A pier is a disappointed bridge, James Joyce once wrote. We’ve seen a lot of disappointed bridges in the past 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement was hailed as having signed, sealed and delivered a future for the North.
Driving on the literary rut for another couple of seconds, we come to Cré na Cille, the majestic novel written by the great Connemara writer Máirtín Ó Cadhain. All of its main characters are dead and are buried in the local graveyard beside the sea. All have carried the petty jealousies, snobberies, prejudices, gossip and tittle-tattle of their lives to the grave, where the sniping continues ad infinitum.
Yesterday we crossed that kind of divide or Rubicon.
And as the results trickled in, we got the accompanying flood of negativity and bickering. Paisley’s bellicose remarks about republicanism, democracy and evil set the tone. Soon doubts were being expressed about the March 26 deadline. The media honed in on other problems. How could Sinn Fein say it was committed to policing and then parlay its way out of its own MP Michelle Gildernew’s comments? (She said she would refuse to contact the PSNI about suspicious dissident republican activity.)
Beyond that, there was the more universal brand of pessimism. The DUP and Sinn Fein had almost wholly emasculated the more moderate SDLP and the Ulster Unionists. Extremism had won out. Tribalism had triumphed. This wasn’t power-sharing. It was cantonisation. It was Balkanisation. Another false dawn.
All those disappointed bridges. The IRA ceasefire in 1994; the Good Friday Agreement; the Weston Park agreement in 2001; Hillsborough in November 2003; The IRA declaration that it was standing down in July 2005; decommissioning that winter: the St Andrews Agreement of last October; Assembly elections; and March 26.
To be sure it was sad to see the SDLP slip down to just 16 seats and have to face the reality of having only one ministry. It wasn't nice to see moderate unionism outflanked, outmanoeuvred and outplayed by the DUP.
I have likened Sinn Féin before to the cuckoo who laid its egg in the SDLP nest. Or as a senior SDLP figure put it this week, SF has stolen the SDLP’s clothes, ill-fitting as they are. And on the other side, the same can be said for the DUP’s stealthy moderation over the past five years.
But there’s another version of history that could be inferred from this week’s events. The DUP and SF were both given thumping mandates. And strangely enough, the mandates were very much pro-devolution, pro-powersharing.
This was clearly demonstrated by the routing of the splinter republican and loyalist parties. The former SF activists who opposed its decision on policing got salamandered at the polls. The handful of other DUP naysayers got trounced – including Paul Berry in Newry-South Armagh. The UK Unionist Party leader Robert McCartney saw his seat disappear and his party reduced to an empty husk.
One of the great paradoxes of this election was that the candidate who actually took Bob McCartney’s seat was Brian Wilson, winning the Green Party its first seat in the Assembly. That was a crucial breakthrough.
This was a small sign of hope, of a society keen to move on, to make a painful transition, to move from crisis to normality, from vetoism to democracy. It was shown too in the relatively stable showing of the SDLP (admittedly with slippage) and by the strong showing of the Alliance Party. They just scraped their six seats in 2003 but comfortably retained and consolidated this time around.
From parsing the results you got a sense that the main political parties are lagging behind their electorate, that they has not quite copped on to the sense of impatience there is for change. There were a couple of neat illustrations of that.
For one, there was the election of the first Assembly member from an ethnic background. Alliance MLA Anna Lo, who took a seat in South Belfast, was born in Hong Kong.
And then there was the eyebrow-raising (if slightly unscientific) text poll run by Stephen Nolan on his show on BBC radio. Some 83% of respondents wanted the principal parties to enter government, without further negotiation. That bears repeating. Without further negotiation.
Of course, the DUP being the DUP, they will do things at their own pace. And that may mean further negotiation, lots of it. At the same time, while the Reverend roared as of old, other figures of the party were making more mollifying sounds. Jeffrey Donaldson volunteered the observation on Morning Ireland yesterday that perhaps Michelle Gildernew had been ‘off message’ in her comments on dissident republicans. Nigel Dodds was also clarifying and softening his ‘not in my lifetime’ stance, saying it related solely to the appointment of a SF justice minister, not to sharing power with republicans.
Granted the DUP will not be rushing to sign their names to devolved government immediately. We are still standing on a pier. But we are so close to the other side that already it’s beginning to feel like a bridge.
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
Showing posts with label North of Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North of Ireland. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - SINN FÉIN ARD FHEIS
"THE higher they build their barriers, the stronger we become.”
Gerry Adam’s final words on a strange and — yes, that overused word — historic day.
And for Sinn Féin, there was never going to be a higher barrier than policing, and what will be its ultimate endorsement and backing of the PSNI and the rule of law in the North.
Or, in another sense, a greater act of humble pie.
Viewed from some quarters — and even within Sinn Féin itself — this was the greatest compromise of republicanism, bigger than
decommissioning, bigger than the standing down of the IRA, bigger than all the other concessions and sacrifices Sinn Féin and the IRA have made — and have been forced to make — in the past decade.
The taunts of ‘sell-out’ that came from the small group of Republican Sinn Féin supporters at the gates could not be fully erased, and still echoed faintly in the hall. And for the most part, all the justifications, all the arguments, were addressed to those and others like them outside the hall, not to the convinced and signed-up at the RDS.
It’s symptomatic of the complete command and hold that Adams has on republicanism that yesterday’s vote was portrayed as a victory, as a breakthrough, as putting one up on its enemies and detractors — the British government, unionism, the SDLP (which came in for dog’s abuse) and the Irish government (which fared hardly better).
Adams contributions book-ended the seven hours of debate. Not so much debate but almost a procession. From the moment the conference began at 10am, everybody knew it was already in the bag and that the motion would be overwhelmingly endorsed.
The day panned out into a day in which the party and its members could have their say. Yes, there were a couple of dissenting voices. But it seemed to me that most delegates wanted to put the imminent and inevitable decision that was going to be made later in the day into some context — into a personal context as some did, or as a means of repeating republican credos.
And inevitably it became an event where the debate seemed as symbolic as it was real. The symbolism was increased by the presence of republican icons like Martin Meehan, Rose Dugdale and the likes of James Monaghan and Niall Connolly of the Colombia Three.
This was not a fig leaf or window-dressing for any humiliating climb-down, they argued trenchantly. But the more they argued that line, the more they gave out about the SDLP and the governments and unionism, the more you kind of thought: compromise.
There’s no doubting the gravity of the decision and its bravery. There’s no doubting that this was historic. But there was also no doubting the compromise it involved.
In the end, it happened quickly. As 5.30pm approached, there was still a long queue of delegates waiting to speak. It looked like it could go on for several hours. But then somebody demanded that the vote take place now as many people had long distances to travel.
Within five minutes, the vote had been taken and it was all over. Of the 2,000 or more delegates, hardly 100 dissented.
“It was over 90%,” said Martin McGuinness afterwards.
“That is an achievement after several weeks and months of a very difficult and emotional debate.
“For the delegates to make such a brave and mature decision is very gratifying for us.”
Having said that, the argument employed by the leadership was quite convoluted and was not altogether convincing.
The question that it had to grapple with was what made signing up to policing so wrong in the past and what made it so right now.
Gerry Adams used a strange combination of words when explaining this in his speech.
“Sinn Féin stayed out of policing until now because that was the best way to bring about the necessary threshold,” he said.
He was suggesting a Malcolm Gladwell type “tipping point”. What supported that? Police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report on the Raymond McCord investigation; SF’s own claims that the Irish Government and the SDLP have failed to make policing accountable; the concessions SF won in relation to devolved policing and the removal of MI5 from civic policing.
“That’s where SF comes in,” he said. “We have to ensure that those dreadful events (collusion) never happen again.
“… We cannot leave policing to the unionist parties or the SDLP or the Irish government.”
McGuinness advanced the argument in more trenchant terms. In one of the only covert references to any sense of a climb-down for SF, he acknowledged the hurt it would cause.
But in equal measure, he laid out the quid pro quo that would follow, the payback for this compromise.
“I make it clear to Ian Paisley that the 28th of January 2007 is a big day for Sinn Féin but that Monday, the 29th January is an even bigger day for Ian Paisley,” he said to thunderous applause.
The SDLP have hardly been cheerleaders for policing but the SF leadership portrayed them as such, to try to argue (not altogether convincingly) that the SDLP capitulated on policing but not so SF.
“We have to boss policing. We are the bosses,” argued McGuinness.
“The PSNI is going to have to earn our trust. They are not going to get our trust tomorrow morning or after this vote.”
And a little later: “I want the police to watch MI5, to spy on MI5, to arrest MI5.”
And that faint echo came from the dissenters outside, about all this being a ‘sell-out’. McGuinness delivered the definitive line here:
“We come from an IRA tradition that fought the British army and the RUC to a standstill.
“We are being criticised by groups who have yet to fight them to a start.”
How many times in the past 13 years has it been categorically stated that the war is over? And how many times has it emerged that it was yet another false dawn?
Yesterday we did see a piece of history being made, with SF’s acceptance of policing and the PSNI.
With it came an acceptance that it was all over as far as the IRA was concerned. Bar the shouting, of course. And be assured, with Ian Paisley and the DUP involved, there will be plenty of that over the next few months.
from the Irish Examiner
"THE higher they build their barriers, the stronger we become.”
Gerry Adam’s final words on a strange and — yes, that overused word — historic day.
And for Sinn Féin, there was never going to be a higher barrier than policing, and what will be its ultimate endorsement and backing of the PSNI and the rule of law in the North.
Or, in another sense, a greater act of humble pie.
Viewed from some quarters — and even within Sinn Féin itself — this was the greatest compromise of republicanism, bigger than
decommissioning, bigger than the standing down of the IRA, bigger than all the other concessions and sacrifices Sinn Féin and the IRA have made — and have been forced to make — in the past decade.
The taunts of ‘sell-out’ that came from the small group of Republican Sinn Féin supporters at the gates could not be fully erased, and still echoed faintly in the hall. And for the most part, all the justifications, all the arguments, were addressed to those and others like them outside the hall, not to the convinced and signed-up at the RDS.
It’s symptomatic of the complete command and hold that Adams has on republicanism that yesterday’s vote was portrayed as a victory, as a breakthrough, as putting one up on its enemies and detractors — the British government, unionism, the SDLP (which came in for dog’s abuse) and the Irish government (which fared hardly better).
Adams contributions book-ended the seven hours of debate. Not so much debate but almost a procession. From the moment the conference began at 10am, everybody knew it was already in the bag and that the motion would be overwhelmingly endorsed.
The day panned out into a day in which the party and its members could have their say. Yes, there were a couple of dissenting voices. But it seemed to me that most delegates wanted to put the imminent and inevitable decision that was going to be made later in the day into some context — into a personal context as some did, or as a means of repeating republican credos.
And inevitably it became an event where the debate seemed as symbolic as it was real. The symbolism was increased by the presence of republican icons like Martin Meehan, Rose Dugdale and the likes of James Monaghan and Niall Connolly of the Colombia Three.
This was not a fig leaf or window-dressing for any humiliating climb-down, they argued trenchantly. But the more they argued that line, the more they gave out about the SDLP and the governments and unionism, the more you kind of thought: compromise.
There’s no doubting the gravity of the decision and its bravery. There’s no doubting that this was historic. But there was also no doubting the compromise it involved.
In the end, it happened quickly. As 5.30pm approached, there was still a long queue of delegates waiting to speak. It looked like it could go on for several hours. But then somebody demanded that the vote take place now as many people had long distances to travel.
Within five minutes, the vote had been taken and it was all over. Of the 2,000 or more delegates, hardly 100 dissented.
“It was over 90%,” said Martin McGuinness afterwards.
“That is an achievement after several weeks and months of a very difficult and emotional debate.
“For the delegates to make such a brave and mature decision is very gratifying for us.”
Having said that, the argument employed by the leadership was quite convoluted and was not altogether convincing.
The question that it had to grapple with was what made signing up to policing so wrong in the past and what made it so right now.
Gerry Adams used a strange combination of words when explaining this in his speech.
“Sinn Féin stayed out of policing until now because that was the best way to bring about the necessary threshold,” he said.
He was suggesting a Malcolm Gladwell type “tipping point”. What supported that? Police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report on the Raymond McCord investigation; SF’s own claims that the Irish Government and the SDLP have failed to make policing accountable; the concessions SF won in relation to devolved policing and the removal of MI5 from civic policing.
“That’s where SF comes in,” he said. “We have to ensure that those dreadful events (collusion) never happen again.
“… We cannot leave policing to the unionist parties or the SDLP or the Irish government.”
McGuinness advanced the argument in more trenchant terms. In one of the only covert references to any sense of a climb-down for SF, he acknowledged the hurt it would cause.
But in equal measure, he laid out the quid pro quo that would follow, the payback for this compromise.
“I make it clear to Ian Paisley that the 28th of January 2007 is a big day for Sinn Féin but that Monday, the 29th January is an even bigger day for Ian Paisley,” he said to thunderous applause.
The SDLP have hardly been cheerleaders for policing but the SF leadership portrayed them as such, to try to argue (not altogether convincingly) that the SDLP capitulated on policing but not so SF.
“We have to boss policing. We are the bosses,” argued McGuinness.
“The PSNI is going to have to earn our trust. They are not going to get our trust tomorrow morning or after this vote.”
And a little later: “I want the police to watch MI5, to spy on MI5, to arrest MI5.”
And that faint echo came from the dissenters outside, about all this being a ‘sell-out’. McGuinness delivered the definitive line here:
“We come from an IRA tradition that fought the British army and the RUC to a standstill.
“We are being criticised by groups who have yet to fight them to a start.”
How many times in the past 13 years has it been categorically stated that the war is over? And how many times has it emerged that it was yet another false dawn?
Yesterday we did see a piece of history being made, with SF’s acceptance of policing and the PSNI.
With it came an acceptance that it was all over as far as the IRA was concerned. Bar the shouting, of course. And be assured, with Ian Paisley and the DUP involved, there will be plenty of that over the next few months.
from the Irish Examiner
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
What more is needed to prove endemic, systematic and engrained collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces in the North?
Yesterday, Northern police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan published a report of her inquiry into the police investigation of Raymond McCord junior in November 1997. Ostensibly, it was that.
But what was uncovered was a larger, bleaker, truth that brought us to a place that is venal, visceral and truly truly awful. She found that police had colluded with loyalist terrorists who were responsible for at least 10 murders. This was in a tiny area of North Belfast over a limited period of years. When you extrapolate it to the entire island over a period of three decades, the implications are appalling, frightening. For once, when Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin speaks of ‘state terrorism’, you think that he’s not going too far.
The evidence at this stage is incontrovertible. This is only the latest in a series of reports from different quarters all pointing to the same overwhelming conclusion that collusion was rampant. Most notable have been the reports by Canadian judge Peter Cory into six murders North and South including that of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane; and Judge Henry Barron’s investigation into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and other appalling loyalist attack in the south.
And the ombudsman’s report into the McCord murder has everything. What are you looking for? Corruption? Perjury? Perverting the course of justice? Protecting a man involved in ten murders? Deliberately creating false documents? Conducting sham interviews? “Babysitting” favoured informants through difficult interrogations? Withholding evidence from police colleagues? Proving the DPP and Courts with misleading and inaccurate document? Allowing murder, racketeering, drug-dealing and sectarian attacks to continue unpunished. And for what? To protect “the most important intelligence asset in this UVF grouping”.
Unforgivably, this report is likely to meet the fate of Cory and of Barron – becoming part of a vast dust-gathering exercise carried out by the British government. Notwithsanding his promises yesterday that prosecutions will follow.
Northern secretary Peter Hain’s response to it would have been laughable if it wasn’t all so serious.
He started off by saying that “the police ombudsman has today shone a light on a dark and murky period in the history of Northern Ireland.”
Fair enough. But when it came to the crunch, there was the usual knee-buckling, the defence of the Realm stuff, the blank stonewalling of any notion of public accountability.
“I have heard calls for the setting up of a public inquiry to look into these terrible events,” he said.
“There is nothing at all to suggest that such an inquiry will uncover any new or additional evidence…”
Early on in its investigation, Ms O’Loan realised that the investigation into Raymond McCord’s murder would be intricate, wide-ranging, complex and time-consuming. On that basis, she made an official request for more resources from the Northern Secretary which was refused, though some £250,000 was made available at a later date. Did that suggest a culture of change? Or did the long delays in PSNI responses to specific questions from the ombudsman’s office (some replies took up to two and a half years).
There are some deeply unsettling questions that still need to be answered. Why, for example, did so many senior police officers refuse to cooperate – including two Assistant Commissioners and seven Detective Chief Superintendents? Why did Special Branch informants got away with multiple murders? Why will nobody ever be prosecuted for any of the litany of crimes exposed by the O’Loan inquiry, or for the cover-ups, or for the perjuries and cover-up.
Special Branch described Informant One, now known to be Mark Haddock, as its most important intelligence asset in the UVF in North Belfast. But other police officers, both uniformed and Criminal Investigations Department (CID), described Haddock as a “well-known terrorist and criminal” involved in racketeering, drug dealing and feuding.
The unmistakable tenor of the report is that the “worth” and “value” of Haddock as an informant could never conceivably outweigh the horrendous litany of crimes in which he was involved.
Like the enquiry into Garda corruption in Donegal, this major wide-ranging inquiry had a relatively humble beginning.
In May 2002, Raymond McCord senior was walking through the centre of Belfast when he decided to visit the police ombudsman’s office. McCord, a burly ex-bouncer from a loyalist area, was extraordinarily driven – he said that police had begun to portray him as a crank.
But his 22-year-old son, also Raymond McCord, was beaten to death in a disused quarry in 1997 on the orders of a UVF man and police informant, known as Informant 1. His son was no saint. Raymond junior was a UVF member who was facing charges for possession of a large batch of cannabis, probably controlled by Informant 1.
McCord senior alleged that police had been aware this was going to happen, had done nothing to prevent his son’s murder, and subsequently protected his killers from justice.
The findings of the investigation that stemmed from have wormed their way to the core of policing in Northern Ireland. There can be no pat excuses about a few “rogue” policemen, about a couple of “bad apples”. It was clear that this was institutional, engrained, and went a very long way up the hierarchy.
Some of the details benefit from retelling. In terms of evasiveness and dissembling, O’Loan finds that some serving police officers gave evidence that was “evasive, contradictory and on occasion farcical”.
That, she said, was either a significant failure to understand the law or contempt for law. On occasion, police officers said things that were proven to be “completely untrue”.
Or the shocking details of the killings. One of the ten people murdered by Informant 1’s gang was Sharon McKenna, a Catholic woman visiting a Protestant friend. Informant 1 (Haddock) admitted he had being involved.
When Informant 1 was hauled in for questioning, his two Special Branch handlers sat in and “babysat” him during the interrogation to ensure that he did not admit to murder.
Around that time, Special Branch actually increased his payment from £100 to £160 a week, despite the fact that he had fresh blood on his hands. In all, Informant 1 was paid nearly £80,000 by the police, despite the overwhelming evidence of very serious criminality.
Another epiphany of the extent of collusion was evident when two Catholic construction workers, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were murdered in North Belfast. They were eating their lunch in a car at Tiger’s Bay in North Belfast when a lone gunman opened fire on the car. Witnesses said that the gunman wore a “goatee” beard.
When Informant 1 was arrested, he was sporting a goatee beard. But he requested a razor blade and was supplied with one. The custody photography showed a clean-shaven man without a goatee. No identity parade was ever held.
It’s unbelievable stuff. Sure, the world of intelligence, of touts, of informants is shadowy, murky and full of moral contradictions. The second-in-command of the IRA’s punishment squad was left in place for many years, despite carrying out the most heinous crimes. A multiple killer like Informant 1 was allowed kill and commit serious crimes at will because he was judged to be a strong “intelligence asset”. Justice and truth become just relative values in the perverse mind-set that underlay all this.
The publication of this report in the week that Sinn Fein decides on policing will be problematic for its leadership, despite Martin McGuinness’s claim yesterday that it “bolsters our argument”.
It’s ironic that one of the strongest exposes of police collusion with loyalist terrorist has been uncovered by a man from an unashamedly loyalist background. Now he is advising Sinn Fein not to jump hastily into policing arrangements.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern describes it ll as “despicable past behaviour”. He will discuss the matter further with the British Government, he says. But he did just that with the Barron report and the report into the deaths of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson. He did that with all of Cory. And nothing came of those either. What more can be discussed? There should be no more skirting around. Bertie Ahern should be loudly demanding a proper public inquiry.
Yesterday, Northern police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan published a report of her inquiry into the police investigation of Raymond McCord junior in November 1997. Ostensibly, it was that.
But what was uncovered was a larger, bleaker, truth that brought us to a place that is venal, visceral and truly truly awful. She found that police had colluded with loyalist terrorists who were responsible for at least 10 murders. This was in a tiny area of North Belfast over a limited period of years. When you extrapolate it to the entire island over a period of three decades, the implications are appalling, frightening. For once, when Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin speaks of ‘state terrorism’, you think that he’s not going too far.
The evidence at this stage is incontrovertible. This is only the latest in a series of reports from different quarters all pointing to the same overwhelming conclusion that collusion was rampant. Most notable have been the reports by Canadian judge Peter Cory into six murders North and South including that of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane; and Judge Henry Barron’s investigation into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and other appalling loyalist attack in the south.
And the ombudsman’s report into the McCord murder has everything. What are you looking for? Corruption? Perjury? Perverting the course of justice? Protecting a man involved in ten murders? Deliberately creating false documents? Conducting sham interviews? “Babysitting” favoured informants through difficult interrogations? Withholding evidence from police colleagues? Proving the DPP and Courts with misleading and inaccurate document? Allowing murder, racketeering, drug-dealing and sectarian attacks to continue unpunished. And for what? To protect “the most important intelligence asset in this UVF grouping”.
Unforgivably, this report is likely to meet the fate of Cory and of Barron – becoming part of a vast dust-gathering exercise carried out by the British government. Notwithsanding his promises yesterday that prosecutions will follow.
Northern secretary Peter Hain’s response to it would have been laughable if it wasn’t all so serious.
He started off by saying that “the police ombudsman has today shone a light on a dark and murky period in the history of Northern Ireland.”
Fair enough. But when it came to the crunch, there was the usual knee-buckling, the defence of the Realm stuff, the blank stonewalling of any notion of public accountability.
“I have heard calls for the setting up of a public inquiry to look into these terrible events,” he said.
“There is nothing at all to suggest that such an inquiry will uncover any new or additional evidence…”
Early on in its investigation, Ms O’Loan realised that the investigation into Raymond McCord’s murder would be intricate, wide-ranging, complex and time-consuming. On that basis, she made an official request for more resources from the Northern Secretary which was refused, though some £250,000 was made available at a later date. Did that suggest a culture of change? Or did the long delays in PSNI responses to specific questions from the ombudsman’s office (some replies took up to two and a half years).
There are some deeply unsettling questions that still need to be answered. Why, for example, did so many senior police officers refuse to cooperate – including two Assistant Commissioners and seven Detective Chief Superintendents? Why did Special Branch informants got away with multiple murders? Why will nobody ever be prosecuted for any of the litany of crimes exposed by the O’Loan inquiry, or for the cover-ups, or for the perjuries and cover-up.
Special Branch described Informant One, now known to be Mark Haddock, as its most important intelligence asset in the UVF in North Belfast. But other police officers, both uniformed and Criminal Investigations Department (CID), described Haddock as a “well-known terrorist and criminal” involved in racketeering, drug dealing and feuding.
The unmistakable tenor of the report is that the “worth” and “value” of Haddock as an informant could never conceivably outweigh the horrendous litany of crimes in which he was involved.
Like the enquiry into Garda corruption in Donegal, this major wide-ranging inquiry had a relatively humble beginning.
In May 2002, Raymond McCord senior was walking through the centre of Belfast when he decided to visit the police ombudsman’s office. McCord, a burly ex-bouncer from a loyalist area, was extraordinarily driven – he said that police had begun to portray him as a crank.
But his 22-year-old son, also Raymond McCord, was beaten to death in a disused quarry in 1997 on the orders of a UVF man and police informant, known as Informant 1. His son was no saint. Raymond junior was a UVF member who was facing charges for possession of a large batch of cannabis, probably controlled by Informant 1.
McCord senior alleged that police had been aware this was going to happen, had done nothing to prevent his son’s murder, and subsequently protected his killers from justice.
The findings of the investigation that stemmed from have wormed their way to the core of policing in Northern Ireland. There can be no pat excuses about a few “rogue” policemen, about a couple of “bad apples”. It was clear that this was institutional, engrained, and went a very long way up the hierarchy.
Some of the details benefit from retelling. In terms of evasiveness and dissembling, O’Loan finds that some serving police officers gave evidence that was “evasive, contradictory and on occasion farcical”.
That, she said, was either a significant failure to understand the law or contempt for law. On occasion, police officers said things that were proven to be “completely untrue”.
Or the shocking details of the killings. One of the ten people murdered by Informant 1’s gang was Sharon McKenna, a Catholic woman visiting a Protestant friend. Informant 1 (Haddock) admitted he had being involved.
When Informant 1 was hauled in for questioning, his two Special Branch handlers sat in and “babysat” him during the interrogation to ensure that he did not admit to murder.
Around that time, Special Branch actually increased his payment from £100 to £160 a week, despite the fact that he had fresh blood on his hands. In all, Informant 1 was paid nearly £80,000 by the police, despite the overwhelming evidence of very serious criminality.
Another epiphany of the extent of collusion was evident when two Catholic construction workers, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were murdered in North Belfast. They were eating their lunch in a car at Tiger’s Bay in North Belfast when a lone gunman opened fire on the car. Witnesses said that the gunman wore a “goatee” beard.
When Informant 1 was arrested, he was sporting a goatee beard. But he requested a razor blade and was supplied with one. The custody photography showed a clean-shaven man without a goatee. No identity parade was ever held.
It’s unbelievable stuff. Sure, the world of intelligence, of touts, of informants is shadowy, murky and full of moral contradictions. The second-in-command of the IRA’s punishment squad was left in place for many years, despite carrying out the most heinous crimes. A multiple killer like Informant 1 was allowed kill and commit serious crimes at will because he was judged to be a strong “intelligence asset”. Justice and truth become just relative values in the perverse mind-set that underlay all this.
The publication of this report in the week that Sinn Fein decides on policing will be problematic for its leadership, despite Martin McGuinness’s claim yesterday that it “bolsters our argument”.
It’s ironic that one of the strongest exposes of police collusion with loyalist terrorist has been uncovered by a man from an unashamedly loyalist background. Now he is advising Sinn Fein not to jump hastily into policing arrangements.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern describes it ll as “despicable past behaviour”. He will discuss the matter further with the British Government, he says. But he did just that with the Barron report and the report into the deaths of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson. He did that with all of Cory. And nothing came of those either. What more can be discussed? There should be no more skirting around. Bertie Ahern should be loudly demanding a proper public inquiry.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Examiner column January 13th
It started life as a once-off musical collaboration, an eclectic group of artists came together to record a legendary concept album.
In a marathon session in an isolated castle they laid down the tracks of a recording that would go down in history, The Long Good Friday: Eternity and a Day. It was an immediate and soaraway success for Northern Shower and was lapped up by millions of fans in Ireland, North and South in the coming months. But like a lot of new bands, the gigs and the touring and lifestyle eventually wore all the hope and optimism down.
Now a decade later, the Northern Shower has returned to try that difficult second album. As it happens, they hope to finish recording it by the end of March, just in time for Easter. And its working title? What else but The Long Good Friday II: From Here to Eternity.
Like the first, it is high risk though somehow in our bones we feel they can pull it off.
There have been some changes in the band’s line-up since then. Creative differences led to David Trimble walking out several years ago and he is now pursuing a solo career. The Clancy Brothers sound of the SDLP sounded a bit dated so they drafted in The Beards, former punk traditionalists who have been experimenting with a more mellow sound over the past few years.
And just to give it a bit of Northern soul fizzle, the producers went looking for the Reverend Righteous, a cult figure who has been doing the rounds of the Northern circuit for decades. His controversial all-action stage show has made him into one of those figures who you either love or hate, but you just can’t ignore him. The producers got very excited when he arrived. Though he can no longer belt them out like he used to, his booming voice, hip-hop lyrics and complete unpredictability gave the Northern Shower the edge the producers were looking for.
But will it work? They’ve certainly come up with a strong list of ditties.
Children of the Devolution. A couple of numbers from the Police. I Fought the Law and the Law won. Power to the People. Stuck in the Middle With You. Come Out Ye Black and Tans. And a reworking of the Beatles LP, Devolver.
Yes, it would be fatuous to suggest there has been no creative tension between the stars, and yes, there have been a few stand-up rows over lyrics.
But at least there has been some links to the past for you nostalgics out there. Unbelievably, the Bert and Mr Tony are still there a decade later and still providing the same chorus line. They may have both lost their youthful boyband vigour since then and we may have all tired of their voices. But there’s no doubting their ability when it comes to a song and dance routine, especially the Bert’s tried and trusted ‘man in the anorak’ cameo which goes down a treat every time.
And now we come to a critical phase of the project. They have been working hard on the choreography aspects, with Mr Tony and Hugh Orde both coming in to do pre-planned star-turns during the week on MI5 and plastic bullets.
But despite the efforts to keep the whole creative project going, it’s sometimes hard when you are dealing with such a collection of massive egos, oh, I’m sorry I lost the run of myself, sensitive souls.
And The Beards meet today to decide whether they’ll continue with the project or call it a day.
“It’s just the chemistry, man,” an insider told us. “These cats. They just ain’t gelling. The vibes are not good.”
But you must remember that The Beards survived the worst excesses that went with their punk traditionalist lifestyle. Unfortunately, a hell of a lot of others weren’t so lucky.
Unlike the Reverend who still has weekly residencies in venues throughout the North, The Beards have sacrificed everything for this one project.
Having taken at least two years longer than they thought, and having gone woefully over budget, they had to take a short break around Christmas 2004.
Then they did a quick money-making album, Beards and Balaclavas: The Greatest Hits, which did wonders for their bank balance (€40 million reputedly) but led to accusations that they had sold out creatively.
Anyway, they are now back on track, and rehearsing furiously to get this project finished on time. Yes, it is difficult when they and the Reverend do separate rehearsals. Nobody is even sure if they’re singing out of the same hymn sheet.
It started life as a once-off musical collaboration, an eclectic group of artists came together to record a legendary concept album.
In a marathon session in an isolated castle they laid down the tracks of a recording that would go down in history, The Long Good Friday: Eternity and a Day. It was an immediate and soaraway success for Northern Shower and was lapped up by millions of fans in Ireland, North and South in the coming months. But like a lot of new bands, the gigs and the touring and lifestyle eventually wore all the hope and optimism down.
Now a decade later, the Northern Shower has returned to try that difficult second album. As it happens, they hope to finish recording it by the end of March, just in time for Easter. And its working title? What else but The Long Good Friday II: From Here to Eternity.
Like the first, it is high risk though somehow in our bones we feel they can pull it off.
There have been some changes in the band’s line-up since then. Creative differences led to David Trimble walking out several years ago and he is now pursuing a solo career. The Clancy Brothers sound of the SDLP sounded a bit dated so they drafted in The Beards, former punk traditionalists who have been experimenting with a more mellow sound over the past few years.
And just to give it a bit of Northern soul fizzle, the producers went looking for the Reverend Righteous, a cult figure who has been doing the rounds of the Northern circuit for decades. His controversial all-action stage show has made him into one of those figures who you either love or hate, but you just can’t ignore him. The producers got very excited when he arrived. Though he can no longer belt them out like he used to, his booming voice, hip-hop lyrics and complete unpredictability gave the Northern Shower the edge the producers were looking for.
But will it work? They’ve certainly come up with a strong list of ditties.
Children of the Devolution. A couple of numbers from the Police. I Fought the Law and the Law won. Power to the People. Stuck in the Middle With You. Come Out Ye Black and Tans. And a reworking of the Beatles LP, Devolver.
Yes, it would be fatuous to suggest there has been no creative tension between the stars, and yes, there have been a few stand-up rows over lyrics.
But at least there has been some links to the past for you nostalgics out there. Unbelievably, the Bert and Mr Tony are still there a decade later and still providing the same chorus line. They may have both lost their youthful boyband vigour since then and we may have all tired of their voices. But there’s no doubting their ability when it comes to a song and dance routine, especially the Bert’s tried and trusted ‘man in the anorak’ cameo which goes down a treat every time.
And now we come to a critical phase of the project. They have been working hard on the choreography aspects, with Mr Tony and Hugh Orde both coming in to do pre-planned star-turns during the week on MI5 and plastic bullets.
But despite the efforts to keep the whole creative project going, it’s sometimes hard when you are dealing with such a collection of massive egos, oh, I’m sorry I lost the run of myself, sensitive souls.
And The Beards meet today to decide whether they’ll continue with the project or call it a day.
“It’s just the chemistry, man,” an insider told us. “These cats. They just ain’t gelling. The vibes are not good.”
But you must remember that The Beards survived the worst excesses that went with their punk traditionalist lifestyle. Unfortunately, a hell of a lot of others weren’t so lucky.
Unlike the Reverend who still has weekly residencies in venues throughout the North, The Beards have sacrificed everything for this one project.
Having taken at least two years longer than they thought, and having gone woefully over budget, they had to take a short break around Christmas 2004.
Then they did a quick money-making album, Beards and Balaclavas: The Greatest Hits, which did wonders for their bank balance (€40 million reputedly) but led to accusations that they had sold out creatively.
Anyway, they are now back on track, and rehearsing furiously to get this project finished on time. Yes, it is difficult when they and the Reverend do separate rehearsals. Nobody is even sure if they’re singing out of the same hymn sheet.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
There were many tributes paid to David Ervine yesterday. The PUP leader had a great deep-burr voice for oratory and a gift for phrase-making and for fancy metaphor. In the end, he was the party's only representative in the Assembly. But where he came from, where he wanted to bring loyalism to, were both pivotal in allowing us in the South understand the layers that lay behind the 'not an inch' rhetoric.
The most poignant tribute, in my estimation, was the simple statement issued by his own party: “Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son."
Concise. Spot on. Wonderful.
The most poignant tribute, in my estimation, was the simple statement issued by his own party: “Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son."
Concise. Spot on. Wonderful.
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