THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
In a lane beside Drumree Post Office , behind an iron gate , two armed men were waiting ; they wore blue boiler-suits and black balaclavas . One carried a Sten submachine gun , the other had a Webley revolver , .455 calibre . Just a few feet away , inside the post office , Michael Gilsenan and Mick Boyle , the local postman , were sorting mail .
The post office van pulled into the lay-by at Drumree Post Office ; Donal Brady , the van helper , got out with the money bag - this time he did'nt wait for Detective Frank Hand to join him . He went into the post office . It was 8.03am , give or take a minute . The Garda Fiat car coasted to a stop behind the post van . The gunmen in boiler suits , two of them , began running towards the garda car from the lane beside the post office . The one in front had the Sten gun , the one slightly behind had the Webley .
Detective Garda Michael Dowd , glancing to his left , saw the two gunmen coming at him ; he shouted to Frank Hand : someone else shouted - " GET DOWN , YOU FUCKER ! " The man with the Webley was already firing - there were six bullets in the cylinder , .455 calibre , all old , some defective . The man got off three rounds , two of which hit the rear left door of the garda Fiat . One lodged in the door panel , the other passing through the car , missing both gardai and smashing through the driver's window , beside Frank Hand .
The third shot from the Webley hit the ground behind the post office van . The gunman pulled the trigger again , and once more , those two rounds misfired ; at this stage the gunman with the Sten was moving to his left : he had not yet fired . He was now standing to the front and left of the garda car . While this was happening - inside the post office Gilsenan and Boyle and Brady heard the running feet , the shouting , the shots . Boyle and Brady ran out the back of the post office and hid in a shed . Gilsenan ran forward and slammed the front door of the post office . He locked the door and went upstairs to look out the window .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt manned a polling station for Sinn Fein in 1958 ; he was of the opinion that Sean South was 'a broth of a boy' , though a bit of an 'eejit' , rolling up to the RUC barracks door like that to get shot dead . " I would have worked with anybody that got up and after the Unionists , " said Fitt , explaining his liaison with Sinn Fein . " Sinn Fein then was'nt like it is now , and I agreed to man a polling station for them in the Belfast Corporation elections . A woman came in to personate for the Unionists . I spotted her straight away and challenged her and she stood her ground so I called the police (sic) over to arrest her . 'You can't do that ' , says the Sinn Fein man beside me . 'Why not ?' , says I . ' Because you'll have to testify in court against her and we don't recognise the courts ' , says he . 'Fucks sake , ye bunch of cunts' , says I , and I tore up my agent's card and walked away . " ('1169....' Comment - ... and he spent the rest of his political career "walking away... " )
Twenty two years later , Sinn Fein were'nt even recognising the prisons ; in November 1980 , 'blanket prisoners' went on hunger strike in pursuit of political status ; Gerry Fitt sat in the House of Commons , opposite Margaret Thatcher , on Monday November 10 , 1980 , and listened to speeches about unemployment . 35,900 people had been thrown on the dole in Wales in one year . A computer company had just closed , shedding fifteen hundred workers . The British Steel workforce had been reduced by 826 that week . The Broadcasting Bill for a fourth television channel was discussed , plus plans for Welsh language programmes . At 8pm , the Commons moved onto the issue of the North of Ireland -
- 'Remanded Persons' was up for discussion , and Humphrey Atkins assured the House that the current industrial strike by prison officers in the North , in support of the strike taken by prison officers in England , was not affecting the security situation in Long Kesh : " In the province (sic) we do not have the rapid turnover in and out of prisons that occurs in England and Wales . " Prisoners in the North of Ireland were serving much longer sentences , you see . Some of those prisoners were on hunger strike this two weeks now , but Mr Atkins scarcely discussed that . But Jim Molyneux did ; he spent eleven minutes 'explaining' that "...the IRA hunger-strikers .. " were " beasts . " He urged the British government not even to concede civilian clothing to
them . Molyneux sat down , and Gerry Fitt rose to his feet .......
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .......
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
The whole question of the role of the GAA in Nationalist affairs was raised , with it becoming blatantly clear that the courage was lacking from top GAA Officials to come out openly , and support with direct action , motions passed at successive GAA congresses which backed the prisoners' demands .
The influence of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael members , and the ever-present voice of the Garda Siochana in the GAA , was beginning to cause even more alarm among GAA Headquarters' staff ; the grassroots' support at Northern level was understandable as many clubs had at least one member in Long Kesh , but the gulf in understanding of many Southern GAA personnel was a reflection of how removed from the realities of the Northern situation they had become .
GAA Headquarters kept one careful eye on events in Long Kesh and the other on those middle-class conservatives who wanted the GAA to steer well clear of involvement in the H-Blocks crisis . Statements from the GAA management committee referred to bringing "...the whole sad situation to an end ... in the interests of peace .. " - hardly words calculated to cause Southern politicians to take seriously the degree of GAA concern over the prison situation !
Other statements talked of "...humanitarian concern .. " , while the increased pressure exerted by some GAA members in the South gave rise to terms such as "...condemnation of violence and men of violence .. " being increasingly included in policy statements from the GAA management committee .......
(MORE LATER).
Thursday, June 23, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Ironically , the route which the post office van took on its way to the beginning of its deliveries - through Phibsboro , Cabra , Blanchardstown etc - was the way it would travel on its official route back ; in other words , the van was going to almost the most distant point on the route before beginning to drop off money ! Had it began dropping off mailbags on its way out of the city it would have arrived in Drumree with just a few thousand pounds .
The armed Detectives stayed roughly 100 yards behind the post office van ; routinely , they paid attention to any vehicle coming in sight , assessing it for danger . There was nothing suspicious . At Dunboyne Post Office , the first drop , the garda car stopped behind the van ; Detective Michael Dowd sat where he was , the Uzi on his lap . Detective Frank Hand got out of the car ; the post office helper , Donal Brady , got out of the van with the mailbag . He and Hand went to the door of the post office together , and Hand kicked the bottom of the door and rattled the letterbox . The bag of money was handed over .
Next stop , Batterstown , the same procedure . Detective Hand got out , Dowd stayed in the car . Brady got out of the van and J.J. Bell , the van driver , stayed at the wheel . No problems . Next stop , Drumree . The van now carried £202,900 in cash . It was about 7.50am .
Around that time Tommy Eccles , Pat McPhillips and someone else , a man with an earring , were in the red Mercedes in the shed about three miles from Drumree ; Brian McShane was in the beige Opel Ascona along with some others . They had walkie-talkies . In Kentstown , about fifteen miles from Drumree , Seamus Lynch was up and about . He had to be in the designated field at Rathfeigh to pick up the money and guns ; he needed a car and knew where to get it . He had several times borrowed Joe Gargan's yellow Ford Escort . Gargan also lived in Kentstown .
Noel McCabe had left his home in Dundalk at 7.10am and was now driving his 'borrowed' blue Ford Cortina south-west towards a crossroads somewhere around Dunshaughlin , where he would pick up 'the lads' , as requested by Paul Finnegan .
In a lane beside Drumree Post Office , behind an iron gate , two armed men were waiting .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The British offered a 'White Paper' dealing with the North of Ireland , in November 1979 ; but it contained no mention of an Irish dimension . Gerry Fitt urged acceptance of the paper in Belfast , saying - " An Irish dimension will always be there while the six counties exist on the island of Ireland ... " . The SDLP rejected the 'Paper' in Dungannon , west of the Bann . Fitt supported their stand and flew back to Westminster from where , one day later , faced with a British government that was fast losing patience with the Irish , he resigned from the SDLP .
Gerry Fitt was a man at the end of his tether . The IRA would'nt listen to the Pope ; the SDLP would'nt listen to him . He had the ear only of the RUC and the British House of Commons . And he had his gun : " I had only had it for protection , " he said , " the IRA never protected anybody . The (British) Army was there to protect people . ('1169... ' Comment - the SDLP position then . And now - ' those sent by our persecuters will protect us ... ' !) At least they (the British Army) had to follow the rules of the Yellow Card . ('1169...' Comment - did the 'Yellow Card' allow the BA to work with the Loyalist paramilitaries , too ... ?) The IRA never used a Yellow Card . "
Paddy Kennedy (SDLP) recalled the very early days : " Gerry could never figure out the Republicans . When he was out fighting World War Two , the IRA killed a policeman (sic) on the Springfield Road . " Tom Williams was hung for that in 1943 . " Gerry Fitt called the Republicans wimps and gimps and hunchies , running round with their coat collars turned up . The trouble was he was very funny about it . He can slander more wittily than anybody you'd know , and be laughing without realising the damage he was causing and the real hurt he was doing to people's feelings . "
For all that , Gerry Fitt manned a polling station for Sinn Fein in 1958 , in the middle of their 1956-1962 armed campaign against the B-Specials and the RUC . It was a comparatively minor campaign though , and few people died.......
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .......
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
Organised protests in the North took up again with the commencement of the second hunger-strike in March 1981 , intensifying with the dark news that Bobby Sands was growing weaker .
Every team travelling North from the 26 counties experienced H-Block demonstrations at half-time and were continually made aware of the feelings of Northern GAA members about the dilemma of their fellow Irishmen in Long Kesh . GAA banners were familiar sights on H-Block marches across the six counties and GAA grounds were frequent venues for demonstrations and rallies . The H-Block video film was distributed around many GAA social centres and enthusiastically received .
In August 1981 , a seven-day token fast and vigil was held outside Casement Park in Belfast by South Antrim GAA members ; it was to be expected that the British Army would not allow the picket to go by without harassment , and indeed two plastic bullets were fired into the protestors without warning , but they stood their ground and refused to be intimidated .
Over £2000 was collected at this fast and vigil in an illustration of the unstinting generosity of the people of West Belfast , who simultaneously were being called upon to contribute to a constant stream of other collections to provide the finance necessary for the hunger-strike campaign ; however , concern began to grow among the GAA's conservative hierarchy that the organisation , and particularly its Northern members , were going too far .
These people feared that the support shown for the blanketmen would 'tarnish' the nice respectable image the GAA nurtured , and that full backing for the prisoners' five demands would be interpreted as support for the armed struggle .......
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Ironically , the route which the post office van took on its way to the beginning of its deliveries - through Phibsboro , Cabra , Blanchardstown etc - was the way it would travel on its official route back ; in other words , the van was going to almost the most distant point on the route before beginning to drop off money ! Had it began dropping off mailbags on its way out of the city it would have arrived in Drumree with just a few thousand pounds .
The armed Detectives stayed roughly 100 yards behind the post office van ; routinely , they paid attention to any vehicle coming in sight , assessing it for danger . There was nothing suspicious . At Dunboyne Post Office , the first drop , the garda car stopped behind the van ; Detective Michael Dowd sat where he was , the Uzi on his lap . Detective Frank Hand got out of the car ; the post office helper , Donal Brady , got out of the van with the mailbag . He and Hand went to the door of the post office together , and Hand kicked the bottom of the door and rattled the letterbox . The bag of money was handed over .
Next stop , Batterstown , the same procedure . Detective Hand got out , Dowd stayed in the car . Brady got out of the van and J.J. Bell , the van driver , stayed at the wheel . No problems . Next stop , Drumree . The van now carried £202,900 in cash . It was about 7.50am .
Around that time Tommy Eccles , Pat McPhillips and someone else , a man with an earring , were in the red Mercedes in the shed about three miles from Drumree ; Brian McShane was in the beige Opel Ascona along with some others . They had walkie-talkies . In Kentstown , about fifteen miles from Drumree , Seamus Lynch was up and about . He had to be in the designated field at Rathfeigh to pick up the money and guns ; he needed a car and knew where to get it . He had several times borrowed Joe Gargan's yellow Ford Escort . Gargan also lived in Kentstown .
Noel McCabe had left his home in Dundalk at 7.10am and was now driving his 'borrowed' blue Ford Cortina south-west towards a crossroads somewhere around Dunshaughlin , where he would pick up 'the lads' , as requested by Paul Finnegan .
In a lane beside Drumree Post Office , behind an iron gate , two armed men were waiting .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The British offered a 'White Paper' dealing with the North of Ireland , in November 1979 ; but it contained no mention of an Irish dimension . Gerry Fitt urged acceptance of the paper in Belfast , saying - " An Irish dimension will always be there while the six counties exist on the island of Ireland ... " . The SDLP rejected the 'Paper' in Dungannon , west of the Bann . Fitt supported their stand and flew back to Westminster from where , one day later , faced with a British government that was fast losing patience with the Irish , he resigned from the SDLP .
Gerry Fitt was a man at the end of his tether . The IRA would'nt listen to the Pope ; the SDLP would'nt listen to him . He had the ear only of the RUC and the British House of Commons . And he had his gun : " I had only had it for protection , " he said , " the IRA never protected anybody . The (British) Army was there to protect people . ('1169... ' Comment - the SDLP position then . And now - ' those sent by our persecuters will protect us ... ' !) At least they (the British Army) had to follow the rules of the Yellow Card . ('1169...' Comment - did the 'Yellow Card' allow the BA to work with the Loyalist paramilitaries , too ... ?) The IRA never used a Yellow Card . "
Paddy Kennedy (SDLP) recalled the very early days : " Gerry could never figure out the Republicans . When he was out fighting World War Two , the IRA killed a policeman (sic) on the Springfield Road . " Tom Williams was hung for that in 1943 . " Gerry Fitt called the Republicans wimps and gimps and hunchies , running round with their coat collars turned up . The trouble was he was very funny about it . He can slander more wittily than anybody you'd know , and be laughing without realising the damage he was causing and the real hurt he was doing to people's feelings . "
For all that , Gerry Fitt manned a polling station for Sinn Fein in 1958 , in the middle of their 1956-1962 armed campaign against the B-Specials and the RUC . It was a comparatively minor campaign though , and few people died.......
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .......
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
Organised protests in the North took up again with the commencement of the second hunger-strike in March 1981 , intensifying with the dark news that Bobby Sands was growing weaker .
Every team travelling North from the 26 counties experienced H-Block demonstrations at half-time and were continually made aware of the feelings of Northern GAA members about the dilemma of their fellow Irishmen in Long Kesh . GAA banners were familiar sights on H-Block marches across the six counties and GAA grounds were frequent venues for demonstrations and rallies . The H-Block video film was distributed around many GAA social centres and enthusiastically received .
In August 1981 , a seven-day token fast and vigil was held outside Casement Park in Belfast by South Antrim GAA members ; it was to be expected that the British Army would not allow the picket to go by without harassment , and indeed two plastic bullets were fired into the protestors without warning , but they stood their ground and refused to be intimidated .
Over £2000 was collected at this fast and vigil in an illustration of the unstinting generosity of the people of West Belfast , who simultaneously were being called upon to contribute to a constant stream of other collections to provide the finance necessary for the hunger-strike campaign ; however , concern began to grow among the GAA's conservative hierarchy that the organisation , and particularly its Northern members , were going too far .
These people feared that the support shown for the blanketmen would 'tarnish' the nice respectable image the GAA nurtured , and that full backing for the prisoners' five demands would be interpreted as support for the armed struggle .......
(MORE LATER).
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Drumree , August 10 , 1984 :
Just before 7am that morning Detective Garda Frank Hand of the Central Detective Unit arrived at his Headquarters at Harcourt Square . The detective with whom he would work that day , Detective Garda Michael Dowd , was already there . Dowd had signed out an attache case which held an Uzi submachine gun ; the two Gardai went out and found the Fiat Mirafiori they would be using that day . Dowd took the Uzi from the case , along with two magazines carrying twenty rounds each ; he put the attach case , containing three more magazines , on the back seat of the Fiat .
He put one magazine into the Uzi and left the other on the floor of the car near his feet . He was also armed with a Walther P.P. semi-automatic pistol ; Frank Hand was armed with a Smith and Wesson .38 Special . Frank Hand was 25 . He joined the Garda force in 1977 and became a detective in 1981 . He was one of seven children of a Roscommon family and , on joining , in 1977 , worked in Dublin - in Donnybrook and Irishtown . In 1981 he became a detective and subsequently worked with the Drug Squad . Early in 1984 he was assigned to the Central Detective Unit .
In July 1984 he married Ban Gharda Breda Hogan ; they had returned from their honeymoon in Venice about a week before Hand set out with Detective Michael Dowd on post office escort duty . They lived in Lucan , County Dublin . Frank Hand was driving . He and Dowd arrived at the GPO at around 7.15am and almost immediately drew in behind a post office van and set off on Route 3 , which begins at Dunboyne , in Meath , just beyond the border with Dublin . That Route then went to a few post offices in Meath , wound back into Dublin , through Blanchardstown , Cabra , Phibsboro , to Berkeley Road , a stone's throw from O' Connell Street .
Route 3 covered nineteen post offices , there were twenty-three mailbags in the van , containing almost a quarter of a million pounds , most of it social welfare money .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt was returned for West Belfast , for the last time , in the May 1979 general election which followed . Michael Foot , who had negotiated the deal with the Unionists , paid glowing quoted tribute in Fitt's election literature : Frank Cluskey , leader of the (Free State) Labour Party signed himself "...deeply impressed by your unrelenting opposition to social injustice and sectarianism .. " . Joe Gormley , President of the Mineworkers Union was quoted too , as was Ray Buckton , General Secretary of ASLEF .
The SDLP got the vote out for him ; they did not attempt to get the vote out in Fermanagh-Tyrone , that peculiar seat west of the Bann , where Frank Maguire was returned as a Unity candidate . Austin Currie resigned as chief whip of the SDLP to fight Frank Maguire as 'independent SDLP' and he lost .
In June , John Hume won a northern Euro seat without the help of Gerry Fitt , who went to Dublin to campaign for the (FS) Labour Party . In September the Pope came . In November the SDLP annual conference barely rejected a motion from the mid-Ulster branch calling for talks with the Provos and suppressed motions critical of Gerry Fitt .
Later that November , Humphrey Atkins , with the approval of Margaret Thatcher , published a white paper suggesting yet another Assembly to which " If ... " etc , and everybody being agreed of course ... - but there was to be no mention of an Irish dimension . Still , in Belfast , Gerry Fitt urged acceptance of the paper . But not all in the SDLP agreed with him .......
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .......
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
Some GAA clubs had taken the decision not to play football and hurling at all during the hunger-strike : in the South Antrim Division the 25 clubs came out and fully supported the five demands , agreeing to cancel fixtures on days of national demonstrations to encourage members to attend .
It was at one of these demonstrations , in Belfast on Sunday 30th November 1980 , that 3,000 GAA members marched up the Falls Road from the Dunville Park to the GAA grounds at Casement Park where the rally was held . Buses had ferried in the GAA supporters from all parts of the North , but the loudest cheer was reserved for the contingent that had travelled all the way from North Tipperary .
On an administrative level , with the example of prominent GAA individuals such as the legendary Kerry footballer Joe Keohane throwing their weight behind the campaign , various County Boards answered their members' concern by issuing statements of support . The Antrim County Executive Committee of the GAA declared -
- " We call on the British government to take immediate steps to afford normal decent standards and humane treatment to the prisoners , to relieve further distress for their relatives .... we confirm our support for the principles embodied in the five demands of the prisoners on hunger-strike . "
Telegrams were sent by clubs in the Antrim area to the (British) 'Northern Ireland Office' , and the British and Free State premiers .......
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Drumree , August 10 , 1984 :
Just before 7am that morning Detective Garda Frank Hand of the Central Detective Unit arrived at his Headquarters at Harcourt Square . The detective with whom he would work that day , Detective Garda Michael Dowd , was already there . Dowd had signed out an attache case which held an Uzi submachine gun ; the two Gardai went out and found the Fiat Mirafiori they would be using that day . Dowd took the Uzi from the case , along with two magazines carrying twenty rounds each ; he put the attach case , containing three more magazines , on the back seat of the Fiat .
He put one magazine into the Uzi and left the other on the floor of the car near his feet . He was also armed with a Walther P.P. semi-automatic pistol ; Frank Hand was armed with a Smith and Wesson .38 Special . Frank Hand was 25 . He joined the Garda force in 1977 and became a detective in 1981 . He was one of seven children of a Roscommon family and , on joining , in 1977 , worked in Dublin - in Donnybrook and Irishtown . In 1981 he became a detective and subsequently worked with the Drug Squad . Early in 1984 he was assigned to the Central Detective Unit .
In July 1984 he married Ban Gharda Breda Hogan ; they had returned from their honeymoon in Venice about a week before Hand set out with Detective Michael Dowd on post office escort duty . They lived in Lucan , County Dublin . Frank Hand was driving . He and Dowd arrived at the GPO at around 7.15am and almost immediately drew in behind a post office van and set off on Route 3 , which begins at Dunboyne , in Meath , just beyond the border with Dublin . That Route then went to a few post offices in Meath , wound back into Dublin , through Blanchardstown , Cabra , Phibsboro , to Berkeley Road , a stone's throw from O' Connell Street .
Route 3 covered nineteen post offices , there were twenty-three mailbags in the van , containing almost a quarter of a million pounds , most of it social welfare money .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt was returned for West Belfast , for the last time , in the May 1979 general election which followed . Michael Foot , who had negotiated the deal with the Unionists , paid glowing quoted tribute in Fitt's election literature : Frank Cluskey , leader of the (Free State) Labour Party signed himself "...deeply impressed by your unrelenting opposition to social injustice and sectarianism .. " . Joe Gormley , President of the Mineworkers Union was quoted too , as was Ray Buckton , General Secretary of ASLEF .
The SDLP got the vote out for him ; they did not attempt to get the vote out in Fermanagh-Tyrone , that peculiar seat west of the Bann , where Frank Maguire was returned as a Unity candidate . Austin Currie resigned as chief whip of the SDLP to fight Frank Maguire as 'independent SDLP' and he lost .
In June , John Hume won a northern Euro seat without the help of Gerry Fitt , who went to Dublin to campaign for the (FS) Labour Party . In September the Pope came . In November the SDLP annual conference barely rejected a motion from the mid-Ulster branch calling for talks with the Provos and suppressed motions critical of Gerry Fitt .
Later that November , Humphrey Atkins , with the approval of Margaret Thatcher , published a white paper suggesting yet another Assembly to which " If ... " etc , and everybody being agreed of course ... - but there was to be no mention of an Irish dimension . Still , in Belfast , Gerry Fitt urged acceptance of the paper . But not all in the SDLP agreed with him .......
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .......
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
Some GAA clubs had taken the decision not to play football and hurling at all during the hunger-strike : in the South Antrim Division the 25 clubs came out and fully supported the five demands , agreeing to cancel fixtures on days of national demonstrations to encourage members to attend .
It was at one of these demonstrations , in Belfast on Sunday 30th November 1980 , that 3,000 GAA members marched up the Falls Road from the Dunville Park to the GAA grounds at Casement Park where the rally was held . Buses had ferried in the GAA supporters from all parts of the North , but the loudest cheer was reserved for the contingent that had travelled all the way from North Tipperary .
On an administrative level , with the example of prominent GAA individuals such as the legendary Kerry footballer Joe Keohane throwing their weight behind the campaign , various County Boards answered their members' concern by issuing statements of support . The Antrim County Executive Committee of the GAA declared -
- " We call on the British government to take immediate steps to afford normal decent standards and humane treatment to the prisoners , to relieve further distress for their relatives .... we confirm our support for the principles embodied in the five demands of the prisoners on hunger-strike . "
Telegrams were sent by clubs in the Antrim area to the (British) 'Northern Ireland Office' , and the British and Free State premiers .......
(MORE LATER).
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Others lined up that day for the robbery of a post van at Drumree Post Office were Paddy Duffy of Dromiskin , to provide the stolen cars ; Tommy Eccles of Dundalk , who had brought the Mercedes down from Newry and who was to drive it in the robbery ; Joe Gargan of Kentstown , who was to provide Seamus Lynch with a car and help him hide the money ; Noel McCabe , who had been doing odd jobs for Paul Finnegan , who was to drive three robbers to safety ; and Pat McPhillips and Brian McShane , two Provos from Dundalk who were to help unload the money from the post office van into the red Mercedes .
There were also at least two others lined up for the robbery , plus Paul Finnegan : two armed men would wait at Drumree Post Office for the post van to arrive , the others would be involved in getting the money and guns away from the area after the job . That night Paul Finnegan and a number of others assembled in Paddy Duffy's yard at Dromiskin , about six miles south of Dundalk ; Duffy was the Provo who lived in the mobile home and was in charge of providing the cars . He had the Opel Ascona ready , someone else brought the red Mercedes . That was the end of Duffy's participation in the robbery .
Noel MCabe , the alcoholic who had been doing odd jobs for Paul Finnegan , had driven Finnegan out to Paddy Duffy's place that night , where the cars and guns were assembled . Finnegan passed money around - he gave McCabe £30 to make sure the blue Ford Cortina had enough petrol ; he showed McCabe the crossroads where he was to pick up 'the lads' next morning . McCabe then drove Finnegan back to Dundalk , getting home himself at about a quarter to one in the morning . He was uneasy and had trouble getting to sleep . Meanwhile , Tommy Eccles , Pat McPhillips , Brian McShane and some others moved on from Duffy's to some sheds near Dunshaughlin , about three miles from Drumree .
They travelled in the stolen Mercedes and Ascona ; they slept in the sheds that night .
Earlier that day , (FS) Detective Sergeant Patrick Millea of the Central Detective Unit was rostering gardai for Friday's duties . He assigned Detective Garda Francis Hand for Post Office escort duty commencing at 7am the next day .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
" When the Shankill Butchers were caught and charged , " says Gerry Fitt , " I was over the moon ! Then in walks Paschal O' Hare (SDLP Councillor) and announces that he's defending them . I refused to drink with him ; a Catholic defending Prods that cut Catholic throats . I've heard of ethics but that was just ridiculous . " ('1169...' Comment - not for the SDLP , it was'nt .... !)
The breakdown of ethics in RUC and British Army behaviour was revealed in the Bennet Report in 1979 and the (British) Labour government refused time to discuss it in Westminster ; they were by now a minority government and were holding onto power by means of a deal with Unionist MP's at the 'House of Commons' . If the Unionists abstained from any vote against them , Labour would increase , at Westminster , representation for those from the North , from twelve seats to seventeen . A vote of confidence was called and Gerry Fitt held the balance of power -
- " This will be the unhappiest speech I have ever made in the House , " Fitt began , and he explained that he would abstain from voting for Labour , citing the Bennet Report , the deal with the Unionists and Roy Mason's behaviour in the North of Ireland as his reasons for standing aside while Labour fell : " The Labour Government ," said Fitt , " are not the best government to grapple with the Irish problem (sic - it's a British problem) . I respect the Conservative government of 1970-1974 which tried courageously * to reach a settlement in Northern Ireland . " (sic) (* ... by which Fitt was referring to the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement : a failure because , as with the 1998 Stormont Treaty , it contained no date for British withdrawal. Incidentally , that 1973 'Agreement' acknowledged the fact that the Six Counties " ...are part of the geographical entity of Ireland .. " , which is more than Adams and Co. managed to obtain in 1998 !)
After finishing his speech , Gerry Fitt left the Chamber without hearing the vote : " I saw a Tory when I finished speaking , " he said later , " a real bloated Tory . You could have identified him anywhere as a Tory . He was sneering at the Labour government side . If I'd stayed on , I'd have had to vote against anything he was voting for . "
The SDLP , which did not know how Gerry Fitt was going to vote over in Westminster , heaved a sigh of relief ....... ('1169... ' Comment - a political party which styles itself as a 'democratic' entity [Social Democratic Labour Party] and it gives its leader free reign to vote as he [in this case] sees fit on such an important issue ! And this same party continues to dismiss Republicans as "undemocratic ... " ! )
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
The above quote announced the decision by Republican blanket-men in the H-Blocks to commence the first of the two major hunger-strikes during 1980 and 1981 . Impassioned messages urging support were smuggled out of Long Kesh from the prisoners - with over 150 of the H-Block men from every Ulster county having connections with GAA clubs it was no surprise that the Association was asked to use its influence at every level to raise the prisoners' five demands . One letter smuggled out put the case in simple terms -
- " We appeal to you in the GAA to act now to avert death in the H-Blocks . We urge you to mobilise to divert the British government from its illogical and wholly insane stance . We hope that our plea will not fall on deaf ears within the GAA . We also hope that the GAA will not allow the barbed wire , the concrete walls and the iron bars of Long Kesh to stifle those cries for justice . "
Individual GAA clubs immediately rallied to the call for support with advertisements being inserted in 'The Irish News' newspaper . The grassroots reaction , in particular from counties like Derry , Tyrone and Antrim , was swift , recognising that the Association was more than simply a sporting body . The occupation of GAA grounds and premises in Crossmaglen and Casement Park , Belfast ; the banning of the carrying of hurling sticks as if they were offensive weapons ; and the day-to-day harassment of GAA members , had all brought a deeper understanding of why the GAA had been formed , and the reality of the consequences of promoting the Association's ideals - those of National freedom and cultural identity - in the bigoted Orange state .
With GAA activists working and co-ordinating support in the North , demonstrations were held at half-time during National League matches , pamphlets were issued to spectators and collections taken up .......
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Others lined up that day for the robbery of a post van at Drumree Post Office were Paddy Duffy of Dromiskin , to provide the stolen cars ; Tommy Eccles of Dundalk , who had brought the Mercedes down from Newry and who was to drive it in the robbery ; Joe Gargan of Kentstown , who was to provide Seamus Lynch with a car and help him hide the money ; Noel McCabe , who had been doing odd jobs for Paul Finnegan , who was to drive three robbers to safety ; and Pat McPhillips and Brian McShane , two Provos from Dundalk who were to help unload the money from the post office van into the red Mercedes .
There were also at least two others lined up for the robbery , plus Paul Finnegan : two armed men would wait at Drumree Post Office for the post van to arrive , the others would be involved in getting the money and guns away from the area after the job . That night Paul Finnegan and a number of others assembled in Paddy Duffy's yard at Dromiskin , about six miles south of Dundalk ; Duffy was the Provo who lived in the mobile home and was in charge of providing the cars . He had the Opel Ascona ready , someone else brought the red Mercedes . That was the end of Duffy's participation in the robbery .
Noel MCabe , the alcoholic who had been doing odd jobs for Paul Finnegan , had driven Finnegan out to Paddy Duffy's place that night , where the cars and guns were assembled . Finnegan passed money around - he gave McCabe £30 to make sure the blue Ford Cortina had enough petrol ; he showed McCabe the crossroads where he was to pick up 'the lads' next morning . McCabe then drove Finnegan back to Dundalk , getting home himself at about a quarter to one in the morning . He was uneasy and had trouble getting to sleep . Meanwhile , Tommy Eccles , Pat McPhillips , Brian McShane and some others moved on from Duffy's to some sheds near Dunshaughlin , about three miles from Drumree .
They travelled in the stolen Mercedes and Ascona ; they slept in the sheds that night .
Earlier that day , (FS) Detective Sergeant Patrick Millea of the Central Detective Unit was rostering gardai for Friday's duties . He assigned Detective Garda Francis Hand for Post Office escort duty commencing at 7am the next day .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
" When the Shankill Butchers were caught and charged , " says Gerry Fitt , " I was over the moon ! Then in walks Paschal O' Hare (SDLP Councillor) and announces that he's defending them . I refused to drink with him ; a Catholic defending Prods that cut Catholic throats . I've heard of ethics but that was just ridiculous . " ('1169...' Comment - not for the SDLP , it was'nt .... !)
The breakdown of ethics in RUC and British Army behaviour was revealed in the Bennet Report in 1979 and the (British) Labour government refused time to discuss it in Westminster ; they were by now a minority government and were holding onto power by means of a deal with Unionist MP's at the 'House of Commons' . If the Unionists abstained from any vote against them , Labour would increase , at Westminster , representation for those from the North , from twelve seats to seventeen . A vote of confidence was called and Gerry Fitt held the balance of power -
- " This will be the unhappiest speech I have ever made in the House , " Fitt began , and he explained that he would abstain from voting for Labour , citing the Bennet Report , the deal with the Unionists and Roy Mason's behaviour in the North of Ireland as his reasons for standing aside while Labour fell : " The Labour Government ," said Fitt , " are not the best government to grapple with the Irish problem (sic - it's a British problem) . I respect the Conservative government of 1970-1974 which tried courageously * to reach a settlement in Northern Ireland . " (sic) (* ... by which Fitt was referring to the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement : a failure because , as with the 1998 Stormont Treaty , it contained no date for British withdrawal. Incidentally , that 1973 'Agreement' acknowledged the fact that the Six Counties " ...are part of the geographical entity of Ireland .. " , which is more than Adams and Co. managed to obtain in 1998 !)
After finishing his speech , Gerry Fitt left the Chamber without hearing the vote : " I saw a Tory when I finished speaking , " he said later , " a real bloated Tory . You could have identified him anywhere as a Tory . He was sneering at the Labour government side . If I'd stayed on , I'd have had to vote against anything he was voting for . "
The SDLP , which did not know how Gerry Fitt was going to vote over in Westminster , heaved a sigh of relief ....... ('1169... ' Comment - a political party which styles itself as a 'democratic' entity [Social Democratic Labour Party] and it gives its leader free reign to vote as he [in this case] sees fit on such an important issue ! And this same party continues to dismiss Republicans as "undemocratic ... " ! )
(MORE LATER).
THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS .
" We declare that political status is ours of right and we declare that from Monday 27th October 1980 a hunger-strike by a number of men representing H-Blocks 3 , 4 and 5 will commence . Our widely-recognised resistance has carried us through four years of immense suffering and it shall carry us through to the bitter climax of death , if necessary . "
No by-line.
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
The above quote announced the decision by Republican blanket-men in the H-Blocks to commence the first of the two major hunger-strikes during 1980 and 1981 . Impassioned messages urging support were smuggled out of Long Kesh from the prisoners - with over 150 of the H-Block men from every Ulster county having connections with GAA clubs it was no surprise that the Association was asked to use its influence at every level to raise the prisoners' five demands . One letter smuggled out put the case in simple terms -
- " We appeal to you in the GAA to act now to avert death in the H-Blocks . We urge you to mobilise to divert the British government from its illogical and wholly insane stance . We hope that our plea will not fall on deaf ears within the GAA . We also hope that the GAA will not allow the barbed wire , the concrete walls and the iron bars of Long Kesh to stifle those cries for justice . "
Individual GAA clubs immediately rallied to the call for support with advertisements being inserted in 'The Irish News' newspaper . The grassroots reaction , in particular from counties like Derry , Tyrone and Antrim , was swift , recognising that the Association was more than simply a sporting body . The occupation of GAA grounds and premises in Crossmaglen and Casement Park , Belfast ; the banning of the carrying of hurling sticks as if they were offensive weapons ; and the day-to-day harassment of GAA members , had all brought a deeper understanding of why the GAA had been formed , and the reality of the consequences of promoting the Association's ideals - those of National freedom and cultural identity - in the bigoted Orange state .
With GAA activists working and co-ordinating support in the North , demonstrations were held at half-time during National League matches , pamphlets were issued to spectators and collections taken up .......
(MORE LATER).
Monday, June 20, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Noel McCabe kept the bag of IRA guns under his bench for a few weeks ; Paul Finnegan came and took them away . A few days later he was back with a request that Noel McCabe " ...do a wee run . " Someone else had let him down ; and , at the weekend he might want McCabe to do another run up the country "...to collect a few lads and take them back to Dundalk . "
Noel McCabe drove Finnegan about three-quarters of a mile up the Carrickmacross Road that day , to an old farmhouse . There was an old man there and he told Finnegan - " There was a few of your lads here earlier this week . " A Ford Cortina drove into the yard and a transaction followed involving guns ; one man from the Cortina wound coloured tape around a rifle - " I'll know my marking , " he told Finnegan .
That gun was passed on to a man driving yet another car , and then Noel McCabe drove Finnegan back to Dundalk ; on the way , Finnegan told McCabe he wanted him to pick up three blokes the following Friday morning , August 10 , and take them to Dundalk - they would'nt be armed , they'd be clean . On the Thursday night , Finnegan would show him where to pick them up . That Thursday , Paul Finnegan went about organising a number of people for the robbery of a post van at Drumree Post Office , to take place about 8am the following morning .
Drumree is a 'speck on the map' about twenty miles from Dublin , about forty-five miles from Dundalk ; the post office is in a lay-by . It is run by Mary Gilsenan and her son Michael - it is not the obvious place for a large haul .
That Thursday , Paul Finnegan went to Drogheda at noon and met Seamus Lynch , a Provo from Kentstown , which is about fifteen miles from Drumree : Finnegan instructed Lynch to be at a field at Rathfeigh , near Drumree , shortly after 8am the following morning , to collect guns and money and store them . Finnegan and Lynch drove to the field so that Finnegan could show Lynch where to pick up the stuff.......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt was " ...beginning to regret the decision to set it up (the 'Housing Executive') at all .. " His political base , which he had assiduously tended since first becoming a Councillor , was being cut from under him .
In lesser 'wigwams' , in the cells of Long Kesh , men wrapped only in blankets had spent the years since 1976 signalling with excrement smeared on the walls that life was unbearable : " I remain convinced to this day that some of the men sentenced were absolutely innocent , " says Michael Canavan (SDLP) . " Confessions had been tortured out of them by the RUC in Castlereagh . There was a definate breakdown in the administration of law and order . That only increased the alienation between the Catholic population and them , and reinforced the support for the Provos . I had difficulty in persuading the SDLP that brutality and corruption was going on .
Reluctance to admit that things were so was reinforced by the knowledge that every time you criticised the RUC you were strengthening the hand of the IRA . I issued a detailed statement one morning , criticising the UDR , and a few hours later a UDR man and his young daughter were blown up in their car . I was physically sick all day but I stood over my statement . "
Gerry Fitt , he says , "...always got things just slightly wrong .. " on the issue of law and order , highlighting the activities of the IRA and the loyalists , and never totally appreciating the more covert activities of the (British) 'security forces' . Paddy Kennedy , erstwhile colleague of Fitt , had a meeting with him in Dublin around that time : " Gerry had raised the wrongful imprisonment of Giuseppe Conlon in Westminster and I mentioned to him the framing of an IRA man well known to us both . Fitt replied - ' I know he is innocent of that particular charge , but he's guilty of plenty of other things ... ' . " Gerry Fitt refused to pursue the matter .
The ethics of handling law and order was something that was to puzzle Gerry Fitt always , and came to the fore in an incident involving the 'Shankill Butchers' .......
(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 .
Significantly , in a 'Panorama' programme screened on BBC 1 television on October 24th - after Robert Lean's retraction - Ian Paisley again appeared to resolutely oppose the use of perjurers : more than most politicians , he , arguably , has a great deal to lose from future loyalist perjurers bringing up parts of his past life !
For loyalists , under greater pressure from the judiciary than for a long time , the use of paid perjurers must be causing a further crisis of identity and resulting in a heavy demoralisation . But for nationalists , existing under a constant regime of repression , the situation is clearer-cut and the option a simple one - resistance .
With scores of nationalists and republicans still imprisoned on the 'word' of paid perjurers , there is certainly no room for complacency despite recent retractions and the ever-present hope of more , but there is now a will and an ability to mobilise on the issue in the nationalist community that was not fully there before .
[END of ' UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY'].
(Tomorrow - 'THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS' : from 1983 ).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Noel McCabe kept the bag of IRA guns under his bench for a few weeks ; Paul Finnegan came and took them away . A few days later he was back with a request that Noel McCabe " ...do a wee run . " Someone else had let him down ; and , at the weekend he might want McCabe to do another run up the country "...to collect a few lads and take them back to Dundalk . "
Noel McCabe drove Finnegan about three-quarters of a mile up the Carrickmacross Road that day , to an old farmhouse . There was an old man there and he told Finnegan - " There was a few of your lads here earlier this week . " A Ford Cortina drove into the yard and a transaction followed involving guns ; one man from the Cortina wound coloured tape around a rifle - " I'll know my marking , " he told Finnegan .
That gun was passed on to a man driving yet another car , and then Noel McCabe drove Finnegan back to Dundalk ; on the way , Finnegan told McCabe he wanted him to pick up three blokes the following Friday morning , August 10 , and take them to Dundalk - they would'nt be armed , they'd be clean . On the Thursday night , Finnegan would show him where to pick them up . That Thursday , Paul Finnegan went about organising a number of people for the robbery of a post van at Drumree Post Office , to take place about 8am the following morning .
Drumree is a 'speck on the map' about twenty miles from Dublin , about forty-five miles from Dundalk ; the post office is in a lay-by . It is run by Mary Gilsenan and her son Michael - it is not the obvious place for a large haul .
That Thursday , Paul Finnegan went to Drogheda at noon and met Seamus Lynch , a Provo from Kentstown , which is about fifteen miles from Drumree : Finnegan instructed Lynch to be at a field at Rathfeigh , near Drumree , shortly after 8am the following morning , to collect guns and money and store them . Finnegan and Lynch drove to the field so that Finnegan could show Lynch where to pick up the stuff.......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt was " ...beginning to regret the decision to set it up (the 'Housing Executive') at all .. " His political base , which he had assiduously tended since first becoming a Councillor , was being cut from under him .
In lesser 'wigwams' , in the cells of Long Kesh , men wrapped only in blankets had spent the years since 1976 signalling with excrement smeared on the walls that life was unbearable : " I remain convinced to this day that some of the men sentenced were absolutely innocent , " says Michael Canavan (SDLP) . " Confessions had been tortured out of them by the RUC in Castlereagh . There was a definate breakdown in the administration of law and order . That only increased the alienation between the Catholic population and them , and reinforced the support for the Provos . I had difficulty in persuading the SDLP that brutality and corruption was going on .
Reluctance to admit that things were so was reinforced by the knowledge that every time you criticised the RUC you were strengthening the hand of the IRA . I issued a detailed statement one morning , criticising the UDR , and a few hours later a UDR man and his young daughter were blown up in their car . I was physically sick all day but I stood over my statement . "
Gerry Fitt , he says , "...always got things just slightly wrong .. " on the issue of law and order , highlighting the activities of the IRA and the loyalists , and never totally appreciating the more covert activities of the (British) 'security forces' . Paddy Kennedy , erstwhile colleague of Fitt , had a meeting with him in Dublin around that time : " Gerry had raised the wrongful imprisonment of Giuseppe Conlon in Westminster and I mentioned to him the framing of an IRA man well known to us both . Fitt replied - ' I know he is innocent of that particular charge , but he's guilty of plenty of other things ... ' . " Gerry Fitt refused to pursue the matter .
The ethics of handling law and order was something that was to puzzle Gerry Fitt always , and came to the fore in an incident involving the 'Shankill Butchers' .......
(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 .
Significantly , in a 'Panorama' programme screened on BBC 1 television on October 24th - after Robert Lean's retraction - Ian Paisley again appeared to resolutely oppose the use of perjurers : more than most politicians , he , arguably , has a great deal to lose from future loyalist perjurers bringing up parts of his past life !
For loyalists , under greater pressure from the judiciary than for a long time , the use of paid perjurers must be causing a further crisis of identity and resulting in a heavy demoralisation . But for nationalists , existing under a constant regime of repression , the situation is clearer-cut and the option a simple one - resistance .
With scores of nationalists and republicans still imprisoned on the 'word' of paid perjurers , there is certainly no room for complacency despite recent retractions and the ever-present hope of more , but there is now a will and an ability to mobilise on the issue in the nationalist community that was not fully there before .
[END of ' UPS AND DOWNS FOR RUC's PERJURER STRATEGY'].
(Tomorrow - 'THE GAA AND THE HUNGER-STRIKERS' : from 1983 ).
Friday, June 17, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Noel McCabe agreed to do a bit of work for the Republican Movement ; he began doing the odd bit of fixing walkie-talkies , radios and battery chargers . Before long McCabe became a kind of Provo 'chauffeur' : he would be asked to pick someone up and drive him to , say , Inniskeen and pick the guy up a couple of hours later and drive him back .
He got petrol money for this ; sometimes Paul Finnegan himself was the passenger . Another of the people he drove for was a Northerner called Frankie ; McCabe used to see Frankie around Dundalk from time to time and he would give him the nod . The man never acknowledged the greeting . The next time McCabe gave Frankie a lift he was warned never to speak to him in the street - McCabe was not to be publicly identified with the Provos , he could then be used safely as a driver or helper .
Around March 1984 , Paul Finnegan began leaving guns with Noel McCabe ; first , a .38 automatic for just one night , then a sawn-off shotgun for a month . McCabe hid the guns under a bench in his shed - he was nervous about this and complained . Finnegan was understanding and took the guns away . He asked if McCabe would do one last run for him , he was stuck and he would'nt ask again . McCabe agreed and gave Finnegan a lift to either Inniskeen or Swords (later he could'nt remember) and picked him up later and brought him back to Dundalk .
A couple of months went by in which McCabe was'nt asked to do anything for the Republican Movement ; then , around June or July , Paul Finnegan arrived with a bag of guns : a sten-gun , two carbines , a sawn-off shotgun , a modern pistol and a rusty old revolver - " Everyone has to play their part . Headquarters know you held guns for us before and they expect you to do so again , and to do your part , " Finnegan told Noel McCabe .
McCabe kept the guns under his bench for a few weeks .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
In 1976 , on the eve of the anniversary of internment , Gerry Fitts' constituents petrol-bombed his home , burst down the door and mobbed up the stairs to his bedroom . Fitt fired a shot over their heads . The experience made him rely more and more on the British Army and the RUC for protection , as the 'mob' returned again and again . His home had to be protected by floodlights , wire netting and a direct two-way radio link to RUC Headquarters .
There was little link with the SDLP , most of whose members were turning , in those wilderness years , to drink or business affairs , or home life : Paddy Devlin , the left-wing voice of the party , turned to trade-union affairs , saying in his resignation statement that the SDLP made not even a pretence of uniting the workers , never mind uniting Ireland . Austin Currie remembers Gerry Fitt turning up at his home in an RUC car , and asking Currie to drive him the rest of the way to his boat moored on the Shannon , where he was going on holiday . The RUC , said Austin Currie , were worried about going over the border . ('1169...' Comment - that never bothered them in later years .... )
Gerry Fitt says Michael Canavan " ...hardly ever turned up at SDLP Executive meetings .. " . Most of these were held in Donegal , west of the Bann , and were described as 'think-tanks' . But there was actually little to turn up for - the only political action , and it was little enough , was at Westminster . In the North , in November 1977 , Gerry Fitt was to exclaim , there was Roy Mason " ...a colonial administrator , always dressed in a safari suit , walking down the main street in Belfast , with the natives holed up in substandard wigwams on the Falls and Shankill reservations .. "
There was'nt even that much the politicians could do about the 'wigwams' : the 'Housing Executive' , established as an independent body because of the way politicians had exercised discrimination when they had control of housing , was "...treating politicians with contempt .. " , Gerry Fitt snarled in 1979 .......
(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 .
While so far the real pressure exerted within the Nationalist community on the perjurer system has been largely 'internal' (perjurers retracting in response to their families' efforts) - since the Stormont administration will only feel pressurised by 'external' political pressure from Nationalists when the campaign achieves its full impetus - there is undoubtedly strong concern among sections of the Loyalist community too , which may eventually cause headaches for the British government .
That concern stems , obviously enough , not from any opposition to the clinging of the Northern judiciary to the coat-tails of Stormont , which after all is unionist policy , but from the increasingly heavy losses which perjurers are inflicting on loyalist paramilitary groups , and the spin-off effect which this undoubtedly has on loyalist political parties , particularly the DUP .
Although the Official Unionist Party has taken a strong line in support of paid perjurers under their 'law and order' spokesperson , Edgar Graham , individual members of the OUP including John Carson have identified themselves with a campaign of opposition . In April of this year (1983) , DUP leader Ian Paisley condemned the use of perjurers as 'undermining the rule of law' and he specifically opposed the granting of immunity to perjurers . Immediately after the informer Robert Lean's 'evidence' began to lead to the arrest of several prominent Republicans , the DUP appeared to modify its stance considerably when leading spokespersons Peter Robinson and Jim Allister - at a press conference on September 13th , from which , strangely , Ian Paisley was absent - supported the use of
uncorroborated evidence and only opposed the granting of total immunity , implying that perjurers should instead be given heavily reduced sentences for their own admitted involvement .......
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Noel McCabe agreed to do a bit of work for the Republican Movement ; he began doing the odd bit of fixing walkie-talkies , radios and battery chargers . Before long McCabe became a kind of Provo 'chauffeur' : he would be asked to pick someone up and drive him to , say , Inniskeen and pick the guy up a couple of hours later and drive him back .
He got petrol money for this ; sometimes Paul Finnegan himself was the passenger . Another of the people he drove for was a Northerner called Frankie ; McCabe used to see Frankie around Dundalk from time to time and he would give him the nod . The man never acknowledged the greeting . The next time McCabe gave Frankie a lift he was warned never to speak to him in the street - McCabe was not to be publicly identified with the Provos , he could then be used safely as a driver or helper .
Around March 1984 , Paul Finnegan began leaving guns with Noel McCabe ; first , a .38 automatic for just one night , then a sawn-off shotgun for a month . McCabe hid the guns under a bench in his shed - he was nervous about this and complained . Finnegan was understanding and took the guns away . He asked if McCabe would do one last run for him , he was stuck and he would'nt ask again . McCabe agreed and gave Finnegan a lift to either Inniskeen or Swords (later he could'nt remember) and picked him up later and brought him back to Dundalk .
A couple of months went by in which McCabe was'nt asked to do anything for the Republican Movement ; then , around June or July , Paul Finnegan arrived with a bag of guns : a sten-gun , two carbines , a sawn-off shotgun , a modern pistol and a rusty old revolver - " Everyone has to play their part . Headquarters know you held guns for us before and they expect you to do so again , and to do your part , " Finnegan told Noel McCabe .
McCabe kept the guns under his bench for a few weeks .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
In 1976 , on the eve of the anniversary of internment , Gerry Fitts' constituents petrol-bombed his home , burst down the door and mobbed up the stairs to his bedroom . Fitt fired a shot over their heads . The experience made him rely more and more on the British Army and the RUC for protection , as the 'mob' returned again and again . His home had to be protected by floodlights , wire netting and a direct two-way radio link to RUC Headquarters .
There was little link with the SDLP , most of whose members were turning , in those wilderness years , to drink or business affairs , or home life : Paddy Devlin , the left-wing voice of the party , turned to trade-union affairs , saying in his resignation statement that the SDLP made not even a pretence of uniting the workers , never mind uniting Ireland . Austin Currie remembers Gerry Fitt turning up at his home in an RUC car , and asking Currie to drive him the rest of the way to his boat moored on the Shannon , where he was going on holiday . The RUC , said Austin Currie , were worried about going over the border . ('1169...' Comment - that never bothered them in later years .... )
Gerry Fitt says Michael Canavan " ...hardly ever turned up at SDLP Executive meetings .. " . Most of these were held in Donegal , west of the Bann , and were described as 'think-tanks' . But there was actually little to turn up for - the only political action , and it was little enough , was at Westminster . In the North , in November 1977 , Gerry Fitt was to exclaim , there was Roy Mason " ...a colonial administrator , always dressed in a safari suit , walking down the main street in Belfast , with the natives holed up in substandard wigwams on the Falls and Shankill reservations .. "
There was'nt even that much the politicians could do about the 'wigwams' : the 'Housing Executive' , established as an independent body because of the way politicians had exercised discrimination when they had control of housing , was "...treating politicians with contempt .. " , Gerry Fitt snarled in 1979 .......
(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 .
While so far the real pressure exerted within the Nationalist community on the perjurer system has been largely 'internal' (perjurers retracting in response to their families' efforts) - since the Stormont administration will only feel pressurised by 'external' political pressure from Nationalists when the campaign achieves its full impetus - there is undoubtedly strong concern among sections of the Loyalist community too , which may eventually cause headaches for the British government .
That concern stems , obviously enough , not from any opposition to the clinging of the Northern judiciary to the coat-tails of Stormont , which after all is unionist policy , but from the increasingly heavy losses which perjurers are inflicting on loyalist paramilitary groups , and the spin-off effect which this undoubtedly has on loyalist political parties , particularly the DUP .
Although the Official Unionist Party has taken a strong line in support of paid perjurers under their 'law and order' spokesperson , Edgar Graham , individual members of the OUP including John Carson have identified themselves with a campaign of opposition . In April of this year (1983) , DUP leader Ian Paisley condemned the use of perjurers as 'undermining the rule of law' and he specifically opposed the granting of immunity to perjurers . Immediately after the informer Robert Lean's 'evidence' began to lead to the arrest of several prominent Republicans , the DUP appeared to modify its stance considerably when leading spokespersons Peter Robinson and Jim Allister - at a press conference on September 13th , from which , strangely , Ian Paisley was absent - supported the use of
uncorroborated evidence and only opposed the granting of total immunity , implying that perjurers should instead be given heavily reduced sentences for their own admitted involvement .......
(MORE LATER).
Thursday, June 16, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .......
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Joe Gargan had a yellow Ford Escort car ; he was a Provo sympathiser , aged 34 , a lorry driver who lived at Kentstown , County Meath . Noel McCabe , aged 44 , from Dundalk , County Louth , was a Provo sympathiser : he was handy with cars and , around July , he began repairs to a car belonging to another Dundalk man - it was a blue Ford Cortina , and when McCabe fixed it he did'nt return it to its owner immediately , but began driving it himself .
A stolen beige Open Ascona , a stolen red Mercedes , Joe Gargan's yellow Escort , Noel McCabe's 'borrowed' blue Cortina : two cars brought within reach , two local cars 'on tap' . Noel McCabe was an alcoholic who was beating his problem ; by August 1984 he was eight months off drink . To fill his time and keep his mind off drink he fixed television sets in a shed at the back of his house in Oliver Plunkett Park , Dundalk , County Louth : his odd-jobs extended to various kinds of electrical work and car repairs .
Some time in 1983 a man arrived at Noel McCabe's house with a TV that needed fixing ; the man was a Northerner , a hardened Provo now living in the South . As legal proceedings may yet ensue against this man we will for the purposes of this narrative call him Paul Finnegan , though that is not his name . McCabe fixed the TV and Finnegan asked him to fix the TV again in February 1984 ; on this occasion McCbe went to Finnegan's house to do the job . The two chatted for a long time about politics , about the Provos .
Finnegan said his family had been harassed by the RUC and the British Army and he was forced to go ' on the run ' and come to live in Dundalk . McCabe expressed sympathy with Finnegan's republican sentiments - the two became friendly and McCabe sometimes dropped into Finnegan's house for tea . Finnegan sometimes dropped around to McCabe's with some little repair job on a car or radio .
Eventually , Finnegan asked Noel McCabe if he would "... do a bit of work for the republican movement ......... "
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt operated almost exclusively from Westminster ; he could have forged links with groups like the Socialist International to which the SDLP was affiliated , but he did'nt . His entire temperament went against formal relationships of any kind - " I hate being in parties , they keep trying to tell you what to do , passing resolutions on every little thing .. "
It was his proud boast that the SDLP never had a branch in his West Belfast constituency ! He was a saloon man , and his saloon was Westminster , and he liked wandering in and out of hotels and bars , seeing people when he came home . Since the fall of the Executive , he spent more and more time in the Europa Hotel in Belfast ; the bars were dangerous places now for him and his very home was unsafe . He was under attack from his own constituents .
When the Executive collapsed they were left with internment , punitive repayment of the rent they had withheld during the years of protest against it , replacement of internment in 1975 by non-jury courts , and British Army camps and RUC stations all over West Belfast . Their sole representative upheld British rule as an alternative , he said , to civil war and they turned on him . ('1169...' Comment - in later years , this was refined to read - " If it was'nt for ye lot taking pot shots at them , the Brits would have gone home years ago .. " . Expect much the same now from Adams and Co. in reference to those they call 'dissidents' . )
In 1976 , on the eve of the anniversary of internment , Gerry Fitts' constituents went looking for him .......
(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 Catholic Church have maintained a low profile on the issue of paid perjurers , with the exception of Dr. Edward Daly , Bishop of Derry , and a handful of priests , who have condemned the use of perjurers . Bishop Cahal Daly , previously so vocal on political issues , has adopted a studious silence .
For his part , Dungannon priest , Fr. Denis Faul , having failed to limit the opposition to perjurers to relatives (whose emotions , his experience during the hunger-strikes leads him to believe , can, at critical points , be exploited against republicans ) has concentrated much of his efforts on vitriolic attacks on Sinn Fein - on one occasion going as far as to allege that Sinn Fein were 'using' the perjurer campaign to finance their involvement in the EEC elections !
Also ranged against the use of perjurers have been the SDLP-controlled Derry Council , the Belfast and District Trades Council and a number of British MP's and British and American legal figures . British Labour MP , Martin Flannery , has said that the use of perjurers is bringing "...the whole of the British system of justice into disrepute . It is the kind of thing that Hitler and company engaged in .. " .
The use of paid perjurers by Westminster was welcomed by some Unionists but condemned by others - sometimes both 'pro' and 'anti' camps were in the same political party .......
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
Joe Gargan had a yellow Ford Escort car ; he was a Provo sympathiser , aged 34 , a lorry driver who lived at Kentstown , County Meath . Noel McCabe , aged 44 , from Dundalk , County Louth , was a Provo sympathiser : he was handy with cars and , around July , he began repairs to a car belonging to another Dundalk man - it was a blue Ford Cortina , and when McCabe fixed it he did'nt return it to its owner immediately , but began driving it himself .
A stolen beige Open Ascona , a stolen red Mercedes , Joe Gargan's yellow Escort , Noel McCabe's 'borrowed' blue Cortina : two cars brought within reach , two local cars 'on tap' . Noel McCabe was an alcoholic who was beating his problem ; by August 1984 he was eight months off drink . To fill his time and keep his mind off drink he fixed television sets in a shed at the back of his house in Oliver Plunkett Park , Dundalk , County Louth : his odd-jobs extended to various kinds of electrical work and car repairs .
Some time in 1983 a man arrived at Noel McCabe's house with a TV that needed fixing ; the man was a Northerner , a hardened Provo now living in the South . As legal proceedings may yet ensue against this man we will for the purposes of this narrative call him Paul Finnegan , though that is not his name . McCabe fixed the TV and Finnegan asked him to fix the TV again in February 1984 ; on this occasion McCbe went to Finnegan's house to do the job . The two chatted for a long time about politics , about the Provos .
Finnegan said his family had been harassed by the RUC and the British Army and he was forced to go ' on the run ' and come to live in Dundalk . McCabe expressed sympathy with Finnegan's republican sentiments - the two became friendly and McCabe sometimes dropped into Finnegan's house for tea . Finnegan sometimes dropped around to McCabe's with some little repair job on a car or radio .
Eventually , Finnegan asked Noel McCabe if he would "... do a bit of work for the republican movement ......... "
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
Gerry Fitt operated almost exclusively from Westminster ; he could have forged links with groups like the Socialist International to which the SDLP was affiliated , but he did'nt . His entire temperament went against formal relationships of any kind - " I hate being in parties , they keep trying to tell you what to do , passing resolutions on every little thing .. "
It was his proud boast that the SDLP never had a branch in his West Belfast constituency ! He was a saloon man , and his saloon was Westminster , and he liked wandering in and out of hotels and bars , seeing people when he came home . Since the fall of the Executive , he spent more and more time in the Europa Hotel in Belfast ; the bars were dangerous places now for him and his very home was unsafe . He was under attack from his own constituents .
When the Executive collapsed they were left with internment , punitive repayment of the rent they had withheld during the years of protest against it , replacement of internment in 1975 by non-jury courts , and British Army camps and RUC stations all over West Belfast . Their sole representative upheld British rule as an alternative , he said , to civil war and they turned on him . ('1169...' Comment - in later years , this was refined to read - " If it was'nt for ye lot taking pot shots at them , the Brits would have gone home years ago .. " . Expect much the same now from Adams and Co. in reference to those they call 'dissidents' . )
In 1976 , on the eve of the anniversary of internment , Gerry Fitts' constituents went looking for him .......
(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 Catholic Church have maintained a low profile on the issue of paid perjurers , with the exception of Dr. Edward Daly , Bishop of Derry , and a handful of priests , who have condemned the use of perjurers . Bishop Cahal Daly , previously so vocal on political issues , has adopted a studious silence .
For his part , Dungannon priest , Fr. Denis Faul , having failed to limit the opposition to perjurers to relatives (whose emotions , his experience during the hunger-strikes leads him to believe , can, at critical points , be exploited against republicans ) has concentrated much of his efforts on vitriolic attacks on Sinn Fein - on one occasion going as far as to allege that Sinn Fein were 'using' the perjurer campaign to finance their involvement in the EEC elections !
Also ranged against the use of perjurers have been the SDLP-controlled Derry Council , the Belfast and District Trades Council and a number of British MP's and British and American legal figures . British Labour MP , Martin Flannery , has said that the use of perjurers is bringing "...the whole of the British system of justice into disrepute . It is the kind of thing that Hitler and company engaged in .. " .
The use of paid perjurers by Westminster was welcomed by some Unionists but condemned by others - sometimes both 'pro' and 'anti' camps were in the same political party .......
(MORE LATER).
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND .
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
John Collins retired from the Garda Siochana (Free State cops) in February 1984 . He lived at Ballybane , County Galway .
Two months later , on April 27 1984 , he had a night out at the golf club in Salthill and emerged at 1.30AM to find his beige Opel Ascona had been stolen from the carpark . He had left a lot of property in the car , including golf clubs , golfing clothes , spectacles and a briefcase . Two days later the briefcase was handed into Coolock Garda Station in Dublin , minus a chequebook , banker's card and documents relating to the Ascona car .
Three months later , on July 27 1984 , John Small of Newcastle , County Down , parked his dark red Mercedes car in an open carpark at Monaghan Street , Newry : when he returned after three hours it was gone . Tommy Eccles , aged 24 , from Muirhevenamore , Dundalk , County Louth , went to Newry on that day . Eccles was a Provo ; he had been instructed to go to Newry and pick up the red Mercedes . He found the car , as per his instructions , parked near the Cupid Nightclub , with the keys in the ignition .
Eccles drove the car down across the border and left it in the care of Paddy Duffy , aged 24 ; he was a landscape gardener and lived in a mobile home in a yard at Dromiskin , a village south of Dundalk . Duffy was a Provo . Around the same time he was also given the Ascona car , and concealed both cars on a farm near Castlebellingham .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The collapsed North of Ireland Assembly was replaced by a six month Convention in 1975 , when the same political factions were elected to a talking shop whose brief was to come up with another power sharing plan or be banished to the wilderness . The Convention could not agree and was abolished : Gerry Fitt was now the only anti-unionist with a parliamentary seat , and he snuggled further into Westminster . Always , when he came home to Belfast , the RUC provided a car and an armed companion-driver ; the two men became good friends . ('1169...' Comment - and that was to be expected : human nature . Today , there are those who describe themselves as 'republicans ' and insist that their 'relationship' with other career politicians in Stormont , Westminster and Leinster House is based on the need to convince same that a United Ireland is on the agenda . Their own supporters appear to believe this , but true Republicans are reminded by history that the 'good' apples do not turn the bad apples ... ).
From 1975 until the 1983 Westminster election , says Michael Canavan (SDLP) - " The SDLP was left with no constitutional place to go . Only a revolutionary party could have continued to operate without status , or Office , or pay ... " . Those were the years when the British government withdrew politial status from the prisoners and sought a military solution to the North ; those were the years when the Provos , through the prisoners , emerged as a political force in the North ; those were the years when the SDLP abandoned the search for an internal solution and said the North could only be solved in an all-Ireland context ('1169...' Comment - that part of "...those years.. " did'nt last long for the SDLP !) ; those were the years when Gerry Fitt , from 1975 until he resigned from the party in November 1979 , and John Hume , Euro MP from June 1979 onwards , were the only SDLP politicians with a seat and a salary .
While John Hume operated from Brussels , Washington and west of the Bann , Gerry Fitt operated almost exclusively from Westminster and his perspective on the North was formed from that distant point .......
(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 .
To date , the response on the perjurer issue from sections of the Catholic establishment has been a muted one , explicable by their obvious ambivalence to a strategy which although seriously eroding the already blackened 'judicial process' is clearly seen to be aimed at undermining the political advance of republicanism - a shared objective , after all , with the Catholic hierarchy and the SDLP .
In response to such a taunt by West Belfast MP Gerry Adams on September 11th 1983 , SDLP spokesperson Seamus Mallon retorted that the use of perjurers was '...law bending .. ' but the thrust of his attack was aimed not at the British but at Sinn Fein and republican resistance .
On September 28th 1983 , however , the SDLP met the 'Relatives for Justice' group and condemned the use of perjurers - though they have maintained a low profile on the issue since then . And what of the Catholic church on the issue ....... ?
(MORE LATER).
On February 10 , 1986 , the courts turned down the appeals of three men sentenced to hang . The men now face , on commutation of sentence by the (Free State) government , 40 years in prison without remission , for their involvement in the Drumree robbery and killing .
By GENE KERRIGAN.
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , March 1986 .
John Collins retired from the Garda Siochana (Free State cops) in February 1984 . He lived at Ballybane , County Galway .
Two months later , on April 27 1984 , he had a night out at the golf club in Salthill and emerged at 1.30AM to find his beige Opel Ascona had been stolen from the carpark . He had left a lot of property in the car , including golf clubs , golfing clothes , spectacles and a briefcase . Two days later the briefcase was handed into Coolock Garda Station in Dublin , minus a chequebook , banker's card and documents relating to the Ascona car .
Three months later , on July 27 1984 , John Small of Newcastle , County Down , parked his dark red Mercedes car in an open carpark at Monaghan Street , Newry : when he returned after three hours it was gone . Tommy Eccles , aged 24 , from Muirhevenamore , Dundalk , County Louth , went to Newry on that day . Eccles was a Provo ; he had been instructed to go to Newry and pick up the red Mercedes . He found the car , as per his instructions , parked near the Cupid Nightclub , with the keys in the ignition .
Eccles drove the car down across the border and left it in the care of Paddy Duffy , aged 24 ; he was a landscape gardener and lived in a mobile home in a yard at Dromiskin , a village south of Dundalk . Duffy was a Provo . Around the same time he was also given the Ascona car , and concealed both cars on a farm near Castlebellingham .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The collapsed North of Ireland Assembly was replaced by a six month Convention in 1975 , when the same political factions were elected to a talking shop whose brief was to come up with another power sharing plan or be banished to the wilderness . The Convention could not agree and was abolished : Gerry Fitt was now the only anti-unionist with a parliamentary seat , and he snuggled further into Westminster . Always , when he came home to Belfast , the RUC provided a car and an armed companion-driver ; the two men became good friends . ('1169...' Comment - and that was to be expected : human nature . Today , there are those who describe themselves as 'republicans ' and insist that their 'relationship' with other career politicians in Stormont , Westminster and Leinster House is based on the need to convince same that a United Ireland is on the agenda . Their own supporters appear to believe this , but true Republicans are reminded by history that the 'good' apples do not turn the bad apples ... ).
From 1975 until the 1983 Westminster election , says Michael Canavan (SDLP) - " The SDLP was left with no constitutional place to go . Only a revolutionary party could have continued to operate without status , or Office , or pay ... " . Those were the years when the British government withdrew politial status from the prisoners and sought a military solution to the North ; those were the years when the Provos , through the prisoners , emerged as a political force in the North ; those were the years when the SDLP abandoned the search for an internal solution and said the North could only be solved in an all-Ireland context ('1169...' Comment - that part of "...those years.. " did'nt last long for the SDLP !) ; those were the years when Gerry Fitt , from 1975 until he resigned from the party in November 1979 , and John Hume , Euro MP from June 1979 onwards , were the only SDLP politicians with a seat and a salary .
While John Hume operated from Brussels , Washington and west of the Bann , Gerry Fitt operated almost exclusively from Westminster and his perspective on the North was formed from that distant point .......
(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 .
To date , the response on the perjurer issue from sections of the Catholic establishment has been a muted one , explicable by their obvious ambivalence to a strategy which although seriously eroding the already blackened 'judicial process' is clearly seen to be aimed at undermining the political advance of republicanism - a shared objective , after all , with the Catholic hierarchy and the SDLP .
In response to such a taunt by West Belfast MP Gerry Adams on September 11th 1983 , SDLP spokesperson Seamus Mallon retorted that the use of perjurers was '...law bending .. ' but the thrust of his attack was aimed not at the British but at Sinn Fein and republican resistance .
On September 28th 1983 , however , the SDLP met the 'Relatives for Justice' group and condemned the use of perjurers - though they have maintained a low profile on the issue since then . And what of the Catholic church on the issue ....... ?
(MORE LATER).
Tuesday, June 14, 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 attention to his various duties and rights under the 1965 Extradition Act was never acknowledged by the Fine Gael Minister for Justice in the Free State , Michael Noonan ; this can be gauged by the reply from his Office to an inquiry about the John O' Reilly extradition case by Brian Lenihan (Fianna Fail) :
: the reply notes that John O' Reilly "...is at present serving a prison sentence in Portlaoise Prison .. " - John O' Reilly has not , of course , been convicted of anything , and is jailed awaiting extradition appeals ; the fact that the Free State Department of Justice could be so ignorant of the facts of the case indicates that the extradition process , despite the succession of embarrassments , is running on automatic .
[END of ' FETCH ! ']
(Tomorrow - 'THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND' , from 1986.)
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The gap between Gerry Fitt's house on the Antrim Road and Stormont , four miles away , was bridged by the RUC which provided him with a car and armed driver ; Paddy Devlin , too , was given an armed escort for travel through loyalist areas on his way to Stormont but he always drove his own car , and was followed by the RUC in theirs .
" I kept my distance from them in all ways , " Devlin said , " once you step into an RUC car you have to surrender a bit of yourself . "
Austin Currie had RUC men living in his garage in Mid-Ulster , but he criticised the force when he thought necessary , leading the ' Police Federation ' at their annual general conference to speak bitterly against him . ('1169 ... ' Comment - at best , on his strongest day , Currie was an 'outlaw pet' . After trying to build a career for himself with the SDLP , he joined the Fine Gael party in the Free State . Enough said . ) The Executive and the Assembly lasted a mere five months ; it was brought down by the Protestant workforce who held key positions in energy , transport and engineering , and who paralysed the North of Ireland by withdrawing their labour in unofficial action . Frantic calls to Westminster to order the British Army to step in yielded only the sour televised response from London that Northerners were "spongers" !
Gerry Fitt stated - " The (British) Labour Government were afraid to shoot the Prods , which is what it would have amounted to . They told me that if they established the precedent of using the British Army against workers , they'd be handing the Tories a stick to break the trade unions with next time the Tories got in . Edward Heath was just waiting to get back at the miners . "
(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 judges in the North of Ireland were defending the use of informers to obtain convictions at the same time as that perjurer system had started to come under attack from a variety of directions , while among the Nationalist community itself - buoyed by the retractions and less open than it initially was to demoralisation over the issue (since it has seen the IRA's continued ability to inflict losses on the British) - there have been the unmistakeable signs of a 'fight back' .
The first clear example of this was the mass rally at Beechmount Avenue in West Belfast on September 11 , 1983 , which announced the holding of an open conference in Dungannon on October 2nd 1983 to establish a broad-based committee on the non-exclusive lines of the National H-Block/Armagh Committee established during the hunger-strikes of 1981 . Up until that point public protest action on the perjurer issue had mainly been confined to small and isolated groups , such as Relatives For Justice and Campaign Against The Show Trials (CAST) , which although active had drawn support primarily from relatives of the victims - in much the same way as the Relatives Action Committee had campaigned between 1976-79 on the H-Blocks .
The Dungannon conference announced the setting up of a new 'umbrella' organisation , the 'Stop the Show Trials Campaign ' , calling for an end to the use of perjurers , an end to show trials and the release of all the (sentenced and remanded) victims of perjurers . It voted to mount a campaign of political opposition to the perjurer system , at the same time embracing those sections of the community whose opposition to the use of perjurers is based on humanitarian or civil liberties motives and who endorse the campaign's central demands .
It is inevitable that the campaign structure , and mobilisations , will focus heavily on the North , though it is envisaged that support groups will be established in the 26 Counties and abroad . However , not all Irish Nationalists were opposed to the perjurer system .......
(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 attention to his various duties and rights under the 1965 Extradition Act was never acknowledged by the Fine Gael Minister for Justice in the Free State , Michael Noonan ; this can be gauged by the reply from his Office to an inquiry about the John O' Reilly extradition case by Brian Lenihan (Fianna Fail) :
: the reply notes that John O' Reilly "...is at present serving a prison sentence in Portlaoise Prison .. " - John O' Reilly has not , of course , been convicted of anything , and is jailed awaiting extradition appeals ; the fact that the Free State Department of Justice could be so ignorant of the facts of the case indicates that the extradition process , despite the succession of embarrassments , is running on automatic .
[END of ' FETCH ! ']
(Tomorrow - 'THE DEATH OF FRANK HAND' , from 1986.)
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
The gap between Gerry Fitt's house on the Antrim Road and Stormont , four miles away , was bridged by the RUC which provided him with a car and armed driver ; Paddy Devlin , too , was given an armed escort for travel through loyalist areas on his way to Stormont but he always drove his own car , and was followed by the RUC in theirs .
" I kept my distance from them in all ways , " Devlin said , " once you step into an RUC car you have to surrender a bit of yourself . "
Austin Currie had RUC men living in his garage in Mid-Ulster , but he criticised the force when he thought necessary , leading the ' Police Federation ' at their annual general conference to speak bitterly against him . ('1169 ... ' Comment - at best , on his strongest day , Currie was an 'outlaw pet' . After trying to build a career for himself with the SDLP , he joined the Fine Gael party in the Free State . Enough said . ) The Executive and the Assembly lasted a mere five months ; it was brought down by the Protestant workforce who held key positions in energy , transport and engineering , and who paralysed the North of Ireland by withdrawing their labour in unofficial action . Frantic calls to Westminster to order the British Army to step in yielded only the sour televised response from London that Northerners were "spongers" !
Gerry Fitt stated - " The (British) Labour Government were afraid to shoot the Prods , which is what it would have amounted to . They told me that if they established the precedent of using the British Army against workers , they'd be handing the Tories a stick to break the trade unions with next time the Tories got in . Edward Heath was just waiting to get back at the miners . "
(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 judges in the North of Ireland were defending the use of informers to obtain convictions at the same time as that perjurer system had started to come under attack from a variety of directions , while among the Nationalist community itself - buoyed by the retractions and less open than it initially was to demoralisation over the issue (since it has seen the IRA's continued ability to inflict losses on the British) - there have been the unmistakeable signs of a 'fight back' .
The first clear example of this was the mass rally at Beechmount Avenue in West Belfast on September 11 , 1983 , which announced the holding of an open conference in Dungannon on October 2nd 1983 to establish a broad-based committee on the non-exclusive lines of the National H-Block/Armagh Committee established during the hunger-strikes of 1981 . Up until that point public protest action on the perjurer issue had mainly been confined to small and isolated groups , such as Relatives For Justice and Campaign Against The Show Trials (CAST) , which although active had drawn support primarily from relatives of the victims - in much the same way as the Relatives Action Committee had campaigned between 1976-79 on the H-Blocks .
The Dungannon conference announced the setting up of a new 'umbrella' organisation , the 'Stop the Show Trials Campaign ' , calling for an end to the use of perjurers , an end to show trials and the release of all the (sentenced and remanded) victims of perjurers . It voted to mount a campaign of political opposition to the perjurer system , at the same time embracing those sections of the community whose opposition to the use of perjurers is based on humanitarian or civil liberties motives and who endorse the campaign's central demands .
It is inevitable that the campaign structure , and mobilisations , will focus heavily on the North , though it is envisaged that support groups will be established in the 26 Counties and abroad . However , not all Irish Nationalists were opposed to the perjurer system .......
(MORE LATER).
Monday, June 13, 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 .
Normal standards of judicial practice have been corrupted in the North of Ireland by the power struggle between the various forces ; the Southern Supreme Court has been used in a deliberate and cynical way by the Northern authoroities , being drawn into the process .
The (FS) Minister for Justice , Michael Noonan , has various duties and rights under the 1965 Extradition Act : being aware of the manner in which the (FS) Supreme Court decision on extradition has been abused he could demand sufficient information (from the British) to ensure that the Court is not being further abused .
('1169...' Comment - Michael Noonan was a member of Fine Gael at that time ; that party was then , and is now , not only anti-Republican but is in fact pro-British . The very idea that they would query Westminster on extradition details or anything else , for that matter , is laughable. )
Under various sections , including Section 50 , Noonan has powers to vary the application of the Extradition Act in order to ensure the integrity of the judicial process ; in the John O' Reilly case , Michael Noonan has waived such rights , the courts are to be presented with the bare warrant which obscures the reality of the process which produced it .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
A 'power-sharing Executive' was formed in the North of Ireland on January 1 , 1974 ; but the British Government this time kept control of the British Army and the RUC . British Prime Minister Edward Heath , however , lost Office that January (1974) , brought down by a miner's strike which resulted in the return of a Labour government with a tiny majority of three .
Bernadette Devlin too bowed out , as the SDLP split the mid-Ulster vote . Gerry Fitt , Deputy Chief Executive under Brian Faulkner , had no specific portfolio as did John Hume in Commerce or Austin Currie in Housing . SDLP sources said at the time that he had not the intellectual capacity or discipline to handle a department , but Ben Caraher , Policy Adviser to the SDLP , captured the raison d'etre of the man perhaps more accurately .
Gerry Fitt told Ben Caraher then that he hated not being able to represent his constituents properly , in his capacity as 'dole lawyer' , arguing at tribunals on their behalf against the government of the day . He did , however , manage to civilise the austere house on the hill , persuading teetotaller Brian Faulkner to install a drinks cupboard and ignoring Faulkner's ordinance against smoking during Executive business sessions .
Gerry Fitt's rough charm , cigarette in one hand , glass in the other , helped enormously in bridging the gap between men separated by centuries of cultural , religious and political tradition ....... ('1169...' Comment - " bridging the gap " may very well be a 'feel good' thing to do , but it is more important , to Irish Republicans anyway , to seek to remove that gap : and that will only be done when Westminster's claim of jurisdiction over our six north-eastern counties is removed .)
(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 British Attorney-General , Sir Michael Havers , in a statement obviously timed to coincide with British Chief Justice Lowry's comments in the wake of the Robert Lean/Patrick McGurk affair , also defended the 'independence' of the judiciary - but added , in response to loyalist criticisms of the system , that in future all "...financial arrangements (made with) accomplice witnesses .. " would be disclosed to defence counsels .
The utter worthlessness of this 'concession' lies of course in the fact that the RUC deny , and will continue to deny , that cash bribes - such as Edward Carmichael's offer from the Brits of £300,000 - are made to perjurers in the first place . Havers' 'sincerity' should be judged in the light of his flagrant dishonesty in saying that the practice surrounding the use of "...accomplice witnesses .. " was identical in England , Scotland and Wales with its use in the North of Ireland !
The Lowry verdict in the McGrady trial was a crucial one for the future of the perjurer strategy ; although the principle of accepting uncorroborated perjurer evidence had earlier been accepted by the judiciary in the UVF Joe Bennett trial which ended on April 11th this year (1983) with convictions for 14 of the 16 accused , and in the Christopher Black trial in which Judge Basil Kelly convicted 35 of the 38 defendants on August 5th , both judges in these cases had gone to considerable lengths to emphasise the 'credibility' of informers Bennett and Black and the general consistency , "... in all important respects .. " , of their testimony .
While this was incredible enough , the fact that Lowry convicted on McGrady's 'evidence' , which was substantially bizarre , contradictory and unsatisfactory , is an indication that the judiciary in the North of Ireland has fallen completely into line , contrary to Lowry's denial , with the political objective of securing convictions , and has cynically redefined even the previously low standards regarding acceptable evidence .......
(MORE LATER).
Fianna and Members of RSF Attacked After Frank Gartland Funeral .
Posted on the Irish Republican Bulletin Board by P.R.O. Na Fianna Éireann .
This is a shocking story of how the Free State 'authorities' will sanction , approve and encourage their paid thugs to intimidate Irish Republicans : doors kicked-in , handguns put to peoples faces , and a house practically destroyed . This happened in Dublin on the day before yesterday - Saturday 11th June 2005 .
Click on the above link to the 'Irish Republican Bulletin Board' to read more and to view the pictures of the aftermath . The Free State Gardai have already been exposed for being corrupt re their carry-on in Donegal (just the tip of the iceberg) ; are they now attempting to further 'bully' those who would expose them in the future ie "..this can just as easily happen to you too .. " ?
Please follow the link . Thanks , Sharon.
( Kevin , from Canada : thank you for the message , the kind words , and the link : we really do appreciate it - thanks again. Sharon. )
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 .
Normal standards of judicial practice have been corrupted in the North of Ireland by the power struggle between the various forces ; the Southern Supreme Court has been used in a deliberate and cynical way by the Northern authoroities , being drawn into the process .
The (FS) Minister for Justice , Michael Noonan , has various duties and rights under the 1965 Extradition Act : being aware of the manner in which the (FS) Supreme Court decision on extradition has been abused he could demand sufficient information (from the British) to ensure that the Court is not being further abused .
('1169...' Comment - Michael Noonan was a member of Fine Gael at that time ; that party was then , and is now , not only anti-Republican but is in fact pro-British . The very idea that they would query Westminster on extradition details or anything else , for that matter , is laughable. )
Under various sections , including Section 50 , Noonan has powers to vary the application of the Extradition Act in order to ensure the integrity of the judicial process ; in the John O' Reilly case , Michael Noonan has waived such rights , the courts are to be presented with the bare warrant which obscures the reality of the process which produced it .......
(MORE LATER).
TO WESTMINSTER AND BACK .......
The Life And Times Of Gerry Fitt.
By Nell McCafferty .
First published in ' MAGILL' magazine , July 1983 .
A 'power-sharing Executive' was formed in the North of Ireland on January 1 , 1974 ; but the British Government this time kept control of the British Army and the RUC . British Prime Minister Edward Heath , however , lost Office that January (1974) , brought down by a miner's strike which resulted in the return of a Labour government with a tiny majority of three .
Bernadette Devlin too bowed out , as the SDLP split the mid-Ulster vote . Gerry Fitt , Deputy Chief Executive under Brian Faulkner , had no specific portfolio as did John Hume in Commerce or Austin Currie in Housing . SDLP sources said at the time that he had not the intellectual capacity or discipline to handle a department , but Ben Caraher , Policy Adviser to the SDLP , captured the raison d'etre of the man perhaps more accurately .
Gerry Fitt told Ben Caraher then that he hated not being able to represent his constituents properly , in his capacity as 'dole lawyer' , arguing at tribunals on their behalf against the government of the day . He did , however , manage to civilise the austere house on the hill , persuading teetotaller Brian Faulkner to install a drinks cupboard and ignoring Faulkner's ordinance against smoking during Executive business sessions .
Gerry Fitt's rough charm , cigarette in one hand , glass in the other , helped enormously in bridging the gap between men separated by centuries of cultural , religious and political tradition ....... ('1169...' Comment - " bridging the gap " may very well be a 'feel good' thing to do , but it is more important , to Irish Republicans anyway , to seek to remove that gap : and that will only be done when Westminster's claim of jurisdiction over our six north-eastern counties is removed .)
(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 British Attorney-General , Sir Michael Havers , in a statement obviously timed to coincide with British Chief Justice Lowry's comments in the wake of the Robert Lean/Patrick McGurk affair , also defended the 'independence' of the judiciary - but added , in response to loyalist criticisms of the system , that in future all "...financial arrangements (made with) accomplice witnesses .. " would be disclosed to defence counsels .
The utter worthlessness of this 'concession' lies of course in the fact that the RUC deny , and will continue to deny , that cash bribes - such as Edward Carmichael's offer from the Brits of £300,000 - are made to perjurers in the first place . Havers' 'sincerity' should be judged in the light of his flagrant dishonesty in saying that the practice surrounding the use of "...accomplice witnesses .. " was identical in England , Scotland and Wales with its use in the North of Ireland !
The Lowry verdict in the McGrady trial was a crucial one for the future of the perjurer strategy ; although the principle of accepting uncorroborated perjurer evidence had earlier been accepted by the judiciary in the UVF Joe Bennett trial which ended on April 11th this year (1983) with convictions for 14 of the 16 accused , and in the Christopher Black trial in which Judge Basil Kelly convicted 35 of the 38 defendants on August 5th , both judges in these cases had gone to considerable lengths to emphasise the 'credibility' of informers Bennett and Black and the general consistency , "... in all important respects .. " , of their testimony .
While this was incredible enough , the fact that Lowry convicted on McGrady's 'evidence' , which was substantially bizarre , contradictory and unsatisfactory , is an indication that the judiciary in the North of Ireland has fallen completely into line , contrary to Lowry's denial , with the political objective of securing convictions , and has cynically redefined even the previously low standards regarding acceptable evidence .......
(MORE LATER).
Fianna and Members of RSF Attacked After Frank Gartland Funeral .
Posted on the Irish Republican Bulletin Board by P.R.O. Na Fianna Éireann .
This is a shocking story of how the Free State 'authorities' will sanction , approve and encourage their paid thugs to intimidate Irish Republicans : doors kicked-in , handguns put to peoples faces , and a house practically destroyed . This happened in Dublin on the day before yesterday - Saturday 11th June 2005 .
Click on the above link to the 'Irish Republican Bulletin Board' to read more and to view the pictures of the aftermath . The Free State Gardai have already been exposed for being corrupt re their carry-on in Donegal (just the tip of the iceberg) ; are they now attempting to further 'bully' those who would expose them in the future ie "..this can just as easily happen to you too .. " ?
Please follow the link . Thanks , Sharon.
( Kevin , from Canada : thank you for the message , the kind words , and the link : we really do appreciate it - thanks again. Sharon. )
Friday, June 10, 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 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).
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).
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