No room for closure when history is rewritten
Michael Clifford, Irish Examiner, Sunday February 9th, 2025
BETWEEN THEM, THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT AND THE BRITISH STATE ARE DETERMINED THAT THERE WILL NOT BE A FULL RECKONING WITH THE PAST
Patricia McLaughlin watched the children getting off the bus. They were returning to Buncrana, Co Donegal, after an excursion to a folk park in Omagh. Earlier that day, a bomb ripped through the centre of the Co Tyrone town. Mrs McLaughlin was willing that her 12-year-old son, Shaun, would be one of those coming home to their families. He wasn’t. He and two other local boys, James Barker, aged 12, and 8-year-old Oran Doherty died in the explosion.
Two Spaniards who had been staying in Buncrana and were on the trip didn’t come home either. Rocio Abad Ramos, aged 23, Fernando Blasco Baselga, aged 12, were also among the 29 who were killed that day.
At the Omagh inquiry last week, a statement from Patricia McLaughlin was read out by her sister. “I watched all the other children get off the bus but Shaun never got off it,” she wrote. “It seems a lifetime since I held him. If somebody had said to me before I lost a child that you will feel exactly the same 26 years later, I wouldn’t have believed them. I would have thought maybe a couple of years that you would be brokenhearted, but that you will still move on. It’s going to have to ease. But it just doesn’t.”
Like the others bereaved by the outrage on August 15, 1998, Patricia McLaughlin has spent the intervening decades attempting to find out why it happened, who knew that it might, and whether something could have been done to prevent it. The current inquiry may be able to provide some answers.
Hierarchies of victims persist
Over quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement so much remains unresolved that, every now and again, the past comes calling, as if asking why haven’t you done anything about unaddressed pain.
Omagh was perpetrated by the dissident Real IRA, which refuted the agreement signed just four months before the outrage. The playbook though was one used by the Provisional IRA throughout its twenty-five year campaign of killing for a united Ireland. Bombs were planted in public places, sometimes genuine warnings were issued, sometimes not. The purpose of the bomb was to terrorise locally and kill targeted individuals and whomever else happened to be in the way. For the greater part the bereaved and injured have been denied full knowledge of who was involved and whether anything could have been done to prevent it.
The strategy deployed during the Troubles deigned that the killing of innocent civilians was necessary to further the cause, although the violent imposition of a 32-county socialist entity might be better described as fantasy than cause
If the person to die was from a nationalist tradition, which accounted for nearly a quarter of the 1,700 victims of the Provos, well, they too had to be sacrificed. There has never been a reckoning within the so-called Republican movement where this level of base callousness has been questioned and found wanting. Everything that was done, as far as the movement is concerned, had to be done for the greater good, whatever that was.
The heart-rending testimony at the Omagh inquiry wasn’t the only visitation from the past this week. There was a resolution of sorts about another instance of killing at Belfast coroner’s court on Thursday. The coroner ruled that four IRA men, who had just completed a mission to shoot up an RUC station, were killed in 1992 in a manner that was “not justified”. The four were shot dead in Co Tyrone in a hail of bullets from SAS guns as they were changing vehicles, having attacked the station in nearby Coalisland.
As far as Sinn Féin, the political wing of what was the Provisional IRA, is concerned, these four were “murdered”.
If some minutes previously the same men had shot and killed RUC men in the station, it would have been 'legitimate killings' rather than 'murder'
As with the British, the so-called Republican movement still has, all these years later, a hierarchy of victims.
The ruling gives further credence to the belief that the SAS element of the British army operated a ‘shoot to kill’ policy against IRA people. There has also been copious evidence adduced down through the decades that elements of the security services colluded with loyalist elements to kill both innocent Catholics and known IRA figures. Successive British governments have never faced up to accepting how, as a democratic state, it allowed itself to be dragged into such a morass that it was complicit in murdering its own citizens. The Legacy Act brought in by the last UK government was designed specifically to ensure there would be no more exploration of crimes committed on behalf of the state during the Troubles.
Conor Murphy moves South
Another development which echoes with the past occurred on Tuesday last when Conor Murphy, a senior Sinn Féin figure in the North, was elected to the Seanad. Murphy is a serious politician who has held a number of ministries in the Northern Executive, including finance. There was much surprise that he was leaving a position with major powers in the North to join what many consider a backwater forum.
Unlike all other senior figures in the party in the Republic, Murphy has a past with the IRA. In 1982, as a young man, he was sentenced to five years in prison for membership and possession of explosives. One wonders what the explosives might have been used for if he hadn’t been arrested.
His past lends him credibility with those who oversaw the campaign of killing and shaped the Sinn Féin that emerged to pursue fully democratic means. There is much speculation that he is coming south to ensure that the party’s primary focus remains pushing to achieve a united Ireland through a border poll as soon as possible. As far as Sinn Féin is concerned, such progress is merely continuing and completing that which was started with the party’s formation in 1970, initially as a political front for the Provos.
Between them, the Republican movement and the British state are determined that there will not be a full reckoning with the past. The British have used the law to delay, prevaricate and erase any attempts on behalf of victims to achieve closure. Sinn Féin and its allies certainly do not want laid bare the extent of depravity and base criminality the Provos engaged in, both within their own community and in killing innocents whenever it was felt necessary.
Instead, they attempt to rewrite history. The version of the past so-called Republicans present today is sanitised and distorted, portraying heroic freedom fighters rather than the reality of violent fanaticism that ultimately delayed rather than expedited the prospect of a single political entity on the island.
In such a milieu, the plight of victims even today is relegated entirely, divided into ours and theirs, to be used to promote a version of the past that casts that other side as the villain. It’s difficult to see how proper closure can be achieved, either for people personally or on a societal basis, while that attitude among decision makers on both sides persists.
Police watchdog ‘exceeded powers’
Alan Erwin, Irish News, February 10th, 2025
THE Police Ombudsman exceeded her legal powers in making findings of collusive behaviour by RUC officers in a series of loyalist murders, the High Court has ruled.
A judge held that Marie Anderson acted ultra vires by reaching conclusions in public statements which amounted to determinations of misconduct.
The verdict represents victory in a legal challenge by the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association over the contents of three separate reports into Troubles era killings.
Mr Justice Scoffield stressed that the watchdog body’s role is to investigate rather than adjudicate.
“It is not for the ombudsman to make determinations, whether express or implied, as to whether criminal conduct or even misconduct has in fact occurred; no more than it is for the police to determine and publicly state that a suspect is guilty of a crime,” he said.
“The respondent exceeded her powers given the findings or conclusions expressed in the impugned reports which amounted to determinations of [at least] misconduct.”
A further hearing will now be held to decide on any future implications for the reports under judicial scrutiny.
The association has been locked in a long-running legal bid to have the three public statements declared unlawful.
One of the cases focuses on a probe into a series of loyalist paramilitary murders in south Belfast between 1990 and 1998. In 2022 Mrs Anderson found evidence of “collusive behaviour” by police in the attacks, which included the February 1992 massacre at the Sean Graham betting shop on the Ormeau Road where UDA gunmen shot dead five Catholic victims.
Legal action was also taken over the report into the police handling of loyalist killings in the northwest from 1989 to 1993.
A third challenge related to findings in the case of four men wrongly accused of murdering a British soldier in Derry. Known as the Derry Four, the Ombudsman concluded that RUC officers had unfairly obtained confessions from them for the killing of Lt Stephen Kirby in the city in 1979. The four men later fled Northern Ireland until their acquittal in 1998.
The retired RUC officers claimed Mrs Anderson was legally forbidden from making findings which effectively branded them guilty of colluding in brutal terrorist murders without proper due process.
A Court of Appeal judgment in 2020 restricted her scope to accuse former policemen and women of the criminal offence of collusion with paramilitaries.
Those proceedings related to a previous case taken by retired senior policemen Raymond White and Ronald Hawthorne over the contents of former ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire’s report into the 1994 Loughinisland atrocity.
Acknowledging her limitations, Mrs Anderson said she had identified conduct within the RUC amounting to “collusive behaviours”. But lawyers for the association argued that she misunderstood her permitted role and cannot use that term without establishing a malign motive.
‘Collusive behaviours’ assertions were unsustainable or insufficiently clear
The ombudsman had wrongly labelled all police working in those areas at the relevant times as complicit with the terrorists responsible for brutal campaigns of murder, it was contended. Counsel representing the ombudsman hit back by suggesting the retired officers were becoming “collusion deniers”. He told the court she had carried out a forensic analysis to reach legally-sound findings, identifying behaviour indicative of collusion without being determinative.
In his ruling on Thursday, Mr Justice Scoffield acknowledged each of the reports was the product of detailed investigation and significant hard work by the ombudsman and her team of officers.
“Nothing in this judgment is intended to undermine or cast doubt upon their professionalism, dedication or bona fides in undertaking their work in relation to the relevant complaints,” he said.
However, the judge held that a distinction drawn by the ombudsman between “collusion” and “collusive behaviours” was either unsustainable or insufficiently clear. He set out how the watchdog described alleged behaviour as “deliberate” and “particularly egregious”.
“I cannot see how the fair minded, objective reader would understand these comments as anything other than relatively plain findings of conduct on the part of police officers which the ombudsman herself considered to amount to collusion but which, in any event, must have amounted to misconduct,” Mr Justice Scoffield held.
“Most, if not all of these conclusions, fall foul of the ombudsman’s proper remit as explained by the Court of Appeal.
“The dominant, but inconsistent, use of the phraseology ‘collusive behaviours’ does not rescue the conclusions in this regard.”
He concluded: “The publication of impugned reports in the terms which have been challenged by the applicants in these proceedings represents an extension of the ombudsman’s role beyond its proper bounds having regard to the statutory scheme which confers and governs her statutory functions.”
PM accused of ignoring IRA bomb victims over Libya compensation
Mark Bain, Irish Independent, February 10th, 2025
The Prime Minister has been accused of ignoring victims of the London Docklands bombing — as well as breaking commitments he gave them while he was in opposition — as they gathered to mark the 29th anniversary of the attack.
Shopkeepers Inam Bashir and John Jeffries were killed in the blast which left more than 100 injured, 42 of them severely, when the half-tonne IRA bomb exploded during rush hour on February 9, 1996.
The IRA bomb contained Semtex supplied by Libyan dictator Col Gaddafi, and victims said Sir Keir Starmer has consistently ignored letters from them calling for support in their campaign for compensation.
While Libya has paid substantial compensation to French, German and US victims of the attack, UK victims said their appeals for support have been neglected due to secret trade deals between the UK and Libya.
Jonathan Ganesh, who suffered life-changing injuries in the bombing and is now president of the Docklands Victims Association, used the anniversary service to remind the PM of promises made while in opposition.
“Due to the overwhelming public support for our campaign to secure compensation from Libya, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally announced, after 14 years of tirelessly campaigning, the appointment of Mr William Shawcross in 2019 to look into securing compensation,” he said.
Victims believe their interests sacrificed because of secret trade deal with Libya
“The victims, who had been eagerly awaiting the promised Shawcross Report, were shocked when his report had now become classified due to national security and would not be released.
“Whilst in opposition, Sir Keir Starmer assured the victims and their families, in writing, he would support our campaign for equality and try to secure the release of the promised Shawcross Report,” added Mr Ganesh, who was awarded an MBE in 2021 for his campaigning.
“He sent a letter dated October 20, 2020, assuring the victims and their families of his support. He arranged a meeting with his Shadow NI Secretary Louise Haigh in January 2021, when Ms Haigh reiterated support and promised they would try to secure the release of the report.”
However, Mr Ganesh said that Sir Keir, since he became PM, has not replied to letters to either him or other IRA victims.
During yesterday's memorial service, victims and their families placed floral tributes at the plaque honouring those who were killed and left severely injured in the Docklands bombing.
“The lack of correspondence from our Prime Minister as left the victims and their families feeling saddened and forgotten,” said Mr Ganesh.
“He appears unwilling to respond to us. And the apparent lack of concern and recognition for victims of terrorism is heartbreaking.
“Nearly three decades have passed but I'm still haunted by the death of my friends,” he added.
Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
'Where are the inquests for dead UDR and RUC members?'
By Adam Kula, Belfast News Letter, February 8th, 2025
A soldier-turned-politician has decried the “one-sided” nature of inquests into Troubles deaths following this week’s findings into the Clonoe Ambush.
Tom Elliott – a former member of the UDR, now a member of the House of Lords – said that the four men who were killed by SAS soldiers in 1992 were probably killers themselves, given that they were part of the highly-active East Tyrone wing of the IRA.
Lord Elliott was reacting to Thursday's inquest findings into the four men’s deaths, which stated that the shooting of the IRA team had been unjustified.
Moves are already afoot by the Labour government to scrap the part of the Legacy Act 2023 which bars new inquests into Troubles-era deaths, paving the way for more such hearings in the future.
Lord Elliott, a former leader of the UUP and MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, told the News Letter: "That'd be fine if that was fair across the board. But it's not.
"How many inquests have been held recently into murdered RUC officers, or soldiers, or UDR members, or indeed civilians who were murdered by terrorists?
"There have been very, very few. And unfortunately it seems to be a one-sided process."
Speaking of the killings themselves, Lord Elliott added: “These were four people who were in an IRA unit, who were obviously intent on causing mayhem, and destruction, and – if possible – murder.
"They had just launched an attack with a heavy machine gun and probably other weapons on a police station.
"This was not a criminal who had broken into a shop or who had got into a fight. These were hardened criminal terrorists.”
Mr Elliott was asked to respond to comments by Sinn Fein Mid Ulster MP Cathal Mallaghan, who was quoted by the BBC as saying that the inquest "confirms what many in our community knew for a long time; that these four men were executed by the SAS without justification".
"Those four men had gone out in an attempt to execute innocent people,” said Lord Elliott.
"And I'm assuming it maybe was not the first those people were involved in.
"I'm sure there are people living in today's society that are without a loved one because these people had murdered them previous to this.”
Prior Knowledge
The weapon the IRA men used in the attack was a Soviet-made WWII-era DSHK heavy machine gun, powerful enough that it was put to use as an anti-aircraft gun (and it remains in use today by Ukranian forces, among others).
The Clonoe ambush was one of a number of similar cases where the security forces had obtained prior information about a planned attack.
In 1987 the SAS killed eight IRA members as they were attacking Loughgall police station.
In 1988 the SAS killed three IRA members as they prepared to kill a part-time UDR soldier in Drumnakilly, central Co Tyrone.
And in 1991 the SAS killed another three IRA members in Coagh, east Co Tyrone, as they prepared to kill another part-time UDR soldier.
In the Coagh ambush one of the dead IRA men was Tony Doris, cousin of the current First Minister.
All the above cases involved members of the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade. Its members often used the tactic of ambush themselves.
Among the scores of attacks the brigade committed were the shooting of 86-year-old former MP Norman Stronge and his son James in 1981;
A remotely-detonated landmine attack which killed four UDR soldiers near Ballygawley in 1983;
And the shooting dead of two RUC officers at Ballygawley RUC station in 1985.
Former British soldier believes Clonoe IRA men were ambushed
By Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, February 9th, 2025
A former British soldier has said four IRA men found by a coroner to have been unjustly killed by the SAS were “ambushed”.
Kevin Barry O’Donnell (21), Sean O’Farrell (22), Peter Clancy (21) and Patrick Vincent (20) were shot dead in the grounds of St Patrick’s Church at Clonoe, near Coalisland, Co Tyrone, in February 1992.
At an inquest hearing in Belfast last week coroner Michael Humphreys, who is also a High Court judge, said that “in each case the use of force was not justified”.
The four victims had earlier taken part in a gun attack on Coalisland RUC station using a hijacked lorry fitted with a Russian made DShK machine gun.
Former British soldier believes Clonoe IRA men were ambushed
From left, Peter Clancy, Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Sean O'Farrell and Patrick Vincent
When the IRA unit returned to a carpark at St Patrick’s Church to dismantle the weapon, they were ambushed by 12 SAS members armed with a general purpose machine gun and G3 assault rifles.
The coroner found that up to 570 rounds were directed at the IRA men, none of whom returned fire or were given a warning.
Some unionists have reacted angrily to the coroner’s ruling.
A former British soldier has now said the actions of the SAS amounted to an “ambush”.
Writing for the British Forces Broadcasting Service, Richard White, who was posted to the north with 42 Commando Royal Marines, said up to nine IRA men were present in the church grounds.
“My opinion is that with those numbers of PIRA present, to give a verbal challenge would have ‘increased the risk of death or grave injury to you or any other person’,” he wrote.
“The coroner stated in his verdict: ‘The operation was not planned and controlled in such a way as to minimise to the greatest extent possible the need for recourse to lethal force’.
“In other words - it was an ambush!”
Placing enemies in a ‘killing zone’
In his ruling, Mr Humphreys said it was “noteworthy” that the “terminology of ‘ambush’ appears frequently in both PSNI and MOD (Ministry of Defence) documents created after the event”.
He said Colonel A, who was the Officer Commanding, explained that, in the military context, “ambush” has a particular meaning.
“It entails placing your enemies within a ‘killing zone’, with cut off groups on the outskirts to prevent any escape,” coroner said.
“Firepower is then unleashed on those within the killing zone.”
Mr Humphreys added that Colonel A’s evidence was “that ambushes were not carried out in Northern Ireland”.
“If that were the case, it is difficult to understand why experienced police and military officers would use that language,” the coroner concluded.
Soldiers knew PIRA didn’t take prisoners
Elsewhere, Mr White described the IRA as a “disciplined, compartmentalised and ruthless” adding that its East Tyrone Brigade “were one of the most effective units”.
He referenced the 1988 Ballygawley bus bomb attack, which claimed the lives of eight British soldiers in Co Tyrone and an attempt to shoot down a military helicopter in 1990.
“For British troops at the time, the brutal reality of serving in Northern Ireland was that everyone knew there was no possibility they would ever be taken prisoner by PIRA,” he added.
“It was not a conventional war – if they were captured, they would be executed.”
Mr White said that after the 1987 Loughgall ambush, during which eight republicans and a civilian were killed, “PIRA members clearly knew that if they clashed with the SAS it was unlikely they would survive”.
Mindful Martin will have key role in unity debate
Noel Doran, Irish News, October 10th, 2022
MICHEÁL Martin looked relaxed as he made a typically low-key entrance to the main stand at Páirc Esler in Newry a few minutes before the start of the game between Down and his native Cork in the GAA’s National Football League.
There were no advance announcements that he was travelling north eight days ago, nothing was said over the stadium’s public address system, and many people in the ground were entirely unaware that the newly-installed taoiseach was sitting among them.
Martin did not have an entourage, there was no sign of other politicians, and he was simply accompanied up the steps by Down and Ulster GAA officials before giving a brief wave to nearby spectators as he took his seat.
The atmosphere was reassuringly normal throughout, and Martin reacted stoically when Cork missed a very scoreable free with the last kick of a hugely entertaining game to lose by a point.
I watched from a distance as well-wishers approached him after the final whistle for handshakes, selfies and autographs as he headed to his waiting black Mercedes, which then eased largely unnoticed into the congested post-match traffic on the Warrenpoint Road.
Quietly impressive
Most of those he encountered were clearly delighted to see him, and, after the renewed mandate he gained in the Irish general election last November, the days when he was regularly underestimated south of the border are certainly long gone.
I first met him back in November 2009, when he was minister for foreign affairs and a number of editors were invited to join him for dinner at his department’s discrete but upmarket south Belfast base.
The proceedings started without the host, as there were sudden and dramatic developments in the case of an elderly Irish missionary priest, Fr Michael Sinnott, who had been kidnapped in the Philippines the previous month by a gang demanding a ransom of $2 million.
Martin was personally involved in the negotiations throughout his Belfast visit, and, after a lengthy delay, eventually appeared at the reception, as unruffled as ever, to confirm that the 79-year-old cleric had been safely freed without any money changing hands.
He was quietly impressive as he briefed guests about his other dealings at Stormont and Westminster, and it was not a surprise when he succeeded Brian Cowen as Fianna Fáil leader but not taoiseach some 14 months later.
It was hardly an auspicious time to take on the post, with his party held responsible by an angry public for the major economic crash of 2008, and within a matter of weeks suffering the worst general election result since its foundation.
Micheál Martin attended the recent National Football League clash between Down and his native Cork at Páirc Esler in Newry
“ He deserves particular credit for his determination to drive forward his Shared Island project, which has made a real difference in many areas
Martin settled down for what was inevitably going to be a lengthy period in opposition, with a range of commentators predicting that not only was Fianna Fáil doomed but he would go down in history as its only leader never to head the Irish government.
He took on the long-term task of restoring his party’s fortunes, as ever with as little fuss as possible, and was rewarded almost a decade later, in 2020, by becoming taoiseach as the result of a previously unthinkable rotating deal with Fine Gael.
The continuing arrangement was endorsed by voters 10 weeks ago, so Martin will be back in the top office until the end of 2027.
Personal knowledge of North
He deserves particular credit for his determination to drive forward his Shared Island project, which has made a real difference in many areas, with the symbolic and practical value of the Narrow Water cross-border bridge taking shape just down the road from Páirc Esler.
The taoiseach, unlike some other TDs, plainly has a detailed personal knowledge of the north, as confirmed in an Irish Times interview last year when he intriguingly set out the books on his then reading list. They were Stakeknife’s Dirty War by Richard O’Rawe, Face Down – the Disappearance of Thomas Niedermayer by David Blake Knox, and Dirty Linen by Martin Doyle, reflecting appalling past acts by republicans, loyalists and the forces of the state.
Martin’s present in-tray includes the heavyweight document produced last year by the Oireachtas all-party Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, recommending that preparations for a possible unity referendum should commence immediately.
It is not possible to say when such a poll will take place, or what the result may be, but, inside Fianna Fáil and across all strands of northern nationalism, there will be an expectation that, allowing for his familiarly cautious approach, and his indication that an outcome is unlikely in the next five years, the taoiseach will still have to play a much more decisive role in the debate.
While he may have been slightly disappointed with the outcome of his most recent northern engagement, there are bigger issues ahead.
