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THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co WHAT DOES ‘OGLACH’ AS IN ‘OGLACH MARTIN MCGUINNESS’ MEAN So what does 'Oglach' mean? In my experience IRA members use it, when they use Irish, to mean 'Volunteer', i.e. a rank and file member of the IRA. But there are other meanings, as Focloir Gaelige-Bearia (O Donaill 1971) makes clear. Nonetheless the military essence dominates: óglach, m. (gs. & npl. RUPERT MURDOCH AND RONALD REAGAN A fascinating story of Cold War skulduggery and the fashioning of a secret alliance between Ronald Reagan and News International supremo, Rupert Murdoch unearthed by Robert Parry, on the always interesting Consortiumnews.com website. Murdoch had already forged a relationship with the Thatcher government in Britain, which had paid handsome business dividends for his media group,THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co WHAT DOES ‘OGLACH’ AS IN ‘OGLACH MARTIN MCGUINNESS’ MEAN So what does 'Oglach' mean? In my experience IRA members use it, when they use Irish, to mean 'Volunteer', i.e. a rank and file member of the IRA. But there are other meanings, as Focloir Gaelige-Bearia (O Donaill 1971) makes clear. Nonetheless the military essence dominates: óglach, m. (gs. & npl. RUPERT MURDOCH AND RONALD REAGAN A fascinating story of Cold War skulduggery and the fashioning of a secret alliance between Ronald Reagan and News International supremo, Rupert Murdoch unearthed by Robert Parry, on the always interesting Consortiumnews.com website. Murdoch had already forged a relationship with the Thatcher government in Britain, which had paid handsome business dividends for his media group, IRISH TIMES RECYLES 3-YEAR OLD BROKEN ELBOW STORY AND Regular readers of thebrokenelbow.com, who also subscribe to The Irish Times, might have recognised as something they had read before, an article in Saturday’s People section of the paper about the suicide of Dr David Ross, who was the Maze prison doctor during the 1980 and 1981 republican hunger strikes.Dr Ross killed himself with a shotgun in the family garage of his Templepatrick, Co JUNE | 2021 | THE BROKEN ELBOW It was the subsequent use of a Laundry Van by the MRF in Belfast that was to partly lead to the units downfall. In MRFs Four Square Laundry operation, Sapper Ted Stewart, from Strabane, and Lance Corporal Sarah Jane Warke were ambushed in Turf Lodge after the operation had been discovered by PIRA intelligence. WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The splitters, called the NI Business Committee, are 60/70 year old veterans, part of the Workers Party’s so-called ‘PLC machine’ whose careers with the WP go back to the early 1970’s. The ‘PLC Machine’ is run by a well known activist, with something of a fearsome reputation, by the name of Seamus Harrison. The ‘PLCMachine’ is
AN AMERICAN JEW WRITES FROM HEBRON Mondoweiss, a blog mostly written by Jewish anti-zionists and other critics of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians of Gaza, has been on my required reading list for years now, and occasionally I have been privileged to write for it. The current edition has a great article about a visit to Hebron written by Benjamin Moser, MARTIN DILLON ON RUBY DAVISON, AN IRA TRAITOR AND ONE OF By Martin Dillon When I visited Belfast last November, I made my way to Milltown Cemetery where my parents, and many of my Dillon, Clarke and Carson relatives are buried. It was a cold, early morning when I strode through the pathways between the MARTIN MCGUINNESS & FRANK HEGARTY The story of how Martin McGuinness allegedly lured Derry IRA informer Frank Hegarty back from England, promising his mother – on bended knee according to accounts – that he would not be harmed, only for Hegarty to end up on a lonely country road with a bullet in his head has been told here, here, here and here.. Doubtless it will figure again in the course of the Presidential campaign andTHE BROKEN ELBOW
A View of the World from New York and Belfast (Public PGP Key:210D6F47)
SINN FEIN’S SECRET 1988 REPORT ON NORAID Sinn Fein’s Secret 1988 Report On Noraid. File this under history. Way back in 1988, nearly three decades ago, Sinn Fein’s Foreign Affairs department set in motion a process in America that, in a roundabout way, would become a building block in the then still secret, largely invisible peace process that six years later wouldproduce the
THE IRA DISAPPEARED OF THE 1920’S: GERRY ADAMS VS. NIALL The allegation that the IRA of the 1920’s engaged in the same disappearing policy as its modern counterparts, that is a national policy endorsed by the IRA’s GHQ as opposed to unofficial and localised instances and implemented during the conflict not after it had ended, is a very new one. It was put forward as recently as Marchlast year by
UNCATEGORIZED
Two groups of people should be hanging their heads in shame this morning, the day after the awful day before. One are the pollsters who got the result so badly wrong that in the future polls should either be ignored or only consumed with a large chunks of rock salt.THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The splitters, called the NI Business Committee, are 60/70 year old veterans, part of the Workers Party’s so-called ‘PLC machine’ whose careers with the WP go back to the early 1970’s. The ‘PLC Machine’ is run by a well known activist, with something of a fearsome reputation, by the name of Seamus Harrison. The ‘PLCMachine’ is
BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co ‘THE GOOD OLD IRA’ Funny the tricks memory can play on people. In a post yesterday dealing with Gerry Adams’ recent claim that the IRA had ‘disappeared’ an estimated 200 alleged informers during the Anglo-Irish war, and that the modern IRA had thus behaved no differently or more barbarously than the heroic founders of the Irish state, I made reference to a pamphlet called ‘The Good Old IRA’which had
THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The splitters, called the NI Business Committee, are 60/70 year old veterans, part of the Workers Party’s so-called ‘PLC machine’ whose careers with the WP go back to the early 1970’s. The ‘PLC Machine’ is run by a well known activist, with something of a fearsome reputation, by the name of Seamus Harrison. The ‘PLCMachine’ is
BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co ‘THE GOOD OLD IRA’ Funny the tricks memory can play on people. In a post yesterday dealing with Gerry Adams’ recent claim that the IRA had ‘disappeared’ an estimated 200 alleged informers during the Anglo-Irish war, and that the modern IRA had thus behaved no differently or more barbarously than the heroic founders of the Irish state, I made reference to a pamphlet called ‘The Good Old IRA’which had
UNDER BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE US HEALTHCARE STILL STINKS….AND 1 day ago · Under Biden’s White House US Healthcare Still Stinks.And The Progressive Dems Disappoint THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization JUNE | 2021 | THE BROKEN ELBOW It was the subsequent use of a Laundry Van by the MRF in Belfast that was to partly lead to the units downfall. In MRFs Four Square Laundry operation, Sapper Ted Stewart, from Strabane, and Lance Corporal Sarah Jane Warke were ambushed in Turf Lodge after the operation had been discovered by PIRA intelligence. WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The ‘PLC Machine’ is a fancy way of referring to the Workers Party’s portfolio of bars and businesses, some as far away as San Francisco, that were built up over the years courtesy of scams like building site tax rackets, as well as drink licence permits discretely arranged by the Northern Ireland Office in the days when OIRA was regarded by HMG as an acceptable alternative to the Provos.THE BROKEN ELBOW
Many thanks to “Wicklow” for this tip that the famous Tom Mangold interview with a young Martin McGuinness is now on YouTube, the one which begins with the celebrated question: “As the officer commanding the Derry part of the IRA Provisionals.? ‘AT LEAST THREE PROVO INFORMERS HELPED LOYALISTS/BRITISH A son of the late Provisional IRA icon Larry Marley – the Ardoyne republican who masterminded the 1983 mass escape from the Maze prison, Long Kesh – has posted a claim on the internet that ‘at least three IRA informers.and possibly more’, helped set up his father for assassination in 1987 at the behest of British intelligence agencies. UDA | THE BROKEN ELBOW The idea was to validate the claim that UDA intelligence was accurate, that it targeted known republican activists rather than ordinary Catholics and that it was able to do so thanks to the help of a host of sympathisers in the security forces, principally the UDR, RUC andBritish Army.
UNCATEGORIZED
Posts about Uncategorized written by The Broken Elbow. A View of the World from New York and Belfast (Public PGP Key: 210D6F47) BONO’S OFFSHORE TAX SHELTER INVESTMENTS REVEALED A number of international publications have begun publishing the contents of the so-called Paradise papers, secret records of offshore, i.e. tax-free investments made by the super-rich and hidden out of reach and sight of their fellow countrymen and women and governments. This cache was unearthed by researchers from the International Consortium of Journalists and the THE BRITISH SOLDIER WHO KILLED JIM BRYSON INTERVIEWED The British Soldier Who Killed Jim Bryson Interviewed.. Amongst the litany of heavy blows inflicted by the British Army on the Provisional IRA during the early 1970’s – when the war really was IRA vs British military – one of the most severe was the shooting dead of Ballymurphy IRA leader Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna in August 1973THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a ‘THE IRA STILL EXISTS & “OVERSEES”* SF’, PSNI TELLS In the seemingly endless debate about whether or not the Provisional IRA still exists and whether or not it controls Sinn Fein – questions that loom like Banquo’s ghost over negotiations about the formation of a new government in Dublin – little attention has been paid to a PSNI assessment made as recently as last November that the IRA did at that time exist and that it controlled Sinn Fein. BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co THE BRITISH SOLDIER WHO KILLED JIM BRYSON INTERVIEWED The British Soldier Who Killed Jim Bryson Interviewed.. Amongst the litany of heavy blows inflicted by the British Army on the Provisional IRA during the early 1970’s – when the war really was IRA vs British military – one of the most severe was the shooting dead of Ballymurphy IRA leader Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna in August 1973THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: SINN FEIN AND BOBBY SANDS’ FUNERAL Sinn Fein And Bobby Sands’ Funeral. There is only one way to settle the disputed claim over where Bobby Sands wanted to be buried. Sinn Fein has produced the text – but not a copy – of a ‘comm’ from the dead hunger striker saying that he was now content to be buried in Milltown. This was issued by a former low level SF press officer THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY ETA, The Provos And An Arms Deal Post The Good Friday Agreement. The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a ‘THE IRA STILL EXISTS & “OVERSEES”* SF’, PSNI TELLS In the seemingly endless debate about whether or not the Provisional IRA still exists and whether or not it controls Sinn Fein – questions that loom like Banquo’s ghost over negotiations about the formation of a new government in Dublin – little attention has been paid to a PSNI assessment made as recently as last November that the IRA did at that time exist and that it controlled Sinn Fein. BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co THE BRITISH SOLDIER WHO KILLED JIM BRYSON INTERVIEWED The British Soldier Who Killed Jim Bryson Interviewed.. Amongst the litany of heavy blows inflicted by the British Army on the Provisional IRA during the early 1970’s – when the war really was IRA vs British military – one of the most severe was the shooting dead of Ballymurphy IRA leader Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna in August 1973 THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organizationTHE BROKEN ELBOW
Many thanks to “Wicklow” for this tip that the famous Tom Mangold interview with a young Martin McGuinness is now on YouTube, the one which begins with the celebrated question: “As the officer commanding the Derry part of the IRA Provisionals.? JUNE | 2021 | THE BROKEN ELBOW It was the subsequent use of a Laundry Van by the MRF in Belfast that was to partly lead to the units downfall. In MRFs Four Square Laundry operation, Sapper Ted Stewart, from Strabane, and Lance Corporal Sarah Jane Warke were ambushed in Turf Lodge after the operation had been discovered by PIRA intelligence. WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The ‘PLC Machine’ is a fancy way of referring to the Workers Party’s portfolio of bars and businesses, some as far away as San Francisco, that were built up over the years courtesy of scams like building site tax rackets, as well as drink licence permits discretely arranged by the Northern Ireland Office in the days when OIRA was regarded by HMG as an acceptable alternative to the Provos. THE IRA AND SINN FEIN DURING THE TROUBLES An academic view of the Provisionals during the Troubles. The author studied the subject from Canada and clearly comes from the controversy-free, mainstream academic school of thought: The IRA and Sinn Féin during the Troubles: two faces of the same organization Arthur Nogacz University of British Columbia Political Science Department The second half of the ‘AT LEAST THREE PROVO INFORMERS HELPED LOYALISTS/BRITISH A son of the late Provisional IRA icon Larry Marley – the Ardoyne republican who masterminded the 1983 mass escape from the Maze prison, Long Kesh – has posted a claim on the internet that ‘at least three IRA informers.and possibly more’, helped set up his father for assassination in 1987 at the behest of British intelligence agencies. MARTIN DILLON ON RUBY DAVISON, AN IRA TRAITOR AND ONE OF By Martin Dillon When I visited Belfast last November, I made my way to Milltown Cemetery where my parents, and many of my Dillon, Clarke and Carson relatives are buried. It was a cold, early morning when I strode through the pathways between theUNCATEGORIZED
Posts about Uncategorized written by The Broken Elbow. A View of the World from New York and Belfast (Public PGP Key: 210D6F47) ‘THE GOOD OLD IRA’ Funny the tricks memory can play on people. In a post yesterday dealing with Gerry Adams’ recent claim that the IRA had ‘disappeared’ an estimated 200 alleged informers during the Anglo-Irish war, and that the modern IRA had thus behaved no differently or more barbarously than the heroic founders of the Irish state, I made reference to a pamphlet called ‘The Good Old IRA’which had
BONO’S OFFSHORE TAX SHELTER INVESTMENTS REVEALED A number of international publications have begun publishing the contents of the so-called Paradise papers, secret records of offshore, i.e. tax-free investments made by the super-rich and hidden out of reach and sight of their fellow countrymen and women and governments. This cache was unearthed by researchers from the International Consortium of Journalists and theTHE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co ‘THE IRA STILL EXISTS & “OVERSEES”* SF’, PSNI TELLS In the seemingly endless debate about whether or not the Provisional IRA still exists and whether or not it controls Sinn Fein – questions that loom like Banquo’s ghost over negotiations about the formation of a new government in Dublin – little attention has been paid to a PSNI assessment made as recently as last November that the IRA did at that time exist and that it controlled Sinn Fein. MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
BONO’S OFFSHORE TAX SHELTER INVESTMENTS REVEALED A number of international publications have begun publishing the contents of the so-called Paradise papers, secret records of offshore, i.e. tax-free investments made by the super-rich and hidden out of reach and sight of their fellow countrymen and women and governments. This cache was unearthed by researchers from the International Consortium of Journalists and the SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE IRA’S ‘HUMAN BOMB’ TACTIC A couple of thoughts on the 'Human Bomb' tactic which the IRA employed in 1990. The first is that its use, in three places (Derry, Newry and Omagh), in three different counties (Derry, Down and Tyrone) on the same day (October 24th, 1990) is consistent with the tactic being ordered and co-ordinated at a leadership WHAT DOES ‘OGLACH’ AS IN ‘OGLACH MARTIN MCGUINNESS’ MEAN So what does 'Oglach' mean? In my experience IRA members use it, when they use Irish, to mean 'Volunteer', i.e. a rank and file member of the IRA. But there are other meanings, as Focloir Gaelige-Bearia (O Donaill 1971) makes clear. Nonetheless the military essence dominates: óglach, m. (gs. & npl. FRIENDS OF SINN FEIN NOW DONATING TO US POLITICIANS Friends of Sinn Féin, the party’s US-based fundraising arm, raised more than $102,000 (€86,000) from donors in the six months to the end of the October, new filings show. The figures, disclosed in financial returns submitted to the US Department of Justice, show that the New York-based group spent $117,000 during the period between May1st
THE BROKEN ELBOW
The ten Ballymurphy victims. On Tuesday 11 May 2021, when Coroner, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan presented her findings of the inquest into the death of ten people killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9-11 August 1971, it was almost a half century since news first emerged of theshootings.
EOGHAN HARRIS BY VINCENT BROWNE Eoghan Harris The sacked Sunday Indo columnist has an interesting past, which Vincent Browne chronicled in Magill magazine: THE OFFICIAL IRA AND WORKERS PARTY IN THE WAKE OF THE DE The Official IRA and Workers Party In The Wake Of The De Rossa Split. I received the piece below as a comment on an article I wrote on the recent split in what remains of the Workers Party and Official IRA. ‘Helmut Oberlander’ is the undoubtedly fictitious byline that came with the article but knowing a little about the organization BRITISH ARMY TRAINING ZONES DURING THE TROUBLES By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell During the Troubles the British Army constructed or used already erected mock towns/streets to replicate the urban environment that their troops would experience during tours of Northern Ireland. Below is a selection of photos of the sites and some training exercises. Only one, at the Ballykinlar camp in Co ‘THE IRA STILL EXISTS & “OVERSEES”* SF’, PSNI TELLS In the seemingly endless debate about whether or not the Provisional IRA still exists and whether or not it controls Sinn Fein – questions that loom like Banquo’s ghost over negotiations about the formation of a new government in Dublin – little attention has been paid to a PSNI assessment made as recently as last November that the IRA did at that time exist and that it controlled Sinn Fein. MEET SAS COMMANDER JULIAN ‘TONY’ BALL, ROBERT NAIRAC’S Meet SAS Commander Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, Robert Nairac’s Comrade-in-Arms. If Robert Nairac was involved in the Miami Showband massacre, the man who would have known more than most about his role was Julian ‘Tony’ Ball, a legendary former commander of a secret SAS unit based in Co. Armagh in the mid-1970’s, a squad that Nairacliaised
BONO’S OFFSHORE TAX SHELTER INVESTMENTS REVEALED A number of international publications have begun publishing the contents of the so-called Paradise papers, secret records of offshore, i.e. tax-free investments made by the super-rich and hidden out of reach and sight of their fellow countrymen and women and governments. This cache was unearthed by researchers from the International Consortium of Journalists and the SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE IRA’S ‘HUMAN BOMB’ TACTIC A couple of thoughts on the 'Human Bomb' tactic which the IRA employed in 1990. The first is that its use, in three places (Derry, Newry and Omagh), in three different counties (Derry, Down and Tyrone) on the same day (October 24th, 1990) is consistent with the tactic being ordered and co-ordinated at a leadership WHAT DOES ‘OGLACH’ AS IN ‘OGLACH MARTIN MCGUINNESS’ MEAN So what does 'Oglach' mean? In my experience IRA members use it, when they use Irish, to mean 'Volunteer', i.e. a rank and file member of the IRA. But there are other meanings, as Focloir Gaelige-Bearia (O Donaill 1971) makes clear. Nonetheless the military essence dominates: óglach, m. (gs. & npl. FRIENDS OF SINN FEIN NOW DONATING TO US POLITICIANS Friends of Sinn Féin, the party’s US-based fundraising arm, raised more than $102,000 (€86,000) from donors in the six months to the end of the October, new filings show. The figures, disclosed in financial returns submitted to the US Department of Justice, show that the New York-based group spent $117,000 during the period between May1st
JUNE | 2021 | THE BROKEN ELBOW It was the subsequent use of a Laundry Van by the MRF in Belfast that was to partly lead to the units downfall. In MRFs Four Square Laundry operation, Sapper Ted Stewart, from Strabane, and Lance Corporal Sarah Jane Warke were ambushed in Turf Lodge after the operation had been discovered by PIRA intelligence. THE WORM IS TURNING ON ISRAEL IN BIDEN’S DEMOCRATS…. At least in New York, where Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Shumer may face a primary challenge for his Senate seat, writes Mondoweiss founder Philip Weiss, from AOC who has called Israel ‘an apartheid state’, reflecting a growing grassroots anger EKSUND | THE BROKEN ELBOW Posts about Eksund written by The Broken Elbow. In fact we now know that the British had known about the Libyan smuggling operation for some time, tipped off at a senior level within the IRA and had been following the Eksund almost from the moment it left Tripoli harbor. The cover story was concocted – and likely the rudder sabotaged – to protect the British source inside the IRA.THE BROKEN ELBOW
A View of the World from New York and Belfast (Public PGP Key:210D6F47)
ETA, THE PROVOS AND AN ARMS DEAL POST THE GOOD FRIDAY The above photo of James Monaghan, one-time IRA Director of Engineering and a central figure in the alleged 2001 plot by the IRA to train the Columbian FARC guerrillas, and Evelyn Glenholmes, daughter of late Short Strand IRA veteran Dickie Glenholmes, who was at the centre of a dramatic extradition row in 1986 over her alleged involvement in an IRA bombing campaign in London, wasTOMMY LYTTLE
Tommy Lyttle suspected that Craig had helped the IRA kill South Belfast UDA Brigadier, John McMichael in December 1987 not long after McMichael had aired complaints within the UDA hierarchy and in Craig’s earshot, about Craig’s dubious business dealings. In the convulsions that followed, Tommy Lyttle emerged as top dog. WHO’S WHO OF WP SPLIT EMERGES; GERRY ADAMS’ BROTHER-IN-LAW The splitters, called the NI Business Committee, are 60/70 year old veterans, part of the Workers Party’s so-called ‘PLC machine’ whose careers with the WP go back to the early 1970’s. The ‘PLC Machine’ is run by a well known activist, with something of a fearsome reputation, by the name of Seamus Harrison. The ‘PLCMachine’ is
‘AT LEAST THREE PROVO INFORMERS HELPED LOYALISTS/BRITISH A son of the late Provisional IRA icon Larry Marley – the Ardoyne republican who masterminded the 1983 mass escape from the Maze prison, Long Kesh – has posted a claim on the internet that ‘at least three IRA informers.and possibly more’, helped set up his father for assassination in 1987 at the behest of British intelligence agencies. DOES THE IRA STILL CALL THE SHOTS IN SINN FEIN, SO TO It remains to be seen whether, inspired by the likes of Una Mullally and others, The Irish Times’ leader writers are persuaded that the party led by Mary Lou McDonald is now IRA-free, that an ocean of clear blue water separates Sinn Fein from its military wing, and that the 26 Co. electorate, due to go to the polls on February 8th, should no longer harbour reservations about that matter. THE IRA AND PROTESTANT LOYALISTS DURING THE TAN WAR IN CO The IRA And Protestant Loyalists During The Tan War In Co Cork. Few controversies from the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-1921 have raged with as much vigour, resilience and fury as the late Peter Hart’s 1998 claim that the IRA in Co Cork, especially West Cork, conducted a sectarian murder campaign against Protestants disguised as a war againstTHE BROKEN ELBOW
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SOME HARD QUESTIONS FOR THE PAT FINUCANE CENTRE Posted on November 20, 2019| 2 comments
Shane Paul O’Doherty, the former Derry IRA activist, has been a controversial figure for republicans ever since the mid-1980’s when he began to publicly disavow and condemn the Provos and his former comrades in Derry for their campaign of violence. Given the company he sometimes has kept, for instance his friendship with Ruth Dudley Edwards, he has been an easy target for Sinn Fein and their allies. But this lengthy article about Paul O’Connor, the director of the widely respected Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) , is something even his bitterest enemies are going to have to take seriously. Shane Paul O’Doherty I have emailed Anne Cadwallader of the PFC asking if the allegations he makes against O’Connor are true or false but so far have not received a reply. The PFC cannot remain silent on this one, which youcan read here:
Paul O’Connor, Director of the Pat Finucane Centre, IRA Volunteer2 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized DID DREW HARRIS’ COPS ‘BRIBE & TRICK’ THEIR WAY INTO THE BOSTONCOLLEGE ARCHIVE?
Posted on November 17, 2019| 1 comment
The Police Ombudsman’s office in Belfast is currently investigating a complaint from myself that in 2011, PSNI detectives under the command of Drew Harris, the then Assistant Chief Constable in charge of crime, ‘bribed’ – or perhaps ‘tricked’ would be a better word – a member of the McConville family into lodging a complaint which would enable the PSNI to gain access to a Troubles-related oral history archive lodged at Boston College. The allegation is supported by legal documents and contemporary correspondence which show that Jimmy McConville, one of Jean McConville’s sons, had lodged a complaint with the Police Ombudsman’s office in Belfast in October, 2013 alleging that he had been promised access to the Boston archive by PSNI detectives if he made a complaint which would facilitate police access to the Bostonfiles.
His lawyer, in a letter to the PSNI, wrote that the promise that he would gain access to the Boston tapes was a major reason why he gave the PSNI the statement which made their access to the archivepossible.
When Jimmy McConville attempted to enforce the promise, the PSNI rebuffed him, saying that the police were unable legally to supply him with copies of tapes from Boston College dealing with his mother’sabduction.
The Ombudsman’s office later rejected a complaint from this writer based on Jimmy McConville’s case, claiming that I was ‘wholly incorrect’ in making the claim and asserting that Jimmy McConville had never lodged a complaint with the agency. Later the Ombudsman’s office was forced to perform a U-turn, and to make an apology, when shown documentary evidence showing that Jimmy McConville had indeed lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman. Even so, only a threat by my lawyers to seek a judicial review in the Belfast courts brought a commitment by the Ombudsman to investigate my complaint against the PSNI and, implicitly, Drew Harris. Drew Harris is currently the Gardai Commissioner. He was appointed to the job, the first outsider and first Northern policeman to hold the post, in September last year amid some controversy over his past links with the British intelligence agency, MI5. The above is the fuller meaning of a story that appeared in yesterday’s edition of _The Sunday Business Post_, which I reproducebelow:
This story began in the summer of 2015 when I acquired a number of legal documents and letters detailing complaints lodged with the PSNI and the Police Ombudsman’s office in Belfast by Jimmy McConville, one of the ten children of Jean McConville, a widowed housewife from Divis Flats who was secretly killed and buried – ‘disappeared’ – by the IRA in late 1972. The PSNI had been trying to persuade members of the McConville family to sign a formal complaint, saying that they had reason to believe that tapes stored in an oral history archive at Boston College contained valuable details about their mother’s murder. Without such a complaint the PSNI investigation would be stillborn. Jimmy McConville, pictured alongside his mother, Jean McConville Armed with this complaint, the PSNI would then be able to activate the diplomatic machinery associated with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) that had been signed by the UK and the USA, and via the US State and Justice Departments, thereby gain access to the BostonCollege tapes.
However all members of the family bar just one had, according to my sources, declined to put their names to an official complaint. The single holdout was Jimmy McConville. If the PSNI failed to persuade him then they would have to abandon their efforts. Already widely criticised for failing to properly investigate the Jean McConville disappearance over the previous thirty or more years, the PSNI faced the prospect of even more censure if they missed this opportunity to obtain possibly valuable evidence about one of the Troubles’ most notorious killings. At this time, Jimmy McConville was incarcerated at Magilligan jail in Co. Derry, where he was serving a short sentence. Like his siblings, Jimmy McConville had spent years in care following his mother’s disappearance but he had also drifted into a life of petty crime. Two PSNI detectives visited Jimmy McConville at Magilligan. They met in a Nissen hut outside the main prison complex at least two times – although Jimmy McConville told his legal advisers there were three encounters – and each time the exchanges were recorded on tape andvideo.
Jimmy McConville’s story has been consistent. He agreed to put his name to the PSNI complaint but on condition that he and his siblings would gain access to the tapes. His version of events was that the detectives agreed and so he signed the necessary papers; the PSNI then activated the legal machinery that would lead them to the Burns Library at Boston College where the Troubles archive was stored. Interior shot of Magilligan jail, now scheduled for demolition But when Jimmy McConville later attempted to gain access to the tapes he hit a brick wall at PSNI headquarters in east Belfast. In October 2013, a year or so after the MLAT had been activated, Jimmy’s legal advisers wrote to the Detective Inspector heading the Jean McConville probe to complain and to demand that the PSNI keep its promise to make the tapes available to the family. What follows is that letter, one of several complaints to the authorities made by Jimmy’s legal advisors about the PSNI’s broken promise. (Note: I have removed one sentence of that letter because it contains the surname of one of the detectives who visited Jimmy in jail. Since the policeman cannot defend himself on this blog, I think it only fair that I excise his name. I have instead typed the sentence minus his surname and identify him only by the letter ‘C’.) instructs us that your Detective C informed him during the course ofhis interviews at
It is worth noting that Jimmy McConville had told his lawyer that the PSNI promise that he could access the Boston material ‘was a major reason why he furnished police with the statement seeking access to the Boston College Tapes’. Detective Inspector Montgomery replied on November 27th and rejectedthe request:
While D.I. Montgomery cited a 2003 UK law preventing the release of material obtained abroad from being used in criminal proceedings, the rules governing the MLAT also prohibit anything but criminal use of material obtained via the treaty. In other words material obtained by the MLAT cannot be used in civil actions. If the detectives who visited Jimmy McConville in Magilligan jail did give him a promise to make the Boston tapes available to his family, it was a promise they could never keep. Armed with this and other material in October 2015, I filed a formal complaint to the office of the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland(PONI), which read:
What followed was two and a half years of bureaucratic obstruction by the Ombudsman’s office and an attempt to dismiss my complaint on procedural grounds. Entirely by chance and because I believed there were no reasons to reveal what I knew about Jimmy McConville’s complaint, I did not tell PONI about the documents in my possession. The back and forth culminated in the following letter from Seamus McIlroy, the Ombudsman’s legal director, i.e. the organisation’s top lawyer. It was written in April 2018, two-and-a-half years after I had lodged my complaint. The full letter, which dismissed my complaint, is reproduced below but the key section is this: Here is the entire letter: Seamus McIlroy PONI letter 30418 So, according to PONI’s top lawyer, my complaint was entirely groundless: there was never a complaint from Jimmy McConville, the PSNI had no record of tape recordings made at Magilligan jail and I was not able to produce any supporting material to back up mycomplaint:
I had not supplied any supporting material because I did not think it necessary. Jimmy McConville had made a complaint and I was following in his footsteps. I did not for a moment imagine that the Ombudsman’s office would deny that Jimmy had lodged a complaint or that the PSNI would lie about their meetings with Jimmy at Magilligan jail; providing supporting material would, I believed, be unnecessary. Nor, incidentally, had anyone in the PONI office asked me for additional information. Jimmy McConville’s lawyers had lodged an official complaint with PONI on October 16th, 2013 and the letter to the Ombudsman listed some eleven grievances, of which the complaint that the PSNI had reneged on the promise to give him and his family access to the tapes was listed at number 5 (see below). But the PONI’s outright denial that Jimmy McConville had ever lodged a complaint demanded a dramatic response. So, my lawyer, Philip Breen contacted PONI to ask for a meeting and in August, I flew to Belfast where we met a senior official at the Ombudsman’s central Belfastoffice.
There we handed over a number of documents showing beyond any doubt that Jimmy McConville had complained that the PSNI had reneged on a promise to make the Boston tapes available to him and his siblings and that recordings had been made of Jimmy’s conversations with PSNI detectives in Magilligan jail. The following letter from Philip Breen to PONI spelled all this out in detail (names of PSNI detectives and lawyers have been edited out): All this happened in August 2018 but it was not until the following June, ten months later, that PONI responded with an offer to launch an inquiry into my complaint – and to offer an apology for the Ombudsman’s mistreatment of myself. It needs to be noted however that PONI’s response came following a threat from Philip Breen, via a procedure known as a pre-action protocol letter, to seek a judicial review of the whole affair in the Belfast courts which would have made the story – and PONI’s embarrassing failures – public. Here is the PONI email: PONI Apology 10 June 2019 The Ombudsman’s office did indeed eventually launch an investigation which we believe may be concluded some time in December. PONI agreed to investigate all my complaints but have refused to include the behaviour of their legal chief, Seamus McIlroy in the brief. The question of McIlroy’s denial, on the PSNI’s behalf as well as PONI, that there had ever been a complaint lodged by Jimmy McConville will not be examined by the Ombudsman’s office. Attempts by myself and Philip Breen to get an explanation from PONI or to persuade the Ombudsman to include this in their investigation, have so far failed. We do now know that at some point Jimmy McConville abandoned his effort to force the PSNI to make good the promise he says they gave him in Magilligan jail. Why he gave up the fight I do not know but given the powerful forces ranged against him it is not difficult to understand his decision. Drew Harris in his PSNI days Drew Harris, now Garda Commissioner Meanwhile a number of questions remain unanswered, or even unasked: 1. Why and when did Seamus McIlroy leave PONI? 2. Why did Seamus McIlroy, in his letter to me about a) Jimmy McConville’s complaint and b) the PSNI recordings made at Magilligan jail, lie about these crucial details? If, on the other hand, he was lied to, who was the culprit and what was their motive? 3. Did PSNI detectives effectively bribe – or trick – Jimmy McConville into making a complaint against the Boston archive? 4. If that is what happened, what role did Drew Harris play? Did he know and approve of the agreement with Jimmy McConville allegedly madeby his detectives?
5. If Jimmy McConville’s story is correct does that not make the subpoenas which were served when the Boston tapes were handed over, the fruit of a poisoned tree? 6. PONI have said that transcripts of the conversations in Magilligan jail have been partially recovered; transcripts can be doctored so where are the actual tapes? And how many tapes were there – two, according to PONI or three, according to Jimmy McConville’s lawyers?1 Comment
Posted in Uncategorized PETER KING, FRIEND OF IRA LEADERS TURNED GOP STATESMAN CALLS IT QUITS Posted on November 11, 2019| Leave a comment
I see that Long Island Congressman Peter King has today announced his retirement from politics and the House of Representatives’ seat he held for Republicans (the American variety) for the best part of twodecades.
Peter King, marches with the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York. Chosen as Grand Marshall in the 1980’s he made the IRA respectable in America and forged an unlikely political career for himself Unlike most Irish-American aficionados of the Provos, Peter King did not come to the IRA via friends of Gerry Adams but via the family of Bobby Sands and from them to the IRA in south Armagh, where he became a pal to some of the most senior figures in the organisation. He knew the IRA long before he knew Sinn Fein. Perhaps one day, that story can be told in full. But not yet. It was only later that he was plugged into Adams & co. All of which made him an unusually interesting character and worth profiling. Nearly fifteen years ago I wrote the following profile of a politician who was the Provisional IRA’s closest – and arguably most unlikely – American friends for _The New York Sun_, one of the city’soldest newspapers.
You can read
what I wrote here: Rep. King and the IRA_ The End of an ExtraordinaryAffair copy
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Posted in Uncategorized JUDGE IN IVOR BELL CASE CRITICISED IN THIS WASHINGTON POST PIECE Posted on November 6, 2019| 2 comments
You can read it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/06/what-northern-ireland-legal-case-means-historians/2 Comments
Posted in UncategorizedDES WILSON R.I.P.
Posted on November 5, 2019| 5 comments
I was very sad to hear this week of the passing of Fr. Des Wilson, a man who I greatly respected, even in more recent years when it became more difficult for he and I to speak with the honesty and forthrightness which had characterized our relationship in earlier,simpler years.
Notwithstanding that I will always be grateful to Fr. Des for agreeing to baptize our son, Ciaran, even though he knew that neither of his parents believed in the religion which had guided his own life and led him, through devotion to great political principle, into sometimes bitter conflict with his superiors. Our difficulty was that the mother of Ciaran’s birth-mom, Joan, was planning a lengthy trip from New York to look after Ciaran following his birth and being a traditional Catholic from Co. Mayo would expect her grandson to be inducted into the faith of her fathers. So what were a couple of atheists to do? Fr. Des was the answer. He was the next best thing to, if not an atheist priest, then at least a slightly agnostic one. And he readily agreed. The brief ceremony was held down in the Markets and after the necessaries, we all retired to Ireton Street for a fine lunch, some intoxicating liquor and good craic. And a happy and contented mother-in-law. Many thanks, Des. Sleep well.5 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized THE NEWS THAT SEAMUS MCKEE IS RETIRING FROM THE BBC REMINDS ME… Posted on November 5, 2019| 2 comments
….of the day he wondered, over a coffee in the Beeb’s canteen, whether I’d be interested in working at Ormeau Ave. I liked Seamus, he was always a decent spud to me and a good journalist. So I let him down gently and made a polite excuse. The truth was that me and the BBC would get along like a fart in a crowded tent. I knew that but it was a tribute to the man’s generosity of spirit that he thought itmight be otherwise.
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Posted in Uncategorized SPOTLIGHT ON ‘A SECRET HISTORY’ Posted on November 4, 2019| 2 comments
> Gareth Mulvenna is a writer and an observer of Loyalism whose work I > have praised before on this site. In this piece for > writingthetroublesweb he takes BBC Spotlight to task for failing to > properly examine Loyalism in its recent ‘Secret History’ series. > I think he has a point. The series was generally Provo heavy > (leaving out the Officials and the INLA by and large) and aside from > examining the role played by Loyalists in edging the IRA to a > ceasefire, light on the early years and development of groups like > the UDA and their relationship with mainstream Unionism. Anyway, > here are his thoughts: Writing the 'Troubles' By Gareth Mulvenna– SECRET HISTORY_a version of historical events which differs from the official or commonly accepted record and purports to be the true version_ – Collins English Dictionary This is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the recent _Spotlight_ series. I don’t think it is possible to fairly appraise the full project in only 1500 words; however, it aims to provide a few comments on some issues which I noted over the seven episodes, analyse the dearth of new information on loyalism (my main area of interest) and appeal for a better understanding of what the aims of the programme actually were. I also hope it will generate a discussion among academics and others about the documentary itself and journalistic treatments of the ‘Troubles’ more widely 50 years onfrom 1969.
When it was announced that the _Spotlight _team were working on a ‘secret history’…View original post
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