Liam McMillen remembered 50 years on

Conor McParland, Belfast Media, April 28, 2025

REMEMBERED: Liam McMillen

A WEST Belfast socialist and lifelong republican has been remembered on his 50th anniversary.

Liam McMillen (47), also known as Billy, was shot dead on April 28, 1975, during a truce in a feud between the Official IRA and the INLA.

Born in the Lower Falls in May 1927, he came from well-known republican family. His mother Sarah was a courier for the Irish rebel James Connolly, North and South. His eldest brother Bob McMillen, another veteran, was heavily involved in republican politics and was a huge influence on Billy.

Another brother, Art, wrote the famous rebel song 'The Broad Black Brimmer' along with many other songs and poems.

Liam joined the IRA at the age of 16 and spent time in Crumlin Road Gaol on political charges.

During the 1950s border campaign he was interned without trial for four years under the Special Powers Act.

In 1964, he ran in the Westminster general election for Sinn Féin.

He set up his campaign headquarters in a shop in Divis Street and when he placed an Irish tricolour and Starry Plough banner in the window of his election office, a heavy handed RUC attempt to remove the flags sparked a riot between republicans, loyalists and the RUC.

In 1966, Liam chaired the committee which organised the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, with 12,000 people taking part and 40,000 people lining the Falls Road to watch.

NICRA

In 1967, he was involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and was a member of a three-man committee which drew up the Association's first constitution.

He was elected on to its first executive and remained until the introduction of internment in 1971.

Liam is also fondly remembered as one of Belfast's most influential Gaels. In 1969 when five families with a passion for the revival of Gaelic language and culture acquired land and built houses on the Shaws Road to form Bothar Seoighe Gaeltacht, Liam made a generous donation of £10,000.

Following the August 1969 riots, bitter acrimony developed over the IRA's failure to protect nationalist areas, leading to a split. In April 1970, Liam McMillen was shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area.

Falls Curfew

In July 1970, the Official IRA had their first major confrontation with the British Army, in what became known as the Falls Curfew. Liam McMillen blamed the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.

The ill-feeling eventually led to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempted to kill Liam McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command Jim Sullivan.

In May 1972, the Official IRA called a ceasefire, a move which Liam supported.

He went on to serve on the Ard Chomhairle of Official Sinn Féin.

Death

A third attempt on his life proved fatal. On April 28, 1975, Liam McMillen was shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson near a hardware shop in Spinner Street while out with his wife Mary.

He was hit in the neck and died on the scene. His killing was unauthorised and was condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello.

Speaking to the Andersonstown News, Terry McMillen says his great-uncle is remembered proudly.

"He really was a genuine man who deserves his place in Irish republican and political history. He was a true Gael," he said.

"Listening to a lot of old republicans over the years they had nothing but admiration for him.

"Irrespective of the split in 1970, he did a hell of a lot for the people of the Falls Road and West Belfast through the 1940s, 50s and the 60s.

"I think it’s sad that so many great Irishmen and women lost their lives on all sides of the splits. The only winners were the Brits

"After the republican movement's failure in ‘Operation Harvest’ in 1956 to 62, he took the movement from literally a few volunteers to over 120 by the late '60s.

"He was only married a few weeks and had moved to Earlscourt Street when he was gunned down sitting outside Harden's paint shop on the Falls Road at the top of Spinner Street after a truce was struck between the Officials and Costello, the INLA leader.

"The McMillen family will always remember Uncle Liam with pride and honour."

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Sectarian gang attacks on youths condemned

Irish News, April 29th, 2025

PEOPLE in Derry have said there must be no return to violence following a spate of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks.

The unrest began on Saturday evening when three Catholic youths were attacked in the Waterside by a gang of at least 10.

A video circulated widely online shows the three being surrounded and viciously beaten with garden furniture after their attackers caught up with them following a chase in Nelson Drive.

The violence continued on Sunday afternoon when police responded to reports of an arranged fight on Irish Street in the Waterside.

Youths threw bricks, bottles and fireworks at one another and at police.

A bus carrying children from a cross-community football tournament had its windows shattered, leaving a teenage boy covered in glass. One private vehicle and two police vehicles were damaged.

Later that evening paint bombs damaged a mural in The Fountain Estate at around 8:40pm.

At 10.50pm youths threw objects at a police vehicle carrying two police dogs, damaging the rear passenger door.

Two males were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, with one facing additional charges of assaulting police. Both remained in custody yesterday.

Another private vehicle was damaged while traveling through the Fountain Estate at 11.35pm.

All of the events are believed to stem from the violence on Saturday evening.

Sectarianism and Social Media

Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson told The Irish News the situation had been “brewing for a while”.

“There was always a fear that it was going to escalate to something like what we witnessed,” he said.

“The root cause is blatant sectarianism and it saddens me to say that. We’ve seen the appalling attack on Saturday where two young men were assaulted, very viciously assaulted, and it was videoed and shared on social media widely.

“There’s no justification for any retaliation. There was no justification for buses being attacked that was carrying children back from a cross-community event.”

Mr Jackson said the community had made it very clear “they don’t want violence”.

“Social media is certainly playing a part in it, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“What we are seeing is that there’s murals being attacked, there’s monuments being attacked, and these tit-for-tat attacks where flags are being erected and taken down in different areas – and it’s all being done for TikTok videos and being antagonised on social media.”

Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan said the video circulating on social media “has the potential to light the fuse on a situation that has been simmering in the Waterside for some time”: “It is important that peace prevails and no retaliation is sought, inevitably innocent people will get hurt or even worse.”

Police inquiries are continuing.

PSNI SAYS INCIDENT ONE OF SEVERAL OVER WEEKEND IN DERRY BEING INVESTIGATED AS HATE CRIMES

Garrett Hargan, Belfast Telegraph, April 29th, 2025

PSNI SAYS INCIDENT ONE OF SEVERAL OVER WEEKEND IN DERRY BEING INVESTIGATED AS HATE CRIMES

A savage attack in the Waterside area of Londonderry may be linked to a spate of sectarian hate crimes in the city over the weekend, police said.

There was condemnation after video footage was circulated showing two boys being set upon by a gang of youths on Saturday evening.

Police said: “It was reported three male youths were in the Nelson Drive area when they were chased by a number of other youths... some of whom are reported to have shouted sectarian comments.

“The three males sought refuge in the back garden of a property in Caw Close. It's reported their attackers jumped over a wall and used garden furniture to launch an assault. The three victims managed to get away.”

Officers also responded to a report of an arranged fight between youths in the Waterside on Sunday afternoon.

Bricks, bottles and fireworks were thrown, damaging a bus and two PSNI vehicles.

Later in the evening a police vehicle carrying two dogs was damaged by youths throwing missiles in the Irish Street area. Two arrests were made.

Another vehicle was reported to have been damaged while travelling through the Fountain estate later.

Condemned

Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson said: “The sectarian attack in which two young men were viciously beaten in the Nelson Drive area on Saturday night was appalling and I would urge anyone with information about who was responsible to bring it forward.

“There can be no place for sectarianism and such attacks in this society, but neither can there be any justification for the subsequent disturbances which took place throughout the wider Top of the Hill area on Sunday.”

Foyle SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan said: “I was absolutely sickened by what I've seen circulating on social media... it's being reported that this was a sectarian attack, and has the potential to light the fuse on a situation that has been simmering in the Waterside for some time.

“As I watched the video I could not help but think of my old schoolmate Paul McCauley, who died as the result of a sectarian attack in the Waterside nearly 20 years ago.

“We also saw an attack on a bus returning from a cross-community and cross-cultural football tournament in Omagh, with passengers injured by broken glass. This must have been an incredibly frightening incident. This senseless violence must cease before anyone else is hurt.”

Independent councillor Gary Donnelly posted: “Sickening scenes appear to show two young boys being brutally beaten by a number of others in what is claimed to be a sectarian attack. I hope those attacked make a full recovery.

“This will inevitably cause anger and I would appeal for calm and not to respond with any form of sectarianism.

“Attacks on anyone because of their perceived religious affiliation are completely wrong.”

Deadline for legacy probe reports extended by British government

Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, April 29th, 2025

THE British government has extended a deadline placed on the publication of investigations linked to the Troubles.

News of the extension comes just days before an April 30 cut-off.

An original extension was granted as the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 came into force last May.

Under the Act, which halted legacy probes, a “transitional provision” was made where “post-investigative tasks”, such as the preparation of reports, could be carried out until April 30.

It has emerged that the British government received requests from the Police Ombudsman, the Kenova investigation team and the PSNI “to extend that provision in order to allow remaining post-investigative tasks to be carried out”.

The ombudsman and the Kenova team are both preparing to publish Troubles-linked reports.

In a statement the NIO said Secretary of State Hilary Benn had signed an extension and that “the government is committed to ensuring families receive information as soon as possible about what happened to their loved ones, so has agreed to extend the provision until October 31 2025”.

It emerged last year the ombudsman was intending to complete 95 cases involving the deaths of more than 160 people spanning 18 investigations after the act came into force.

In recent months Marie Anderson’s office has produced a series of reports as the April 30 deadline loomed.

Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson has welcomed the deadline extension

Since the introduction of the Act, responsibility for Troubles investigations has transferred to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). Many people affected by the Troubles oppose the ICRIR and believe it was created to protect state players from accountability.

The Labour government has pledged to repeal and replace the act, although the ICRIR is to be retained. The Court of Appeal found last year that elements of the body are not compatible with human rights laws.

Last month the ombudsman’s office confirmed that Operation Newham, which is examining the activities of the Glenanne Gang, would not be published before the April 30 deadline. The announcement was made after a decision was taken to prosecute a former RUC officer.

“The government is committed to ensuring families receive information as soon as possible about what happened to their loved ones, so has agreed to extend the provision until October 31 2025

Request for extension to include PONI investigation into Kingsmill massacre

At the time Mrs Anderson said she was “engaging with the NIO” to request a deadline extension.

She is due to publish a report on a republican gun attack that claimed the lives of 10 Protestant workmen near Kingsmill, south Armagh, in January 1976, today.

A spokeswoman for the ombudsman said she “welcomes the extension of time for her to report the outcome of legacy investigations completed before May 1 2024”.

“This new timeframe will allow the ombudsman to provide her conclusions on these investigations to affected families with a greater amount of time and space for them to consider and digest the findings, and to report publicly on remaining cases,” she said.

Fomenting outrage has consequences... Kneecap should ask victims families

Malachi O’Doherty, Belfast Telegraph, April 29th, 2025

The smear campaign which the band Kneecap say they are faced with is not something they should be complaining about. For a band so provocative in intent, the appalled reaction to their populist sloganeering is surely a mark of success.

They specialise in indulgent outrage and bad boy antics, so what do they expect, papal honours, a CBE?

Of course not.

They want you to be appalled and annoyed and to react with what they will see as unctuous hypocrisy. Because they are the authentic voice of the street. Right? And crap like that.

They think that the more snarly and guttural a rant is, the more authentic it is, that they have the courage to say what others really think, that what's thought through and strained through a civilising filter can only be a half truth.

That's in keeping with the populism that has spread out from social media in politics.

So I suspect that they don't want to be taken seriously on the level of their ideas, the content of their messages. What they celebrate is anarchy and the freedom to appall.

Can't they be taken seriously as political activists with something to say, promoting their messages through their music?

Shallow messages are good for business

They certainly can command big audiences to hear them rant against Israel and Tories. And perhaps inevitably the more shallow the message the more extensive its appeal.

But is it so shallow that there is no message there at all? It may feel good to stand on stage and lead thousands in chanting derision for the state of Israel and its undoubtedly barbaric war on Gaza, especially when that essential message is so toned down on the platforms of political discussion on which it should be aired.

But if that message is just a jeer, it's evaporated with the steam off the sweaty bodies in the arena.

Now a recording has emerged of a voice from the stage at a Kneecap concert two years ago shouting that the only good Tory is a dead Tory and urging people to kill their MP.

This is pure populist bigotry, way beyond the excesses of the arch populists Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.

Kemi Badenoch is right to demand action from the police. She has responsibilities to her party and its elected MPs.

She cannot leave a statement like that in the air unchallenged.

And though I doubt I would ever vote Conservative myself, even if the prospect was available to me, only the ignorant and naive would judge all of them by the worst of them.

The immediate danger in that idiotic splurge of gutter level nonsense is that someone would take it seriously, because some people are daft enough to think the boys of Kneecap mean everything they say, or are accused of saying.

Which of course they don't.

Two British MPs have been murdered in recent years, Labour's Jo Cox and the Conservative David Amess.

Both were killed by men from the violent lunatic fringe of politics, Jo Cox by a white supremacist obsessed with Nazism, David Amess by a Jihadi who thought he was doing God's work. God knows what was in his mind, or the mind of Thomas Mair when he shot and stabbed Jo Cox, but it was venomous and insane, in no way the considered political motivation of a conscientious activist.

Their reasoning was as insubstantial as Kneecap's alleged reasoning.

But presumably each was a damaged person with deep hurt and rage that they felt was best expressed in this way.

Who's to say that there weren't people as damaged in the Kneecap audience who would feel licensed to kill by the exultant nonsense of the band.

Violence is immative

Much violence is imitative. One day someone gets the idea of driving into a celebrating crowd at a festival, and avenging his misery on their joy. Then others pick up the same idea and it spreads around the world and is repeated from New Orleans to Germany and Vancouver and beyond. This illustrates the stupidity of what Kneecap allegedly did, for there are crazed and vicious people who will act anyway but might credit them with inspiring it, or blame them.

They may say they weren't making a serious summons to murder, that this was entertainment, but how do you prove that? How do you ensure that no one takes that to heart?

And if they do say that — if that is a defence - then they are saying that they don't want to be taken seriously when they air opinions about Gaza or anything else. And maybe they don't.

They undermine their own credibility, if they have any, when they accuse their critics of smearing them, when they insist that they have something to say that should be taken seriously, but only some of the time.

At other times they are just high on whatever and spouting nonsense.