The police, 1987 and Áine Adams: the gorilla in the toilet

It’s sort of fun being a blogger. You get compliments from some people, more often you get brickbats from others. The most common brickbat I get fired my way is that I’m an unthinking mouthpiece for republicanism. Especially the IRA.  If you took these kind of charges seriously you’d be heading either for your solicitor or a mental hospital. Fortunately I don’t take them seriously. I openly concede that I approach the political world from a nationalist/republican perspective but I like to think my brain isn’t totally addled.

At the same time there’s a background implications that goes with the brickbats. It is that the mainstream media are balanced, objective, conveyors of the whole truth. If pressed, there’ll be the concession that some - say the Indo -  are, how shall we put it, not totally cheerleaders for republicanism. But a broadcaster like RTÉ or a newspaper like The Irish Times is free from such selective bias. 

Which makes an article in this morning’s paper a bit disruptive of that  take on our media. It’s by Gerry Moriarty, and it tells how Gerry Adams is “under pressure” over the Liam Adams case. It tells how Adams has always escaped from tight political corners but this one is different. And its concluding paragraph tells the reader about “claims that Adams acted in a calculated self-interested fashion to avoid charges of with-holding information about child sexual abuse and to save his ‘political skin’ ”. 

You’ve heard it all before. And you know that there are people in the media who, if they found evidence that Gerry Adams had picked his nose in 1962 would use that as a weapon to demand his removal as president of Sinn Féin. What makes the article interesting - and so many other articles like it - is the failure to mention the role of the police in all of this.

Surprising, isn’t it? Clearly it’s vital to everyone living in the jurisdiction - and beyond - that the police act in an even-handed and lawful way. Everyone by now knows that the police in 1987, instead of responding to the complaints of sexual abuse reported to them by Áine Adams and her mother, tried instead to turn her into an informer. Who were these police people? Was there much of it around? Are any of the people involved still working in the PSNI? These are surely matters of greater importance than who leads Sinn Féin.

Because if there’s another story of public interest attached to the Liam Adams case, the conduct of the police must be it. They were in possession of the crucial facts of the case in 1987 but ignored them and pursued their own tout-creating concerns. You’d think that an impartial, high-minded media would have latched onto that immediately and pursued the trail as far as possible. Nah - doesn’t fit the narrative, that. So much more fun trying to nail the top Shinners man.

Liking Enda Kenny

 

It’s hard not to like Enda Kenny. Even admire him. There he was on Saturday night, at a specially-convened Fine Gael conference that was supposed to be celebrating their victory in the referendum on the Seanad. But was he embarrassed about ending up with a referendum defeat on his hands? No chance. ‘Fine Gael - Getting Ireland Working’ the big banner behind him said, and you’d be forgiven for believing that that was just what had happened. Or was happening. Or was going to happen. Maybe. 

Two moments stood out, I thought. One where the Taoiseach referred to the Seanad and how, having accepted the democratic will (as distinct from ignoring it and mounting a coup d’état), his government was now (big pause here for effect)...going to extend Seanad voting powers to all graduates!  Woo-hoo, yippee, long live democracy. 

The other part was where he talked about the good shape the ‘country’ was in. “Ireland is on-track to exit the IMF-EU bail-out in December 2013!”  Thunderous applause, even from the woman doing the deaf sign-language.  Mind you, the budget on Tuesday will be tough, but Ireland is on-track to exit the IMF-EU bail-out! Great stuff...Um, does that mean the southern state is going to be - whisper it - debt-free in December 2013? Yerrah man, debt-free, have a bit of sense would you? It means that the south will be able to go back to the markets, that’s what it means! Yippee, hooray...Um, what will they do when they get there? To the markets I mean. Well, it means that, er ah diddly-dee, it means that  the state will be able to go to the markets and borrow there!  Now, great news or what? 

It really is hard not to like Enda Kenny. It must be the way he tells them. 

Reasons for ringing the Ombudsman

So now three DUP MLAs have requested the Ombudsman to look into Gerry Adams's role in the Liam Adams saga. I wonder why.

It could be that they feel it's important to be part of the great battle against child sexual abuse and this is their contribution. Or it could be that they feel the PPS  isn't doing its job the way they'd like to see it done. Or it could be that they believe Gerry Adams is a very bad leader of Sinn Féin and they hope in this way to have him replaced by someone better. Or it could be (and I'm putting my money on this one) that they have their eye on elections next May and are limbering up to appeal to the backwoodsmen. Adams-bashing is big with the backwoodsmen.

Whatever the reason, from a DUP point of view it must seem logical that they take every opportunity to...I was going to say 'chip away' but that's copyrighted...to weaken the leader of the main party you're in government with. Yes I know that sounds nuts but it would almost certainly resonate with the bwm. But in doing so, the three DUP amigos have forgotten something rather important.

With each blow  they aim at Gerry Adams's reputation, they are strengthening Sinn Féin. Sounds counter-intuitive, as they say nowadays? Well, it's just that patently opportunistic actions against Sinn Féin only stiffens the support of those who are Sinn Féin voters and possibly adds to their number. If the DUP truly wanted to weaken Sinn Féin at the polls, they should start saying they think Gerry Adams is a very fine person, they admire the work he's done to bring about and maintain peace, and that he leads a party they are happy to be in government with. If they did that, Sinn Féin voters would begin to think Sinn Féin must have abandoned every republican value, seeing as how the DUP were now so fond of them.

Worth a try, guys.  Although if you do, there's one big catch: your backwoodsmen  will almost certainly have a collective heart-attack. Still, you can't make a political omelette without breaking backwoods hearts.

Remembering Thomas Begley

Once again the subject of the Shankill bombing comes centre stage. Plans have been announced for a commemoration of Thomas Begley, one of the two young men who carried the bomb into the Shankill fish-shop and who was himself killed in the explosion. Now a commemoration is planned for him later this month, a few days before the anniversary of the bombing.

As I’ve said elsewhere, there are trigger words here which drive people into paroxysms of outrage, and ‘the Shankill bomb’ is one of them. To the people of the Shankill Begley was a murderer, the essence of evil, a man who helped bring about the deaths of nine people. To republicans, he was an IRA volunteer who was involved in a military operation in which he lost his life. Everything else - the assertion that a postponed meeting of the UDA was the intended target, the premature explosion which took the life of one of the bombers - is shaped by these two contrasting views. 

Alan McBride, whose wife and father-in-law were killed in the explosion, was on TV recently and I thought he spoke honestly and with understanding. He said that when he heard a band playing in the Ardoyne on the first anniversary of the explosion, he felt deeply hurt. He acknowledges that Thomas Begley was some mother’s son, but that his commemoration should not be thrust in the faces of those who suffered through his actions. 

That seems a fair and in the circumstances noble reading of what happened then and what should happen now. An acceptance that, for whatever reason, the relatives of those killed in our conflict have been hurt to a depth most of us can only wonder at; and an acceptance that those actively involved in the conflict, while reviled by one side, are seen as courageous and worthy of commemoration by the other. 

We can only hope that the note struck by Alan McBride will be echoed by others commenting on the event. Commemorations don't have to be marched up to the door of those who've suffered  to the sound of yelled slogans.

The truth or the whole truth?

As time passes, I’m finding myself drawn more and more to the how-about-if-it-happened-to-you school of thought. That’s to say, if an action is proposed by unionists,  they should first ask themselves “How would we feel if this were done to us?” And vice versa - republicans should consider how they would be affected if unionist were to do what they’re considering. 

I find this notion pressing in on me this morning after reading an article in The Irish Times by Margaret Urwin.  In it she notes an article in that newspaper last month by Prof Henry Patterson, titled ‘Could Dublin have done more to defeat the IRA?’  Ms Urwin’s point is simple and worthy of consideration: “He [Prof Patterson] omitted to mention the critical point that the Border was porous in both directions."

She concedes that some IRA people did flee south and find refuge, but she notes that 50 people were killed in the south as a result of loyalist attacks in the other direction, and hundreds more injured. “Yet not a single loyalist was convicted for any of these murders”.

She notes how released documents show that from September 1974,  four specialist panels of RUC and Garda officers were set up and met on a monthly basis, co-ordinating counter-paramilitary actions: “What is striking about the record of the September meeting is the total absence of any reference to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings only four months earlier, in which 34 people lost their lives. Nor was there any mention of possible future forays into the Republic by loyalists. The discussions concentrated entirely on IRA violence”. In fact, the commander of the British army in the north expressed the view that “any action designed to put pressure on people north of the Border would be the wrong response to the situation."  In short, a decision not to arrest loyalist paramilitaries was taken. 

Maybe the work of academics like Prof Patterson should be more comprehensive. 

Here’s the link to the article: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/both-uk-and-ireland-failed-to-focus-on-loyalist-violence-1.1552977#.UlUVIWG2JXg.gmail

Thinking big with Ian Óg

Are we a parochial people? I would say so. We think in local terms, sometimes at the expense of the bigger picture. I remember an ex-student of mine complaining that there were no English teacher jobs going. “But I thought I saw an ad for an English teacher in Enniskillen the other day” I said. 

“That’s no good - I’d have to leave Belfast if I got it” the young woman told me. And if you haven’t seen the Gaelic football rivalry between different clubs/parishes in Tyrone or Derry, you’ve led a sheltered life.

There’s a plus to all this. The fact that people tend to stay as close to their place of origin as possible makes for tightly-knit communities. Nobody gets born, married or dies without, to a greater or lesser extent, the whole community being part of it. People fit into a network that sometimes extends back several generations. 

The downside is that we begin to think that all things of value reside where we reside, and the further we get from our home base, the more uneasy and critical we become. I remember going to Canada in the late 1960s and noticing that a lot of the men wore big, obvious rings. Graduation rings, I think they were. Instead of accepting that this was part of their culture, I inwardly felt contempt for people who had such poor taste in personal accessories. 

We’re told we all now live in a global village. If that’s true, it’s a village with a lot of very high walls between neighbours. We’re used to the parochialism of those who think that south of the border is a foreign country, that they talk funny down there and that they’re all lazy shysters who would steal the eye out of your head. Ian Paisley Jr was on the radio this morning. He was being asked about the up-coming development of the Frosses Road in north Antrim - he’s the MP for the area. Naturally he was all for it, emphasised the value of it in many ways. Then he was asked what he felt about this money coming at the expense of the development/non-development of the A5 road as a western transport corridor. I can’t remember Ian Óg’s exact words but he said in effect that he couldn't care less about the A5 development, he was just pleased to have the Frosses development.

No politician opens his/her mouth without thought at some level as to how this will go down with his/her constituents. You can see how Ian Óg believes his constituents think. It's called the laager mentality.

How to conceal information

I’m just off the Nolan Show, where my old sparring partner Malachi O’Doherty (actually he’s younger than me) was worrying about Gerry Adams maybe not having told the police quickly enough about a conversation he had with his brother Liam. You’ve probably read about the case in the papers or heard about it on radio or television. What you’re much less likely to have heard about is an article that appeared on the Guardian website yesterday.  It’s about a gap in information too.

Only on a bigger scale. A much, much bigger scale. It seems the British Ministry of Defence has been unlawfully withholding thousands of files (that’s right, thousands) that should have been declassified under the 30-year rule. A lot of these documents concern what happened here in the 1970s and 1980s. In what has to be the understatement of the year Huw Bennett, who was an expert witness in that Mau Mau court case a while back,  where the British government ended up forking out compensation for barbaric treatment of  Kenyans  - Huw says “ It [the withheld information] has major implications for understanding our past”.  Right. And the HET is particularly interested: “There could potentially be documentation about every case we are interested in”.

Mind you, the British Ministry of Defence has previous on this. Eight years ago it said it couldn’t release tens of thousands of files because they were stored in a building where they’d found asbestos. Later they said they couldn’t move some of those files into the National Archive because they had been destroyed “as a result of water damage”. 

You get the drift? If it’s a piece of information that Gerry Adams might or might not have given to the police earlier, it’s headline stuff. If it’s countless files being held illegally by the British Ministry of Defence, it literally isn’t worth mentioning.  But sure why would they? Yes, the  British Ministry of Defence is in breach of the Public Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act; but hey,  the law provides no sanctions for such suppression. 

If you’re going to steal, steal big. If you’re going to conceal, conceal big. It’s safer that way.  It’ll also be less talked-about.