did Robert Lean feel so unfree that he felt it necessary to escape from 'protective custody' in Palace Barracks , Hollywood , County Down , by climbing out of a window and stealing the car of his RUC 'minder' , but , on leaving a press conference in West Belfast the following afternoon , he was immediately arrested under Section 12 and held in Castlereagh for a further seven days .......
(MORE LATER).
Monday, June 06, 2005
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 O' Reilly remained in jail on Harry Kirkpatrick's say-so , awaiting 'trial' . Again and again he was refused bail . By October 1984 he had served two years and nine months - this was equivalent to a sentence of over five years , yet he had been convicted of nothing !
In October 1984 John O' Reilly finally got bail ; he was due to appear in court in Belfast on January 28 1985 . When he did'nt turn up a bench warrant was sworn out for his arrest . He had crossed the border to the South .
When he had been almost twenty-four hours in custody in Portlaoise Garda Station a Garda read out an extension order , holding him for another twenty-four hours under Section 30 - John O' Reilly was not then and is not now wanted for any crime in the South of Ireland . The questioning continued : at around 10.30 pm on the second day O' Reilly was allowed to see a solicitor , Henry Kelly , and a barrister , Michael Gray . He spent a second night in the station and was again questioned the following day .
At about 5.30 pm , after forty-eight hours in detention , John O' Reilly was released ; sometime that day , October 11 , 1985 , Assistant Commissioner of the Garda , David Leahy , signed a one-sentence authorisation for "...the execution of this warrant in the State by any member of the Garda Siochana . " That warrant was the one from Belfast . It was now the responsibility of the 26-County Gardai to " ...bring him forthwith .. " before the Northern court .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
While Irish Republicans formulated their own disorganised and poorly armed response to matters (starting with a split in January 1970 !) , the Civil Rights MP's came together in a broad political front : " We met in Donegal and Toome and John Hume favoured the 'Social Democratic' approach " , said Austin Currie , " because he was into the ' European' perspective , and Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt favoured the ' Labour ' approach . Fitt had the senior political experience so ' Labour ' was given priority .
The 'Labour and Social Democratic Party' was the agreed name and we started drawing up policy . Around three in the morning Paddy Devlin sat straight up and said - 'Jesus Christ - the 'LSD' Party ! They'll think we're spaced out capitalists !' " The SDLP was 'born' in August 1970 with Gerry Fitt as titular head , and his political currency still shrinking in value , from 'Republican Labour' to ' Social Democratic Labour' , to a party identified more by initials than policy .
Paddy Devlin and Ivan Cooper visited Bernadette Devlin in jail and informed her that , among other things , reform not resistance was to be the future order of the day ; if she did not fall in step with SDLP policy they would oppose her in future elections , splitting the vote rather than let a unity candidate take the seat . Her Westminster colleague , Gerry Fitt , did not come to see her in jail .
Gerry Fitt had stated when the SDLP was launched - " It's a miracle that a party which includes elements from west of the Bann and the Falls Road should come together ... " ('1169... ' Comment - those that 'came together' to form the SDLP may not have realised it at the time , but the Party was formed to "reform" [ie 'tweak'] the existing system , not change it.) While Fitt became embedded in the 'stable body politic' of Westminster , the political and military landmines detonating all over the North of Ireland caused the SDLP to step in , step out again of Stormont and the moves they took were indeed dictated by the areas in which they lived .
With violence breaking out on all sides in Belfast , Gerry Fitt called in February 1971 on the British Army to raid the homes of Protestants as well as Catholics , so that it would not be seen as an agent of Stormont ....... ('1169 ... ' Comment - the Republican response to those raids would have been to condemn the British Army for being there at all , not to demand that they attack your neighbour as well as you .)
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
Even by North of Ireland standards , where dramatic political developments have a tendency to follow one another with un-nerving rapidity , Wednesday 19th October 1983 and the week that followed was an unusually active period in the psychological warfare between the British government and the Republican struggle that continues to focus around the use of paid perjurers .
It was a week which , at least in terms of propaganda , Republicans won on points - but it also heavily underlined the British government's commitment to the perjurer strategy in the face of mounting opposition .
The retractions by Robert Lean (Belfast) and Patrick McGurk (Dungannon) of their incriminating statements against a total of 37 people accused of republican activities , by Lean on October 19th and by McGurk on October 24th , was a crushing embarrassment to the RUC .
Robert Lean , in particular , had been portrayed in 'leaks' to a sensationalist media to be the IRA's No. 2 in Belfast , and in a classic exercise in 'trial by media' the RUC claimed that his evidence had secured the imprisonment of the IRA's Chief of Staff and its Belfast Brigade Officer Commanding ; both of the individuals against whom these claims had been made were among those released two days after Lean's retraction .
McGurk's retraction a few days later was equally damaging to the image cultivated by the RUC around its use of perjurers .......
(MORE LATER).
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 O' Reilly remained in jail on Harry Kirkpatrick's say-so , awaiting 'trial' . Again and again he was refused bail . By October 1984 he had served two years and nine months - this was equivalent to a sentence of over five years , yet he had been convicted of nothing !
In October 1984 John O' Reilly finally got bail ; he was due to appear in court in Belfast on January 28 1985 . When he did'nt turn up a bench warrant was sworn out for his arrest . He had crossed the border to the South .
When he had been almost twenty-four hours in custody in Portlaoise Garda Station a Garda read out an extension order , holding him for another twenty-four hours under Section 30 - John O' Reilly was not then and is not now wanted for any crime in the South of Ireland . The questioning continued : at around 10.30 pm on the second day O' Reilly was allowed to see a solicitor , Henry Kelly , and a barrister , Michael Gray . He spent a second night in the station and was again questioned the following day .
At about 5.30 pm , after forty-eight hours in detention , John O' Reilly was released ; sometime that day , October 11 , 1985 , Assistant Commissioner of the Garda , David Leahy , signed a one-sentence authorisation for "...the execution of this warrant in the State by any member of the Garda Siochana . " That warrant was the one from Belfast . It was now the responsibility of the 26-County Gardai to " ...bring him forthwith .. " before the Northern court .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
While Irish Republicans formulated their own disorganised and poorly armed response to matters (starting with a split in January 1970 !) , the Civil Rights MP's came together in a broad political front : " We met in Donegal and Toome and John Hume favoured the 'Social Democratic' approach " , said Austin Currie , " because he was into the ' European' perspective , and Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt favoured the ' Labour ' approach . Fitt had the senior political experience so ' Labour ' was given priority .
The 'Labour and Social Democratic Party' was the agreed name and we started drawing up policy . Around three in the morning Paddy Devlin sat straight up and said - 'Jesus Christ - the 'LSD' Party ! They'll think we're spaced out capitalists !' " The SDLP was 'born' in August 1970 with Gerry Fitt as titular head , and his political currency still shrinking in value , from 'Republican Labour' to ' Social Democratic Labour' , to a party identified more by initials than policy .
Paddy Devlin and Ivan Cooper visited Bernadette Devlin in jail and informed her that , among other things , reform not resistance was to be the future order of the day ; if she did not fall in step with SDLP policy they would oppose her in future elections , splitting the vote rather than let a unity candidate take the seat . Her Westminster colleague , Gerry Fitt , did not come to see her in jail .
Gerry Fitt had stated when the SDLP was launched - " It's a miracle that a party which includes elements from west of the Bann and the Falls Road should come together ... " ('1169... ' Comment - those that 'came together' to form the SDLP may not have realised it at the time , but the Party was formed to "reform" [ie 'tweak'] the existing system , not change it.) While Fitt became embedded in the 'stable body politic' of Westminster , the political and military landmines detonating all over the North of Ireland caused the SDLP to step in , step out again of Stormont and the moves they took were indeed dictated by the areas in which they lived .
With violence breaking out on all sides in Belfast , Gerry Fitt called in February 1971 on the British Army to raid the homes of Protestants as well as Catholics , so that it would not be seen as an agent of Stormont ....... ('1169 ... ' Comment - the Republican response to those raids would have been to condemn the British Army for being there at all , not to demand that they attack your neighbour as well as you .)
(MORE LATER).
UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY .
SEAN DELANEY looks at recent developments in the use of perjurers in the North .
From ' IRIS ' magazine , November 1983 .
Even by North of Ireland standards , where dramatic political developments have a tendency to follow one another with un-nerving rapidity , Wednesday 19th October 1983 and the week that followed was an unusually active period in the psychological warfare between the British government and the Republican struggle that continues to focus around the use of paid perjurers .
It was a week which , at least in terms of propaganda , Republicans won on points - but it also heavily underlined the British government's commitment to the perjurer strategy in the face of mounting opposition .
The retractions by Robert Lean (Belfast) and Patrick McGurk (Dungannon) of their incriminating statements against a total of 37 people accused of republican activities , by Lean on October 19th and by McGurk on October 24th , was a crushing embarrassment to the RUC .
Robert Lean , in particular , had been portrayed in 'leaks' to a sensationalist media to be the IRA's No. 2 in Belfast , and in a classic exercise in 'trial by media' the RUC claimed that his evidence had secured the imprisonment of the IRA's Chief of Staff and its Belfast Brigade Officer Commanding ; both of the individuals against whom these claims had been made were among those released two days after Lean's retraction .
McGurk's retraction a few days later was equally damaging to the image cultivated by the RUC around its use of perjurers .......
(MORE LATER).
Friday, June 03, 2005
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).
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).
Thursday, June 02, 2005
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 .
RUC 'supergrass' John Grimley had been convicted on various theft charges in the North of Ireland and in London in the late 1950's , when he was still a teenager . For a time he was confined in a mental hospital ; between 1963 and 1971 he did his best to become a British soldier .
First he joined the Irish Guards , then the Royal Irish Fusiliers , finally the Royal Pioneer Corps - he was discharged from all three British regiments , on psychiatric and disciplinary grounds . In 1973 he was convicted in the Republic (ie the 26-County State) on various robbery and assault charges , including beating-up his common-law wife . In 1975 he lost a job with the 'Goodyear' factory in Craigavon after being convicted of theft from the company .
Then John Grimley joined Sinn Fein ; he lasted five years with the Provos , his conduct becoming increasingly bizarre , until they expelled him in 1980 for "...irrational behaviour.. " . Then he joined the INLA - incredibly , they accepted him and made him a recruiting officer . Shortly after this , having done just about everything else , John Grimley threw his lot in with the RUC and became an informer . He was recruiting people for the INLA and informing on them to the RUC at £25 a go !
Eventually , he 'graduated' to 'supergrass' , fingering twenty-two people .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
There had been increasing ambiguity among all shades of Nationalist opinion about how best to defend Catholics against attacks from the RUC and loyalists , especially in Belfast . Whole shifts of population were occuring there as Catholics and Protestants retreated into the safety of the ghettoes , but Gerry Fitt warned on August 7 at a meeting in Trinity College , Dublin , that the swopping of houses was not a mutually polite arrangement . Catholics were being forced out of their homes , he said , and "...the people .. " (whom he did not specify) did not like it -
- " The time is coming when they will change their tactics and instead of moving people elsewhere under these circumstances they will have to protect them in their homes . The RUC are messenger boys of the UVF . " More was needed than a telephone network against the arrival of the RUC and the UVF in the area , he warned , but he did not specify what .
In Derry that August the 'Citizens Defence Committee' had been set up alongside the 'Civil Rights Association' , with overlapping Executive membership , and community halls were used to store petrol bombs ; no elected representatives shouted 'stop' . On August 12 Orangemen marched in the city centre , a few desultory stones were thrown at them , and the RUC and the Bogsiders re-acted as to a referee's whistle starting a football match - both sides running onto the 'pitch' under the High Flats , in the heart of Catholic territory . The set piece battle lasted for three days and Belfast street fighters came out in support in an effort to siphon off RUC strength .
Guns were used on both sides in Belfast . People died . Jack Lynch (Free State 'Taoiseach') moved his troops up to the border , four miles from Derry . Harold Wilson (Westminster PM) moved British soldiers onto the streets of the North of Ireland .......
(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 .
Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act is a political act suppressing political opinion ; in order to be non-political , to do their job in presenting facts uncoloured by political bias , RTE journalists should take direct action against Section 31 . And the NUJ should defend them - otherwise admit that they are taking a political stand - admit that they are anti-republican , pro-Free State establishment and pro-British . There can be no excuse for them any longer .
Eamonn McCann , author of ' War and an Irish Town ' , former 'Sunday World' newspaper columnist and now a freelance journalist , has always opposed Section 31 and is a member of the 'Freedom of the Press and Broadcasting Committee' . In this interview with 'IRIS' magazine he talks about the effects of Section 31 on the coverage of events by RTE , and how it should be actively opposed -
- " Any journalist should be instinctively opposed to state control of the media . Section 31 is clearly against the code of conduct of the NUJ and against their stated policy . It has proved impossible to have union policy implemented on RTE and has led to a situation where RTE news and current affairs programmes are quite unable to give an accurate account of what is happening in the North .
The effect of Section 31 is not just to cut republicans out of coverage , but it also seriously distorts the coverage itself because in effect it is impossible to report the political views of the Catholic working class . That is an absolutely incredible thing for journalists to allow to happen - even journalists who are personally hostile to Sinn Fein ....... "
(MORE LATER).
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 .
RUC 'supergrass' John Grimley had been convicted on various theft charges in the North of Ireland and in London in the late 1950's , when he was still a teenager . For a time he was confined in a mental hospital ; between 1963 and 1971 he did his best to become a British soldier .
First he joined the Irish Guards , then the Royal Irish Fusiliers , finally the Royal Pioneer Corps - he was discharged from all three British regiments , on psychiatric and disciplinary grounds . In 1973 he was convicted in the Republic (ie the 26-County State) on various robbery and assault charges , including beating-up his common-law wife . In 1975 he lost a job with the 'Goodyear' factory in Craigavon after being convicted of theft from the company .
Then John Grimley joined Sinn Fein ; he lasted five years with the Provos , his conduct becoming increasingly bizarre , until they expelled him in 1980 for "...irrational behaviour.. " . Then he joined the INLA - incredibly , they accepted him and made him a recruiting officer . Shortly after this , having done just about everything else , John Grimley threw his lot in with the RUC and became an informer . He was recruiting people for the INLA and informing on them to the RUC at £25 a go !
Eventually , he 'graduated' to 'supergrass' , fingering twenty-two people .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
There had been increasing ambiguity among all shades of Nationalist opinion about how best to defend Catholics against attacks from the RUC and loyalists , especially in Belfast . Whole shifts of population were occuring there as Catholics and Protestants retreated into the safety of the ghettoes , but Gerry Fitt warned on August 7 at a meeting in Trinity College , Dublin , that the swopping of houses was not a mutually polite arrangement . Catholics were being forced out of their homes , he said , and "...the people .. " (whom he did not specify) did not like it -
- " The time is coming when they will change their tactics and instead of moving people elsewhere under these circumstances they will have to protect them in their homes . The RUC are messenger boys of the UVF . " More was needed than a telephone network against the arrival of the RUC and the UVF in the area , he warned , but he did not specify what .
In Derry that August the 'Citizens Defence Committee' had been set up alongside the 'Civil Rights Association' , with overlapping Executive membership , and community halls were used to store petrol bombs ; no elected representatives shouted 'stop' . On August 12 Orangemen marched in the city centre , a few desultory stones were thrown at them , and the RUC and the Bogsiders re-acted as to a referee's whistle starting a football match - both sides running onto the 'pitch' under the High Flats , in the heart of Catholic territory . The set piece battle lasted for three days and Belfast street fighters came out in support in an effort to siphon off RUC strength .
Guns were used on both sides in Belfast . People died . Jack Lynch (Free State 'Taoiseach') moved his troops up to the border , four miles from Derry . Harold Wilson (Westminster PM) moved British soldiers onto the streets of the North of Ireland .......
(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 .
Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act is a political act suppressing political opinion ; in order to be non-political , to do their job in presenting facts uncoloured by political bias , RTE journalists should take direct action against Section 31 . And the NUJ should defend them - otherwise admit that they are taking a political stand - admit that they are anti-republican , pro-Free State establishment and pro-British . There can be no excuse for them any longer .
Eamonn McCann , author of ' War and an Irish Town ' , former 'Sunday World' newspaper columnist and now a freelance journalist , has always opposed Section 31 and is a member of the 'Freedom of the Press and Broadcasting Committee' . In this interview with 'IRIS' magazine he talks about the effects of Section 31 on the coverage of events by RTE , and how it should be actively opposed -
- " Any journalist should be instinctively opposed to state control of the media . Section 31 is clearly against the code of conduct of the NUJ and against their stated policy . It has proved impossible to have union policy implemented on RTE and has led to a situation where RTE news and current affairs programmes are quite unable to give an accurate account of what is happening in the North .
The effect of Section 31 is not just to cut republicans out of coverage , but it also seriously distorts the coverage itself because in effect it is impossible to report the political views of the Catholic working class . That is an absolutely incredible thing for journalists to allow to happen - even journalists who are personally hostile to Sinn Fein ....... "
(MORE LATER).
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
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 O' Reilly was held that evening (October 9 , 1985) in Portlaoise Garda Station . He was questioned , fingerprinted , had a hair sample taken and his hands were swabbed . He was also photographed . He was told the RUC were interested in him ; a Garda Detective read from a pink folder labelled 'Office No. 6' . John O' Reilly , he noted , had failed to appear in a Belfast court on January 28 , nine months earlier .
John O' Reilly is 26 this month (ie February 1986) . He was born in Belfast . He was arrested by the RUC at around six in the morning of February 5 , 1982 , the day after his 22nd birthday - he was taken to Castlereagh Interrogation Centre and held for seven days . Two 'supergrasses' , Robert McAllister and Sean McConkey , had accused him of involvement in possession of firearms and armed robbery on behalf of the INLA . O' Reilly claimed he was in jail when the offences were committed .
That affair lasted seven weeks ; then Robert McAllister and Sean McConkey , who had accused a number of people of various crimes , retracted . The charges against John O' Reilly were withdrawn ; he was immediately re-arrested and again taken to Castlereagh - he had been 'fingered' by two more 'supergrasses' , Jackie Goodman and John Grimley . One of the other people they named was a Harry Kirkpatrick . That was in March 1982 ; O' Reilly remained in jail , awaiting trial . In September , Jackie Goodman retracted the accusations he had made against thirty-six people , including John O' Reilly .
But O' Reilly remained in jail : he still had to answer the accusations of John Grimley , the other 'supergrass.......'
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Bernadette Devlin MP arrived at Westminster to help highlight the death of Sammy Devenney : " The publicity was unbelievable ; Gerry Fitt had booked me into the Irish Club , and I sat there in my mini-skirt and the press just drooled ! If I had been older or wiser or just more thoughtful or even courteous or machiavellian , I would have ended every remark with a reference to Gerry Fitt who was sitting , ignored , in the room . "
The 'alliance' , in any case , was doomed from the start , she says - " It was a matter of emphasis . Gerry Fitt would plead for reform , saying the RUC and later the British soldiers were only making martyrs by their handling of what was called 'security' . I would stand there saying - 'you've tried everything down the centuries , from hanging , drawing and quartering , to straight bullets . And the Croppy will never lie down ' " . ('1169...' Comment - "Gerry would plead for reform .... " : sounds familiar !)
There was also the acute difference of the socialist approach : " I appeared on every left-wing platform in England , speaking on gypsies rights , defending the Dagenham strikers against Harold Wilson , and I spoke in Trafalgar Square in defence of the PLO . Paul Rose took the Israeli side and wrote me a letter criticising my stand . I released it to the newspapers and the split with Labour widened . There was them and Gerry Fitt ; and there was me . "
And then there was the Battle of The Bogside in August 1969 , which brought the British Army into the North , with a resultant quagmire of political and armed struggle into which Gerry Fitt was to hopelessly flounder .......
(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 .
On September 28 , 1983 , on RTE's current affairs programme ' Today Tonight' , Fr. Denis Faul and Unionist MP Harold McCusker were interviewed at length on the use of paid perjurers in the North of Ireland ; there was no representative of Sinn Fein interviewed , although there were repeated references to Sinn Fein's 'motives' in opposing the use of perjurers .
There was not even a mention that Sinn Fein would deny the charge that they were using the campaign against show trials for "...their own ends .. " . Was this not selective and distorted , as well as untrue (re NUJ 'rules') ? Section 31 of course is not just about the suppression of the views of Sinn Fein ; it is about suppression of the views of the working-class Nationalist community in the North ; it is denying information to people in the South not just about Sinn Fein policies but about the beliefs and aspirations of a significant section of the Irish population .
By contrast , Section 31 has not been used to deny access to RTE by the UDA , despite that organisation's massive involvement in sectarian murders of Catholics in the North - not to mention its bombing of Dublin and Monaghan in 1974 when 31 civilians died . The majority of RTE journalists justify their implementation of Section 31 by saying that they have to abide by the law - but it is surely not for journalists to do the Free State government and RTE Authority's political dirtywork for them when it flagrantly contravenes their own code of conduct .
For instance , why did the 'Today Tonight' production team not interview a Sinn Fein spokesperson on September 28th and leave RTE to cut out the interview , rather than themselves censoring Sinn Fein in the first place ? Why did'nt they do that during the elections ....... ?
(MORE LATER).
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 O' Reilly was held that evening (October 9 , 1985) in Portlaoise Garda Station . He was questioned , fingerprinted , had a hair sample taken and his hands were swabbed . He was also photographed . He was told the RUC were interested in him ; a Garda Detective read from a pink folder labelled 'Office No. 6' . John O' Reilly , he noted , had failed to appear in a Belfast court on January 28 , nine months earlier .
John O' Reilly is 26 this month (ie February 1986) . He was born in Belfast . He was arrested by the RUC at around six in the morning of February 5 , 1982 , the day after his 22nd birthday - he was taken to Castlereagh Interrogation Centre and held for seven days . Two 'supergrasses' , Robert McAllister and Sean McConkey , had accused him of involvement in possession of firearms and armed robbery on behalf of the INLA . O' Reilly claimed he was in jail when the offences were committed .
That affair lasted seven weeks ; then Robert McAllister and Sean McConkey , who had accused a number of people of various crimes , retracted . The charges against John O' Reilly were withdrawn ; he was immediately re-arrested and again taken to Castlereagh - he had been 'fingered' by two more 'supergrasses' , Jackie Goodman and John Grimley . One of the other people they named was a Harry Kirkpatrick . That was in March 1982 ; O' Reilly remained in jail , awaiting trial . In September , Jackie Goodman retracted the accusations he had made against thirty-six people , including John O' Reilly .
But O' Reilly remained in jail : he still had to answer the accusations of John Grimley , the other 'supergrass.......'
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Bernadette Devlin MP arrived at Westminster to help highlight the death of Sammy Devenney : " The publicity was unbelievable ; Gerry Fitt had booked me into the Irish Club , and I sat there in my mini-skirt and the press just drooled ! If I had been older or wiser or just more thoughtful or even courteous or machiavellian , I would have ended every remark with a reference to Gerry Fitt who was sitting , ignored , in the room . "
The 'alliance' , in any case , was doomed from the start , she says - " It was a matter of emphasis . Gerry Fitt would plead for reform , saying the RUC and later the British soldiers were only making martyrs by their handling of what was called 'security' . I would stand there saying - 'you've tried everything down the centuries , from hanging , drawing and quartering , to straight bullets . And the Croppy will never lie down ' " . ('1169...' Comment - "Gerry would plead for reform .... " : sounds familiar !)
There was also the acute difference of the socialist approach : " I appeared on every left-wing platform in England , speaking on gypsies rights , defending the Dagenham strikers against Harold Wilson , and I spoke in Trafalgar Square in defence of the PLO . Paul Rose took the Israeli side and wrote me a letter criticising my stand . I released it to the newspapers and the split with Labour widened . There was them and Gerry Fitt ; and there was me . "
And then there was the Battle of The Bogside in August 1969 , which brought the British Army into the North , with a resultant quagmire of political and armed struggle into which Gerry Fitt was to hopelessly flounder .......
(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 .
On September 28 , 1983 , on RTE's current affairs programme ' Today Tonight' , Fr. Denis Faul and Unionist MP Harold McCusker were interviewed at length on the use of paid perjurers in the North of Ireland ; there was no representative of Sinn Fein interviewed , although there were repeated references to Sinn Fein's 'motives' in opposing the use of perjurers .
There was not even a mention that Sinn Fein would deny the charge that they were using the campaign against show trials for "...their own ends .. " . Was this not selective and distorted , as well as untrue (re NUJ 'rules') ? Section 31 of course is not just about the suppression of the views of Sinn Fein ; it is about suppression of the views of the working-class Nationalist community in the North ; it is denying information to people in the South not just about Sinn Fein policies but about the beliefs and aspirations of a significant section of the Irish population .
By contrast , Section 31 has not been used to deny access to RTE by the UDA , despite that organisation's massive involvement in sectarian murders of Catholics in the North - not to mention its bombing of Dublin and Monaghan in 1974 when 31 civilians died . The majority of RTE journalists justify their implementation of Section 31 by saying that they have to abide by the law - but it is surely not for journalists to do the Free State government and RTE Authority's political dirtywork for them when it flagrantly contravenes their own code of conduct .
For instance , why did the 'Today Tonight' production team not interview a Sinn Fein spokesperson on September 28th and leave RTE to cut out the interview , rather than themselves censoring Sinn Fein in the first place ? Why did'nt they do that during the elections ....... ?
(MORE LATER).
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
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 O' Reilly was lifted by the gardai while passing through Portlaoise on October 9 , 1985 . They used the Road Traffic Act to take him into the local garda station , ostensibly to check his identity . After a while a Garda Sergeant came into the room and said there had been a phone call from Dublin and O' Reilly was'nt to be questioned about anything . He was taken to a cell , " ...until we can establish your identity . "
Two hours later , John O' Reilly was ostensibly released ; he was no longer being held under the Road Traffic Act . The Gardai were now satisfied of his identity . As O' Reilly left the Garda Station he was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against The State Act 1939 . Section 30 is the 'catch-all' law under which the gardai can jail anyone at anytime for two successive 24-hour periods .
In the period 1980-1984 a total of 11,035 Section 30 arrests were made ; this compares with a total of 2,724 arrests in the period 1972-1976 , the most violent period in the present round of the Northern conflict . Only a small fraction of the people thus lifted are charged - Section 30 is primarily a 'fishing net' , hauling in shoals of people for routine interrogation .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
'The Irish Times' newspaper went mad over Gerry Fitt with " ... his sailor's roll , his malapropisms , his Belfast turn-of-phrase which makes stiff upper lips wince , his yea-saying to life .. " but oh! - Bernadette ! : starting sonorously with "... youngest MP ever elected to Westminster .. " , journalists trundled down the Thesaurus runway and took off into the wild blue yonder ! She arrived , an orphan in a miniskirt , a real live Left Winger , a megastar , in the Commons , on her birthday , April 22 , 1969 .
" That made me 22 , which spoiled the script so nobody mentioned it " , she recalls tartly . She represented the newly militant civil rights movement , no longer prepared to turn the other cheek to British batons , if Britain was going to turn a blind eye to the facts . It was one thing being beaten from Belfast to Burntollet , quite another to be pursued on arrival all the way into the Bogside which the RUC now frequently did .
Sammy Devenney had been beaten by the RUC in his own home , in front of his family , and died from his injuries ; a Scotland Yard enquiry subsequently found a conspiracy of silence among the RUC and no one was charged . The 'barricades' were going up . Bernadette Devlin recalls -
- " The Devenney death was being raised at Westminster and Gerry Fitt wanted me over for it . I had won the by-election only a few days before and I had'nt a penny . He gave me fifty pounds for the fare and to buy myself something to wear . Things went wrong right from the start ; I had decided that the youngest MP should be introduced by the oldest MP , Manny Shinwell of Labour , and , of course , Gerry . But Gerry had decided I should be introduced by himself and Paul Rose , one of the leaders of the Campaign for Democracy .
We had'nt consulted on it , and Gerry found himself having to withdraw the invitation to Paul Rose . " The 'slight' and unintended erosion of Gerry Fitt's 'authority' was compounded by the events of the day .......
(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 .
There have been a few other protests by some principled journalists , and in March this year (ie 1983) the 'Committee for the Freedom of the Press and Broadcasting ' was set-up , whose main objectives are the abolition of Section 31 along with the repeal of the laws on libel and contempt of court . Most RTE journalists , however , not only accept the ban but reinforce and extend it themselves .
The 'Code of Conduct' in the NUJ ('National Union of Journalists' ) rulebook includes the following -
Rule 2 : ' A journalist shall at all times defend the principle of the freedom of the press and other media in relation to the collection of information and the expression of comment and criticism . He/she shall strive to eliminate distortion , news suppression and censorship .'
Rule 3 : ' A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate , avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact , and falsification by distortion or misrepresentation ... '
Rule 9 : ' A journalist shall not lend himself/herself to the distortion or suppression of a truth because of advertising or other considerations . '
Clearly , journalists on RTE are in breach of their own rules , as suppression of views and distortion of facts is part of the everyday running of RTE ....... ('1169... ' Comment - and it is still is today ; this scribbler has personally attended dozens of political marches , protests , parades , commemorations etc , alongside thousands of other people , which have brought Dublin city centre to a standstill . If RTE acknowledges the event at all , it is by way of a traffic report only ! )
(MORE LATER).
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 O' Reilly was lifted by the gardai while passing through Portlaoise on October 9 , 1985 . They used the Road Traffic Act to take him into the local garda station , ostensibly to check his identity . After a while a Garda Sergeant came into the room and said there had been a phone call from Dublin and O' Reilly was'nt to be questioned about anything . He was taken to a cell , " ...until we can establish your identity . "
Two hours later , John O' Reilly was ostensibly released ; he was no longer being held under the Road Traffic Act . The Gardai were now satisfied of his identity . As O' Reilly left the Garda Station he was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against The State Act 1939 . Section 30 is the 'catch-all' law under which the gardai can jail anyone at anytime for two successive 24-hour periods .
In the period 1980-1984 a total of 11,035 Section 30 arrests were made ; this compares with a total of 2,724 arrests in the period 1972-1976 , the most violent period in the present round of the Northern conflict . Only a small fraction of the people thus lifted are charged - Section 30 is primarily a 'fishing net' , hauling in shoals of people for routine interrogation .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
'The Irish Times' newspaper went mad over Gerry Fitt with " ... his sailor's roll , his malapropisms , his Belfast turn-of-phrase which makes stiff upper lips wince , his yea-saying to life .. " but oh! - Bernadette ! : starting sonorously with "... youngest MP ever elected to Westminster .. " , journalists trundled down the Thesaurus runway and took off into the wild blue yonder ! She arrived , an orphan in a miniskirt , a real live Left Winger , a megastar , in the Commons , on her birthday , April 22 , 1969 .
" That made me 22 , which spoiled the script so nobody mentioned it " , she recalls tartly . She represented the newly militant civil rights movement , no longer prepared to turn the other cheek to British batons , if Britain was going to turn a blind eye to the facts . It was one thing being beaten from Belfast to Burntollet , quite another to be pursued on arrival all the way into the Bogside which the RUC now frequently did .
Sammy Devenney had been beaten by the RUC in his own home , in front of his family , and died from his injuries ; a Scotland Yard enquiry subsequently found a conspiracy of silence among the RUC and no one was charged . The 'barricades' were going up . Bernadette Devlin recalls -
- " The Devenney death was being raised at Westminster and Gerry Fitt wanted me over for it . I had won the by-election only a few days before and I had'nt a penny . He gave me fifty pounds for the fare and to buy myself something to wear . Things went wrong right from the start ; I had decided that the youngest MP should be introduced by the oldest MP , Manny Shinwell of Labour , and , of course , Gerry . But Gerry had decided I should be introduced by himself and Paul Rose , one of the leaders of the Campaign for Democracy .
We had'nt consulted on it , and Gerry found himself having to withdraw the invitation to Paul Rose . " The 'slight' and unintended erosion of Gerry Fitt's 'authority' was compounded by the events of the day .......
(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 .
There have been a few other protests by some principled journalists , and in March this year (ie 1983) the 'Committee for the Freedom of the Press and Broadcasting ' was set-up , whose main objectives are the abolition of Section 31 along with the repeal of the laws on libel and contempt of court . Most RTE journalists , however , not only accept the ban but reinforce and extend it themselves .
The 'Code of Conduct' in the NUJ ('National Union of Journalists' ) rulebook includes the following -
Rule 2 : ' A journalist shall at all times defend the principle of the freedom of the press and other media in relation to the collection of information and the expression of comment and criticism . He/she shall strive to eliminate distortion , news suppression and censorship .'
Rule 3 : ' A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate , avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact , and falsification by distortion or misrepresentation ... '
Rule 9 : ' A journalist shall not lend himself/herself to the distortion or suppression of a truth because of advertising or other considerations . '
Clearly , journalists on RTE are in breach of their own rules , as suppression of views and distortion of facts is part of the everyday running of RTE ....... ('1169... ' Comment - and it is still is today ; this scribbler has personally attended dozens of political marches , protests , parades , commemorations etc , alongside thousands of other people , which have brought Dublin city centre to a standstill . If RTE acknowledges the event at all , it is by way of a traffic report only ! )
(MORE LATER).
Monday, May 30, 2005
A ROUGH DEAL .......
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
Eddie Gallagher is currently spending twenty-three hours a day in his cell - he does a lot of physical exercise . He stands on the bed -end and he can see prison life through the bars on the windows . He says that prison life has made him more patient and circumspect .
Some years ago , he used do a lot of study and some reading in his cell . Now most of the sight is gone from one eye and the other one is weak . He does'nt bother any more .
[END of 'A ROUGH DEAL'].(Tomorrow : ' FETCH ! ' - John O'Reilly and four 'Supergrasses' )
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The British Labour Government had commissioned Lord Cameron to report on the events and marches preceeding and following October 5 , and assign reasons . This Report , which Harold Wilson and the entire British Commons accepted , stated that Gerry Fitt " ...must clearly have envisaged the possibility of a violent clash with the police as providing the publicity he so ardently sought . His conduct , in our judgement , was reckless and wholly irresponsible in a person occupying his public position . "
From that moment on Gerry Fitt was effectively rendered impotent at Westminster . Back in the North of Ireland the high terrain of anti-unionism was about to be occupied by a whole new batch of articulate , pragmatic political operators who swept into Stormont in the spring of 1969 , on a civil rights wave which had drowned out the old Nationalist Party ; Hume , Cooper , O'Hanlon and Paddy Devlin waved no flags and did not gaze hopelessly into the Celtic mist : Austin Currie had long abandoned green fields for street smarts .
('1169... ' Comment - those are the words of Nell McCafferty , and are not shared by the writers of this blog . Currie proved himself to be a useful 'native employee' for the Brits .)
Gerry Fitt abandoned his own party ; he had been campaigning for a republican Labour councillor from Belfast who wanted a run at a seat - any seat - and Fitt had sent him off to fight in mid-Ulster . They addressed a small crowd after the ten o' clock mass , and hung around to see how their opponent Ivan Cooper would do after the eleven o' clock mass : Cooper attracted a massive crowd to his ' Independent Civil Rights' tag - Gerry Fitt got up on the truck and spoke in support of Cooper !
These Civil Rights guys wanted to slug it out toe to toe with the Unionists and they were men after Fitts' involved 'gurrier' heart ; he was no longer alone . He was in fact surrounded and obscured as they marched people all over the areas west of the Bann - in Newry , Armagh , Mid-Ulster , Fermanagh and Derry . Besides which , Bernadette Devlin had arrived at Westminster : together they should have made a colourful picture - the sailor home from the sea and the maiden in from the hills .......
(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 .
The song ' The Men Behind The Wire' topped the music charts in the Free State for weeks during the 1970's but was never played on RTE ! More recently , Christy Moore's song ' On The Blanket ' was banned , as was his song about Nicky Kelly , ' The Wicklow Boy ' . Even traditional rebel songs are no longer played .
Most of the banned songs are never specifically banned by 'directive' or 'guidelines ' , but RTE presenters - in the atmosphere of fear that pervades RTE - do the censoring themselves .
During the last Westminster elections , in June 1983 , the Free State coalition government refused a request from RTE to lift the ban on Sinn Fein members for the purposes of election coverage . Charles Haughey , Fianna Fail leader and Free State 'Taoiseach' , opportunistically issued a statement saying that he "...had always taken the view that elected representatives should have the fullest possible access to the public media .. " - although it had earlier been Fianna Fail who refused Owen Carron MP and Sinn Fein's five Assembly elected representatives access to RTE ! (' 1169... ' Comment - typical Fianna Fail and Free State obfuscation : Republicans know , from experience , to 'watch what they do , not what they say ' . Those that leave the Movement not only forget that maxim , but become part of the group that has to be watched , not listened to . )
In protest at the refusal by Jim Mitchell (Fine Gael) , the Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs , to lift the ban , RTE journalists covering the election in the North of Ireland said they would refuse to interview any of the other candidates . They kept this stand for one week only ....... !
(MORE LATER).
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
Eddie Gallagher is currently spending twenty-three hours a day in his cell - he does a lot of physical exercise . He stands on the bed -end and he can see prison life through the bars on the windows . He says that prison life has made him more patient and circumspect .
Some years ago , he used do a lot of study and some reading in his cell . Now most of the sight is gone from one eye and the other one is weak . He does'nt bother any more .
[END of 'A ROUGH DEAL'].(Tomorrow : ' FETCH ! ' - John O'Reilly and four 'Supergrasses' )
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The British Labour Government had commissioned Lord Cameron to report on the events and marches preceeding and following October 5 , and assign reasons . This Report , which Harold Wilson and the entire British Commons accepted , stated that Gerry Fitt " ...must clearly have envisaged the possibility of a violent clash with the police as providing the publicity he so ardently sought . His conduct , in our judgement , was reckless and wholly irresponsible in a person occupying his public position . "
From that moment on Gerry Fitt was effectively rendered impotent at Westminster . Back in the North of Ireland the high terrain of anti-unionism was about to be occupied by a whole new batch of articulate , pragmatic political operators who swept into Stormont in the spring of 1969 , on a civil rights wave which had drowned out the old Nationalist Party ; Hume , Cooper , O'Hanlon and Paddy Devlin waved no flags and did not gaze hopelessly into the Celtic mist : Austin Currie had long abandoned green fields for street smarts .
('1169... ' Comment - those are the words of Nell McCafferty , and are not shared by the writers of this blog . Currie proved himself to be a useful 'native employee' for the Brits .)
Gerry Fitt abandoned his own party ; he had been campaigning for a republican Labour councillor from Belfast who wanted a run at a seat - any seat - and Fitt had sent him off to fight in mid-Ulster . They addressed a small crowd after the ten o' clock mass , and hung around to see how their opponent Ivan Cooper would do after the eleven o' clock mass : Cooper attracted a massive crowd to his ' Independent Civil Rights' tag - Gerry Fitt got up on the truck and spoke in support of Cooper !
These Civil Rights guys wanted to slug it out toe to toe with the Unionists and they were men after Fitts' involved 'gurrier' heart ; he was no longer alone . He was in fact surrounded and obscured as they marched people all over the areas west of the Bann - in Newry , Armagh , Mid-Ulster , Fermanagh and Derry . Besides which , Bernadette Devlin had arrived at Westminster : together they should have made a colourful picture - the sailor home from the sea and the maiden in from the hills .......
(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 .
The song ' The Men Behind The Wire' topped the music charts in the Free State for weeks during the 1970's but was never played on RTE ! More recently , Christy Moore's song ' On The Blanket ' was banned , as was his song about Nicky Kelly , ' The Wicklow Boy ' . Even traditional rebel songs are no longer played .
Most of the banned songs are never specifically banned by 'directive' or 'guidelines ' , but RTE presenters - in the atmosphere of fear that pervades RTE - do the censoring themselves .
During the last Westminster elections , in June 1983 , the Free State coalition government refused a request from RTE to lift the ban on Sinn Fein members for the purposes of election coverage . Charles Haughey , Fianna Fail leader and Free State 'Taoiseach' , opportunistically issued a statement saying that he "...had always taken the view that elected representatives should have the fullest possible access to the public media .. " - although it had earlier been Fianna Fail who refused Owen Carron MP and Sinn Fein's five Assembly elected representatives access to RTE ! (' 1169... ' Comment - typical Fianna Fail and Free State obfuscation : Republicans know , from experience , to 'watch what they do , not what they say ' . Those that leave the Movement not only forget that maxim , but become part of the group that has to be watched , not listened to . )
In protest at the refusal by Jim Mitchell (Fine Gael) , the Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs , to lift the ban , RTE journalists covering the election in the North of Ireland said they would refuse to interview any of the other candidates . They kept this stand for one week only ....... !
(MORE LATER).
Friday, May 27, 2005
A ROUGH DEAL .......
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
In 1978 , the then Free State Minister for Justice , Gerry Collins (Fianna Fail) wrote to Marion Coyle's mother in Derry and stated that the two conditions attached to the (early release) deal were broken by Ms Coyle - she was said to have assaulted a Ban (female) Garda on November 26 , 1975 . She was released late last year (ie 1985) having served ten of the fifteen years imposed on her .
Last October (ie October 1985) Eddie Gallagher's solicitor wrote to the Bishop of Raphoe , the Most Reverend Dr. S Hegarty , looking for support on several grounds with a view to entering a petition to the Free State Department of Justice for his release .
Some of the grounds included the fact that members of the UDA served less than one-third of their sentences when convicted and jailed in the 'Republic' ; the fact that the Littlejohns served eight out of their fifteen and twenty years respectively ; the fact that there is fifty per cent remission in the Six Counties ; the fact that he treated his trial as a formality on the basis of the agreement which he had entered into ; the fact that vision in one of his eyes is impaired eighty per cent ; the fact that he spent thirty-nine days on hunger strike ; the fact that his father is permanently hospitalised and he has not seen him for over ten years ; the fact that he has a ten-year-old son whom he has seen only twice in the last ten years .
However , the fact remains that Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle released Tiede Herrema unharmed on the basis that they would not serve more than four and two years in jail respectively , and the authorities refused to honour the undertaking . The siege might not have ended so peacefully if they had known what was going to happen . Tiede Herrema fully expected the deal to be honoured ; more importantly , the credibility of anyone attempting to make some similar arrangement at some future date in similar circumstances is undermined .
If Eddie Gallagher serves the same sentence as Marion Coyle on a pro-rata basis , he will be released in 1988 . He would then have served more than nine years longer than he envisaged when he surrendered on November 7 , 1975 .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Mary Holland was crying - with vexation , frustration , anger , outrage and pity . She rang Bernard Levin ; he rang David Frost . 'The Observer' newspaper front-paged her story of October 5 March , and directed readers to the back-ground expose on the inside pages . David Frost came to Northern Ireland (sic) within days to do a live programme . The media wall burst to flood Britain with the facts . ('1169... ' Comment - this scribbler , for one , doubts that the British people ever have got the 'facts' about their government's involvement in this country . And certainly not from 'The Observer' or any other British newspaper.)
Gerry Fitt had done what he set out to do ; he had turned the spotlight on the North of Ireland , though he was run off his feet in the process . 'The Irish News' newspaper recorded proudly that on one historic day he attended Belfast Corporation as Councillor , in the morning , Stormont as MP for Dock in the afternoon , and Westminster as MP for West Belfast in the evening .
To Unionist protests that the whole civil rights thing was a plot by communists , republicans , intent on overthrowing the 'Crown' , murdering gunmen standing in the wings etc , Fitt would say across the floor of Stormont - " ... when I was on the Murmansk convoy .. " . He then reminisced about the dangers of the merchant seaman's lot in World War Two when he had helped defend Britain and the 'Free World' : the titled peers and majors on the Stormont government benches , most of whom had never fought in the war , chewed their lips .
The 'reasonable' response from the 'reasonable' members of Westminster , by which Gerry Fitt had set such store , came in the 'Cameron Report .......' ('1169 ... ' Comment - ...and here we are , some 30 years after Gerry Fitt expected a "reasonable response from reasonable members of Westminster ... " , witnessing another Gerry expecting much the same . 'Lord Adams' , anyone ...)
(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 .
The clearest exposure of Section 31 censorship occurred during the 1982 general election in the Free State ; Sinn Fein fielded seven candidates and as such were entitled to make a party political broadcast on RTE . RTE agreed , but Patrick Cooney at Posts and Telegraphs ordered that Section 31 should be extended to include electoral broadcasts !
The Sinn Fein candidate in Cooney's own constituency of Longford/Westmeath , Sean Lynch , took an action in the High Court claiming that Section 31 was unconstitutional and interfered with his rights - the High Court agreed , and ruled that Section 31 of the 1976 (Amended) Broadcasting Act was repugnant to the Free State constitution . Making the ruling , Justice Hanlon said that the amendment to Section 31 " ... appeared to contain insufficient safeguards for the constitutional guarantee of the right of freedom of expression of opinion , with particular reference to the freedom of the press . "
Patrick Cooney immediately took the case to the Supreme Court , where the Chief Justice , Kevin O'Higgins , over-ruled the High Court and upheld Cooney's ban on a Sinn Fein election broadcast .
As well as being used to suppress any political comment by Sinn Fein , the indirect effect of Section 31 creates a self-censoring atmosphere in RTE that even prevents the playing of certain records (!) : 'The Men Behind The Wire' topped the charts in the South for weeks during the 1970's but was never played on RTE . And that was'nt the only song to be 'banned' .......
(MORE LATER).
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
In 1978 , the then Free State Minister for Justice , Gerry Collins (Fianna Fail) wrote to Marion Coyle's mother in Derry and stated that the two conditions attached to the (early release) deal were broken by Ms Coyle - she was said to have assaulted a Ban (female) Garda on November 26 , 1975 . She was released late last year (ie 1985) having served ten of the fifteen years imposed on her .
Last October (ie October 1985) Eddie Gallagher's solicitor wrote to the Bishop of Raphoe , the Most Reverend Dr. S Hegarty , looking for support on several grounds with a view to entering a petition to the Free State Department of Justice for his release .
Some of the grounds included the fact that members of the UDA served less than one-third of their sentences when convicted and jailed in the 'Republic' ; the fact that the Littlejohns served eight out of their fifteen and twenty years respectively ; the fact that there is fifty per cent remission in the Six Counties ; the fact that he treated his trial as a formality on the basis of the agreement which he had entered into ; the fact that vision in one of his eyes is impaired eighty per cent ; the fact that he spent thirty-nine days on hunger strike ; the fact that his father is permanently hospitalised and he has not seen him for over ten years ; the fact that he has a ten-year-old son whom he has seen only twice in the last ten years .
However , the fact remains that Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle released Tiede Herrema unharmed on the basis that they would not serve more than four and two years in jail respectively , and the authorities refused to honour the undertaking . The siege might not have ended so peacefully if they had known what was going to happen . Tiede Herrema fully expected the deal to be honoured ; more importantly , the credibility of anyone attempting to make some similar arrangement at some future date in similar circumstances is undermined .
If Eddie Gallagher serves the same sentence as Marion Coyle on a pro-rata basis , he will be released in 1988 . He would then have served more than nine years longer than he envisaged when he surrendered on November 7 , 1975 .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Mary Holland was crying - with vexation , frustration , anger , outrage and pity . She rang Bernard Levin ; he rang David Frost . 'The Observer' newspaper front-paged her story of October 5 March , and directed readers to the back-ground expose on the inside pages . David Frost came to Northern Ireland (sic) within days to do a live programme . The media wall burst to flood Britain with the facts . ('1169... ' Comment - this scribbler , for one , doubts that the British people ever have got the 'facts' about their government's involvement in this country . And certainly not from 'The Observer' or any other British newspaper.)
Gerry Fitt had done what he set out to do ; he had turned the spotlight on the North of Ireland , though he was run off his feet in the process . 'The Irish News' newspaper recorded proudly that on one historic day he attended Belfast Corporation as Councillor , in the morning , Stormont as MP for Dock in the afternoon , and Westminster as MP for West Belfast in the evening .
To Unionist protests that the whole civil rights thing was a plot by communists , republicans , intent on overthrowing the 'Crown' , murdering gunmen standing in the wings etc , Fitt would say across the floor of Stormont - " ... when I was on the Murmansk convoy .. " . He then reminisced about the dangers of the merchant seaman's lot in World War Two when he had helped defend Britain and the 'Free World' : the titled peers and majors on the Stormont government benches , most of whom had never fought in the war , chewed their lips .
The 'reasonable' response from the 'reasonable' members of Westminster , by which Gerry Fitt had set such store , came in the 'Cameron Report .......' ('1169 ... ' Comment - ...and here we are , some 30 years after Gerry Fitt expected a "reasonable response from reasonable members of Westminster ... " , witnessing another Gerry expecting much the same . 'Lord Adams' , anyone ...)
(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 .
The clearest exposure of Section 31 censorship occurred during the 1982 general election in the Free State ; Sinn Fein fielded seven candidates and as such were entitled to make a party political broadcast on RTE . RTE agreed , but Patrick Cooney at Posts and Telegraphs ordered that Section 31 should be extended to include electoral broadcasts !
The Sinn Fein candidate in Cooney's own constituency of Longford/Westmeath , Sean Lynch , took an action in the High Court claiming that Section 31 was unconstitutional and interfered with his rights - the High Court agreed , and ruled that Section 31 of the 1976 (Amended) Broadcasting Act was repugnant to the Free State constitution . Making the ruling , Justice Hanlon said that the amendment to Section 31 " ... appeared to contain insufficient safeguards for the constitutional guarantee of the right of freedom of expression of opinion , with particular reference to the freedom of the press . "
Patrick Cooney immediately took the case to the Supreme Court , where the Chief Justice , Kevin O'Higgins , over-ruled the High Court and upheld Cooney's ban on a Sinn Fein election broadcast .
As well as being used to suppress any political comment by Sinn Fein , the indirect effect of Section 31 creates a self-censoring atmosphere in RTE that even prevents the playing of certain records (!) : 'The Men Behind The Wire' topped the charts in the South for weeks during the 1970's but was never played on RTE . And that was'nt the only song to be 'banned' .......
(MORE LATER).
Thursday, May 26, 2005
A ROUGH DEAL .......
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
Free State Justice Minister Paddy Cooney denied that any concessions had been offered to bring to an end the kidnapping of Dr. Tiede Herrema ; but Free State Garda Commissioner Edmund Garvey had signed a document - this was witnessed by solicitor Stanley Siev .
One of the conditions of that document/agreement was that the conduct of Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle in prison should be " reasonable " and "serious misconduct " avoided . The latter was defined as misconduct which " ...would make it impracticable for the Minister to grant remission . " The deal was ratified by the Free State Cabinet .
Eddie Gallagher claimed that as a result of this deal , he was encouraged to think of his trial as nothing more than a formality and he did not have legal representation there . The document relating to the deal was brought into court and read by the three judges in the Free State Special Criminal Court but was not read out . Later still , Gallagher had to initiate High Court proceedings to get possession of the document . He had given it to Dr. Herrema who had passed it on to the Gardai .
In any event , the promise of release within two years for Marion Coyle and four years for Eddie Gallagher was'nt worth the paper it was written on - according to the authorities , Gallagher and Coyle had broken both of the conditions .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Mary Holland's story , ' John Bull's Political Slum' , was scheduled as a major feature on the inside pages of ' The Observer ' newspaper of Sunday 6 October , 1968 ; Gerry Fitt came on the phone again pleading with her to return to Derry for October 5 , " just to see , just to see ... "
Three Labour Party MP's had agreed to come - " Ah come on Mary , for Jaysus sake ... " : 'The Observer' agreed , and sent over a photographer as well . He was the only photographer from a British newspaper . The picture he took of Gerry Fitt being batoned on the head by the RUC and the blood spurting down his shirt went all over the world , accompanied by RTE film . Mary Holland phoned the story in from a fish and chip shop in Duke Street , dictating amid the screams and shouting , and standing in a crush of bodies drenched with water from the RUC cannons and blood from their wounds .
The proprietor of the fish and chip shop handed her his card , hoping for a mention - there was a sense that the North was about to attract journalists on expense accounts ! ('1169 ... ' Comment - it is not only the journalists who are now on expense accounts : some of the Republican activists at that time are now in receipt of a regular stipend from Westminster and/or Leinster House . And their tastes have evolved (?) from fish and chips . )
Was she frightened ? - " I was outraged ; this was a part of Britain (sic) and the police were hitting a Westminster MP over the head . " That night she flew back to London and rang all the journalists she knew - she was crying .......
(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 .
State censorship - Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act - was used against Irish Republicans : for instance , in 1976 , the RTE programme 'Feach' was not allowed to transmit a short report of that year's Sinn Fein Ard Fheis , despite the fact that the report did not contain any comments by members of Sinn Fein !
In 1977 , the RTE radio programme 'This Week' highlighted the case of the late Guiseppe Conlon , a Belfastman with no connection with the Republican Movement , who had been jailed in England on explosives forensic evidence so flimsy that even Gerry Fitt and arch-Tory MP John Biggs-Davison had taken up his case . Nonetheless , the Director-General of RTE sharply criticised 'This Week' for even mentioning that there were Irish political prisoners in English jails !
The absurdity of Section 31 was thrown into sharp relief by the screening of ' Ireland : A Television History ' , a series co-produced by RTE and the BBC and screened on both channels in 1982 - one of the episodes which had been allocated to a BBC production team contained interviews with a number of identifiable Sinn Fein members from the North . After some media speculation , Albert Reynolds , the then Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ( who had himself renewed Section 31) was forced to lift the Section 31 restriction for that one episode to save RTE from the ridiculous position of censoring a production that they had partly made and financed !
Yet the clearest exposure of Section 31 censorship occurred during the 1982 general election in the Free State .......
(MORE LATER).
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
Free State Justice Minister Paddy Cooney denied that any concessions had been offered to bring to an end the kidnapping of Dr. Tiede Herrema ; but Free State Garda Commissioner Edmund Garvey had signed a document - this was witnessed by solicitor Stanley Siev .
One of the conditions of that document/agreement was that the conduct of Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle in prison should be " reasonable " and "serious misconduct " avoided . The latter was defined as misconduct which " ...would make it impracticable for the Minister to grant remission . " The deal was ratified by the Free State Cabinet .
Eddie Gallagher claimed that as a result of this deal , he was encouraged to think of his trial as nothing more than a formality and he did not have legal representation there . The document relating to the deal was brought into court and read by the three judges in the Free State Special Criminal Court but was not read out . Later still , Gallagher had to initiate High Court proceedings to get possession of the document . He had given it to Dr. Herrema who had passed it on to the Gardai .
In any event , the promise of release within two years for Marion Coyle and four years for Eddie Gallagher was'nt worth the paper it was written on - according to the authorities , Gallagher and Coyle had broken both of the conditions .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Mary Holland's story , ' John Bull's Political Slum' , was scheduled as a major feature on the inside pages of ' The Observer ' newspaper of Sunday 6 October , 1968 ; Gerry Fitt came on the phone again pleading with her to return to Derry for October 5 , " just to see , just to see ... "
Three Labour Party MP's had agreed to come - " Ah come on Mary , for Jaysus sake ... " : 'The Observer' agreed , and sent over a photographer as well . He was the only photographer from a British newspaper . The picture he took of Gerry Fitt being batoned on the head by the RUC and the blood spurting down his shirt went all over the world , accompanied by RTE film . Mary Holland phoned the story in from a fish and chip shop in Duke Street , dictating amid the screams and shouting , and standing in a crush of bodies drenched with water from the RUC cannons and blood from their wounds .
The proprietor of the fish and chip shop handed her his card , hoping for a mention - there was a sense that the North was about to attract journalists on expense accounts ! ('1169 ... ' Comment - it is not only the journalists who are now on expense accounts : some of the Republican activists at that time are now in receipt of a regular stipend from Westminster and/or Leinster House . And their tastes have evolved (?) from fish and chips . )
Was she frightened ? - " I was outraged ; this was a part of Britain (sic) and the police were hitting a Westminster MP over the head . " That night she flew back to London and rang all the journalists she knew - she was crying .......
(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 .
State censorship - Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act - was used against Irish Republicans : for instance , in 1976 , the RTE programme 'Feach' was not allowed to transmit a short report of that year's Sinn Fein Ard Fheis , despite the fact that the report did not contain any comments by members of Sinn Fein !
In 1977 , the RTE radio programme 'This Week' highlighted the case of the late Guiseppe Conlon , a Belfastman with no connection with the Republican Movement , who had been jailed in England on explosives forensic evidence so flimsy that even Gerry Fitt and arch-Tory MP John Biggs-Davison had taken up his case . Nonetheless , the Director-General of RTE sharply criticised 'This Week' for even mentioning that there were Irish political prisoners in English jails !
The absurdity of Section 31 was thrown into sharp relief by the screening of ' Ireland : A Television History ' , a series co-produced by RTE and the BBC and screened on both channels in 1982 - one of the episodes which had been allocated to a BBC production team contained interviews with a number of identifiable Sinn Fein members from the North . After some media speculation , Albert Reynolds , the then Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ( who had himself renewed Section 31) was forced to lift the Section 31 restriction for that one episode to save RTE from the ridiculous position of censoring a production that they had partly made and financed !
Yet the clearest exposure of Section 31 censorship occurred during the 1982 general election in the Free State .......
(MORE LATER).
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
A ROUGH DEAL .......
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
At 8pm on November 7 , 1976 , the guns were thrown out of the siege house - that part of it was over . Eddie Gallagher gave Tiede Herrema a live .38 bullet before the end ; the kidnappers had had only five live rounds left for their three weapons . Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle were taken to the Bridewell Garda Station in Dublin and charged .
On February 12 , 1976 , Gallagher and Coyle , Brian McGowan and Vincent Walsh went on trial - the affair lasted twelve days ; Eddie Gallagher got twenty years , Marion Coyle got fifteen years , Davy Dunne got a three-year suspended sentence , Vincent Walsh and Brian McGowan got eight years each . In March 1977 , Thomas Dunne was given seven years , Michael Hall and P.J. Bailey were given five years each . The State entered a nolle prosequi in relation to Mrs Hall and Mrs Bailey . Eight people had been sentenced to a total of seventy-one years imprisonment in relation to the kidnapping of Dr. Tiede Herrema .
The day following the kidnap , Free State Justice Minister Paddy Cooney was asked , at a jubilant press conference , if there had been any concessions to the kidnappers ; he replied - " None at all . " Following protracted negotiations , Garda Commissioner Edmund Garvey put his signature on a document that gave a written assurance that Eddie Gallagher would have to spend no more than four years in prison and Marion Coyle no more than two years in prison , irrespective of the sentence imposed on them by the court . For the safe release of Dr. Tiede Herrema , Commissioner Garvey undertook to "... recommend to the Minister for Justice at the appropriate time that he should exercise his powers so as to remit in full the balances of such sentences then remaining after the expiry of four years in the case of Eddie Gallagher and two years in the case of Marion Coyle .
I understand and intend this undertaking to include , as well as the kidnapping itself , all other offences incidental to it . " The conditions attached to that agreement were that it should be kept confidential , save in the event of it not being honoured .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
On Tuesday , October 1 , 1968 , journalist Mary Holland found herself in Gerry Fitt's home on the Antrim Road in Belfast : " It was a complete culture shock . I sat in the room he uses as a clinic on the ground floor - the basement underneath was the kitchen where his family spent their time . He had a wife and five daughters . Everytime he wanted a cup of tea he'd stamp three times on the floor , and up from the basement beneath would come a woman with a tray . I sat there and listened to him and the stream of constituents who called into the room to see him . They were still calling well after midnight . "
Next day she hired a car and drove him to Dungannon to see Austin Currie , Stormont Nationalist MP . Gerry Fitt did'nt know the way and it took them ages . His lifelong refusal to learn how to drive , which made him dependent on someone who could , and his ignorance of areas west of the Bann were to be major factors in his later political career . Paddy Kennedy ('Republican Labour Party ') said - " When he first started operating out of Dock , the Falls Road was Outer Mongolia to him ! "
Politically , Dungannon must have seemed beyond Mongolia to Mary Holland . Austin Currie told her of the house allocated to the single unmarried female secretary of the local Unionist party branch , and the dozens of large Catholic families on the waiting list . Currie had squatted in the house in protest and the RUC had evicted him .
Gerry Fitt whirled her onto Derry that evening ; she was worried that they had'nt made appointments - " Ah , not at all , " he said , " you just arrive in the City Hotel and it all happens . " They arrived , she ordered tea and sandwiches , he went out into the street for a few minutes and returned with Eamonn McCann , Ivan Cooper , and the future Brigade Staff of the Official IRA , Provisional IRA and the INLA . On that night , though , they were no more than what they represented themselves to be - young militant civil rights activists . Ivan Cooper was the 'radical mascot' , a Protestant who had defected from the Unionist Party .
They were going to march in Derry that coming weekend - Mary Holland flew back to England on Wednesday with her story .......
(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 .
In 1973 , a different administration took over power in Dublin - a Fine Gael and Labour coalition .
The new Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was the Labour politician , Conor Cruise O' Brien . In 1972 he had opposed the sacking of the RTE Authority , saying in a Leinster House debate - " We believe that in modern conditions the degree of autonomy possessed by a body like RTE is a major bastion of democracy . " Yet , two years later , this 'champion of democracy' was accusing any journalists who were opposed to Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act of being - " ...crypto-Provos and fascists .. " , and it was he who re-amended Section 31 to specifically ban members of named organisations - Sinn Fein , the IRA , and all other organisations banned in the North - from appearing on RTE .
The amendment that gave Conor Cruise O' Brien the power to do this read - (paragraph 1) ' Where the Minister is of the opinion that the broadcasting of a particular matter or any matter of a particular class would be likely to promote or incite to crime , or would tend to undermine the authority of the State , he may by Order direct the (RTE) Authority to refrain from broadcasting the matter or any matter of the particular class and the Authority shall comply with the Order . '
Paragraph 1(A) of the amendment made Section 31 renewable every 12 months by the Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs , and it has been religiously renewed ever since . This has meant that not only have Sinn Fein members , including elected representatives , not been allowed to appear in RTE coverage of events in the Six Counties , but that even Sinn Fein Councillors in the Free State have not been allowed to be interviewed on matters such as hospital closures , water charges or the provision of school buses ! There are innumerable instances since then of the use of Section 31 against Republicans .......
(MORE LATER).
(To Paul William Stapleton : thank you for the visit and your words of encouragement . We are glad you found the site of some value to you in your quest . Our sources are varied ; old books , manuscripts , newspapers and , in some cases , writings left behind by those we mention in this blog . We have received literally hundreds of such 'leads' from our readers , and we hope to continue doing so . Should we receive more information on that particular person , we will post it here . Go raibh maith agat aris - Sharon. ).
Ten years ago EDDIE GALLAGHER went to prison for his part in the kidnapping of TIEDE HERREMA . He is still there , even though he did a deal which promised him only four years in jail . His accomplice , MARION COYLE , has been released . DEREK DUNNE reports on GALLAGHER's maverick relationship with the IRA , on the negotiations which led to the release of TIEDE HERREMA and on the roots of GALLAGHER's involvement .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , January 1986 , pages 6 , 7 , 8, and 9 .
At 8pm on November 7 , 1976 , the guns were thrown out of the siege house - that part of it was over . Eddie Gallagher gave Tiede Herrema a live .38 bullet before the end ; the kidnappers had had only five live rounds left for their three weapons . Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle were taken to the Bridewell Garda Station in Dublin and charged .
On February 12 , 1976 , Gallagher and Coyle , Brian McGowan and Vincent Walsh went on trial - the affair lasted twelve days ; Eddie Gallagher got twenty years , Marion Coyle got fifteen years , Davy Dunne got a three-year suspended sentence , Vincent Walsh and Brian McGowan got eight years each . In March 1977 , Thomas Dunne was given seven years , Michael Hall and P.J. Bailey were given five years each . The State entered a nolle prosequi in relation to Mrs Hall and Mrs Bailey . Eight people had been sentenced to a total of seventy-one years imprisonment in relation to the kidnapping of Dr. Tiede Herrema .
The day following the kidnap , Free State Justice Minister Paddy Cooney was asked , at a jubilant press conference , if there had been any concessions to the kidnappers ; he replied - " None at all . " Following protracted negotiations , Garda Commissioner Edmund Garvey put his signature on a document that gave a written assurance that Eddie Gallagher would have to spend no more than four years in prison and Marion Coyle no more than two years in prison , irrespective of the sentence imposed on them by the court . For the safe release of Dr. Tiede Herrema , Commissioner Garvey undertook to "... recommend to the Minister for Justice at the appropriate time that he should exercise his powers so as to remit in full the balances of such sentences then remaining after the expiry of four years in the case of Eddie Gallagher and two years in the case of Marion Coyle .
I understand and intend this undertaking to include , as well as the kidnapping itself , all other offences incidental to it . " The conditions attached to that agreement were that it should be kept confidential , save in the event of it not being honoured .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
On Tuesday , October 1 , 1968 , journalist Mary Holland found herself in Gerry Fitt's home on the Antrim Road in Belfast : " It was a complete culture shock . I sat in the room he uses as a clinic on the ground floor - the basement underneath was the kitchen where his family spent their time . He had a wife and five daughters . Everytime he wanted a cup of tea he'd stamp three times on the floor , and up from the basement beneath would come a woman with a tray . I sat there and listened to him and the stream of constituents who called into the room to see him . They were still calling well after midnight . "
Next day she hired a car and drove him to Dungannon to see Austin Currie , Stormont Nationalist MP . Gerry Fitt did'nt know the way and it took them ages . His lifelong refusal to learn how to drive , which made him dependent on someone who could , and his ignorance of areas west of the Bann were to be major factors in his later political career . Paddy Kennedy ('Republican Labour Party ') said - " When he first started operating out of Dock , the Falls Road was Outer Mongolia to him ! "
Politically , Dungannon must have seemed beyond Mongolia to Mary Holland . Austin Currie told her of the house allocated to the single unmarried female secretary of the local Unionist party branch , and the dozens of large Catholic families on the waiting list . Currie had squatted in the house in protest and the RUC had evicted him .
Gerry Fitt whirled her onto Derry that evening ; she was worried that they had'nt made appointments - " Ah , not at all , " he said , " you just arrive in the City Hotel and it all happens . " They arrived , she ordered tea and sandwiches , he went out into the street for a few minutes and returned with Eamonn McCann , Ivan Cooper , and the future Brigade Staff of the Official IRA , Provisional IRA and the INLA . On that night , though , they were no more than what they represented themselves to be - young militant civil rights activists . Ivan Cooper was the 'radical mascot' , a Protestant who had defected from the Unionist Party .
They were going to march in Derry that coming weekend - Mary Holland flew back to England on Wednesday with her story .......
(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 .
In 1973 , a different administration took over power in Dublin - a Fine Gael and Labour coalition .
The new Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was the Labour politician , Conor Cruise O' Brien . In 1972 he had opposed the sacking of the RTE Authority , saying in a Leinster House debate - " We believe that in modern conditions the degree of autonomy possessed by a body like RTE is a major bastion of democracy . " Yet , two years later , this 'champion of democracy' was accusing any journalists who were opposed to Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act of being - " ...crypto-Provos and fascists .. " , and it was he who re-amended Section 31 to specifically ban members of named organisations - Sinn Fein , the IRA , and all other organisations banned in the North - from appearing on RTE .
The amendment that gave Conor Cruise O' Brien the power to do this read - (paragraph 1) ' Where the Minister is of the opinion that the broadcasting of a particular matter or any matter of a particular class would be likely to promote or incite to crime , or would tend to undermine the authority of the State , he may by Order direct the (RTE) Authority to refrain from broadcasting the matter or any matter of the particular class and the Authority shall comply with the Order . '
Paragraph 1(A) of the amendment made Section 31 renewable every 12 months by the Free State Minister for Posts and Telegraphs , and it has been religiously renewed ever since . This has meant that not only have Sinn Fein members , including elected representatives , not been allowed to appear in RTE coverage of events in the Six Counties , but that even Sinn Fein Councillors in the Free State have not been allowed to be interviewed on matters such as hospital closures , water charges or the provision of school buses ! There are innumerable instances since then of the use of Section 31 against Republicans .......
(MORE LATER).
(To Paul William Stapleton : thank you for the visit and your words of encouragement . We are glad you found the site of some value to you in your quest . Our sources are varied ; old books , manuscripts , newspapers and , in some cases , writings left behind by those we mention in this blog . We have received literally hundreds of such 'leads' from our readers , and we hope to continue doing so . Should we receive more information on that particular person , we will post it here . Go raibh maith agat aris - Sharon. ).
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