Murder after murder

Forty years ago, Ulster was in the midst of a cycle of sectarian violence and every day the death toll was rising.  In the year 1973 alone 250 people were killed, 5,018 bombs were planted and there were 1,007 explosions.

On one day, 2 February 1973, three people were killed in Belfast by paramilitary organisations, two on the Springfield Road and one at Ballysillan.

 

The two who died on the Springfield Road were James Greer, a twenty-one year old Protestant, who was shot dead by republicans.  He was a glazier and was working in the firm of Campbell Brothers on the Springfield Road when two armed men walked into the workshop and lined up the employees.  They singled out Greer, one of only two Protestants working at the firm, and murdered him.  The Protestant was killed and the Roman Catholic staff were ignored.

 

Also that day Patrick Brady, a twenty-eight year old Roman Catholic, was abducted and shot dead.  At the inquest a detective said it was a confusing case but according to Lost Lives 'reliable loyalist sources' said that the UDA were behind the killing.  Brady had been a member of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association, a nationalist vigilante organisation which described itself as a 'people's army'.

 

The other victim that day was Robert Burns, an eighteen year old Protestant from the Sunningdale estate and an apprentice mechanic.  He and five others young people had just left the youth club at Eglinton Presbyterian Church and they were standing near the junction of the Oldpark Road and the Ballysillan Road.  IRA gunmen opened fire from a passing car and Robert was heard to shout to the others to get down.  Robert was shot dead by the gunmen and four of his friends were hit by gunfire but survived. Here is what Lost Lives says of the murder:

One of the survivors said the gunfire came from a yellow Mini with two or three people inside.  A short time later an army foot patrol  found two youths inspecting a yellow Mini in a garage in Ballycarry Street, off the Oldpark Road, a mile from the shooting.  A crowd throwing stones and bottles attacked the soldiers, forcing them to withdraw.  When the soldiers returned in an armoured vehicle they came under heavy fire from the same weapon used to kill Robert Burns.

An RUC detective-constable told the inquest that the two youths found with the car and its owner knew nothing about the crime.  The shooting appeared to have been a sectarian assassination, since all those shot were Protestants, he said.  He added that it was in all probability carried out by a republican grouping, probably the IRA.

Three days later, on 5 February, Seamus Gilmore, an eighteen year old Roman Catholic who worked at the Mount Pleasant filling station on the Ballysillan Road, close to Sunningdale, was shot by three loyalist gunmen, believed to have been members of the UVF.  Gilmore lived nearby in Rosscoole Park and it was suggested that the shooting was in retaliation for the earlier killing.

 

I have detailed the deaths on that awful day as a reminder of what Ulster was like in the early 70s.  There are still people in our society who are intent on violence but thankfully the terrible carnage of those days is in the past.  Nevertheless, in most cases, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice and the families of innocent victims are left with no sense of closure after the loss of their loved ones.

 

The events of that day are also a reminder of what the campaign by the Provisional IRA was really like.  Sinn Fein and other republicans often argue that there was a particular difference between the IRA campaign and those carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, that loyalist killings were sectarian but that republican killings were not.  Indeed such claims form one strand of the Sinn Fein strategy of rewriting history.

 

But the murder of James Greer at his workplace and the murder of Robert Burns as he stood with other young friends were as sectarian as they could possibly be.  Sinn Fein must not be allowed to forget and we must continue to press them to acknowledge that the campaign of violence by the Provisional IRA was indeed sectarian.  Republicans seem to think that Protestants are sectarian but that republicans couldn't possibly be sectarian.  The events of that terrible day forty years ago blow that fiction apart.

 

 

Alex Maskey at Auschwitz

Sinn Fein MLA Alex Maskey visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in September 2005 as part of a project involving the Belfast Jewish community and supported by Belfast City Council.

 

Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps during the Second World War and was described by Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler as the place of 'the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.'

This week at Stormont there was a small exhibition of photographs from Auschwitz as well as an accompanying booklet which contains photographs of Auschzwitz and as short introduction by Alex Maskey.

Jewish victims at Auschwitz

I welcome the fact that Maskey was brought face to face with the horror of Auschwitz and I welcome his visit for a number of reasons.

Recently Gerry Adams apologised for the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe by the IRA and he is now being challenged about the murders of many RUC men in Northern Ireland.  The murder of a policeman in Northern Ireland is no different from the murder of a policeman in the Republic.  Murder is murder and it is wrong.

 

But Sinn Fein has also to face up to earlier episodes in the history of Irish republicanism and one of those is the Second World War.  During that war, when many Ulstermen and Irishmen were fighting the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe, the IRA collaborated with the Nazis..  They collaborated with the people who were responsible for Auschwitz and every other evil of the Nazi regime.

 

That is part of the IRA story that republicans want to forget and of course they are good at forgetting what they want to forget.  I have posted before about the collaboration between the IRA and the Nazis and indeed books have been written about it and television programmes have been produced about it.

 

Moreover it cannot easily be dismissed by the current generation of Sinn Fein as merely some ancient aberration with which they have no connection.  The IRA emphasises and honours the idea of continuity with the past.  They see themselves as another stage in the struggle, building on the struggles of their forebears and they make much of those who can look bace to earlier generations in their families who perhaps fought in the War of Independence or in the ranks of the IRB. 

I hope that members of Sinn Fein will reflect not only on the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps but also the fact that the IRA collaborated with the Nazis, albeit in a wholly incompetent manner.  That incompetence does not in any way minimise the guilt of the republican movement.

Seamus Heaney and the Union flag

Yesterday (28 January) The Times carried an exclusive interview with the poet Seamus Heaney.  The front page of the section was a photograph of Heaney over which the newspaper had printed one sentence from the interview.  That sentence was:

There is never going to be a united Ireland so why not let Loyalists fly the flag?
 

Seamus Heaney was born in county Londonderry in 1939 and is a poet, playwright, translator and lecturer.  He was the professor of poetry at Harvard and Oxford and his work was recognised in 1995 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

Although he was born in Northern Ireland, Heaney has lived in Dublin since 1972 and he once wrote: 'Be advised my passport's green.  No glass of ours was ever raised to toast the Queen.'

 

It is that background which makes his comment about the Union and the Union flag all the more important.  The sentence on the front page comes from the following paragraph:

'Loyalism, Unionism or Protestantism, whatever you want to call it,in Northern Ireland it operates not as a class system, but a caste system.  And they have an entitlement factor running: the flag is part of it.  There's never going to be a united Ireland, you know,' he says plainly.  'So why don't you let them fly the flag.'

Heaney recognises that there will NEVER be a united Ireland and I just wish that nationalist politicians would also recognise this fact.  Yes they have a right to hold an aspiration for a united Ireland but they should be honest enough to admit that it will never happen.

Many public speakers in Northern Ireland, including some nationalist and republican politicians, use quotations from Seamus Heaney.  However I doubt very much if this will be the one they use.

Tabasco sauce - the Ulster connection

Tabasco sauce was invented by Edmund McIlhenny (1815-1890), a fourth generation American of Scotch-Irish descent. 

 

According to tradition the family came from Argyllshire in Scotland and settled in county Donegal, near Milford, where they remained for several generations.  In the 1740s four brothers emigrated from Donegal to North America, as part of the great Ulster-Scots exodus.  One of them, Ezekiel, settled in Pennsylvania, near its border with Maryland.  His son Robert McIlhenny was an attorney in Adams County.

 

Edmund McIlhenny was born on 15 October 1815 at Hagerstown, Maryland.  His father was the owner of McIlhenny's Tavern, which sat on the northwest corner of the public square, and he was also the mayor of Hagerstown.

 

In 1841 Edmund McIlhenny moved to New Orleans, where he worked as an agent for the Bank of Louisiana.  Later he became an indpendent banker and in 1857 he purchased five branch banks in southern and central Louisiana.

 

He was now a wealthy man and in 1859 he married Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of a prominent jurist in Baton Rouge.  Her family owned a sugar plantation on an island, Avery Island, and when the American Civil War started the Averys and the McIlhennys sought refuge on the island.  However the plantation was destroyed by Union soldiers.  The families fled to Texas and Edmund became a civilian employee of the Confederate States Army.

 

After the war had ended, McIlhenny found himself with few prospects.  The economy of the South was in ruins and his millions of Confederate dollars were worthless.  He had no choice but to return with his wife to her family home at Avery Island.

 

There he began blending red peppers, salt and vinegar to create the Tabasco brand pepper sauce.  McIlhenny then sent 350 bottles of his pepper sauce to selected wholesalers and soon the 'Famous Sauce Mr McIlhenny Makes' became extremely popular.

 

Edmund McIlhenny died on Avery Island on 25 November 1890 but his eldest son John Avery McIlhenny took over the business with the assistance of his mother.

 

When the Spanish American War broke out in 1898 John joined the First US Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the 'Rough Riders', and his brother Edward (Ned) Avery McIlhenny (1872-1949) took over the running of the Tabasco business.  He was also a naturalist, conservationist, world explorer and the author of several books.

Today the McIlhennys still own Avery Island and still make Tabasco sauce using the same formula that Edmund invented all those years ago.

O'Neill & Allsopp Memorial Flute Band

Yesterday afternoon there was an annual parade in the New Lodge area of North Belfast to commemorate two members of the Fianna Eireann, the youth wing of the IRA.

 

The two youg men were James O'Neill and Robert Allsopp and the march consisted of eight bands, including the local O'Neill-Allsopp Memorial Flute Band.

 

The annual commemoration also included a function on Saturday night in St Kevin's Hall, featuring the republican band Shebeen.

 

According to the North Belfast News (26 January), 'Fian Robert Allsopp was killed on March 23, 1975 and Fian Jim O'Neill on February 26, 1976.'

 

Robert Emmanuel Allsopp was just fifteen years old when he died and his entry in Lost Lives states:

A member of the Fianna, the junior wing of the IRA, he was found lying in his house in the New Lodge area of north Belfast with a bullet wound to the head.  He was discovered by a neighbour who had gone to the Allsopp home to visit the boy's mother.  On receiving no reply to her knock at the door, the woman entered the house and saw the teenager lying on the ground, his head inside the kitchen, his feet stretched out into the yard.  There was no movement and he did not respond to the woman when she spoke to him.  An ambulance was called and the boy was taken to hospital where he died.

Detectives who went ot investugate his death were attacked by a crowd, returning later with an army escort.  The youth had apparently been shot in the head at close range, police indicating they believed his killing may have been accidental.  The gun had been removed from the scene.  The teenager's mother told the inquest that she had gone to work that evening leaving him some money to go to a local disco.  She was later told that he had been involved in an accident.  The police said no weapon was recovered at the house and their appeals for a 13-year-old girl who was seen there around the time of the shooting to come forward went unanswered.

The other young man was Jim O'Neill.  The North Belfast News gave the date of his death as 26 February 1976 but Lost Lives gives the date as 13 February, so presumably the North Belfast News got it wrong.  O'Neill was seventeen years old and an apprentice joiner.  The entry in Lost Lives states:

His badly burned body was found in a warehouse on the Antrim Road, next to the home of the SDLP leader, Gerry Fitt.  It was reported that he was attempting to burn down the home of the MP, which was attacked on numerous occasions, during rioting which followed the death on hunger strike  of Frank Stagg.  A detective told and inquest that petrol had been scattered around the warehouse before it was set on fire.  He was identified by dental records and two medallions round his neck.  According to death notices he was a Fianna staff officer.  'Parlo', as he was known, was from Duncairn Parade, and he is listed in the republican roll  of honour as a member of Fianna Eireann.  His uncle, Michael Kane, also an IRA member, was  killed in a premature explosion in 1970.

 

One of the organisers of the parade, Leo Morgan, said, 'These were two young people from the New Lodge who died for Ireland. Their example is one of leadership for the young people of this area, and the flute band shows republicanism in a positive way.'

 

A fifteen-year-old boy shot himself accidentally with a gun and a seventeen-year-old was burned to death while trying to burn down the home of a nationalist MP.  Did they really die for Ireland?  Were they really 'examples of leadership for the young people' of the New Lodge?  No they were just two young people who lost their lives for nothing as a result of their membership of the Provisional IRA.  These were wasted lives and the Provos were responsible for the deaths of the two young Roman Catholics.

 

There is also an interesting angle on the death of  Jim O'Neill's uncle.  Michael Kane was killed on 4 September 1970 when a bomb he was handling exploded prematurely at Newforge Lane off the Malone Road, where he was attempting to destroy an electricity transformer.  Afterwards copies of the Voice of the North newspaper were found in his car.  This was produced in Monaghan by Seamus Brady, a member of Fianna Fail.  When the possibility of a split emerged in the IRA, the newspaper, which was funded by the Fianna Fail government, fanned the flames which eventually led to the formation of the Provisional IRA.  The role of the Fianna Fail government in the formation of the Provisional IRA is something that both Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein would prefer to forget.

 

 

 

 

Carnation Day - the Ulster connection

Eddie McIlwaine's page in the Belfast Telegraph is something I look forward to reading and today he highlighted something I had not heard of before, Carnation Day, 29 January.

 

The carnation was the favourite flower of William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States of America, and he always wore one on his lapel.

 

McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio, on 29 January 1843 and died on 14 September 1901 after being shot by an anarchist assassin.

 

After his death Lewis G Reynolds of Dayton, Ohio, wrote to the New York Herald Tribune suggesting that on McKinley's birthday each person wear a carnation in his memory.  The idea was adopted and Carnation Day was first observed in the United States of America on 29 January 1903.

 

The Ulster connection is of course that President William McKinley was a Scotch-Irish American with Ulster-Scots ancestry.  His first Ulster forebear was James McKinley, who came from Perthshire in Scotland.  In 1690 he fought for the Protestant cause under King William III, Prince of Orange, earning the nickname 'James the Trooper'.  Afterwards he settled at Conagher, near Ballymoney, in county Antrim.  In 1743 James McKinley emigrated from Ulster to America and his son David, born around 1730, fought in the Revolutionary War.  This David McKinley was the great-grandfather of the future president. 

During the Civil War William McKinley served under Colonel Rutherford B Hayes, who was later to become president, and he was a a major in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  Hayes made McKinley his aide-de-camp and subsequently encouraged his political career.  McKinley was elected to the United States Congress in 1877 and served for fourteen years to 1891.  He continued to build his political base as governor of Ohio, from 1892 to 1896, in addition to serving the Republican Party nationally.

McKinley was elected president in the election of 1896 and served from 1897 to 1901.  The greatest event in his presidency was the intervention of the United States to secure Cuba's independence from Spain.  He was returned to office for a second term but he was shot by an assassin at Buffalo on 6 September 1901 and died on 14 September.

President McKinley ewas a member of the Scotch-Irish Society of America and in 1893 he welcomed the 5th Scotch-Irish Congress to Springfield, Ohio.  Also that year he attended the Columbian World's Fair in Chicago and told the members of the McKinlay clan, 'Your ancestors of the McKinlay clan came to this country directly from Scotland, while mine came from the North of Ireland, but we are probably of the same original covenanter stock.'    In 1897 F A Claypool published a book entitled The Scotch Ancestors of William McKinley.

Martin O'Hagan and the Workers' Party

Over the last few days there has been media coverage of the decision by the PPS not to pursue prosecution of a number of men for the murder of Sunday World journalist Martin O'Hagan on 28 September 2001. 

His murder was claimed by the Red Hand Defenders but this was sometimes a cover-name for the LVF and the Sunday World has named five members of the LVF as responsible for his murder.

 

It is believed that he was shot because of articles he had written about loyalist paramilitaries.  He had previously been abducted and questioned by the Provisional IRA because of other articles in the Sunday World.

Before turning to the subject of this post let me be absolutely clear - human life is given by God and murder is a sin - it is always wrong and those who are guilty of murder should be punished.

Owen Martin O'Hagan grew up in Lurgan and his father and grandfather served in the Brish Army but the family also had strong links to the republican movement.  His cousin Dr Dara O'Hagan was elected as a Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998 and now works for Sinn Fein as a senior adviser.  Moreover her father, Joseph B O'Hagan, was the Provisional IRA quartermaster-general in Northern Ireland.

 

According to an obituary in The Guardian [1 October 2001] Martin O'Hagan joined the Official IRA 'as a teenager'.  O'Hagan was born in June 1950 and ceased to be a teenager in 1970.  Since the Provisional IRA split from the IRA in December 1969 he must have joined the IRA before the split or else he joined the Official IRA shortly after the split.  Whatever the precise time he was certainly a socialist republican and on the other side of the split from his cousin and uncle.

 

O'Hagan was interned in 1971 and then after his release he was charged with transporting guns for the Official IRA and sentenced to seven years in prison.  The Official IRA declared a ceasefire in 1972 but continued to exist as an armed paramilitary organisation and it had an important role as a criminal fundraiser for the Workers' Party.

 

After his release in 1978 he studied sociology at university and in the early 1980s he was given a largely unpaid position with 'the left-wing Irish political periodical Fortnight'.  This was to be his entrance into a career in journalism.  In The Lost Revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party, Brian Hanley and Scott Millar comment:

Despite the WP's poor electoral showings, the party's politics had an impact on wider understandings of the conflict.  Fortnight magazine regularly carried articles by writers and journalists associated with the WP, including Martin O'Hagan, John Hunter, Kathryn Johnston and Robin Wilson.

In this way the Workers' Party was able to influence public opinion and public debate.  They were never going to achieve their goal by electoral politics and neither could they mount a successful revolution but they could influence society and change it incrementally by having their members work in the media and in civic society.  This was the theory of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and I can well recall Robin Wilson, during a conversation in the Community Relations Council, expressing his admiration for Gramsci.

 

Martin O'Hagan then began casual work for newspapers and eventually joined the staff in the Belfast office of the Sunday World.  The brash tabloid newspaper was based in Dublin but at that time the Belfast office was under the editorship of Jim Campbell.  Of this newspaper Hanley and Millar comment:

The Sunday World remained an outlet for WP publicity and its populist analysis of the political situation was often in line with the party's positions.  The paper steered clear of any reference to the actvities of Group B [Official IRA], but its exposes of criminal activity by other loyalist and republican paramilitaries was not without its costs: its Northern editor, Jim Campbell, was badly wounded in a UVF shooting in May 1984.

The silence of the Sunday World about the criminality of the Official IRA contrasted sharply with its focus on the criminality of other paramilitary organisations and is therefore all the more remarkable.  Moreover this was no accident.  There were people on the staff of the Sunday World who were or had been members of the Workers' Party or the Official IRA.  Are we to believe that they had sources of information about every other paramilitary organisation but no sources of information about the Official IRA?  I think most people will find that rather hard to accept!

 

The question becomes all the more interesting in view of a document written in 1989 by Sean Garland to the Communist Party in East Berlin, admitting that the Officials were engaged in criminality to raise money for the party.  The recent discovery of this document by the Irish Times sheds a new light on that era of the Officials and the journalists and others who were at various times associated with the Official republican movement.