Tanaiste Simon Harris to meet Stormont parties over dealing with past
Rebecca Black, Irish News, May 19th, 2025
THE Tánaiste is to meet political parties in Stormont over how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles.
Speaking ahead of his meetings with party leaders in Belfast today, Simon Harris said the Legacy Act, which was brought about by the previous Conservative government in London, is “not fit for purpose”.
It comes after Mr Harris last week met the family of murdered GAA official Sean Brown, who are fighting a legal battle with the British government in a bid to see a public inquiry established into his death.
Mr Harris said discussions are ongoing between the Irish and British governments on reform of the legacy act.
“Today’s meetings are an opportunity to get the perspectives of party leaders on a number of issues, including around legacy,” the Tánaiste said.
“I have been consistent in my view that the UK Legacy Act, as it stands, is not fit for purpose.
“I am in ongoing discussions with the secretary of state for Northern Ireland on this matter and look forward to further talks in the period ahead.
“As these discussions intensify, it is important for me to hear directly from political parties in Northern Ireland as we try to move to a better place.
“I am also listening carefully to victims, survivors and families affected by the Troubles, some of whom I met with last week, to better understand their perspectives.
“Today‘s meetings take place against the backdrop of the EU-UK summit in London. Ireland has consistently supported an improved EU-UK relationship that provides certainty and opportunity for people across these islands.”
Tánaiste to meet party leaders of Northern Ireland for legacy talks
Updated / Monday, 19 May 2025
By Conor Macauley, Northern Correspondent, RTE
Tánaiste Simon Harris will visit Belfast to meet leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties for talks on legacy.
Mr Harris said as negotiations with the UK government continued in an attempt to reach consensus, it was important to get their perspective.
"I have been consistent in my view that the UK Legacy Act, as it stands, is not fit for purpose.
"I am in ongoing discussions with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on this matter and look forward to further talks in the period ahead.
"As these discussions intensify, it is important for me to hear directly from political parties in Northern Ireland, as we try to move to a better place.
"I am also listening carefully to victims, survivors and families affected by the Troubles, some of whom I met with last week, to better understand their perspectives."
The UK government has promised to repeal and replace many elements of controversial legacy arrangements it inherited from the previous Tory government.
The law effectively shut down access to the courts for Troubles families, ending police investigations, inquests, civil actions and the likelihood of fresh prosecutions.
Labour commitments to amend Legacy Act not yet delivered
The Labour government has committed to revoking many of these controversial moves but the promised changes have not yet materialised.
It also wants to retain an investigative body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) which it believes can address legacy cases once its powers and independence are strengthened.
Northern Ireland's courts have ruled that the body, as currently constituted, is not able to carry out investigations that comply with the UK’s commitments under the European Convention of Human Rights.
The Irish Government has taken a case against the UK to the European Court of Human Rights in respect the arrangements.
Last week, the Tánaiste met the family of murdered GAA club chairman Sean Brown in Dublin.
They are pushing for a public inquiry into his 1997 killing in Co Derry after it emerged that loyalists who were working as agents of the British state were involved in the conspiracy.
The UK government is appealing a court order mandating a public inquiry to the UK Supreme Court.
It has told the Browns that they should take their cases to the ICRIR, something they have rejected.
The Tánaiste said he would seek an outcome that the family supported.
On Friday night, thousands of members of the GAA walked through Bellaghy, Co Derry to the GAA ground where he was abducted as he locked up the clubhouse.
GAA President Jarlath Burns said people were not going to accept a denial of the truth and urged people to support the Brown's in their pursuit of an inquiry.
Today's meetings take place against the backdrop of a wider EU/UK summit to reset relations after Brexit.
Investigators treating latest find in hunt for Disappeared Joe Lynskey 'with caution'
Allison Morris, Belfast Telegraph, May 19th, 2025
REMAINS FOUND NEAR PREVIOUS SEARCH AREA IN MONAGHAN SENT FOR DNA TESTS
Investigators searching for the body of a republican 'Disappeared' by the IRA during the Troubles are said to be treating the latest find in the hunt for Joe Lynskey's remains “with caution”.
Mr Lynskey was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972.
The latest find, announced on Friday, was discovered in Annyalla Cemetery outside Clontibret in Co Monaghan — the scene of a previous search for the body.
Further fragments of remains were found in a different part of the graveyard at a small site described as being “of interest” a short distance from a previous search.
Last November, the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) recovered a body from a burial plot in the cemetery belonging to the family of the former Bishop of Ferns, Brendan Comiskey, who died last month.
The family of Mr Lynskey had even started planning a funeral, believing the discovery was finally the breakthrough they had been waiting on.
However, DNA testing showed the remains were not those of the missing monk, who was 40 when he vanished.
Independent source of information
The information that brought about that search was not provided by the official republican go-between to the ICLVR, but by an independent source.
Immunity from prosecution is given to anyone who gives information leading to the recovery of remains of 'the Disappeared'.
In a statement on Friday regarding the latest development, the new lead investigator of the ICLVR, Eamonn Henry, said he wanted to “emphasise that this information did not relate directly” to the disappearance of Joe Lynskey.
“Until we have a positive identification or the elimination of the remains as those of Joe Lynskey or any of the other of the Disappeared we have to keep an open mind,” he said.
The state pathologist in the Republic has been notified and the remains have been taken away for technical examination.
The Lynskey family have been informed of the development.
“We know only too well that the Lynskey family have had hopes raised before only to be bitterly disappointed and so, as ever, expectations have to be managed,” Mr Henry said.
“The process of identification could take some time and we will continue to offer the family what support we can.
“Regardless of the outcome, this work at Annyalla shows that where we have credible information we will act on it.”
Mr Lynskey had been court-martialled by the PIRA for ordering an attack on a man whose wife he had been having an affair with.
The unsanctioned shooting almost sparked a retaliatory attack, with the Provisional IRA initially thinking it was linked to tensions between the group and the Official IRA.
Mystery still surrounds the remains recovered from the Comiskey family's Annyalla Cemetery graveyard plot in November.
The commission said they had been acting on information claiming that there had been unusual behaviour in the area at a time that matched Mr Lynskey's disappearance.
However, a contact from the republican movement told the ICLVR that they did not think Mr Lynskey was in the grave or even in that area.
They added that, as a result, it was “highly unlikely” his remains will be found.
It is for this reason that the latest find is being treated with caution.
The Lynskey family have already endured several failed attempts to locate his remains.
On one occasion, a search for the former Cistercian monk ended with the recovery of the remains of Kevin McKee (17), and 25-year-old Seamus Wright, who went missing from Belfast in October 1972.
Their remains were found together in a shallow grave in Co Meath in June 2015. They had been accused of being informers.
Dolours Price
In interviews, IRA woman Dolours Price admitted driving Wright and McKee across the border and handing them over to a Provo unit in Monaghan.
She also confessed to driving Lynskey to his death, but said she tried to convince him to let her bring him to a port.
While republicans claim all those involved in the Lynskey disappearance are now dead and that no more information is available, last month priest Sean McManus admitted he was one of the last people to see the murdered man alive.
McManus, who now lives in the US but is from Kinawley, revealed in a statement that he had heard Mr Lynskey's confession, but stressed it was not the Last Rites, nor did he know it would be his final confession.
“I am the priest who in 1972 administered the Sacrament of Confession to one of the Disappeared, Joe Lynskey,” stated the 81-year-old.
“Please note it was the Sacrament of Confession — not the Late Rites, as some tend to say. The Last Rites or Extreme Unction, as it was formerly called, is given to someone at the point of death.
“Joe did not ask for the Last Rites; he asked for a priest to hear his Confession. As a former monk, Joe would have been completely aware of the distinction between the two.
“I did not know Joe would be killed, nor that he had been killed, nor did the public know, until 2010 when the IRA publicly admitted the killing of the Disappeared.”
It’s about time you listened to the people on this, Mr Benn
Pro Fide et Patria Irish News
THE symbolism surrounding the Walk For Truth, in support of the family of Sean Brown, which drew an enormous and hugely dignified attendance in Co Derry on Friday night, was overwhelming in every way.
GAA members and people from across Ireland assembled at St Mary’s Church in Bellaghy before making the short journey to Páirc Seán de Brún, the home of the village’s Wolfe Tones GAC.
Most of the participants wore the colours of their own clubs, at the request of the Brown family, as they highlighted the irrefutable case for a public inquiry into a murder which by any standards continues to have massive implications.
“Most of the participants wore the colours of their own clubs, at the request of the Brown family, as they highlighted the irrefutable case for a public inquiry into a murder which by any standards continues to have massive implications
Mr Brown, was aged 61, the chairman of Wolfe Tones GAC and a hugely respected figure in his area, when he was abducted by the Loyalist Volunteer Force as he locked the gates of the club on May 12 1997.
He was beaten and forced into the back of his own car before it was driven in a convoy a distance of some ten miles, along a route which went past Toome RUC station, to a secluded laneway near Randalstown where he was shot dead.
No one has ever been convicted of involvement in the outrage, and appallingly prolonged attempts to establish the full circumstances have been repeatedly frustrated by the British authorities over the last 28 years.
A court was told last year more than 25 people, including state agents, had been linked by intelligence material to Mr Brown’s murder, and a coroner ruled an inquest could not continue due to vital material being withheld on the grounds of what was said to be “national security.”
In a landmark decision, judges at the Court of Appeal in Belfast declared that the British government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry was illegal, through an order set to take effect on June 2 2025, which the secretary of state Hillary Benn is appealing against to the Supreme Court in London It always needs to be stressed that every murder in the course of the Troubles was entirely wrong and capable only of causing grief and bitterness on an enormous scale, regardless of the background.
However, when firm evidence is established that the state may have played a role in the assassination of one of its own citizens, then, even allowing for the way in which the British government has persistently mishandled the complexities of the legacy debate, it is impossible to see how a public inquiry can be avoided.
Mr Brown’s courageous widow, Bridie, now aged 87, has already waited too long for justice, and Mr Benn needs to listen to the powerful message sent out by the gathering in Bellaghy on Friday.
'Catholic businessman gave UDA's Tyrie cash to fund secret peace talks'
Allison Morris, Belfast Telegraph, May 19th, 2025
LOYALIST FIGURE WHO LED THE GROUP IN 1970S AND 80S HAS DIED AGED 85
Secret talks aimed at securing peace were funded by a Catholic businessman who brought UDA boss Andy Tyrie into his office and handed him cash from a safe in order to facilitate clandestine meetings with the IRA.
Tyrie died at the weekend, aged 85, and had been ill for some time.
While his later years were spent out of the headlines, he had been one of the most recognisable loyalist figures of the 1970s and 80s, as leader of the UDA at a time when the group was most active.
State papers released in 2005 showed that 30 years previously Mr Tyrie had organised talks between the UDA and the IRA, without the knowledge of many of his supporters.
Merlyn Rees, the then Northern Ireland Secretary, told Prime Minister Harold Wilson that the meetings included a “certain amount of camaraderie”.
Loyalists close to Tyrie at that time have told the Belfast Telegraph that those talks were financed by a prominent Catholic businessman who invited the then UDA boss into his office and handed him cash from a safe, wishing him well with his endeavours.
While the talks ended as quickly as they began, they were considered a template for the much later ceasefire negotiations of early 1990s.
Tyrie was born in the Shankill, his father a former soldier, and his mother a seamstress in much demand at a time of 'make do and mend' in the working class area of Belfast.
The family moved to new-build houses in Ballymurphy — originally occupied by both Protestant and Catholics families — but left as the Troubles broke out in 1969, returning to the Shankill.
Tyrie originally joined the UVF but believed they weren't militant enough, joining the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, and then his Shankill Defence Association which became part of the UDA when it was formed in 1971.
Despite being involved in hundreds of murders, the UDA remained a legal organisation until 1992 when it was finally proscribed by the then Secretary of State. Tyrie took over as leader of the UDA following the death of Tommy Herron.
Herron was kidnapped in September 1973, and died from a single gunshot to the head. His body was found in a ditch near Drumbo, Co Antrim.
His death was linked to other members of the UDA and tensions within the organisation, although they never claimed it.
Paisley presided at Herron funeral
Herron received a paramilitary funeral, presided over by DUP leader Rev Ian Paisley and attended by 25,000 mourners.
The organisation, under the guise of the UFF, increased attacks under Tyrie's leadership. However, Tyrie also sought to move the UDA towards more political activity in a twin track approach, mimicking that adopted by Sinn Fein.
He appointed Sammy Duddy as his personal representative, and authorised him to give interviews and briefings to journalists in relation to strategy.
Under Tyrie's leadership the UDA was a paramilitary group with a recognised central leadership. After his departure the organisation fractured into a number of mini fiefdoms operating independently.
He had little regard for Johnny Adair who he accused of fracturing loyalism and moving it deeper into criminality and involvement with the drugs trade.
He narrowly escaped death in a car bomb in March 1988. While no group claimed responsibility for the attack he believed he was targeted internally and Tyrie announced his resignation as leader of the UDA five days later.
He was supportive of the talks to bring about the loyalist ceasefires and was from time to time called upon to talk to older members of the UDA about support for its political direction.
Tyrie was very class conscious
Professor Jim McAuley, who teaches Political Sociology and Irish Studies at the University of Huddersfield met Tyrie on at least a dozen occasions. “I met him for the first time in 1982 when I was doing my PHD. And while I approached him with some trepidation he was very helpful, when he didn't have to be,” he said.
“He was very class conscious and came from a working class community and approached things very much from that perspective.
“He was a complex personality, I suppose is the best way of putting it, capable of organising and doing the things he did with the UFF and UDA, but also in his later years very supportive of the Good Friday Agreement.
“From my meetings with him, I think he always saw there were two sides.
“As leader of the UDA I don't think he ever felt secure or even wanted to be in that position, but that is where he ended up. Until that wave of young Turks came through, he was very much in control.
“It would have been for him to justify his earlier days and all that went with that, but he was supportive of the ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement.
“I don't think we shouldn't write that out of history or fall for the Uncle Andy stereotype.”
In his retirement Tyrie was an active member of the Ballybeen Men's Shed and his local Ulster Scots group.
‘Unacceptable’ exclusion of Troubles victims
Rebecca Black, Irish News, May 19th, 2025
A NUMBER of groups of victims of Northern Ireland’s troubled past are being excluded from a compensation scheme, an advocacy group has said.
Relatives For Justice (RFJ) said applications to the scheme from many of those bereaved in the Troubles, victims of plastic and rubber bullets, victims of sexual violence and victims of so-called punishment attacks are being rejected.
The Troubles Permanent Disablement Payment Scheme has paid out around £90 million since it opened for applications since 2021, and is set to close to new applications in August 2026.
RFJ has urged that the scheme be looked at again in terms of how it is operating and whether it is delivering to victims and survivors.
Andree Murphy, deputy director of RFJ, said for victims of plastic or rubber bullets there “appears to be a lack of understanding” of the experience of policing in working class communities.
“Many millions have been paid in compensation to those injured from their use,” she said.
“It is unacceptable that victims, injured by their use, then deliberately arrested and charged for civil disobedience in order to justify their use, are by default excluded from the scheme deemed ‘injured by their own hand’.
“For example of the 17 people killed by rubber and plastic bullets, nine of whom were children, all inquests found that those killed were uninvolved in any disturbances and were entirely innocent victims.
“In terms of the use of plastic bullets, it is resulting in an almost blanket approach of disbelief and rejection of those applicants.”
Punishment attacks and sexual violence
She said the situation is “even worse” for victims of so-called punishment attacks.
“When the victims survived attacks the physical and psychological injuries were often devastating and life changing for them and their families,” she said.
“Colloquial terms such as ‘kneecapping’ became known as a form of attack carried out by these groups.
“There is a blanket exclusion of these victims of the conflict with the current interpretation of eligibility.
“In RFJ’s view a fresh working interpretation of the legislation would allow these victims and survivors to receive support from this scheme.”
Ms Murphy also raised concern around sexual violence during the Troubles as “remaining undefined and neglected”.
She said RFJ have worked with an applicant who was sexually assaulted as a teenager by a serving police officer, and has been refused compensation under the scheme.
“The scheme does not benefit from a practical understanding of that experience, despite research and a workshop provided at the beginning of the scheme,” she said.
Meanwhile Ms Murphy highlighted the experience of the bereaved who applied to the scheme.
The scheme only allows for the bereaved to access compensation if they were present at the scene of the killing, or the immediate aftermath.
“Relatives for Justice does not believe that this is a scheme which the bereaved should be forced to apply to, however it is the only scheme of reparation in existence, therefore the bereaved will and are applying. 31% of the applications supported by RFJ to date have been with bereaved relatives,” she said.
Last week Mr Justice McAlinden, president of the Victims’ Payment Board, described the definition of the current scheme as “very restrictive” when he appeared before the Stormont Executive Committee.
He told MLAs he regretted omissions from those who are eligible for the scheme, including the bereaved.
He said they had tried to but added that politicians had the power to reconstruct the scheme.
Mr Justice McAlinden also rejected a contention that going through the application process for some was “dehumanising, cruel, re-traumatising and ritual humiliation”.
However Ms Murphy described the exclusions as “unacceptable”.
Budget: SDLP says ministers 'too keen' to blame North’s finances on UK Govt
By David Thompson, Belfast News Letter, May 19th, 2025
Stormont’s official opposition has announced a ‘five-point plan for a better Budget’ as the Assembly prepares to vote on the Northern Ireland Executive’s financial plans on Monday.
Leader of the Opposition Matthew O’Toole has taken aim at ministers – particularly in Sinn Fein – for being “only too keen to lump all the blame on the UK Government” while doing little to take on additional financial responsibilities themselves.
The SDLP will vote against the budget, backed by the governing parties in Sinn Fein, DUP, UUP and Alliance. Among the opposition proposals are:
• At least 10% of departmental spending must be ringfenced and matched to Programme for Government priorities
• Securing Executive control over more tax, borrowing and spending powers
• Creating a Northern Ireland Regional Investment Bank modelled on the Scottish National Investment Bank which is empowered to participate in co-financed and cross-border projects.
• Legislate for a Future Generations Act to embed long-term thinking into all government decision-making and spending.
Matthew O’Toole MLA said: “Last February the restored Executive promised much but so far has been marked by the same inaction and lack of ambition the public has become all too used to. The Programme for Government was late and filled with gauzy aspiration but little by way of clear targets, and the Budget which followed has completely failed to match what few targets there are to specific resources.
“But Executive ministers, particularly successive Sinn Féin finance ministers, have been only too keen to lump all the blame on the UK Government while doing next to nothing to take more fiscal power locally to manage our own finances and set out own priorities. A Fiscal Commission report, nearly four years old and full of suggestions for greater local power, has sat on the shelf while Sinn Féin ministers have paid empty lip service to its findings.
“With many public services in crisis, crumbling water infrastructure and environmental degradation, it is vital that we take proper power locally to improve things for our citizens”.
Alex Kane: Come on Stormont, surprise us: do your bloody job
Everyone one of us is being failed. Every department has failed. Every executive has failed. Every minister has failed
Alex Kane, Irish News, May 19th, 2025
Mike Nesbitt was addressing a group of students at St Mary’s University College in west Belfast a few days ago.
“Unionists – or most of us – realise we cannot govern this place without the active support of nationalists and republicans," he said.
“Nationalists and republicans – or again the majority – realise they can no longer describe this place as a failed, ungovernable statelet.
“For the first time, everyone – unionists, nationalists and republicans – sense the need to make Northern Ireland work. Our motivations may be different, but that’s no obstacle to make this place function for the benefit of all.
“I am tired of hearing about the potential of this place. I want to turn potential into reality – for you, for your peers and for everyone.”
Nesbitt describes this as the Prosperity Agenda: “…creating the circumstances where you, as an individual, can wake up feeling life is good, get out of bed with a sense of purpose, because you have things to do that you want to do – stressing ‘want to do’."
He is right about making this place work.
Shortly before powers were devolved to the first executive in December 1999, I was asked in a television interview what yardstick for success I would be applying to it.
I acknowledged that the constitutional question certainly wasn’t going to disappear any time soon and that the main parties would remain polarised for at least a year.
Reform the best solution for NI problems
But I also said that I hoped trust would emerge and that we would reach a point at which there was a collective realisation that addressing and resolving socio/economic issues (health, education, housing, infrastructure et al) would be the best possible way of proving that Northern Ireland could be a better place for everyone.
Twenty-six years later, my yardstick for success has yet to be met.
Oh yes, all of the parties who have served in the successive executives have told me they want to make the place they have agreed to co-govern a better place.
But they still haven’t taken full, joint responsibility for any Programme for Government; and they still regularly issue attack dog press statements about their executive colleagues.
Indeed, just hours before the UUP released the text of Nesbitt’s speech, the DUP had a pop at the health department’s failings re cancer and paediatric waiting lists.
Coalition, be it mandatory or voluntary, isn’t helped if the parties who form it think it’s perfectly acceptable to undermine each other.
I was also particularly interested by Nesbitt’s comment that while the main parties ‘sense the need’ to make Northern Ireland work, their ‘motivations’ may be different. It’s an important point to make.
Unionists want it to work because they believe that accusations of it being a failed, struggling, unsuccessful place undermine the case for it remaining in the UK.
And nationalists – or so he seems to be arguing – want it to work because how other could they persuade people in the south to vote to embrace it in the event of a border poll?
He may discover that quite a few within his own party, and probably the majority of the DUP, TUV and loyalists (who didn’t get mentioned by him as a separate group, even though he did make the distinction between nationalists and republicans), don’t agree with him that those nationalists and republicans really do want Northern Ireland to work.
There is actually a case to be made that a Northern Ireland which works might push down an Irish unity vote because the middle ground – which will likely be the deciding factor in a border poll –might tip towards the status quo rather than rock the boat and stir up a possible loyalist backlash.
Paradoxically, a Northern Ireland which isn’t seen to work will, as Nesbitt hinted at in an earlier part of his speech, very likely look like a hugely unattractive option for southern voters.
‘Unfocused delusional government’
Let’s face it: if Northern Ireland doesn’t work in the present circumstances – where we are hardly awash with harmony and reconciliation – why would anyone image that milk and honey would flow if what had been Northern Ireland ceased to exist, and unionists found themselves somewhere they didn’t want to be?
Yet, even with all the issues raised in the speech, I think Nesbitt’s contribution is an important one.
At the moment – and I would argue that the moment has been an extraordinarily long one – Northern Ireland is plagued by epically hopeless, wandering, unfocussed and often delusional government.
Everyone one of us – unionist, loyalist, nationalist, republican and ‘other’ – is being failed. Every department has failed. Every executive has failed. Every minister has failed.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The executive exists because enough parties have agreed to form it and take on the responsibility of governance.
Come on, surprise us. Do your bloody job!
Work starts on NI's largest bonfire ahead of Twelfth of July celebrations
Mark Bain, Belfast Telegraph, May 19th, 2025,
With less than two months to go before the traditional Eleventh Night bonfires, construction work has begun on Northern Ireland's largest pyre.
The site at Craigyhill in Larne has earned a reputation for being the tallest and most spectacular celebration on the night.
Last year organisers claimed they had broken the world record again, with the bonfire rising to just over 205ft.
However, the claim remains unofficial — the Guinness Book of World Records still lists the Hofstalder Funkenzunft in Lustenau, Austria on March 16, 2019 at 198ft, 11ins as the record holder.
Nevertheless, the Co Antrim organisers are claiming theirs as the world's tallest, and insist the bonfire is built in accordance with health and safety rules, and after taking advice from authorities.
The bonfire at Craigyhill will rise over the next two months, helped by hundreds of volunteers who descend on Larne from across Northern Ireland to assist in stacking wooden pallets.
Last year the Craigyhill bonfire organisers gained even more publicity after allowing a parachute jump from the construction.
The stunt was performed by professional base jumper Stephen Magennis.
In 2022, local man John Steele died after falling 50ft from a bonfire in nearby Antiville with the site at Craigyhill serving as a gathering point for a vigil in his memory.
