You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘IRA’ tag.
A debate over 90-year-old Irish killings illuminates historians’ conflicting roles. Matthew Reisz reports
By Matthew Reisz
Times Higher Education
24 May 2012
Lining up for battle: Irish Free State soldiers on parade, c.1922. Historians are divided on whether the war originated in sectarian hatred or political dispute
Over the course of three nights in late April 1922 in the west of County Cork, 18 people – all but one of them Protestant – were killed.
This bloody episode, known as the Bandon Valley Massacre, is notable in recent British and Irish history for the sheer number of individuals slaughtered from a particular religious minority.
It is now the focus of controversy in an academic dispute that raises questions about the differing roles of the research historian and the public historian driven by wider, political, aims.
The massacre featured prominently in a 1998 book by the late Canadian historian Peter Hart, The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923.
But John Regan, a lecturer in history at the University of Dundee, now argues that Hart manipulated the historical evidence.
According to Regan, this manipulation fitted the massacre within a wider narrative espoused by Hart and other influential historians, a narrative that presents the violence of Irish history as stemming from ancient sectarian hatreds, and ignores structural factors in the creation of the IRA such as partition.
Hart, who died in 2010, originally won widespread acclaim for his powerful revisionist account of early Irish republican history. Yet it has also had its share of detractors. Times Higher Education reported how, at a 2008 conference at Queen’s University Belfast attended by Hart, critics issued a pamphlet entitled Troubled History: A 10th anniversary critique of Peter Hart’s The IRA and its Enemies.
A key plank in Hart’s revisionist argument was the Kilmichael ambush of 1920, where an IRA brigade led by Tom Barry killed 17 former British soldiers – although, he later claimed, only after the British had pretended to surrender and then shot three IRA men dead. Hart, who once described Barry as “little more than a serial killer”, denied that this extenuating “false surrender” had taken place.
Niall Meehan, head of the faculty of journalism and media communications at Griffith College Dublin, and the other authors of the pamphlet challenged Hart’s account, which relied on anonymous interviews with veterans of the ambush. Not only was “academic research without verifiable sources” questionable in itself, the critics argued, but all the relevant people had died or become incapacitated before the interviews were said to have taken place.
This may sound like a dispute about fairly minor details of motivation and methodology, of interest only to specialist historians. Yet both sides were convinced that far more was at stake.
Meehan told THE at the time that “Hart’s conclusions were welcomed [for political reasons] to the extent that flaws in the research were overlooked”, while Hart argued that his critics had “completely failed to engage with the book’s larger arguments about the nature of the IRA and the Irish Revolution”. The dispute has now been renewed, with fresh questions being raised over Hart’s research.
Ends and means
For Regan, who recently critiqued Hart’s work in the magazine History Ireland, there is a fundamental distinction between the genuine research historian and the “public historian” motivated by extraneous goals, however admirable, such as nation-building or defeating terrorism.
Regan writes that the tension between these two roles came to a head during the period of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland lasting from roughly 1969 to 1997. Some intellectuals, he says, declared that “overemphasising the achievements of revolutionary republicanism [in roughly the period covered by Hart's book] nourished the resurgent IRA…if the ‘wrong’ history was the active ingredient causing the ‘Troubles’, some argued, the ‘right’ history might help them end or stop them spreading…In wartime, it was reasoned, liberal-academic niceties had to be sacrificed to counterterrorism.”
Although Regan acknowledges that Irish historians were “pursu[ing] a noble objective” in “taking the offensive against the IRA”, it was “one far outside their discipline” and effectively allowed “the Provisionals [to become] the organising principle around which a pseudo-intellectual culture was hastily erected”.
In an atmosphere of “moral panic” which long “maimed Irish intellectual life”, historians risked accusations of being terrorist fellow-travellers or ultranationalists, Regan says. Hart’s work raised important issues about “the substance and credibility of research produced by the Irish historical profession”, he argues.
Although Regan calls The IRA and its Enemies “a page-turner” and “an extraordinarily skilled and crafted piece of writing”, he says in an interview with THE: “It’s not historical. It’s propagandist writing of a very subtle kind, which cannot be plausibly explained as a series of errors or omissions, a creation of a past suited to present needs.”
The key chapter of Hart’s work, which Regan subjected to searching analysis in the peer-reviewed journal History, concerns the Bandon Valley Massacre. Hart gave this chapter the title “Taking it out on the Protestants” and boldly states: “These men were shot because they were Protestants.” This explicitly rules out arguments that the motivation went beyond “naked sectarianism” to vengeance on those who had acted as informers or were involved in anti-IRA organisations.
There were clear reasons why Hart’s interpretation might have been well received at the time it was published, according to Regan. During the Troubles, he explains, “there was a tendency to talk about the violence as tribal, as motivated by deep atavistic religious hatreds, and an unwillingness to identify partition and structural issues as factors in the creation of the IRA [in the early 20th century]. Well-known writers such as Conor Cruise O’Brien and Roy Foster wanted to close down that debate and explain the violence solely in terms of ancient hatred.”
Omissions speak volumes
Regan believes he has found a smoking gun to back up his argument.
He has written in Irish Historical Studies about the way that partisan “public historians” reveal their biases through the elision of important evidence. Such elision is often difficult to spot, given that no one can “have read everything or…included everything”.
Regan says: “Elision can be accidental or reflect a conscious or even a subconscious response to historical information, but where patterns of omission occur, and are repeated, explanations not relying wholly on chance must be sought.”
Although he points to a number of anomalies, Regan flags up one particularly damning example of “elision” in The IRA and its Enemies. Arguing that the Protestants killed around Bandon could not have been informers, Hart cites a secret report of the British intelligence services from 1922 claiming that “in the South [of Ireland] the Protestants and those who supported the government rarely gave much information because, except by chance, they did not have it to give”.
This would have offered strong support to his case if the following sentences of the report – which Hart must have read but did not quote – had not continued: “An exception to this rule was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information … it proved almost impossible to protect those brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss.” By including the generalisation and eliding the much more rele-vant caveat, Regan argues, Hart revealed that he had an axe to grind.
None of this, as Regan admits, proves that Hart was definitely wrong. “I believe the evidence is contradictory, whereas Peter produces an unambiguous account of sectarian violence which is unsound, ahistorical and unethical.”
Not surprisingly, Regan has his own challengers. Responding to his article in History Ireland, David Fitzpatrick, professor of modern history at Trinity College, Dublin and Hart’s original PhD supervisor – argued in a letter to the journal that: “Regan neglects the complexity of Hart’s argument in his eagerness to denounce this or that pithy phrase…Nowhere did Hart claim that most republican violence was directed against Protestants, that sectarianism was the dominant strand in republican mentality or that other groups identified as suspect ‘outsiders’…fared any better.” Researchers such as Hart and himself, he added, were not “paradigm-primed political pawns or plotters but ‘revisionists’ in the benign sense of that much-abused term”.
On the basis of some technical arguments, Regan believes he has proved Hart guilty of too categorical an interpretation of the motives of the (unknown) people who carried out this savage attack 90 years ago. Yet what sounds like a rather rarefied academic controversy also has far wider significance, exposing tangled questions of Irish identity, politics and responses to communal violence.
matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com
Derry Journal
15 May 2012
The death of IRA volunteers in the early 1970s “republicanised Derry,” according to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
Mr McGuinness made the remark at a commemoration held in the city on Sunday evening to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of IRA volunteer John Starrs.
The 19 year-old was shot dead by British soldiers on an IRA operation in Chamberlain Street on May 13 1972.
Despite heavy rain, a crowd of more than 300 republicans gathered at the Bogside and Brandywell republican monument for Sunday night’s commemoration. Members of the Starrs family were also in attendance.
Former members of the 19 year-old’s IRA unit, including well known Derry republican Gerry Doherty, who was also wounded during the incident in May 1972, made a presentation to the Starrs family.
Mr McGuinness was the main speaker at the commemoration and described Mr Starrs as “the bravest of the brave.”
He said that the events of Bloody Sunday had driven the Brandywell teenager towards the IRA. “When that happened John Starrs was in the army in the South. He could have easily lived his life comfortably and went on to do many things in his life but he was not prepared to do that. He was prepared to give up all the opportunities that would have been presented to him. He came back to his own city. He came back to the Brandywell and joined the 1st battalion of the Derry brigade of Oglaigh na h’Eireann,” he said.
Mr McGuinness said the military training of John Starrs was a boost to the IRA at that time.
“It was not an experienced army, nothing could be further from the truth. We were all young people who had taken enough and decided we had the right to stand against the forces of occupation and the right to fight back.
“For John Starrs to come back an experienced soldier was a major boost to the IRA in this city. He was someone who was held in high esteem,” he said.
Mr McGuinness said the killing of IRA members like John Starrs changed opinion in Derry. “A city that was Nationalist and Catholic, over the course of the years by dint of the sacrifices made by people like John Starrs and the Derry brigade of Oglaigh na h’Eireann, became republicanised in a way it was never republicanised in the past,” he said.
The Deputy First Minister also paid tribute to the late Rosie Carlin from Creggan who died last week and was buried on Sunday. Mr McGuinness described her as “a lifelong supporter of the IRA, Sinn Fein and all things republican.”
News Letter
13 May 2012
THE south Armagh informer who told the RUC that Garda Sergeant Owen Corrigan was passing information to the IRA was later tortured and murdered by the republican terror outfit.
Despite the PSNI slamming the identification of police sources in the tribunal, Warrenpoint businessman John McAnulty was named as the informer who told the RUC that he had heard Mr Corrigan was passing information to the IRA.
That intelligence was recorded in an RUC Special Branch document called an SB50. This particular SB50 is one of the core pieces of intelligence in the Smithwick Tribunal that is probing claims of collusion between the Garda and IRA.
It is looking at claims that members of the Garda passed information to the IRA in relation to the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan on March 20, 1989. They were killed in an IRA ambush minutes after leaving a meeting at Dundalk Garda Station.
Retired Garda sergeants Owen Corrigan, Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey have been named by the tribunal. All three deny the allegation they colluded with the IRA.
Yesterday the former RUC Special Branch detective who recorded the intelligence gave evidence to the tribunal anonymously as witness Z. He gave evidence by video link from Northern Ireland to the hearing room in Dublin and sat with his back to the camera as he spoke.
Witness Z had been a constable for RUC Special Branch in Newry in 1985. He told the tribunal that in June of that year he had a face-to-face meeting with Mr McAnulty who told him that Mr Corrigan had been passing information to the boys, referring to the IRA.
The SB50 on which witness Z recorded this information was shown to the tribunal. Parts of it, including the rating of how reliable it was, have been redacted.
Witness Z said Mr McAnulty was credible. He was not paid for information although he occasionally received small sums for expenses.
Mr McAnulty was a grain importer, and according to witness Z he was involved in smuggling.
He was not a member of the IRA, but witness Z told the tribunal that he had contact with members of the Provisional IRA at varying degrees and levels within the south Armagh area.
The tribunal heard that Mr McAnulty had been a casual police informer for 17 years.
Mr McAnulty was abducted by the IRA on July 17, 1989 from a pub in the Republic. His body turned up the following day showing evidence of torture at Culloville in south Armagh.
The IRA claimed the shooting and alleged that Mr McAnulty had been passing information to police which had led to the arrest of Raymond McCreesh, who would later die on hunger strike in the Maze prison.
It was reported at the time that Mr McAnulty’s details were found by notes stolen from Mr Buchanan’s car following the murders of the two RUC men four months earlier.
The tribunal also heard that Mr Corrigan had been noted as missing from work without an explanation on the same evening that Mr McAnulty was kidnapped.
No evidence has ever been presented that Mr Corrigan was in any way involved with the kidnapping of Mr McAnulty.
Witness Z also claimed that Mr Corrigan was well known among the Newry Special Branch at the time as someone to be avoided when sensitive information was being shared.
He also said he was present in Dundalk Garda Station on at least one occasion at a meeting with Garda inspector Dan Prenty when Mr Corrigan walked into the room. He said Mr Prenty immediately signalled for him to stop talking.
During cross examination of witness Z, counsel for Mr Corrigan, Jim O’Callaghan, claimed that his solicitor had discovered the reliability rating of the SB50 was C6, which would not be a high rating in terms of reliability.
Mr Corrigan has consistently denied collusion and has defended his good name previously in libel proceedings.
Witness Z agreed with counsel for the tribunal that the intelligence from Mr McAnulty was hearsay. Witness Z said he had not been keen to give evidence to the tribunal but said he had in the end for the sake of justice.
“I have been trying to forget these things for the last 11 years. I didn’t really want to come here but I came here for the sake of justice and to get it out of my system once and for all,” he told the tribunal.
Judge Peter Smithwick paid tribute to the witness as a “courageous man” and said his evidence had been useful and that he was “deeply grateful for it”.
Mr Corrigan had been due to give evidence to the tribunal for the second time next Tuesday, but the court was told Mr Corrigan was unwell.
The tribunal is due to sit again on Tuesday.
News Letter
14 May 2012
TWO senior Ulster Unionists have renewed their criticism of Taoiseach Enda Kenny for his “continued procrastination” in meeting IRA victims.
Former UUP leader Tom Elliott and the party’s Executive minister, Danny Kennedy, challenged the Irish premier to meet Ulster victims of the Troubles.
In recent months unionists have become increasingly vocal about the Republic’s role in the Troubles and accused Dublin of double standards in calling for an inquiry into the death of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane while refusing to meet victims.
Mr Kennedy said: “It is now almost one year since I first sought a meeting on behalf of the Kingsmills and other victims with Mr Kenny. I was assured at that time that he would participate in such a meeting.
“Colleagues and I have made several further queries with the Irish Government officials, the Tánaiste and directly to the Taoiseach for such a meeting. While we are assured every time that this will happen, Mr Kenny has failed to honour his commitment.”
Mr Elliott said: “It appears that Mr Kenny is prepared to go to any lengths to support the Finucane family.
“However, when it comes to other victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland like Kingsmills, Enniskillen and Omagh all he gives is hallow commitments and promises that he doesn’t honour.”
By Sarah O’Connor
Reuters
Fri May 11, 2012
DUBLIN (Reuters) – The only person jailed in connection with a 26.5-million-pound robbery that almost derailed the Northern Ireland peace process was freed on Friday after an appeals court quashed his 10 convictions.
Financial adviser Ted Cunningham, 63, had been sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2009 after a court found him guilty of money laundering involving more than 3 million pounds stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004, one of the biggest bank raids in British history.
Police and some politicians have said they believe Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas were behind the crime, which took place at a sensitive time in talks between the British province’s feuding politicians to end 30 years of fighting between Irish nationalists and pro-British loyalist gunmen.
The IRA, which earlier that year had pledged to disarm and pursue a united Ireland through peaceful means, has denied involvement.
Ireland’s Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Cunningham’s convictions, ruling the warrant obtained to search his home when a sum of 2.4 million pounds was allegedly found was not valid.
“I’m very, very happy,” Cunningham, who can be retried on nine of the charges relating to smaller sums of money, told reporters outside the court.
Predominantly pro-Republic and opposing pro-British Unionist politicians set aside enough of their differences in 2007 to form a power-sharing executive in which they jointly run Northern Ireland’s day-to-day affairs, boosting a 1998 peace agreement that largely has ended decades of violence.
Friday’s decision was the first quashing of a conviction following a Supreme Court ruling in February declaring that any search carried out in a person’s home pursuant to a warrant not issued by an independent person was unconstitutional.
(Editing by Padraic Halpin and Michael Roddy)
By Ed Curran
Belfast Telegraph
8 May 2012
In the spotlight: Martin McGuinness, challenged by an IRA victim’s son during the Irish presidential election
Transparency and openness. So much in public life has revolved around these two words in the past week – from the phone-hacking scandal in Rupert Murdoch’s empire to Cardinal Sean Brady’s failings over child sex-abuse.
In the midst of all this headline-grabbing controversy, one other public figure closer to home has withstood another wave of claims about his past.
The deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, dismissed evidence given to the Smithwick Tribunal as fantasy. He said he totally rejected claims that he was the IRA’s northern officer commanding who approved the use of ‘human bombs’ and other acts of terrorism.
Mr McGuinness has been in outspoken form of late. He told a conference in London last week that the Good Friday Agreement signalled the end of the Union.
He has called for the closure of the Northern Ireland Office and says a Secretary of State is needed no longer. He reveals that Ian Paisley said to him at their first meeting: “Martin, we can rule ourselves … we don’t need these direct rule ministers coming over here and telling us what to do.”
However, whatever the future of the Union or the Northern Ireland Office, it is the questions about the deputy First Minister’s past which refuse to go away. The evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal has resurrected the spectre of Mr McGuinness in the IRA.
A year ago, similar allegations surfaced during the Irish presidential election, with victims of the IRA confronting Mr McGuinness on the streets of the south. Even the interrogatory powers of the Republic’s best journalists and interviewers failed to cast any more light on his IRA background.
It is a measure of the extent to which the community wants to preserve peace and political stability that the dismissive comments made by Mr McGuinness about the Union and with regard to his IRA involvement have not led to any serious fracture in relations in the First and deputy First Minister’s office.
Peter Robinson says the Stormont coalition will remain intact. It would only be threatened if firm police evidence of involvement in terrorism led to charges in accordance with the due process of the law.
In many minds – not least the IRA’s victims – unease and disquiet will probably never abate. More likely than not, Mr McGuinness may live out his life without the full facts of his militant years ever emerging.
When Peter Robinson says it up to people to come forward with evidence, there appears little, or no, chance of that happening.
Martin McGuinness has made an impressive mark as deputy First Minister. He has shown courage in standing up against dissident violence and he has positively and enthusiastically promoted Northern Ireland at home and abroad.
However, as Rupert Murdoch and Cardinal Brady have found to their cost in the past week, openness and transparency are essential requirements of public life today.
Compared to MPs at Westminster, who cheated on their expenses, or ministers in the Irish government, who accepted bungs from corrupt businessmen, those at Stormont who keep their past from public scrutiny belong to a special league.
How, it may well be asked, can they demand transparency and openness in public office if they fail to practice it themselves?
How can they pronounce in moral judgment on such issues as child-abuse in the Catholic Church – as Martin McGuinness did last week – if they refuse to reveal the secrets of their own past activities?
It appears that, unless someone comes up with a formula agreed by all sides which would allow light to be shone on the so-called ‘dirty war’ of the 1970s and 80s, we will never read the full, unabridged, unexpurgated version of events surrounding Martin McGuinness, or many others.
We will continue to hang on every new revelation about child-abuse and phone-hacking, but we will remain in the dark about matters which are even more serious. That is because our unique brand of political stability depends on this imperfect arrangement.
The peace process decrees that boats cannot be rocked unduly and that embarrassing questions are swiftly airbrushed from our minds.
So long as transparency and openness are not taken as seriously here as they are elsewhere, things are unlikely to change.
The real casualty of the Good Friday Agreement is not the Union, as Martin McGuinness claims. The real casualty is truth.
News Letter
3 May 2012 08:31
It is “hypocritical” that a convicted IRA bomber opened a “harrowing” exhibition about 9/11 victims in Belfast yesterday while a collage featuring IRA victims in Enniskillen has been banned from display, it has been claimed.
Sinn Fein’s Culture Minister, Caral Ni Chuilin, who has a conviction for IRA explosives offences, opened the Ground Zero 360 exhibition at the Public Record Office yesterday. The exhibition is being run by a former NYPD police officer Paul McCormack and his wife, photographer Nicola McClean, both of whom are Irish-born and were at the scene of the attack. They hope to bring the exhibition to Omagh and Enniskillen.
A spokeswoman for Ms Ni Chuilin’s department said the exhibition uses “harrowing visuals, chilling audio clips and a unique panoramic installation to depict the aftermath of 9/11”.
Speaking as she launched the exhibition Ms Ni Chuilin said: “This is a significant and poignant exhibition which we are honoured to have in Belfast. The events that occurred on Tuesday September 11 2001 changed the world completely. On that tragic day we all came together in shock and grief. Words cannot begin to describe the emotions and horror of those who witnessed and were part of the events at the Twin Towers.”
But Stephen Gault, whose father Samuel was killed in the IRA’s Poppy Day bomb in Enniskillen in 1987, said it was “very hypocritical” of Sinn Fein.
“9/11 was a terrible atrocity all right, but I don’t see Sinn Fein coming out and backing exhibitions of the victims from IRA attacks in Kingsmills or Teebane,” he said. “For victims of the IRA there is nothing more horrific than the horrors they suffered at the hands of that group,” he said.
Five years ago the Fire Service in Enniskillen removed a montage of the 11 people killed in the IRA bomb in the town from inside their station, after an anonymous complaint. Despite a public outcry, the Fire Service has refused to reinstate it. “It will be highly ironic if Sinn Fein back an exhibition of US terrorist victims while ignoring the fact that our own firefighters are denied the right to display a collage of IRA victims,” added Mr Gault.
By Cormac O’Keeffe
Irish Examiner
May 04, 2012
Prison officers held an emergency meeting with Prison Service chiefs yesterday after lists containing personal information of staff were found in the cell of a convicted IRA killer.
A security protocol, involving the Garda, swung into action when prison officers discovered the information during a search of Robert Duffy’s cell in Mountjoy Prison on Wednesday morning.
They found a list with details of the name, address, date of birth and family information of a prison governor and a second prison officer as well as a legal document containing the names of 18 other prison officers.
It is thought the legal document was from a book of evidence — which is a prosecution’s case in a criminal trial — in relation to an incident in Mountjoy Prison two years ago.
A Garda investigation is underway and an investigation has also been set up by Mountjoy governor Edward Whelan. Detectives will examine the trial and see what defendant or defendants it involved.
After the discovery, Mr Whelan made contact with the prison officers named and gardaí offered them security advice and conducted a security assessment.
It is understood the details of the governor, who is not the governor of Mountjoy, included directions to his home and a description of his property.
Two national officers from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) met with senior management at the Irish Prison Service yesterday morning for an emergency meeting.
Jim Mitchell, POA deputy general secretary, said, “we engaged with the Prison Service immediately and the security protocol was enacted and all officers were contacted immediately.”
Mr Mitchell said the incident highlighted the dangers faced by prison staff, at all grades: “It goes to show the difficult environment we work in. That’s something we have to deal with all the time.”
A spokesman for the Prison Service said: “We treat any issue regarding the security of prison staff with the utmost seriousness. The Prison Service is investigating it and has referred it to gardaí, who are also investigating it.”
Investigators are in the process of verifying the accuracy of the information in relation to the governor and the second prison officer.
It is understood while the details regarding their homes and addresses were accurate, some personal details may have been inaccurate.
The IRA man, from Old Bridge, Toberna, Dundalk, was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for murdering a businessman in Belfast. Duffy, 36, was subsequently released under the Good Friday Agreement, but he was sent back to jail in 2008 after he pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of a man in Dundalk in 2007.
Breaking News.ie
02 May 2012
A Garda Chief Superintendent has told the Special Criminal Court it is his belief a Dublin man on trial for IRA membership is a member of the IRA.
Sean Farrell (aged 27) has pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation within the State namely Oglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the Irish Republican Army, otherwise the IRA on July 7, 2011.
Chief Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan told Mr Michael Bowman BL, for the State, that on the basis of confidential information available to him it was his belief that Sean Farrell is a member of an illegal organisation within the State, namely the IRA, and was a member on July 7, 2011.
He told Mr Bowman that he was not basing his belief on any matters discovered at the time of or subsequent to the arrest of the accused man or on any admissions made by Mr Farrell during his detention or throughout the investigation.
Mr Bowman earlier told the court that Chief Superintendent Kevin Donohoe, who was originally scheduled to give belief evidence that Sean Farrell was a member of the IRA, could not attend the trial.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan agreed with counsel for the defence, Mr Padraig Dwyer SC, that he had been involved in the garda investigation concerning Mr Farrell for the past ten months and held a belief that the accused man was a member of the IRA during that time.
However, he told Mr Dwyer that his belief “went back at least 10 years” as he knew Mr Farrell since 2001 and knew him to be a member of the IRA.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan agreed with Mr Dwyer that the information he was basing his belief on came from confidential sources, but said he was claiming privilege on the identity of those sources as to name them would be to put their lives in danger.
He said he believed if the identities of the sources were to be disclosed they would be “executed” as per the IRA “Green Book” of rules covering the divulgence of information to authorities, the consequences of which were death.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan agreed that these sources were known colloquially as informers and that the Morris Tribunal had found that covert sources made for “inherently unreliable” witnesses, telling Mr Dwyer that he had been in charge of the garda Covert Human Intelligence Source system which registered informants.
Put to him by Mr Dwyer that informants could only be of value if they were engaged in criminal activity or were close to those that do, Chief Supt O’Sullivan conceded that such an assertion could be made but added that informants could not partake in the garda programme if they were participating in crime on an ongoing basis.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan added that Ireland was probably the only country in Europe to have this requirement.
Told by Mr Dwyer that Mr Farrell held the position that he was a member of Sinn Féin, Chief Supt O’Sullivan replied he was aware of a “litany of incidents” that confirmed the accused man has been an active service member of the IRA for the last number of years.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan disagreed that the information provided by his confidential sources was inaccurate, telling Mr Dwyer that it spanned over 10 years and was correct.
The prosecution this afternoon closed its case at the trial, which will continue tomorrow in front of the non-jury court.
BBC
3 May 2012
An inquest jury has ruled that an SAS soldier was justified in shooting an IRA man as he lay dying on the ground.
Dessie Grew was shot dead alongside fellow IRA man Martin McCaughey in County Armagh in October 1990.
The IRA men were shot more than 30 times at an isolated shed near Loughgall
The pair, who were both armed with AK47 rifles, were shot more than 30 times when the SAS unit opened fire at isolated farm buildings near Loughgall.
The ruling is thought to be the first ‘shoot to kill’ verdict in Northern Ireland in 30 years.
The deaths caused controversy in Northern Ireland when it was revealed that neither of the IRA men had fired a shot during the incident, prompting claims that the SAS had opened fire on the men without making an attempt to arrest them.
Surveillance
The inquest, which opened in March, examined the cause of the men’s deaths and the planning and control of the SAS operation – including claims that Mr Grew had been shot twice as he lay mortally wounded on the floor of a mushroom shed.
The County Armagh farm was believed to have been under surveillance on the night of 9 October 1990 and the SAS fired more than 70 rounds in the incident.
The Detail news website reported that Dessie Grew had been shot 22 times with wounds to his heart, lungs, liver, kidney, ribcage and diaphragm while Martin McCaughey was shot 10 times.
During the case, an SAS witness identified only as ‘Soldier D’ admitted opening fire on Mr Grew while he was on the ground.
However, he insisted his actions been justified, claiming the IRA man had made a noise as the SAS entered the shed and he believed the soldiers’ lives were in danger.
Balaclavas
Reaching its verdict after hearing weeks of evidence, the jury ruled that that the SAS had used “reasonable force” during the operation and that the IRA men’s own actions had contributed to their deaths.
“Mr Grew and Mr McCaughey put their lives in danger by being in the area of the sheds in the vicinity of a stolen car, which was expected to be used in terrorist activity,” the verdict stated.
“They were both armed with guns, wearing gloves and balaclavas and were approaching soldiers who believed that their lives were in immediate danger.”
The men’s families had campaigned for an inquest to be held for more than 20 years.
During the case, their barrister said that the families accepted that that both men had been on what was described as ‘active service’ for the IRA and were therefore liable to arrest.
However they argued that the shooting of the two men as they lay dying on the ground was evidence of a shoot-to-kill policy.
Under attack
The Detail reported that the jury could not agree on whether the SAS had attempted to arrest the IRA men.
However, they ruled that the soldiers were justified in opening fire as they thought the IRA men had moved towards their positions and they believed they were under attack.
“We cannot be unanimous on the balance of probabilities whether or not there was an opportunity to attempt arrest in accordance with the Yellow Card (British Army rules on soldiers opening fire) prior to the soldiers feeling compromised.
“However, once the soldiers felt compromised we agree that there was no other reasonable course of action,” the verdict said.
The coronor, Brian Sherrard, praised the Grew and McCaughey families for the dignity they had shown throughout the inquest.
Dessie Grew was 37 at time of his death. His older brother Seamus had been shot dead by the police in 1982.
Twenty-three-year-old Mr McCaughey was a former Sinn Fein councillor.
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
24 Apr 2012
NORTHERN IRELAND Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness authorised the killings of two RUC officers in March 1989, it was claimed at the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday.
Former British intelligence officer Ian Hurst – otherwise known as Martin Ingram – claimed the intention of the IRA operation in which the two RUC officers were killed, was to abduct them, interrogate them, remove papers they were expected to be carrying and to ultimately execute them.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush in south Armagh in March 1989, minutes after leaving a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in Co Louth. They were the most senior RUC officers to be killed in the Troubles.
The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of the Garda in Dundalk colluded with the IRA in the killings.
Mr Hurst who has been given permission by the British Ministry of Defence to give evidence to the tribunal, asserted that the killings involved up to 60 IRA volunteers and supporters and the operation “was authorised at [the IRA’s] Northern command. Mr McGuinness was involved”.
He also said Mr McGuinness was “OC Northern command”, the senior IRA officer in Northern Ireland at the time.
He said he was given this information by his senior officer, known only as “Witness 82”, whose evidence is expected to also be read into the record this week.
Mr Hurst was a member of the British army’s intelligence service force research unit for three years from 1982, before he was transferred to the Ministry of Defence Middle East desk in London. While in the research unit he said he was aware of up to 10 military intelligence source reports which named Det Sgt Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station as a man who had provided information to the IRA.
Some of this information was useful in organising the killings, according to the reports, he told the tribunal.
Mr Hurst also named former Sgt Leo Colton as another officer in Dundalk who was known to pass information to the IRA. He said both gardaí were described in intelligence reports as “rogue” gardaí.
He said Dundalk was referred to in Northern intelligence services as “Dodge City” and a “rat-infested hole” as it was a place where on-the-run republicans went for rest and recuperation. Others were Bundoran and Ballyshannon he said. Dundalk was also the place where the IRA’s internal security unit was based, he said.
Mr Hurst said he was aware of a call to his army unit late one evening from an RUC police officer who said he had in custody an “Alfredo Scappaticci” who had been involved in a drink-driving incident. Mr Hurst said Scappaticci was seeking the protection of the intelligence services, and used a code corresponding to the codename “Stakeknife”. He also said his superior, Witness 82, had subsequently confirmed that Stakeknife and Scappaticci were one and the same.
Mr Hurst asserted that information provided by Mr Corrigan to the IRA had been channelled through Scappaticci, who in turn channelled it to British intelligence through his own handler Witness 82. “Scappaticci was effectively the conduit for information, in other words as the handler of Mr Corrigan.”
Sinn Féin in a statement yesterday evening said: “Martin McGuinness totally rejects these allegations.”
A party spokesman questioned the bona fides of Mr Hurst. “Judge Smithwick has already been critical of the quality and nature of the evidence provided to his tribunal by the British state,” he said.
“This individual who uses a variety of names including Martin Ingram has no credibility. By his own admission he is part of a British security apparatus which played a very negative and malign role in the conflict, including widespread involvement in collusion,” he added.
News Letter
25 April 2012
UNIONISTS yesterday united in calling on Martin McGuinness to own up to what he did while in the IRA.
However, an attempt by TUV leader Jim Allister to question First Minister Peter Robinson on the floor of the Assembly about his view of the allegations was quickly halted by Sinn Fein MLA Francie Molloy.
Mr Molloy — who was voted into the new position of “principal deputy speaker” by the DUP and Sinn Fein last year — was in the Speaker’s chair for the half-hour of First Minister’s Questions.
Although the Smithwick Tribunal claims only referred to the surname of the deputy first minister, unionists quickly demanded explanations.
Mr Allister tried to raise the allegations as a supplementary question to one about the social investment fund, arguing they were much more serious than what was being discussed. However, Mr Molloy refused to allow the question because it was “not relevant” to business at that point.
Later, in a statement released by the DUP, East Derry MP Gregory Campbell listed a series of facts about Mr McGuinness’ links to the IRA.
Mr Campbell said that in March he asked Mr McGuinness to reveal the “activities he was involved in” and that the Smithwick evidence was “yet another reason why he must do so”.
Mr Campbell said: “If Mr McGuinness wants to deal with the past, he should have no problem in owning up to his activities so as to help bring closure for the victims of those crimes. So far, he and others in Sinn Fein have failed to do so.”
Mr Campbell added: “While we’re all committed to moving Northern Ireland forward, the deputy first minister should come clean on his involvement in the past.”
Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said: “This evidence raises a number of very serious questions which need to be answered today by the deputy first minister. He owes it to the families of the murdered officers and the wider public to give full and honest disclosure of his knowledge of the murders.”
Mr Allister said that in “any normal democracy” the allegation from a judicial tribunal that the deputy first minister had authorised murders “would provoke immediate debate in the local legislature and demands for removal from office of such a person”.
He added: “Yet today, though McGuinness was named at the Smithwick Tribunal as having authorised the murder plot in which senior police officers Breen and Buchanan died, Stormont slumbers on immune from the obvious implications.”
Mr Allister said those “who installed the provo commander in office sit in embarrassed silence when I attempt to raise the issue”.
The North Antrim MLA said that it was “most serious evidence” as it dealt with a period when Mr McGuinness claimed to have left the IRA.
He said: “Instead of him now being arrested and questioned, as he ought to be, his protected status prevails, because the so-called process is now more important than truth or justice.”
By Lucy Bogustawski
Belfast Telegraph
24 Apr 2012
Patrick Hill was one of six men wrongly jailed for the murder of 21 people in the Birmingham pub bombings
One of the Birmingham Six has signed a petition demanding that the investigation into the pub bombings be reopened and old evidence be subjected to new forensic tests.
Wrongly jailed for the murder of 21 people in IRA bomb attacks on two pubs in Birmingham in 1974, Patrick Hill spent 16 years in prison until he was finally freed after his conviction was quashed.
He was one of six men who had false confessions beaten out of them by police following the horrific terror attacks.
Along with Hugh Callaghan, Billy Power, Johnny Walker, Richard McIlkenny and Gerry Hunter, he was sentenced to life with no release date on the basis of the admissions.
It was 16 years later, in 1991, that the group finally walked free after the Court of Appeal ruled the forensic evidence that helped convict them was unsafe.
Mr Hill, now aged 66, has added his name to a petition to try and bring to justice those responsible for the bombings, and called on the public to support the campaign, which has been organised by the sister of one of the victims.
He told the Sunday Mercury newspaper he was surprised and disappointed that only a small number of people have so far backed it — especially those in Birmingham.
“I just cannot believe that they have not risen up about the murder of 21 innocent people in their own city,” he said. A total of 21 people were killed and 182 injured on the night of November 21, 1974, when the IRA bombed the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern In The Town.
The Birmingham Six were convicted of murder and conspiracy to cause explosions in 1975.
Nobody has ever been brought to justice for the atrocity.
Mr Hill also said that since their release the group has learned the names of the real bombers, and claimed it was common knowledge among the upper echelons of both the IRA and the British Government.
He has now committed his support to campaigners from Justice 4 the 21, who launched their battle for a new inquiry this year with an online petition, and said he is willing to do anything to get a new investigation.
A total of 10,000 signatures is needed to guarantee that the matter is raised in the House of Commons.
He added it was not just about the Birmingham Six, and said: “Whatever we went through, I can only imagine what kind of torture the families of the 21 victims have had to endure since the bombings.”
BBC
13 Apr 2012
A reward of up to £20,000 is being offered for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the murder of Joanne Mathers in Derry in April 1981.
Mrs Mathers, a mother-of-one, was shot dead by the IRA as she collected census forms in the Gobnascale area.
Her husband, Lowry, is offering the reward through the independent charity Crimestoppers UK.
Joanne Mathers and her son Shane
He had been married to Joanne for seven years at the time of her murder.
Her killer has never been traced, and Mr Mathers said he was determined to see those responsible brought to justice.
Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan programme, he said he hoped the offer of a reward “might invoke some sort of sense of shame or guilt in someone, somewhere”.
“I want justice for Joanne, even after all these years.
“I hope the reward will encourage someone with information to come forward and tell Crimestoppers what they know.”
‘Taken from me’
The reward is accessible to any individual who passes on information anonymously that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Joanne’s murder.
Mrs Mathers’ son Shane, who was just two years old at the time of her murder, said: “I never really knew my mother because she was taken away from me far too early.
“The person(s) who killed her will never know the pain my dad and I have gone through over the last 31 years, which is why this reward is being put up.
“While our family appreciates that nothing will bring my mum back, we want those responsible for her murder to be found and brought to justice.
“I am reaching out to anyone who might have information to contact Crimestoppers anonymously, because it might be key in helping to catch those who committed this crime.”
A Crimestoppers spokesperson said: “Crimestoppers wants to appeal to the public for any information they might have on this murder, no matter how small or insignificant they think it might be.
“In 24 years we have never revealed the identity of anyone who has contacted the charity, and we hope this will be an incentive for people to contact us anonymously and give us the information they have.”
Anyone with information on the murder can contact Crimestoppers UK on 0800 555 111.
By Anna Maguire
Belfast Telegraph
11 April 2012
A Sinn Fein commemoration for eight IRA men shot dead by the SAS in 1987 has been branded “repulsive” by unionists.
UUP MLA Tom Elliott yesterday called on republicans to cancel a sponsored walk which will mark the 25th anniversary of the Loughgall ambush.
SAS soldiers shot dead the eight-man IRA unit after they launched a bomb attack on the police station in the Co Armagh village on May 8, 1987. An innocent civilian was also killed by the soldiers.
Republicans will complete a sponsored trek of the Sperrins on May 5 to mark the anniversary. Mr Elliott said some local residents are furious.
He said: “The events planned by Sinn Fein, which include a lecture in Moy, were brought to my attention by a number of local residents.
“This includes people who were victims of the Troubles, who are utterly repulsed that terrorists are going to be honoured in their locality.”
He said the planned commemoration is another example of mixed messages emanating from the party. He referred to Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly’s assertion that his party wants a united Ireland where unionists feel welcome.
He said: “On the one hand their chairman used an Easter speech to call for unionists and nationalists to become ‘partners in reconciliation’, while on the other they glorify the actions of terrorists. Sinn Fein should cancel the events planned. If they don’t, then it is clear that their words were empty.”
West Tyrone Sinn Fein MLA Barry McElduff — who is married to a sister of Patrick Kelly, one of the IRA men killed at Loughgall — called ex-UDR man Mr Elliott’s request a nonsense.
His spokesman added: “Republicans are very proud of the contribution made by IRA volunteers… just like unionists have every right to honour their dead.”
By Claire Allan
Derry Journal
5 April 2012
Shane and Lowry Mathers at the openong of the Joanne Matthers Room at the Neo Natal Unit in Altnagelvin Hospital.
Shane Mathers was only two years old when his mother was killed. A census worker, 29-years-old Joanne Mathers was brutally murdered by the IRA as she carried out her work in Anderson Crescent.
“I don’t remember my mother,” he said. “I was too young. But I remember the sense of loss and the great sadness there was in our house. My father tells me I knew she was gone – that I would ask for her and cry for her. That I missed her.”
Now 33, Shane is fiercely proud and fiercely protective of his mother’s memory – delighted to see that her name lives on.
Just this week he, and his father Lowry, attended the re-opening of the Joanne Mathers Room at Altnagelvin Hospital – a room where mothers with babies being cared for in the neo-natal unit can stay to be close to their children.
The room, funded by his father from the proceeds of money raised in the immediate aftermath of Joanne’s murder, was originally located on Ward 5 – but has now been relocated to the new maternity unit in the hospital’s South Wing.
“At the time, Ann O’Neill, who worked with my mother in the planning service, suggested that a room such as this would have been very close to my mother’s heart so she helped my father channel the money towards the hospital.”
The cost in 1982 of the room – just a year after Joanne’s death – was £13,000 – the equivalent of £40,000 in today’s money marking a huge donation by the Mathers’ family.
“Her picture is in the room,” Lowry said, “With a small piece about her story. It is comforting to know that her memory lives on.”
For those who were in Derry in 1981 – the name Joanne Mathers would not easily be forgotten. The murder of the young mother, who was shot in the neck as she tried to carried out her work – caused such revulsion in the city that initially both the IRA and INLA denied carrying out the attack. However the IRA later admitted they had indeed been responsible – as part of a campaign to stop people co-operating with the census body as it was claimed that the forms were being used as intelligence gathering material by state agencies.
When asked if he has ever been able to reconcile himself with his mother’s death, Shane shook his head. “It is just all such a waste – a complete waste.
“Everyone who knew my mother – those who were her friends, her family or who worked with her said she had so much to give. They speak very fondly of her.
“There is no way to measure what a loss she was to our family – especially to my father and her own mother, my granny Johnston. It was difficult for us all that she was not there when I growing up.”
Lowry, a farmer, was forced to take on the role of both mother and father when his wife was murdered, with Joanne’s mother helping out whatever way she could.
Lowry was determined that the loss of his mother would not hinder Shane in any way.
“I thought to myself about all the things Joanne would have wanted for him and I tried to give him that. I knew it would have been very important to her that he had a good education, so I sent him to Foyle Prep and encouraged him in whatever way I could.”
There were times, of course, when Lowry wished his wife was by his side. “Certain times were particularly tough. When Shane graduated, when he got his first car – when he started work… Those were difficult. There were umpteen events that she missed out on.”
Poignantly Shane has taken up work as a Senior Town Planner – the career path his own mother had been following before she married and became a mother.
The father and son say this week’s re-opening of the Joanne Mathers’ Room secures the future of the facility for the forseeable future and ensures the memory of the young mother so tragically slain will live on for years to come.
Ex-gardai insist no protection of possible Lynskey killer
By JIM CUSACK and ALAN MURRAY
Sunday Independent
March 25 2012
Retired gardai have said they do not believe claims that members of the force concealed the identity of an IRA man allegedly connected to the 1971 murder of a 19-year-old civil servant in Co Meath.
Una Lynskey was abducted in Porterstown after she arrived home by bus on October 12, 1971. Her body was discovered in the Dublin Mountains two months later.
A cause of death was never fully established but detectives believe Ms Lynskey suffocated when she was stuffed into the boot of a car after being overpowered, bound and gagged.
In November 2010, Martin Conmey, 59, from Co Meath, the only person ever convicted in relation to the killing, was finally cleared by the Court of Criminal Appeal of his conviction for manslaughter — for which he had previously served three years in prison.
Mr Conmey and another man, Dick Donnelly, were both convicted of manslaughter but Mr Donnelly’s conviction was overturned in 1973. Mr Conmey had fought for 39 years to have his name cleared.
It has since emerged that details of the garda investigation have been brought to the attention of the Smithwick tribunal, which is investigating allegations of garda collusion in the IRA killing of senior RUC officers, Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen, in south Armagh in March 1989.
Sources close to the tribunal said lawyers are looking into the possibility that Una Lynskey was murdered by a member of the IRA who was either living in the area near her home or was in the area when the teenager got off the bus.
The possibility that a garda acted to protect an IRA figure who may have carried out the murder is “not being ruled out” by the tribunal.
Lawyers acting for the Smithwick tribunal have requested papers from the Court of Criminal Appeal and from the gardai about the quashing of the case.
However, yesterday retired Garda Detective Superintendent John Courtney, who headed many of the Republic’s major murder investigations during that era, said he could not recall any attempt to cover up the involvement, suspected or otherwise, of any IRA man in Ms Lynskey’s murder.
“Nobody ever tried that with me. If there was an IRA fellow I would have questioned him and anyway I would never have been compromised by any IRA man or anyone like that. I investigated the murders of eight gardai by the IRA and brought charges,” he said.
Other sources told the Sunday Independent that gardai were satisfied that two men had attempted to abduct Ms Lynskey with the intention of raping her but that she had suffocated.
One of these suspects was Martin Kerrigan, a young local man who is believed to have been one of two men who abducted Ms Lynskey and, after she died, partially buried her body in the Dublin Mountains.
Ten days after the discovery of her body, Kerrigan was himself abducted, taken to the spot where Ms Lynskey’s body was found and beaten to death. An attempt was made to castrate Kerrigan with a shovel. Three men, John and James Lynskey, and John Gaughan, were subsequently convicted of Kerrigan’s manslaughter and given two-year sentences.
Former garda detectives who re-examined details of the case said they were unaware of the involvement, suspected or otherwise, of any IRA man.
One said he was “certain” no attempt was made to conceal the identity of such a man and said all the officers he knew to be involved in the investigation would not have any reason to protect such a man.
In 1971 the Provisional IRA was in its infancy following the split with the Official IRA. Garda Richard Fallon had been murdered the previous year in Dublin by a splinter republican gang known as Saor Eire, which had Provisional IRA links, and gardai nationwide were investigating the activities of the emerging Provisional IRA even though it had allies at government level in the Republic.
Peter Vronsky
The Star
24 Mar 2012
The iconic and historically inaccurate image of the Battle of Ridgeway. Troops did not fight in the depicted Napoleonic line style but ‘skirmished’ from behind cover as per modern battlefield tactics. The Irish Fenians were uniformed in mostly blue U.S. army tunics while the Canadians fought in both traditional scarlet of Hamilton’s 13th Batallion (today the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry) and in the ‘rifle green’ of the Queen’s Own Rifles. (Credit: Library and Archives Canada)
Earlier this month, the Americans dedicated a new memorial on the shores of the Niagara River commemorating one of the last invasions of Canada to be launched from U.S. territory.
The Fenian invasion of 1866 monument marks the point from where approximately 1,000 Irish-American Fenian insurgents invaded the Fort Erie area intending to take Canada hostage in a campaign to force the British out of Ireland. The Fenian invasion culminated on June 2, 1866, with Canada’s first modern battle, the Battle of Ridgeway, our first fought in the age of telegraph and steam railroads.
Ridgeway was the first battle fought exclusively by Canadian soldiers and led entirely by Canadian officers — no British troops participated in the combat — and it was the last battle fought against foreign invaders in what would become Ontario.
It was also an unmitigated disaster when untested Canadian troops from Hamilton and Toronto, including two rifle companies of University of Toronto student volunteers, came up against battle-hardened Irish American Civil War veterans of the Fenian “Irish Republican Army” (IRA) — the first known use of that term.
After U.S. navy gunboats cut off Fenian supply lines across the Niagara River and as Canadian and British forces began to close in, the invaders withdrew to their base in Buffalo on June 3. Many on both sides of the border credit the Fenians with cementing Canadian nationhood. These include New York State Senator Timothy Kennedy, who led the campaign to raise the monument in Buffalo’s Tow Path Park, the Niagara riverside launching point for the incursion.
“The Fenian invasion has a unique place in Buffalo’s history,” he said. “The Fenian Brotherhood, battle-hardened American veterans, first fought to keep our nation united and strong in the Civil War. Then, by launching this invasion, they significantly contributed to the national independence of Canada and eventually Ireland. The Fenian invasion demonstrated that freedom and democracy are forces that no amount of oppression can stop. Even outnumbered and outgunned, the Fenians valiantly battled the British Crown forces. They played a pivotal role in Canada’s independence, and they helped inspire Irish freedom.”
While Americans celebrated the invasion of Canada and their role in the “national independence of Canada,” most Canadians have never heard of the Battle of Ridgeway, in which the first modern Canadian soldiers were killed: nine riflemen from one of Canada’s oldest continually serving military units, Toronto’s Queen’s Own Rifles Regiment (QOR). Three of the dead were U of T students plucked from their final exams and thrown into combat the next day.
Canada’s pre-Confederation local military defence was the responsibility of the colonial minister of militia and attorney general, John A. Macdonald, and the subsequent debacle threatened his confederation plans and his ambition to lead the future Dominion of Canada’s first government.
A cabal of politicians and prominent upper class volunteer militia officers conspired to cover up the disaster through a series of military boards of inquiry. They were so successful that to this day the transcripts of the testimony in one of the inquiries have never been published, while the Battle of Ridgeway, despite being so critical in Canada’s Confederation history, is the battle that most Canadians have never heard of. Ridgeway is not commemorated, its casualties are not recognized in our National Books of Remembrance and their gravestones (scattered across southern Ontario and in Toronto) do not have National War Grave status and are uncared for by the government. A private effort by veterans of the Queen’s Own Rifles recently restored the nine abandoned gravestones that had nearly vanished in the winds and rains of the last 146 years.
The same can be said for the battlefield in the village of Ridgeway near Fort Erie. It is vanishing as housing developments threaten to swallow up the unmarked historic site. Bob Dunk, president of the Queen’s Own Rifles Association of Canada, laments, “In the United States, every site of even the smallest skirmish in the Revolutionary War or Civil War is sacred ground, cared for and protected by the National Park Service as historic national sites. Yet the ground of Ridgeway, on which Canada’s first soldiers died, except for a tiny cairn and plaque in a small far and out-of-the-way corner, are forgotten and ignored.”
Yet there is hope that Canadians will come to restore the memory of our first casualties. While plaques in the Moss Park Armoury at Queen and Jarvis Streets in Toronto where the QOR is currently stationed commemorate soldiers from the regiment who fell in every conflict Canada fought in from South Africa to Korea (75 QOR recently served in Afghanistan without casualties), only this year will a plaque finally be unveiled in memory of the “Ridgeway Nine” — the first to fall for Canada — during the scheduled royal visit in May by Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who is currently the honourary commanding officer of the regiment.
Despite the focus on the bicentennial of the War of 1812, this year is appropriate for remembering the Battle at Ridgeway and the “last invasion” of Canada. June 2 falls on a Saturday this year, as did the battle in 1866. The town of Ridgeway, as part of its Ridgeway Reads literary festival, will be host to a conference of historians and the unveiling a new painting depicting the battle. And the QOR Association has petitioned Ontario Lieutenant Governor David Onley to help lobby Ottawa for official recognition of the “Ridgeway Nine.”
• Peter Vronsky is a historian at Ryerson University and author of Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada. His website on the Battle of Ridgeway is www.ridgewaybattle.ca
Private Paddy Kelly was killed by IRA during rescue of Don Tidey
Karen Downey
Westmeath Independent
21 Mar 2012
**Via Newshound
• See also: Don Tidey recalls 1983 kidnap ‘battleground’
The defacing of the Paddy Kelly memorial in Moate has been slammed this week after the writing on the memorial stone was covered in black paint, and the inscription concealed.
The stone, which was moved from Paddy Kelly Park in Moate to the Clara Road some years ago, remembers Private Paddy Kelly who lost his life in December 1983 when he was fatally shot during the rescue of kidnapped supermarket boss Don Tidey in Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. Nobody has ever been convicted in connection with his killing.
The inscription on the memorial reads: “Private Patrick Kelly, HQ Coy, 6 Inf Bn. Died while in aid to the civil power on the 16th December 1983 at Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. Remembered with pride by his family, comrades and the people of Moate.”
Local councillor Tom Allen (FF) lashed out at those behind the vandalism this week, saying the defacing of a monument erected in the memory of a man who gave his life for his country was a disgrace.
“It’s nothing short of vandalism,” he told the Westmeath Independent yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon. “It’s very sad to think that people have nothing better to do and have such twisted minds to do something like that.”
He said the memorial was erected by Paddy Kelly’s friends in a bid to recognise the sacrifice he made and it was disgraceful to see it treated in such a manner.
“These people have idle minds. They’d be better off doing something with their time. The Kelly family is very respected in the town of Moate and have lots of friends and it only takes one stupid twit to do something like this,” he said.
“It’s not alone this plaque, but on private houses and walls and bridges. It costs time and money to put up these things. Maybe they’re young, but they should learn. Why they can’t learn to respect other people’s property, I just don’t know.”
Fine Gael Cllr Joe Whelan described the vandalism as sickening.
“It’s horrific. It’s sickening to think that people could have such a lack of respect. It’s appalling. I don’t know what sense of achievement or pride they get out of it. I hope they sleep well with their conscience,” he said.
“It’s appalling, absolutely appalling. Obviously the people who carried it out hadn’t a speck of the bravery Paddy Kelly had in serving his country. It’s sickening.”
It is not the first time the family has been subjected to acts of vandalism.
In 2009 the home of two of Paddy Kelly’s sons was vandalised with graffiti on three separate occasions, with slogans painted on the walls of the house.
Patrick Kelly’s son David Kelly last year confronted Sinn Féin presidential candidate Martin McGuinness calling on him to reveal the names of those who killed his father.
Recent Comments