Eileen Doherty was killed 40 years ago today. She was 19 and had no political affiliation. Just a nationalist teenager who had spent the evening with her boyfriend in the Lower Ormeau Road as she often did. Shortly before her death she called at Atlas Taxis at the corner of Cooke Street and the Ormeau Road. Her intention was to catch a cab home to Slieveban Drive in Andersonstown.

She was already there by the time I hobbled into the same depot on crutches. If Ronnie or some of the other drivers was on call, and had a one-passenger fare, they would take one of the local youth with them for the spin and a yarn. I got to so many parts of Belfast I would never have ventured into on foot courtesy of Ronnie. He was a Protestant but we had no reason to fear him.  No matter where we happened to be he would pick us up if we called the depot and asked for him.

The night before, filled with cider, I had kicked a glass door in and damaged my Achilles tendon. For a year or two it continued to give me trouble. Unable to put my foot on the ground I had to get around with crutches. Eileen was not there alone. Two men, a few years older than myself, were seated seemingly waiting on a taxi. One at least appeared to be drunk, hunched over with face in his hands, only looking up occasionally. The other sat there but made no attempt to conceal his features. I assumed they had been on the drink in the local Sticky club and were, like Eileen, trying to make their way home on a Sunday evening. There were no taxis available and I spent about half an hour there talking with Eileen. She was of slim build and we would wind her up by calling her ‘Skin.’ We were about three years younger than she and would banter with her any time we met up. She was a frequent visitor to the road so we all knew her. I was a friend of her fiance.

I left before John Sherry arrived to pick up at the depot. He was the boss of the place and wasn’t as friendly towards the local youth as his drivers. It was just his way. I bade Eileen goodbye and thought no more of it. The following morning I lay on in bed, leg too damaged to allow me to go to my work as an apprentice terrazzo layer. When I got up my mother told me that a girl had been shot dead the night before. I didn’t immediately pick up on the name but as it dawned on me I recall hobbling out of the house which faced the depot.

As the day progressed we managed to piece the event together.  Driving along the Ormeau embankment, John Sherry was confronted by one of the passengers holding a gun. It is said he rammed a traffic isle and pushed Eileen out the passenger door while managing to get himself out the driver side. As they made their way on foot to safety they saw the hijacked taxi come back round. Both ran but Eileen tripped. Her killers were onto her within seconds, her life blotted out in a second of sectarian hatred.

Monday afternooon saw me standing at the junction of McClure Street and the Ormeau Road with friends in a state of gloom and anger. A man approached and showed his ID card telling me he was a detective. I think his name was Tommy Meake. He said he was investigating the killing and asked us had we heard anything or noticed anything suspicious while his colleague talked to others on the other side of McClure Street.  I and another teenager told them we had been in the depot with Eileen and the men who would shortly take her life. The cop seemed stunned, as if he had hit the bulls eye on his first throw. Within minutes we were in a police car and taken to Castlereagh and then onto Knock. We told them what we had seen and answered any questions they asked us. They seemed grateful.

I attended the wake for the coffin, which had been closed to viewing, leaving the house to make the short journey to St Agnes chapel.  We called to the White Fort just after it. It was my first time in it. 16 year olds could get into bars easily enough then. The following day I attended the funeral but due to the injury I was carrying I was unable to take a lift of the coffin. The sunshine of the day could not contain the darkness. 

Months before her first anniversary I found myself in jail. When released I would, with Eileen's friend Peggy, call on Sundays and see her parents and spend hours talking to her mother.  A bright light had gone out in that house.  I ended up jailed again and lost contact. By chance I met up with Eileen’s mother again in 2004 at a memorial mass for an 19 year old IRA volunteer who had been killed by the IRA for reasons known only to some of the more malign minds in the organisation.  Their whispering that he was an informer grew weaker over the years until the tipping point was reached and the IRA had to admit that he was no such thing. Eileen’s mother was there, having shared the same horrible experience of seeing 19 years of love and nurturing obliterated in a second of political violence.

This year Bobby Rodgers, a loyalist previously sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a man because he was a Catholic was convicted of the killing of Eileen Doherty. He again received a mandatory life sentence. He will serve two years courtesy of the Good Friday Agreement. Two years for taking the life of Eileen Doherty seems so gratuitously offensive. Her life was priceless and no amount of prison time could ever compensate for it being robbed from her.

When I first learned that a man had been charged with killing Eileen my body quivered with emotion.  Yet in spite of my strong memories of her death I don’t believe the conviction of Bobby Rodgers serves any real purpose. The trial judge said Rodgers did not pull the trigger which means all we really know is that at some point he was in the car. There are similarities here with the case of Brian Shivers who had his double murder conviction quashed as the appeal court held that if he was part of an operation after the fact but did not know what the operation entailed he could not be guilty of murder. 

Eileen’s family has taken some solace from the conviction. But it seems to me that what it has been given is a formal verdict in a Diplock court which has bypassed trial by jury.  Rodgers has denied the charge, and trust in the findings of a Diplock Court would not be reassuring. In real time the sentence, limited by political necessity, will not salve the family's grief. If ever Kipling's phrase East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet was applicable outside of the context in which he wrote it, it is to the gap between what is considered politically necessary and what is just.

We do not know why Eileen was targeted specifically nor what the decision making process was. Nobody has volunteered to tell us and it is unlikely that anybody ever will. We will not be told who stood over a terrified teenager and fired bullets into her head or why, what they thought they were doing as they travelled in the car with a 19 year old on a destination with death planned and ultimately implemented by them. We don’t know if the security forces played a hand. The UFF which claimed the killing said that Eileen was in the guard of honour at the funeral of IRA volunteer Jim Bryson who had died a week before her. It was untrue but did somebody feed that information to the UDA? Probably not, the killing seems to have been purely random, but we can never be sure. We will never know where the weapons came from.

The people who can most likely answer those questions with authenticity, and provide leads where they can’t provide answers for the family, are the men who were in that depot on that night and who took Eileen on the last journey of her short life. Prosecutions are never going to bring that knowledge forward. The very threat of them helps ensure that such knowledge remains hidden. This is probably why the threat is used. We know it is not in the slightest related to justice. The HET demonstrated that much. The British state security services need to ensure that they control the narrative of the past, what comes out and what stays hidden. They want to ensure that anybody thinking of revealing the dirty secrets of the state knows they will face prosecution.

A non-prosecutorial method of truth recovery is needed more than ever. It will be imperfect but nevertheless an improvement on the truth thwarting process of prosecution that currently serves to stifle rather than vent. Many secrets are buried away forever and time is running out for those that are accessible but soon too will sink beyond hope of retrieval.

Eileen Doherty


Eileen Doherty was killed 40 years ago today. She was 19 and had no political affiliation. Just a nationalist teenager who had spent the evening with her boyfriend in the Lower Ormeau Road as she often did. Shortly before her death she called at Atlas Taxis at the corner of Cooke Street and the Ormeau Road. Her intention was to catch a cab home to Slieveban Drive in Andersonstown.

She was already there by the time I hobbled into the same depot on crutches. If Ronnie or some of the other drivers was on call, and had a one-passenger fare, they would take one of the local youth with them for the spin and a yarn. I got to so many parts of Belfast I would never have ventured into on foot courtesy of Ronnie. He was a Protestant but we had no reason to fear him.  No matter where we happened to be he would pick us up if we called the depot and asked for him.

The night before, filled with cider, I had kicked a glass door in and damaged my Achilles tendon. For a year or two it continued to give me trouble. Unable to put my foot on the ground I had to get around with crutches. Eileen was not there alone. Two men, a few years older than myself, were seated seemingly waiting on a taxi. One at least appeared to be drunk, hunched over with face in his hands, only looking up occasionally. The other sat there but made no attempt to conceal his features. I assumed they had been on the drink in the local Sticky club and were, like Eileen, trying to make their way home on a Sunday evening. There were no taxis available and I spent about half an hour there talking with Eileen. She was of slim build and we would wind her up by calling her ‘Skin.’ We were about three years younger than she and would banter with her any time we met up. She was a frequent visitor to the road so we all knew her. I was a friend of her fiance.

I left before John Sherry arrived to pick up at the depot. He was the boss of the place and wasn’t as friendly towards the local youth as his drivers. It was just his way. I bade Eileen goodbye and thought no more of it. The following morning I lay on in bed, leg too damaged to allow me to go to my work as an apprentice terrazzo layer. When I got up my mother told me that a girl had been shot dead the night before. I didn’t immediately pick up on the name but as it dawned on me I recall hobbling out of the house which faced the depot.

As the day progressed we managed to piece the event together.  Driving along the Ormeau embankment, John Sherry was confronted by one of the passengers holding a gun. It is said he rammed a traffic isle and pushed Eileen out the passenger door while managing to get himself out the driver side. As they made their way on foot to safety they saw the hijacked taxi come back round. Both ran but Eileen tripped. Her killers were onto her within seconds, her life blotted out in a second of sectarian hatred.

Monday afternooon saw me standing at the junction of McClure Street and the Ormeau Road with friends in a state of gloom and anger. A man approached and showed his ID card telling me he was a detective. I think his name was Tommy Meake. He said he was investigating the killing and asked us had we heard anything or noticed anything suspicious while his colleague talked to others on the other side of McClure Street.  I and another teenager told them we had been in the depot with Eileen and the men who would shortly take her life. The cop seemed stunned, as if he had hit the bulls eye on his first throw. Within minutes we were in a police car and taken to Castlereagh and then onto Knock. We told them what we had seen and answered any questions they asked us. They seemed grateful.

I attended the wake for the coffin, which had been closed to viewing, leaving the house to make the short journey to St Agnes chapel.  We called to the White Fort just after it. It was my first time in it. 16 year olds could get into bars easily enough then. The following day I attended the funeral but due to the injury I was carrying I was unable to take a lift of the coffin. The sunshine of the day could not contain the darkness. 

Months before her first anniversary I found myself in jail. When released I would, with Eileen's friend Peggy, call on Sundays and see her parents and spend hours talking to her mother.  A bright light had gone out in that house.  I ended up jailed again and lost contact. By chance I met up with Eileen’s mother again in 2004 at a memorial mass for an 19 year old IRA volunteer who had been killed by the IRA for reasons known only to some of the more malign minds in the organisation.  Their whispering that he was an informer grew weaker over the years until the tipping point was reached and the IRA had to admit that he was no such thing. Eileen’s mother was there, having shared the same horrible experience of seeing 19 years of love and nurturing obliterated in a second of political violence.

This year Bobby Rodgers, a loyalist previously sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a man because he was a Catholic was convicted of the killing of Eileen Doherty. He again received a mandatory life sentence. He will serve two years courtesy of the Good Friday Agreement. Two years for taking the life of Eileen Doherty seems so gratuitously offensive. Her life was priceless and no amount of prison time could ever compensate for it being robbed from her.

When I first learned that a man had been charged with killing Eileen my body quivered with emotion.  Yet in spite of my strong memories of her death I don’t believe the conviction of Bobby Rodgers serves any real purpose. The trial judge said Rodgers did not pull the trigger which means all we really know is that at some point he was in the car. There are similarities here with the case of Brian Shivers who had his double murder conviction quashed as the appeal court held that if he was part of an operation after the fact but did not know what the operation entailed he could not be guilty of murder. 

Eileen’s family has taken some solace from the conviction. But it seems to me that what it has been given is a formal verdict in a Diplock court which has bypassed trial by jury.  Rodgers has denied the charge, and trust in the findings of a Diplock Court would not be reassuring. In real time the sentence, limited by political necessity, will not salve the family's grief. If ever Kipling's phrase East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet was applicable outside of the context in which he wrote it, it is to the gap between what is considered politically necessary and what is just.

We do not know why Eileen was targeted specifically nor what the decision making process was. Nobody has volunteered to tell us and it is unlikely that anybody ever will. We will not be told who stood over a terrified teenager and fired bullets into her head or why, what they thought they were doing as they travelled in the car with a 19 year old on a destination with death planned and ultimately implemented by them. We don’t know if the security forces played a hand. The UFF which claimed the killing said that Eileen was in the guard of honour at the funeral of IRA volunteer Jim Bryson who had died a week before her. It was untrue but did somebody feed that information to the UDA? Probably not, the killing seems to have been purely random, but we can never be sure. We will never know where the weapons came from.

The people who can most likely answer those questions with authenticity, and provide leads where they can’t provide answers for the family, are the men who were in that depot on that night and who took Eileen on the last journey of her short life. Prosecutions are never going to bring that knowledge forward. The very threat of them helps ensure that such knowledge remains hidden. This is probably why the threat is used. We know it is not in the slightest related to justice. The HET demonstrated that much. The British state security services need to ensure that they control the narrative of the past, what comes out and what stays hidden. They want to ensure that anybody thinking of revealing the dirty secrets of the state knows they will face prosecution.

A non-prosecutorial method of truth recovery is needed more than ever. It will be imperfect but nevertheless an improvement on the truth thwarting process of prosecution that currently serves to stifle rather than vent. Many secrets are buried away forever and time is running out for those that are accessible but soon too will sink beyond hope of retrieval.

102 comments:

  1. Eileen was a neighbour and a friend of mine she was a lovely girl in every way,she was innocent and did nothing like so many others to deserve such a brutal death,hence the absolute disgust I hold for the scumbag who took her life for no reason other than she came from the other side,
    when joining the republican movement,one is told that prison or death could be a distinct possibility,and therefore a wouldbe volunteer was advised to think long and hard before joining, so in this vain as pointed out by Jim Allister in ref to the comments from Pete the punt in the assembly,when we engage in politics or the armed struggle then we are fair game but the attack on the innocent is and can never be justified no matter what quarter it comes from,therefore as far as I am personally concerned the bastard who pulled the trigger on Eileen can and should rot in prison,he doesnt deserve to live his life out peacefully,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very moving piece. It was an emotional one to read.

    Stories like Eileen's remind us of the inhumanity of much that was done during the Troubles. There were too many non-combatants killed. Although I would have found it just as emotional if she was involved. There are so many stories of lives cut short, lives full of promise.

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  3. Mackers,
    They brutally killed other young women and they did it for no other reason than sheer sectarian blood lust.
    Eileen's death was quite horrendous, as you say, she slipped and fell, it nearly brings an unimaginable sense of horror into an already heinous event.
    Sadly as I read through this poignant piece, I thought of another young man who escaped loyalist assassins only to be handed over by a woman who he believed would give him a safe haven.

    There is something quite unpalatable about totally innocent people dying in such away and sadly so many did.

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  4. Indeed a very sad story. I was reading about this situation in the Irish News and amazed that such a short conviction would be given. Is another humans life only worth 2 years?
    Having met people who have spent time in prison here. They seem rather cosy with their TV's and Playstations.

    I had my first love at 19. So so young to have life taken in such a cruel manner.

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  5. A non-prosecutorial method of truth recovery is needed more than ever. It will be imperfect but nevertheless an improvement on the truth thwarting process of prosecution that currently serves to stifle rather than vent. Many secrets are buried away forever and time is running out for those that are accessible but soon too will sink beyond hope of retrieval

    I believed that when I started reading about the Belfast project a fews years ago it would be the genesis of a real truth process. I honestly believed that every combattant recieved an amnesty of sorts..I now know some did but most didn't.

    I can understand families wanting the truth about what happened to their loved ones. But the now discredited HET wasn't or isn't the way to go. All the HET have done is simply breed more contempt.

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  6. It's very similar to what happened after the Tan/Civil War. It suits all participants to bury "The Truth". The Brits are playing a masterly game at this - the current "mess" in their creation and it will become even more messy under the inevitable Haas debacle. Their only historical interest lies in understanding the extent of republican penetration of the British side. Something that we read little about. Now that is a story I would very much like to hear. The narrative/fact/myth of the Porous Provos is firmly embedded in the public domain - it is designed to prompt but has been met with a very disciplined silence (publicly at least).

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  7. The dark old days of being picked up in a taxi , a trick the Shankill Butchers used, Killing someone just because of their religion is unbelievable .

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very sad story and interesting questions raised.

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  9. A beautiful piece however, I feel that I should point out that Rodgers case had very little similarities to that of Brian Shivers.
    Rodgers had been convicted of a sectarian murder the year after and has served a number of years in jail. Inference could be drawn regarding his handprint being at the scene of Eileen murder..
    At Brian's retrial the forensic scientist was found to have lied in the original trial.
    You might think me pedantic but I feel it is important.

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  10. Valentine,

    Pedantic? Why? Seems a fair point to me even if I am not persuaded.

    I tend to think that inference is these matters facilitates lazy police work. They actually use hope inference will substitute for the more overt lie.

    Thanks for your comment.

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  11. From Beano Niblock

    AM - a well written and heartfelt remembrance of a person you obviously knew and were fond of.

    Unfortunately to the vast majority of the general population here she will virtually go unremembered and be marked down as a statistic. Perhaps it was because of the sheer volume of people who were killed in those dire dark days-particularly in the early seventies when unfortunately sectarian killings seemed to be the norm with "both sides" to blame.

    It would be wrong of me to list similar killings of Protestants but suffice to say they happened-and like Eileen Doherty tragic and with a sad tale behind it.

    Where I have to agree with you Anthony is on the current system being implemented to look at "cold cases" being totally useless and serving of little purpose. Bobby Rodgers will serve no more than 2 years in jail. From a "victims" families point of view-hardly justice. Yet under the GFA and St. Andrews agreement this is the statute. Gerry McGeough was recently released under the same rules.

    I know of cases were the HET are pestering families to reopen 40 year old cases despite the families insistence that they have long since buried memories of their deceased loved ones. There are similarities on Rodgers case and those of both Shivers and Duffy. However in the case of Rodgers the judge-who was presiding over his first major case-summed up by citing three reasons for finding him guilty-the first two-he allowed "bad character" to be introduced-because of a previous life sentence-and secondly, Rodgers refusal to say anything when arrested. The fingerprint evidence was circumstantial to say the least and could have been made at anytime. It could not be proved that the prints were deposited on the night the girl was killed.

    As you said in your article Anthony you were a frequent visitor to the taxi depot Eileen left from but if your prints had of been lifted that night it doesn't mean to say that you left them then - it could have been any time prior to that.

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  12. Beano,

    Eileen had the same right not to be targetted as Heather Thompson, a 17 year old killed by the IRA at her work in North Belfast. A guy I was friendly with in jail was convicted for her killing. I liked him then and still like him. And both had the same right not to be killed as Majella O'Hare had.


    Just reading through the Karl Marlantes book on what it is like to go to war and he says empathy comes not with youth but with maturity.

    The question is raised but hardly answered in my article of the relationship between justice and political necessity. I guess the goal of society has to be that of making justice a politically necessity. But I don't have the answers and flail around in the moral maze as much as the next person.

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  13. Beano,
    Catholic people were being murdered long before the so called dark days of the seventies.
    John scullion was murdered in Clonard by the UVF.
    The cops said he had been stabbed but he was shot.
    There was no retaliation for that. There was no retaliation for Peter Ward or all the other innocents.
    Retaliation only came when the Catholic community demanded a reaction against the onslaught.

    Ervine, another master of spin and conjecture once told an audience of students that the Shankill butchers were tit for tat.
    He too said he had a list of victims he could name but of course he didn't.

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  14. Nuala,

    I once asked a republican leader about the sustained campaign of retaliation that started in 74 and he said the amount of pressure he was under from the Catholic population was immense. But I think when we look back there is genaral acceptance amongst republicans that the targetting of people because they were Protestants was wrong.

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  15. Mackers
    Of course it was wrong but they were under pressure to defend their people.
    Extreme loyalism claimed to be fighting a war against the IRA but it wasn't, it was murder on a mass scale against the catholic population.
    I resent the tit for tat theory completely and hate reading this rose tinted stuff, 'oh they were as bad as each other! That simply was not true.

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  16. Nuala,

    explaining why it happened doesn't make it any more right. It might help mitigate but the loyalists will also offer some form of mitigation.

    In terms of killing people because of their religion I think where we did it we were as bad as them.

    If non combatants have the same rights not to be targetted then whoever denies that right shares the same culpability. I just fail to see how it could work any other way.

    You seem to have been opposed to killing Protestants at any time given your views on the Good Samaritan killing. Unfortunately I can't claim that integrity. I advocated it so I am not in a position to point fingers at anyone else.

    All we can do is look back from the pressure free relative safety of today's position. When people go to war terrible things are done.

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  17. Mackers,
    Was there an alternative? So many innocent people from the area I lived died at the hands of Loyalists.
    We had no other means of defence !
    Any who have come to this page haven't defended their cause too well.
    Even the ones in the prison squealed the place down at night.
    They didn't have a cause a country and in many cases a conscience.
    I think it is grossly unfair to go along with the tit for tat, I seen it first hand as did others and it was an ugly, ugly sight.

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  18. Nuala,

    as an alternative it didn't achieve all that much. The loyalist campaign arguably fizzled out not because of retaliation.

    One alternative was to stop the war. It was an alternative. Few of us would have agreed with it but given that it was later stopped and achieved no more than was within reach then, stopping it then seems more plausible now.

    Another alternative was the military option of targetting the people responsible or the politicians winding it up.

    I don't think we can argue that killing non combatants is an alternative. It sort of ends up with the peculiar logic that non combatants must be killed to demonstrate that killing non combatants is wrong. The only thing that nominates them as legitimate targets is their religion. Killing a person for their religion is never legitimate.

    I know I am making these arguments form the safe position of today but they were being made by Brendan Hughes, Gerry Adams and others of like mind while it was happening.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Fionnuala,

    I resent the tit for tat theory completely and hate reading this rose tinted stuff, 'oh they were as bad as each other! That simply was not true.

    Don't know Fionnuala, if you take politics out of it there wasn't much difference sometimes. The three sides carried out murders and in the same way.. People can argue who had more right on their side until the wee small hours. But to me, I find it hard to seperate how the IRA dealt with informers to what the Shankill Butchers did, to the Pitchfork murders..I'm not talking politic, simply mans inhumantity to man..

    ReplyDelete
  20. Mackers,
    They were killing Catholics before the war John scullion was shot dead in 1966.
    Gusty and co were hell bent on the theory 'there would never be a catholic about the place'
    People will eventually fight back and they did.
    You may argue it didn't solve a lot but it shook them up, the smirks went from a lot of their faces close by us.

    Frankie ,
    By informers I assume you mean people accused in the wrong?
    You may view them all the same but I think logic and common sense does distinguish.

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  21. Nuala,

    I fully understand the emotion and shared it. You are right about Catholics getting killed when no war was on. You might even make the point that as many more Catholics were getting killed during the ceasefire of 75 as before it. But shaking people up and taking the smirk off their faces hardly justifies a body of republicans who claim to be non- sectarian killing Protestants because of their religion.

    If non combatants don't have rights the moral critique of the Bloody Suday killings falls by the wayside. And if the Protestant non combatants are not to have the same rights as Catholic non combatants then the case you make can only be sustained on sectarian grounds. I think you need to take a longer look at it. I am not going to judge you. I am in no position to do so. I was all for it regardless of how I feel now. But years of thinking, listening to people like Brendan and Micky McMullan both devoid of any tinge of sectarianism - debating it endlessly, engaging with loyalists and unionists, growing older and much less dogmatic has led to me no longer holding to the views that war helped produce.

    Ultimately if war means targetting non combatants, then the goal should be to avoid war rather than wage it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Mackers,
    They came into murder wholesale and that got back perhaps a bit more than they bargained for.
    Hindsight and diplomacy is all very fine but witnessing what we witnessed in our small area was cutting edge and it was raw.
    I never once condoned the killing of an innocent Protestant, but all the flowery talk does not deflect from the fact innocent Catholics were being murdered in the most horrendous fashion and I only ever heard a whimper of condemnation, when grisly sightings were appearing on their streets.
    I think we need to get real about what happened and until the people who perpetrated blatant sectarian strife do, then we're stuck.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Nuala,

    but who was it that got back more than they bargained for? What did those massacred at Whitecross bargain for? Was that not a war crime on a par with Bloody Sunday where a civilian population were lined up and mown down?

    Hindsight is what we have. Without it we would have no memory.

    I accept you never once condoned the killing of an innocent Protestant. It gives you an integrity I can't claim to have. But what then is the point you seek to make? The discussion that has evolved from this article is about the killing of non combatants. Catholics were being slaughtered in the most horrendous fashion but so were Protestants. The Mountainview Tavern, Bayardo, Darkley, Whitecross and so on were no more or less horrendous than the attacks on the Catholic community. Heather Thompson was as horrendous as Eileen Doherty.

    What is flowery about disapproving of the killing of people because of their religion?

    Getting real about what happened is coming to terms with the fact that we slaughtered the innocent as did the loyalists and Brits.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Mackers,
    those loyalists who came into this area in the droves several nights after the burnings and killings got more than they bargained for.

    I can't answer for Whitecross, but I do know a considerable amount of innocent Catholics also died in that area.

    Hindsight can also allow for us to see events in quite a different perspective than how they were perceived when they were actually unfolding.

    I am aware the article was about non-combatants.
    I did however disagree and I still do with Beano's theory that, 'both sides were to blame'

    A quest for rights became a catalyst for murder and mayhem.
    Unless we are now to believe we were not entitled to rights and because of our lack of entitlement we burnt our homes and shot ourselves.

    By flowery, I meant the horror of what happened to our people now seemingly getting scented through hindsight.
    That does not mean that I think one life was more precious that the other because of the religion of that life.

    Getting real for me, is a bit of straight talking and acknowledgment about who and what lit the initial fuse and why those people are still waving the matches?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Fionnuala,

    By informers I assume you mean people accused in the wrong?
    You may view them all the same but I think logic and common sense does distinguish.


    Wrongly accused of informing by informers, then getting brutally murdered by informers, yes. To me it's the same as the other murders I've mentioned (Shankill Butchers & Pitchfork murders). Carried out by sadists.

    That doesn't mean every republican was or even close to. But neither were all loyalists or state force members.

    As for the tit for tat. Take the politic, right and wrongs out of the equation. Boiled down to this

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  26. From Beano Niblock

    Fionnuala,

    I wouldn't argue about the targeting of Catholics by the UVF in the sixties but what I do know is that Gusty would later say that it was totally wrong and shouldn't have happened.

    You dismiss the theory of tit for tat yet don't seem to have a problem with the merits of the Provisional's bombing campaign that targeted Catholics and Protestants alike-or the fact that the same organisation could eliminate anyone at will-often without a reason. Loyalist organisations were no better of course. I have never defended the fact that poyalist organisations targeted Catholics because of their religion. It was wrong. Hindsight of course is an all encompassing and magical tool....Fionnula...."

    Retaliation only came when the Catholic community demanded a reaction against the onslaught".
    Try telling that to the families of those who were killed by the IRA bombing of The Four Step Inn in September 1971-recognised as the first of the "bar bombing"-which of course led to retaliation from the UVF-Fiddlers House in Durham Street. Or indeed the families of the first recognised "assassinations"-Tommy Kells and Robert McFarland-found 5 days apart-one on waste ground on the Springfield-the other in an entry in the Short Strand-both brutally tortured and mutilated before being shot-October 1971. It serves absolutely no purpose to rhyme these horror statistics off-and we all can do it. The conflict was too deep with too many blatantly unscrupulous so called motivations for any of us to think ourselves morally superior.

    Let's just work to ensure that it can never occur again. Living in the past and apportioning blame is counterproductive and perhaps more importantly doesn't have the power to change anything. We all live with uncomfortable and shameful memories.

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  27. The murder of the innocent fitted well into Kitsons overall plan,indeed it was part of perfidious albions colonial history,ie,murder gangs ,Aiden,Borneo etc.the brits needed to portray to the world that the conflict here was nothing more than a sectarian squabble between two uncompromising religious groups and that they were just the honest brokers.republicanism fell into that trap.when you go down into the shit you sure as hell aint gonna come up smelling of roses,

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  28. Sectarian murder is something I feel fervently about. It is always wrong. Even if killing innocent Protestants put Loyalists off killing innocent Catholics that wouldn't make it right. It can never, ever be justified. Innocent people, non-combatants are equal in their status otherwise as Anthony says you become sectarian like the loyalists and your moral arguments and your cause can no longer be justified in any laudable fashion.

    The IRA between 1969 and 1993 according to Sutton's index of deaths killed 1755 people. About 57% were members of the security forces. Of the remainder, 3.4% were informers. 2% were civilians who worked for the security forces. A small number of Loyalists and Unionist politicians were killed also. Sutton then explains 376 were killed unintentionally. Many of these were obviously Catholics as well as Protestants in fact 102 of those killed unintentionally were IRA members killed by their own bombs. Sutton then concludes that 133 people were deliberately killed because they were Protestant civilians. 85 of these occurred during 1975 and 1976. The 133 deliberately sectarian killings is 7.5% of the IRA's total between 1969 and 1993. The similar figure for Loyalist paramilitaries is 713 out of 911 killings. That is 78%.

    I hesitated bringing out figures as it masks the human cost of the conflict particularly heart-breaking stories of innocent Catholics and Protestants who were killed because of their religion like Eileen and Heather.

    My purpose is to show that Fionnuala has a point in that although there were crimes on both sides both sides were not as bad as each other. My only intention of quoting the figures from Sutton was to show that the Loyalist paramilitaries were predominantly sectarian killers and the IRA predominantly avoided targeting non-combatants purely for their religion.

    This does not excuse the abhorrent sectarian murders which were carried out by Republicans. But to suggest it was the norm is plainly an attempt to revise the nature of the conflict, after the fact.

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  29. Frankie,
    We have been here before on this debate quite a few years ago, I think but I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong.
    I agreed with you then and I agree with you now.
    The murky world of agents acting in the role of spy catchers as part of the dirty tricks propaganda/ dirty war was quite obscene.
    Was there a difference in low life status between scappaticci and Lenny Murphy ? No!
    Both had psychopathic tendencies and while one was driven by self preservation perhaps, the other was a evil, vile brute but similar in their vileness no doubt.

    Beano.
    Gusty admitted it was wrong!
    What else could he have said. Any justification that he made his name on was stripped back and his pursuit of ethnic cleansing exposed.

    Perhaps it would be a good idea if the people who organised the campaign of wanton murder against an entire community because of their religion explained to the victims on both sides of the divide why the considered it quite alright to do so.

    The first bomb I ever seen was the one tossed into our neighbours house in 1969.
    I could fill a page with mirror image atrocities but as you say what would that achieve?

    There never was a concentrated campaign against the Protestant community, never!
    There was however a concentrated sectarian campaign levelled against the catholic/ nationalist community.

    I just wonder what the Loyalists were retaliating against when the murdered John scullion in 1966?

    It was wanton sectarian hatred and it was ingrained long before the IRA ever fired a shot, as I wrote on another thread we could not even use public toilets in our own area pre-69, what was that in retaliation for?

    I agree we need to move forward, but perhaps you tell us how when the same mentality that burned our homes is live and well and continuously on public display.

    Simon,
    Thank you, I know your intention was never to back up anything I said but quite inadvertently your presentation of statistics proved no tit for tat.

    Like you I think every non-combatant death was regrettable whether it was one of the 7percent or 78 percent.

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  30. Nuala,

    I tend to agree with you as the murders prior to 69 could only be viewed as a testing ground to see if the public and the police would stomach it all.
    With the firebrand preaching of anti papist rhetoric and the fact that loyalist militants would have known the IRA were basically defunct.
    The hate speech done more to help the militant loyalists go from cheering for God and Ulster to proving they were more than ready for a sectarian war.
    I say sectarian war as their only enemy in Paisleys mind was the pope. The loyalists knew they had free reign as there was nothing to stop them the police were a joke and Catholics were basically defenseless.

    I agree with what Simon said both sides engaged in sectarian killings but without a doubt the loyalists were using it as a tool to keep the Catholics in what they believed was there place second class citizens.
    I could be wrong but I can’t recall any republican leader or spokesperson call for war against Protestantism.

    We have the luxury now to debate right and wrong but will we have the common sense and hard learned wisdom to ensure there will no repeat of a senseless bloodletting era.

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  31. Nuala,

    those loyalists who came into this area in the droves several nights after the burnings and killings got more than they bargained for.

    I am sure they did but it is not what the current discussion is about.

    What answer is there for Whitecross other than it was our equivalent of Bloody Sunday inflicted on an unarmed civilian population?

    Hindsight can also allow for us to see events in quite a different perspective than how they were perceived when they were actually unfolding.

    That is why it is so useful otherwise everything could be justified – torture, gassing Jews, war crimes, rape ... we allow for but cannot judge events solely on the perceived necessities and context of the time.

    If both sides were not to blame what side is to blame for the killing of innocent Protestants?

    A quest for rights became a catalyst for murder and mayhem. Unless we are now to believe we were not entitled to rights and because of our lack of entitlement we burnt our homes and shot ourselves.
    Haven’t heard that argued here yet.

    By flowery, I meant the horror of what happened to our people now seemingly getting scented through hindsight.

    I haven’t seen that happen either. What happened to nationalists was appalling. But appalling acts were committed against Protestants too.
    That does not mean that I think one life was more precious that the other because of the religion of that life.

    You have been consistent in that but I think your general argument might lead people to think there is an ambivalence there. I don’t think there is as I feel you are pitching your argument at different levels. But some points in it still confuse me.

    Getting real has to mean more than who started it. As republicans we have a very clear view on that. But the legitimacy of a grievance does not automatically flow to the means used to redress it. It is mediated. That is why we discuss strategy, ask what is the best action to take, rule out actions because they are grossly wrong and supposedly sanction those who veer away from the rules specified.

    Because the IRA campaign was different from that of the loyalists, the latter being directed almost exclusively against a civilian population, in those many instances where republicans targeted Protestants because of their religion, there was no difference. Killing someone because they are a Catholic is no worse than killing somebody because they are a Protestant. To think otherwise is the basis for a sectarian outlook.

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  32. Tain Bo,

    I think the motivation behind the loyalist campaign was a mixture of things, none of it good in my view. I believe it is important to stress the point you made that keeping Catholics down was part of it. Although research with loyalist activists stresses what we find in our own research - defence being cited as a motivation. I am sure many loyalists after listening to Paisley probably felt there was a need for defence. The pyschological motivation and the grand strategic rationale are not always the same.

    Republican leaders did not call for war on Protestants. It was not the thing to do given the claims to be non sectarianism. But they at points directed it. I am of the view that we were in a sectarian war against Protestants in that period from late 74 to the end of 76. We bombed their pubs, shot them as they availed of public transport, lined them up and executed them as they returned from work, killed them if they strayed drunk into our areas. All the things that they did to us we did to them. Even if it figured much less in our overall campaign than the loyalist campaign, we cannot today stand over it and need to describe it for what it was.

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  33. Anthony,

    I am under no illusion regarding the PRM sectarian war and republicans have no legitimate defense in saying it was reactive retaliation.
    Without doubt the murdering of innocent Protestants was sanctioned at the highest levels of the movement otherwise the weapons would not have been made available to carry out what was essentially a copycat action of striking fear into the hearts of both communities.
    My problem with the initial hate speech being delivered to the protestant community was no different than the Nazi anti Jew venom.
    There was a political crisis brewing that in my opinion was hijacked and transformed into a religious crisis.
    The failure of the British and Irish governments along with our own home politicians to resolve the matter peacefully give birth to the mob mentality and from that sectarianism took a grip throughout the 70s.
    I am in no way excusing or defending the murder of innocent Protestants.

    I don’t see any difference in sectarian murder one is one too many.

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  34. Tain Bo,

    I don't think there is anything in what you said that would lend itself to the view that you condone killing Protestants. I thought you presented your perspective very clearly.

    I don't believe Nuala is trying to justify the killing either. I think she has seen too many babies thrown out with the bathwater as the peace process has moved from abandoning republicanism to abandoing raped children, and is trying to put some perspective on it all before the Union Jack is hoist over the Dail by Adams.

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  35. Anthony,

    I can understand Nuala’s position but I would be remiss if I didn’t agree with what she said as religion was the main catalyst for the loyalist death squads.
    I can understand Beano’s perspective but at the same time can’t credit the sectarian aspect of the loyalist campaign as furthering their belief of British rule in the north.
    I just don’t see how murdering Catholics could be justified by the, “we are defending Ulster from the papist threat” as the papist threat was nonexistent.

    I can only hope the people of the republic don’t get sucked into the SF will save them vacuum as that is all it is empty promises.

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  36. Tain Bo,

    I think the religious thing was a label - it might as well have been 'us and them'. But being targeted as a result of being categorised as a this or a that (regardless of religious belief) is what made it sectarian in motivation.

    I can see how young loyalists joined up to hit back or defend their communities from perceived threat. Young people are not given to the type of reflection of later years. Many young had they been born a hundred yards away would have as readily joined something different. But I think regardless of why they joined they concentrated their activity on targeting an unarmed civilian population. In that sense I think the loyalist campaign at a strategic level might well be described as a collective war crime. That is not to say that the individuals who carried out the operations were war criminals. We can look at how Bomber Harris during World War 2 was a war criminal but not the pilots he directed.

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  37. Tain Bo,
    I never ever could get my head around a totally innocent man being murdered yards away from his home.
    He was shot by the UVF. The cops said he was stabbed and he was buried.
    Local people insisted they heard shots and John's body was exhumed, it was then that it was discovered he had been shot several times.
    How disturbing was that?
    The police and all those involved covered it up.

    Perhaps your right, perhaps it was a testing of the waters to see how meek the meek would remain?

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  38. Mackers,
    The people of this area were the innocent non-combatants in the scenario I was writing about.
    I thought that was exactly what the discussion was about.
    The thread deviated when I disagreed with Beano's analysis on tit for tat
    When I said they got more than they bargained for, I was referring to the fact, they came into the area to deliver more carnage against non-combatants but were stopped in their tracks.

    'A quest for rights became a catalyst for mayhem and murder.'
    What was the catalyst then?
    'Horror being scented and the theory we may have burnt our own homes'
    It's probably right around the next corner with 'All the things we did to us we did to them?'

    I can categorically state that there was never an innocent Protestant that strayed into Clonard that lost their lives drunk or sober.

    I remember my da bringing in a very drunk Protestant who had fallen outside our door and split open his head.
    After treating his cut he ferried him as far up Lawnbrook avenue as commonsense would allow to ensure he got safely home.

    I don't think anyone in this area is aware that there was an organised campaign against the Protestant community in late 74-76?

    As I said before, maybe the spires of Clonard church sheltered us more than others.

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  39. Fionnula,
    The point I was trying to make and i think you agree, sometimes the lines got very blurred and it was difficult to know who was targeting who and for what reasons..


    Simon,
    I've a few issues with the stats Sutton uses and Lost Lives. Simply because the British ran agents of whatever within both republicanism & loyalism. That has to mean the British are responsible for more deaths than they are chalked up to have carried out. Take Freddie Scap. for example. Who's agenda was he working for? Yet his murders are chalked up to republican's...

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  40. Frankie,
    I totally agree with you. So many innocent people died as a result of misinformation.
    The entire Belfast security team was riddled with informers.
    The head of security and his deputy were both agents.
    I always believed Castlereagh was a track covering exercise and I still do.

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  41. Frankie- You have a valid point in what you say however I fear we will never know the extent of it or even an estimate.

    One point that we have to remember is that British infiltration of Loyalists tended to aid, assist and procure. Whether that came from shared intelligence, manpower or turning a blind eye or thwarting justice by scuppering trials or handing back guns.

    They shared an enemy and a reason d-etre.

    Some in the British security force side might have wanted Loyalists to kill Republicans instead of ordinary Catholic civilians perhaps to give them some credibility or respectability but more likely to aid the fight against the IRA.

    The British knew enough that the killing of innocent civilians doesn't put the other side off violence. I have seen on some forums Loyalists claiming that the increased pressure on Catholic civilians at the end of the Troubles led to the ceasefires while in reality the peace-process went back much further than that.

    On the other side the Security force infiltration of the IRA was not to aid, assist or procure but to thwart and scupper.

    With the Loyalists targeting innocent civilians to supposedly break IRA morale and getting help from the security forces on various fronts and the IRA infiltrated to break the structures, discipline, fighting power and morale of Republicans we also had the state apparatus of the justice system, the police and the army focusing their energies on the IRA in a legal fashion.

    Put everything in the mix and you're left with an unknown quantity. The quality of the conflict is known but the quantity is unknown.

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  42. Sowing Dragon’s Teeth: Public Support for Political Violence and Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland . Some of the stats are frightening..

    Such levels of violence, maintained over a long period of time, have inevitably drawn many people into the paramilitary organizations. Estimates of paramilitary membership are difficult to make, but police statistics show that since 1972, over 17,000 people have been charged with terrorist offences, and it is likely that more people in Northern Ireland have participated in illegal paramilitary organizations than at any time since the United Irishmen rising of 1798. Once again, extrapolating these figures to Britain or the US show the intensity of the violence; shooting incidents alone would have numbered over 1 million in Britain, and over 5 million in the United States. Around half a million British people would have been charged with a terrorist offence, and nearly 2.8 million Americans. By any standards, what Ulster people euphemistically call ‘the Troubles’ is, in fact, a war.

    The post-1968 violence dwarfs any previous conflict in scale, intensity and duration. More people have died in communal violence in the past quarter century in Northern Ireland — 3,289 by the end of 1999 — than in any similar period in Ireland over the past two centuries, with the possible exception of the 1922-23 Irish Civil War (Table 1).[1] In addition, over 40,000 people have been injured, representing almost 3 percent of the population. If we extrapolate these figures to Britain, some 111,000 people would have died, with 1.4 million people injured. This represents just under half of British deaths (265,000) during the Second World War. Further extrapolating the deaths to the United States, some 526,000 would have died, more than died during the Second World War (405,000) and nine times the American war dead in Vietnam.

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  43. A strange benefit that emerged from the troubles was the advancement of surgical skills. this morning on Good Morning Ulster there was an interview with a surgeon, who explained how Belfast surgeons pioneered techniques that are now used to help people the world over. If anyone wants (for the next 7days) fast forward until 2hrs 22mins 10seconds and listen to Prof. Roy Spence who is getting recognised for his work in America next week..

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  44. Nuala,

    The discussion is not about Clonard or any particular area. It is a more general discussion about the nature of the campaign and the attitude towards non combatants.

    Stopping aggressors in their tracks is fine but the conversation has expanded rather than deviated in my view. It is a worthwhile discussion to have.

    I can categorically state that there was never an innocent Protestant that strayed into Clonard that lost their lives drunk or sober.

    But given that IRA activity was wider than Clonard, republicans are faced with the fact that there were instances where Protestants were killed because they walked into the wrong area by mistake. One of the trials I was involved in during the 80s saw one two of our number in the dock charged with killings of that nature that happened in the Markets.

    It was a noble act by your da but one that was replicated elsewhere. I recall a Derry prisoner telling me about him and another guy stopping at Rathcool and asking for the Sinn Fein centre. The woman they asked urged them to drive out of the area as fast as they could and ask no one else for the SF centre.

    I don't think anyone in this area is aware that there was an organised campaign against the Protestant community in late 74-76?

    Who did they think was bombing bars like the Mountainview Tavern or the Bayardo, or carrying out Whitecross, or killing workers in garages on the Crumlin Road? These are activities that no community, spires or not, could claim ignorance of. It was the organised campaign against Protestants that almost forced Brendan Hughes to resign from the IRA in the cages and prompted a lot of opposition in the Kesh to the sectarian attacks.

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  45. Mackers,
    I know the thread is not about Clonard but Clonard was paramount to the beginning and the ending of the Provisionals campaign.
    It is the also the area I lived in through the entirety of the war and given its close proximity to areas notorious as
    UVF, UDA and other loyalist strongholds, I think Clonard provides a very fair representation in relation to all that was unfolding during the war.

    I don't think my da would have considered himself noble, I think he just viewed the man as a fellow human being in need of assistance.

    I know who carried out those named attacks everyone does but it not constitute evidence of an organised campaign.
    Retaliation yes, hitting back yes, but the campaign was being steered and directed against the British.

    Mackers, we will never have a meeting of minds on this. I am speaking from what I know as are you and our knowledge is seemingly at odds in relation to this.


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    Replies
    1. I just read the judge's summation of the prosecution of Bobby Rodger: https://judiciaryni.uk/sites/judiciary/files/decisions/Queen%20v%20Robert%20James%20Shaw%20Rodgers.pdf

      Delete
    2. Nice mention of Brian 'Lazarus' Shivers in the summation.

      Delete
  46. I should have said, the point I was making in relation to my da and the injured man, was the fact religion did not come into it.
    Several weeks ago I was stopped on the Antrim Road by an English couple looking directions to Sandy Row!
    I spent a considerable time making sure they understood what I was saying in relation to directions as I did not want them to have to stop anyone else.
    I think that's how most of us 'taigs' behave, even those who don't believe there was tit for tat.

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  47. I think Sutton's reference to more than half of the IRA's sectarian killings being in the years 1975 and 1976 corresponds with Anthony's narrative.

    I wonder if it was the opposition from the cages that nipped such an overtly sectarian aspect of the campaign in the bud? I am sure there were other factors and would be interested in hearing about them.

    I hate to sound trite but this topic would form an excellent thesis as it is puzzling, interesting and deserving of more analysis.

    I noticed a plethora of despicable "KAH" graffiti after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. This writing would have been much less common during the Troubles. I suppose there are reasons why sectarianism rears it's ugly head. I guess those reasons like sectarianism itself are malevolent in nature.

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  48. Fionnuala - you seem to have a very warped view of the situation. I as a Catholic can hand on heart say that no one in my family ever demanded that action be taken by the Republican paramilitaries in the wake of 1966. My mother was nearly injured by a firebomb placed by the Provos in TSO in Belfast city centre in the 1970s; all because it was regarded as a 'legitimate target'.

    The Provos did nearly as much harm to the Catholic community as any of the loyalist paramilitaries did.

    Don't pretend that ordinary Catholics wanted the Provos...it is an attitude like that which led to loyalists thinking that "any taig will do."

    As Beano Niblock says - let's work to ensure that none of this ever repeats itself.

    You can be bitter forever or you can reach out and make inroads towards moving society on. The choice is yours.

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  49. Nuala,

    there is no surprise in an attempt to cover up a murder there is absolutely no reason for us to accept any murder on the grounds of religion.
    It is a tricky course to navigate as we use the term Protestant and Catholic loosely as Anthony rightly described as labels.
    Sectarianism is a curable disease we would be foolish to ignore the very obvious symptoms that have the potential to spread.
    Pre 69 I think Catholics were exactly meek and politically ignorant with the birth of civil rights Militant Protestants took advantage of their position and force feed hatred into the streets and minds of Protestants with the fear that the papists were finding their political feet.
    The likes of Gusty Spence had talked themselves into action the idea being to scare the civil rights movement of the streets if not destroy it by striking at the weakest section of the community. Something along the lines of the KKK trying to preserve the idea of a pure white Anglo Saxon America or at least there are parallels to suggest that was an influence.

    I don’t believe they had a well thought out strategically planed vision of the future but rather a sudden sharp shock that fell apart when mob mentality took over and the programs were unstoppable.
    When the Catholics came out of the daze and began defending themselves the murders of the innocents was inevitable and the self perpetuating cycle of fear feed both communities.
    By the time the British army had arrived it was too little too late even though they had a disciplined plan to enforce a sense of stability and control.
    We would be foolish to believe they were there to save the Catholics if that had been their intention they would have been deployed pre 1969 to ensure the violence and hatred being preached would not have escalated beyond that.

    I am sure people would dispute my view but I don’t believe the loyalist militants had planned on a long campaign as they knew they would not be capable of defending every street and in a sense they highly underestimated how fast the IRA were able to re-arm and become an efficient threat to their British way of life.

    We can’t deny the sectarian murders but today we can remove the labels and still be able to identify militant Catholicism and militant Protestantism.
    Which still exists but with open and honest debate perhaps in time those people who actually practice their respective religions can reclaim them for what they are and no longer suffer the indignity that political strife inflicted upon them and their respective beliefs.

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  50. gtm,

    “Don't pretend that ordinary Catholics wanted the Provos...it is an attitude like that which led to loyalists thinking that "any taig will do."

    I don’t wish to sound rude but it was exactly that mousey attitude that loyalist militants seen as very vulnerable and ripe for exploiting back then Catholics asking for civil rights was like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.
    The most expedient way to displace what was a peaceful movement was unfortunately to engage a sectarian war.
    I doubt the ordinary Catholics and Protestants wanted it but when it kicked off there was no exception and soon we ended up on one side or the other even if we didn’t want to be.
    Unfortunately to this day we are still living in the same trenches carved out in 1969.
    The religious labels were tattooed in our minds and there is no justifying sectarian murder.
    I don’t believe Nuala is out of order for expressing her honest opinion on what is a very sensitive subject that is difficult to revisit.
    The only way to approach the matter is with openness if we adopt the position of holding back for fear we may upset one side or the other then a debate would be pointless.
    I have nothing against people who identify with whatever their religious preference is. I do hold an uneasy distrust of those that mix their religious beliefs with their political beliefs.
    I would say in some respects we have moved forward but sectarianism has kept pace and its ugly face is always staring at us and it doesn’t take much for those who know how to manipulate religious hatred as a tool for political agenda to start it all over again.

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  51. Anthony,

    I much prefer the term us and them as I do know some practicing Catholics and Protestants who feel repulsed and implicated by proxy that their religions had been labeled and used for political purpose even though they vehemently abhor sectarianism and condemn all violence.

    I agree on the war crimes issue and I don’t point the finger at the foot-soldiers we have a few of our own questionable leaders and their role in what could be classed as war crimes.

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  52. Nuala,

    I think it would be hard to sustain the claim that there was no organised campaign against Protestants. There was a general campaign against the British but the evidence would support the existence of a time specific campaign against Protestants. The only alternative explanations would be that the IRA were not responsible, that it was the work of Catholic mavericks, or that the IRA was in such a state of disarray and disorganisation that it had no control over what its people on the ground were doing. I don't buy into either explanation.

    But in this, I think you come at it from a streets perspective whereas I am taking the ivory tower approach. We are safely removed from those days and reflect more than we did then. My thinking is shaped not by the pressure of the time but the freedom of distance. But for all these shortcomings I still think it is important to reflect.

    There is some great writing on war that brings out the complexities of the phenomenon. There is little black or white about it. After it we set up positions. The distance we feel we have to move from them, if back in conflict, is what we need to explain to those who think we behaved badly and contradicted our own stated position.

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  53. The feeling on the ground in PUL areas during the conflict was certainly a feeling of hitting back against the IRA and the Catholic community. It is insane to ever think the IRA were never sectarian. Kingsmill speaks for itself. Known IRA members use to drove around where I lived, late at night few times a year looking to grab a " prod ". Which they did many times. Beating with hammers and iron bars and left for dead. I knew one fella it happened to.
    The car bomb left in our carpark when we were 7 years old, was certainly sectarian. There was no " legitimate target " there. Just families. I have family who live up the Shankill area and remember the Shankill bombing very well. An 11 second fuse during a busy Saturday shopping outing for locals. Blown to bit's and for what? SF to end up sitting in the British government that they hated so much?
    I do not condone any sectarian murders at all, on either side. It is all horrid. Though I do not think the IRA were poor little victims that they now portray to be.
    Stakeknife's partner in crime was a retired British Special Forces soldier and all of a sudden he is in the IRA?
    On the loyalist side. Many British soldiers who " retired " came home and joined the UDA. Years later we now know they were still soldiers sent to operate. Perhaps Stakeknives partner was really still a British soldier. Hell, an SBS soldier. The elite of the elite in the world.

    Everybody in this little province can recite atrocity after atrocity. As David Ervine said " it was a stinking dirty little war ".

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  54. gtm,
    'A warped approach'
    Which part was warped?
    The fact our area was invaded by sectarian gangs in 69?
    The fact that the IRA defended us?
    The fact there was Catholics murdered for their religion pre-69?
    The fact that I said no innocent Protestants were killed where I live?
    That's not warped, that is facts.

    Who your family did or did not support really is of no consequnce you still benefited from the protection being provided, initially or not.

    We were glad the IRA were there to save us from absolute carnage, if you think that is warped analysis that's up to you.

    It is extremely sad what happened to your mother but if I could quantify my mother's suffering it would weigh quite heavy, as would the suffering of countless mothers on both sides.

    My mother suffered because she was born into a bigoted, sectarian, partitionist state.
    She spent the enterity of her life visiting both prisons and graves.
    Her first prison visit at two weeks old, her last at sixty years of age.
    Even when there wasn't any so called 'Troubles' our home was raided and they continued to raid it after the 1994 ceasefire.

    Anyone that knows me knows I am not a bitter person, but I can't go along with a skewed version of events just because it suits the new dispensation.

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  55. Speaking of Clonard area. I have been up to the Irish Republican History Museum a few times and it is very interesting. I found the hundreds of news articles dating right back to the early 70's to be very shocking. Shocking in regards to the material. Kids laying in coffins after having been shot at point blank range by soldiers so forth. I really do see why hundreds joined the IRA. Having grown up on the opposite side of the RA, I see why many joined the UVF. The IRA waged a brutal and indiscriminate war that killed hundreds of civilians. Loyalists did just the same.
    Reading some comments. We see that loyalist groups are seen as nothing but a sectarian response. I do not believe that all loyalists were sectarian and out to kill any Catholic. I know this for a fact. Many were dedicated to only targeting Republicans and would have never targeted an innocent person. These were people who did feel the IRA were out to destroy their area. I have often wondered, if it were not for the UVF and UFF patrolling the streets and with the likes of Johnny Adair taking it to the IRA. Would PUL areas have suffered the same cleansing that Protestants living in border regions went through? I think they would have.
    I mention this as a simple approach to highlight that the PUL community, in certain ways felt just as much under constant fear of attack as did the Republican side.

    I am not comparing Loyalists to the Catholic experience of being denied jobs, education, proper housing and voting rights. The PUL community did not suffer that and it is an awful shame that they treated Catholics in such a manner.

    I am with Beano on this. Lets learn from all past mistakes and hope a new generation do not wage war ever again.

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  56. Maitiu "Would PUL areas have suffered the same cleansing that Protestants living in border regions went through?"

    I have read Prof. Henry Paterson's book 'Ireland's Violent Frontier' in which the accusation of ethnic cleansing is favourably analysed. It seems that nearly all the Professor's examples were members of the security forces. For ethnic cleansing to have taken place it has to be down to ethnic, religious or other factor but the crucial thing about that factor is that it must be something you have no control over.

    Did the IRA target security force members purely to disguise the fact they wanted to kill innocent Protestants? Was this to gain respectability or to hide from War Crimes Tribunals? I doubt it.

    The IRA killed Catholics in the security forces also. They also targeted some innocent Protestants outside border areas. I think the former negates the charge that those in uniform who were killed were killed purely for their religion. The latter point negates the charge that the border was somehow treated differently because of location. But you need a specific area for the ethnic cleansing charge and this is the final part on where the argument falls.

    The murder of non-combatant Protestants purely because they were Protestants undoubtedly took place. It was naked sectarianism and abhorrently wrong in every sense of the word but it was no where near as sustained or as proportionate of total victims or any where close numerically as those of Loyalists. I have to give Loyalists credit though for trying to paint both sides as indiscriminate as each other. The new slogan won't be "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out", it'll be "God loves a tryer"!!

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  57. From Beano

    I have no intention of becoming involved in a protracted debate with Fionnuala who has a mindset around the depth of sectarianism within the Provisional's campaign. Her attitude seems to be-we might have been a bit sectarian-but not as much as yousens. I think undoubtedly there may have been areas in which the Provisional's were active that were "more sectarian" than others. Ardoyne-the Markets and Short Strand perhaps more so-traditionally-than say Lower Falls or many of the outlying or country areas. And yet it isn't hard to find examples of sectarianism no matter where you look in many of the atrocities. Perhaps Fionnuala takes succour in the knowledge that the Provies killed less Prods because of their religion than the UVF for example killed Catholics for the same reasons. I wonder then how she feels about the countless hundreds of Catholics killed by the Provies for a number of nefarious reasons or indeed the innocents of any--or none-religion-who were also murdered. It is past the time for make excuses for "why" people were killed and of trying to justify causes. It leads to continued embitterment and will prove to be a stumbling block going forward. It is a very, very well worn cliché-but the fact is that not one death in the past conflict solved anything and amounted to very little at the end.

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  58. Beano,
    I thought we drawn a line under this however, considering you took the time to write this I will take the time to answer.

    I never had the attitude seemingly or otherwise that, 'we might have been a bit sectarian but not as much as yousens.'
    I thought I was very clear in stating the complete reverse.

    Beano I didn't say what I said lightly. Some of my comments in relation to Loyalists in prison may have been a bit flippant and though I apologise for that, they were truthful never the less.
    I checked most of my facts before I brought them to this blog and since my last piece I checked with the one person who would have know.
    Too be honest he found the very suggestion that a sectarian campaign was in operation as abhorent as I did.

    If we were as sectarian as those who came in to burn and murder us, those who also ensured for years that we could not vote, own houses, work except where they told us, why then was there such revulsion throughout the Republican movement at the death of Samuel llewellyn?
    Why were Protestants captured by the IRA released unharmed?

    I don't need sucour in the knowledge of anything?
    I could ask you how you feel about the countless Protestant people 'romper roomed' and murdered by the UVF and UDA.
    Even now their sectarian loathing and hatred is on display.
    If it is past-time Beano, then why are you trying to even an imbalance?
    As I said in another post, I am not bitter but I think its wrong to bury the truth with the dead.
    (last line a quote from Patrick Murphy)



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  59. I AGREE WITH FIONNULA.

    Any right minded reasonable person would think that it is always wrong in war or battle to kill non-combatants knowing they are non-combatants. But then in almost all wars and battles right minded reasonable people, among others, kill non-combatants for the sake of killing non-combatants. See WWII Germans bombing London, Coventry and Birmingham and the English bombing Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden.

    And of course let’s not forget the American bombings of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Japanese people whose Army raped Nanking and Manchuria among other places. As reprehensible as all that was at least there was a case to be made for equivalency between all these mass murdering imperialists.

    However, I have a hard time seeing any equivalency in any of the non-combatant killings by Loyalists and Republicans in the occupied six counties of Ireland any more than I can see any equivalency between the French Resistance in Paris or the Jewish Resistance in Warsaw killing non-combatant Nazis or their collaborators.

    Yes, both sides intentionally killed non-combatants but there is a qualitative and quantitative difference to be drawn which freedom loving people everywhere have the right to make without being sanctimonious or vainglorious.

    Long story short: if the Germans didn’t bomb London et al then it is likely (to the extent anyone can really engage in counter-factual historical analysis) that England would not have bombed Berlin et al and if they did then they would be war criminals plain and simple rather than defenders trying to put out a fire at home with eye for an eye justice abroad.

    And what holds for the English defending England holds for everyone else defending their country, home or neighborhood from external violence.

    Therefore, if Loyalists and Unionists did not invade, torture and kill Catholics for being Catholics then the IRA would not have paid them back with the same currency in return. And the fact that there was much division in the IRA over this Hammurabi policy was no doubt a brake on having anymore strike backs than there were.

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  60. Owen,

    if I read this right the suggestion seems to be that the British weee not war criminals during World War 2 as aresult of their bombing campaign. I would disagree. Even the Brits themselves found it expedient to shun Bomber Harris, the man behind the air war.

    I don't believe the justness or the legitimacy of a cause flows automatically to the means used to redress the grievance. Otherwise anything could go.

    I have seen nothing yet that would allow me to differentiate between the war crime of Bloody Sunday or the War crime of Whitecross.

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  61. Owen- You are right in a sense in that you cannot have a war without war crimes any more than you can have peaceful society without crime or justice without injustice. But that doesn't mean you can accept war crimes or crime or injustice as a given and not try to prevent them or worse, try to make excuses for them.

    Reading some of the comments on this site from ordinary people giving reasons for atrocities or excuses for sectarian killings makes you realise how people can become inhumane during war and how war crimes can happen.

    But saying that, in Philip Caputo's book on the Vietnam War, "A Rumor of War" he explains how even the most amiable, caring and peaceable people carry out barbaric atrocities. So maybe you don't need to be angry, ambivalent or sectarian to carry out crimes during war.

    Given the extent of the conflict it is a wonder how the IRA didn't carry out more sectarian acts and it must be due to some policy or restraint or strategy that events like Kingsmills when Protestants were killed purely because of their religion were the exception rather than the rule.

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  62. Simon,

    I think your point on restraint is valid. However for a specific period during the IRA's campaign, late 74-76 I think it is difficult to argue that it was the exception rather than the rule. The scale of Whitecross makes it stand out but there were other attacks. The biggest deliberate attack on civilians was launched by Dublin and Monaghan, the Brits were next in line and the IRA come a close third. Enniskillen, which was well outside that two year period, also seems to have been an act of wanton slaughter.

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  63. Anthony,

    The British were war criminals during WWII as Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris’s Dresden campaign made clear and as frequently pointed out by the American writer Kurt Vonnegut who survived the massacre as a POW there then:

    “The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in.” ---Kurt Vonnegut.

    http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/647840-the-dresden-atrocity-tremendously-expensive-and-meticulously-planned-was-so

    In fact I think that’s a good definition of war crime: a meaningless atrocity.

    Which shouldn’t be confused with a meaningful atrocity, such as when Lakota warriors scalped the heads of General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Greasy Grass in 1876.

    However at least the Brits can argue that there was an equivalency between their meaningless atrocities in places like Dresden and the Germans’ meaningless atrocities as a result of their bombing and rocketing of English civilians in England.

    And while some Brits did shun Harris not all did (especially the English establishment) hence their statue to him in London for all to see and pay homage:
    http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/22079/Statue-Sir-Arthur-Harris.htm

    And although I agree with you that the justness or the legitimacy of a cause doesn’t flow automatically to the means used to redress the grievance (otherwise anything could go), I think it does sometimes especially when suffering at the hands of government sponsored death squads as the Lakota and Ms. Perry and her neighbors did.

    As such I don’t see an equivalency between a pogrommed people who were being murdered for the sake of being murdered… striking back in kind to make it stop…and the death squanders sent in to kill them.

    And perhaps there in lay the distinction: Catholic neighborhoods and their guardians striking back in kind in self-defense to put a stop to their being meaninglessly murdered versus the war crimes of Bloody Sunday and Whitecross as neither perpetrator there had any color of a claim to self-defense.

    I think Conor Curise O’Brien, of all people, put it best when he (once upon a time) supported the right of oppressed people to use violence. In a debate involving Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag and others in 1967, he asserted:

    The question has also been raised here about the terror used by the National Liberation Front [in Vietnam], and by other revolutionary movements. I think there is a distinction between the use of terror by oppressed peoples against the oppressors and their servants, in comparison with the use of terror by their oppressors in the interests of further oppression. I think there is a qualitative distinction there which we have the right to make.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conor_Cruise_O'Brien

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  64. Simon,

    I don’t accept war crimes as a given and nor do I make excuses for them or any injustice as Philip Caputo did since he didn’t go into Vietnam as part of the US Marines invasion force then as “…the most amiable, caring and peaceable (of) people”.

    In fact Caputo lead a death squad there and got away with murder:

    It was after the explosion at the creek that Caputo’s platoon became ugly and burned down another village called, “Ha Na,” and according to Caputo, it was “one of the ugliest” sights he saw in Vietnam. It was at this point that his platoon turned from, “a group of disciplined soldiers into an incendiary mob.” Not soon after that, Lieutenant Caputo organized an “independent mission” into a village to capture or kill two Viet Cong “sappers” that were identified by a Vietnamese informant. It turned ugly when the two Marines that went into the village killed two unarmed Vietnamese, including the informant who was trying to help the Americans. The 2 dead men weren’t Viet Cong at all, and so, the Marines were brought up on court-martial. When Caputo heard he was being charged with murder, he was unable to comprehend how such a charge could exist in the midst of such barbaric fighting.

    http://tonyrs-blog.blogspot.com/2007/02/phillip-caputo-rumor-of-war.html

    Clearly Philip Caputo was an angry, ambivalent and sectarian US Marine to do what he did in Vietnam when he did it…as are all government sponsored death squaders.

    And so like the Cruiser once did I draw a big qualitative distinction between the wanton war crimes of the US in Vietnam and what the Vietnamese did in return to defend themselves.

    I don’t draw any equivalency between the offensive crimes of the occupier and the defensive acts of the occupied to make the crimes stop.

    That said I don't think the civilian killings at Whitecross qualify as defensive acts and so should not have been undertaken because they served no meaningful purpose.

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  65. Owen,

    in many ways you restate the premise of the critique already cited here: that all combatant sides committed war crimes. What determines the war crime is not the striking back but who is struck back at. O'Brien merely states what has long been standard fare amongst republicans.

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  66. AM- I accept your point. Although I have, above, argued the point that the period of 1975-1976 was rife with sectarianism describing the sectarian element of the IRA's overall contribution to the conflict as the exception rather than the rule was perhaps generous giving that this period was significant in time and scale and that there were sectarian murders outside of those years also.

    Owen- I have read Philip Caputo's book so I know what he did. However, his well argued explanation of how people become irrationally violent due to the context of war was an important and indeed one of the most interesting things I have read on that conflict. The U.S. soldiers who carried out war crimes in Vietnam weren't born to carry out war crimes. It was a case in the age old debate of nurture overtaking nature. That was my point.

    "I don’t draw any equivalency between the offensive crimes of the occupier and the defensive acts of the occupied to make the crimes stop." No matter who is involved in a war, no matter how just they or anyone else judges their cause, they have the responsibility to keep within the rules of war.

    "In fact I think that’s a good definition of war crime: a meaningless atrocity." Good definition for a writer not for a lawyer as it is subjective and not objective. My dictionary takes a column to define "war crimes" so I will not reproduce it here.

    Nonetheless, if you think there can be a war without war crimes I suppose that's true in theory not in practice. Just like with crime and society, justice and miscarriages of justice. So good luck with finding an example of a war without war crimes.

    To finish, let me acknowledge 102 year old General Giap without whose efforts the world would likely be a much worse-off place. (By the way I would heartily recommend his 1992 biography by Peter MacDonald.)

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  67. Anthony,

    Not really…I don’t think Ms. Perry and her Catholic neighbors committed war crimes. I think war crimes were perpetrated on them to which they had the right to defend themselves in kind. And while I am at least understanding of why the Brits bombed Berlin after the Germans bombed London….I don’t get Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki because they were points beyond any tit for tat equivalency and so completely meaningless atrocities.

    My concern here is not falling prey to the British BBC line that all sides were guilty in their stinking little colonial war in NI and so the British government as piggy in the middle is absolved of all wrong doing.

    As I have said elsewhere, there wouldn’t have been a Viet Cong without the US occupation of Vietnam. Likewise there wouldn’t have been (and wouldn’t be) an IRA without the British occupation of Ireland and so while I will never condone the IRA’s war crimes in places like Whitecross they are nonetheless predictable as is the current day chaos in Iraq after the Anglo-American invasion and occupation there.

    By the way, here is an interesting related you tube discussion on whether Allied war bombings were war crimes (between Christopher Hitchens and A.C. Grayling):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8yqxA2YnCM

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  68. Simon,

    I don't think there can be war without war crimes. Like the Cruiser though I think there is a qualitative difference to be me made regarding the terror of the occupier against the occupied versus the terror of the occupied against the occupier. That said, I don't accept Philip Caputo's fog of war rationalization because there were many US soldiers and Marines who did not succumb to savagery like Phil Caputo and Willam Calley did. Just Google "My Lai" and the names Ron Ridenhour and Hugh Thompson among others.

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  69. Owen,

    I don't think Ms. Perry and her Catholic neighbors committed war crimes.

    Haven’t yet heard anyone say that they did.


    My concern here is not falling prey to the British BBC line that all sides were guilty in their stinking little colonial war in NI and so the British government as piggy in the middle is absolved of all wrong doing.

    Haven’t seen anybody here fall for that either. That does not preclude all sides form having committed war crimes: Brits, ourselves and the loyalists.

    Predictable war crimes make them no less war crimes.

    I have Graylings work on the bombings.

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  70. Owen- Caputo's description of how many men changed in Vietnam to carry out atrocities is the best I have read in any book on the Vietnam War.

    As I said above nurture conquered nature. I would never argue that nurture changed everyone's moral compass or that a proportion of US soldiers didn't want the opportunities to commit atrocities even before they set foot in Vietnam.

    I am aware of the My Lai massacre and I also know it is the tip of the iceberg. Caputo's description is worth the read and can help explain why My Lai was the tip of the iceberg and why so many people committed atrocities.

    I also know many people survived the war with their principles intact. But that is the nature of every war- Some otherwise peaceable people can either become involved in atrocities or avoid them; others already disposed to sadism and horror see an opportunity for that.

    The Troubles were like any other war: there were the type who avoided wanton cruelty, those who changed and there were the Shankill Butcher type who saw an outlet for depravity. I was giving credit to Republicans for restraint and discipline. The conflict as fought by them could have been overwhelmingly sectarian, like the loyalist fight but it wasn't.

    Maybe this was due to an ethical or principled backlash by those IRA prisoners in the cages to the sectarian 1975 and 1976 period and they turned the war around. Maybe it was due to Republicanism's 200 year history of preaching non-sectarianism. Whatever the reason we can be grateful the war wasn't fought on an ongoing sectarian footing by the IRA.

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  71. Okay Simon but you may also want to read the book “PEOPLE OF THE LIE” by M. Scott Peck, MD, especially Chapter 6 on Group Evil:

    Using the My Lai Massacre as a case study Peck also examines group evil, discussing how human group morality is strikingly less than individual morality.[7] Partly, he considers this to be a result of specialization, which allows people to avoid individual responsibility and pass the buck, resulting in a reduction of group conscience. ---- Ultimately Peck says that evil arises out of free choice.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

    http://www.amazon.com/People-Lie-Hope-Healing-Human/dp/0684848597

    Note that Peck was a Lt. Col. in the US Army when first tasked by it to study My Lai.

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  72. Simon,

    just finished the Karl Marlantes one What it is like to go to War. Don't think I have the Caputo one here.

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  73. Hi Owen, I might read that someday but the synopsis on Amazon put me off a bit, at least for the present. I would have taken his point about group morality being less than individual morality as a truism. We all know the household saying about "mob rule". Lord of the Flies by William Golding and all that. It seems a well trodden path. However, I don't fancy a book that promotes a spiritual or religious dimension to psychiatry. When people are mad that's possibly the last thing they need seeing as though many people who are insane see themselves as having a special religious purpose or a special link with God. This might be what he wants to analyse but to tell you the truth I don't want to find out.

    AM- Is the Karl Marlantes one any good? I spotted it in one particular bookstore quite a few times. It seems quite popular.

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  74. Simon,

    I found the Marlantes one quite good. I have to start Mattahorn shortly which is his novel about the place. The spirituality side of his writing didn't sit easy with me but I think he is full of insights. Did you read Nam by Mark Baker? I thought that a good read.

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  75. Yes, I have read Nam. Kind of average for the ones I have read but I try to steer clear of the ones that are likely to be poor so saying that is not a bad thing.

    Have you read "The Sorrow of War" by Bao Ninh? Worth a read.

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  76. Simon,

    is that the novel? If so I got it a few months back but have still ro read it.

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  77. Yes. It's the novel. He creates an atmosphere I have yet to find replicated.

    It is relatively short but has real depth and feeling. I found the story fascinating and the feeling he creates returns every time I think of the book.

    I hope this doesn't put it on an unachievable pedestal. I suppose you will make your own mind up as no book is for everybody.

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  78. Simon,

    M.Scott Peck M.D. was a medically trained and certified Psychiatrist who was trying to understand personality disorders because as he rightly pointed out at the time conventional Psychiatry had little to say about it because it was beyond their usual fields of psychosis and neurosis for which he was trained to deal with. In fact most of the chapters in his book deal with clients or identified clients he had that were neither psychotic or neurotic but something was truly wrong with them. So while I too usually run askance from spiritual approaches to problems of the day, I credit Peck with finding a way to understand a unique human problem and to at least learn how to identify it in others like say George Jr. Bush or Tony Blair among others.

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  79. AM- I just noticed John Murphy's review of "What It Is Like To Go To War" on an earlier post. I don't know how I missed it.

    I always, as a rule of thumb, read an author's books in order but knew that with "Matterhorn" this would be particularly important given the similar theme. I said so to a friend when I was buying it with "Matterhorn" in my other hand. He argued as a bestseller the novel will be easier to find in the future. As I will not get round to reading it for a while he was on the button.

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  80. I enjoyed his review. Perhaps you might comment on it for John. He is a lover of books.

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  81. Mackers
    I wish someone would do a review on 'Matterhorn' my son bought it for me quite a while back and it's still unopened.
    So Simon if your not too busy!

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  82. Nuala,

    I have it here but have yet to read it. Will do soon hopefully.

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  83. Mackers,
    That would be great I have put it in a box somewhere but if it's worth the read I'll dig it out.

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  84. Nuala, it comes highly recommended - it is said to be the best novel about the Vietnam War

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  85. Mackers,
    I could be mistaken but I think at the time Kevin told me it was the author's first novel.

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  86. Nuala,

    I think Kevin is right. I think it might be his only novel. He was writing it for 35 years I believe I read somewhere. It is recommneded as the best Vietnam War novel to be published by anybody. His other book was about what happens when we go to war. I enjoyed that.

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  87. Fionnuala, I don't own the book, not yet at any rate. I had it in my hands in a bookstore but put it back for a later date. "Matterhorn" is his only novel and his "What It Is Like to go to War" his only other work according to fantasticfiction.com.

    To tell you the truth I was checking to see if there was another Simon about as I was surprised to hear a request for a review.

    I think Anthony is right though- it is very well recommended and would be a safe bet. I have "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson which is based mainly in the Vietnam War and which won The National Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I have read neither it or "Matterhorn" and although I am keen to find out which I will enjoy best my reading list is so long I fear it'll take years to get there.

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  88. Simon
    I thought you had read 'Mattehorn' and given the fact that you done such a great review of 'In the Footsteps of Anne' I didn't think it such a task.

    I have loved reading all my life but these days it's becoming something I do when I get round to it, which is crazy.
    I am determined to start Matterhorn and hopefully be someway through it before Mackers does the review.

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  89. Fionnuala- I find it hard to put time aside also. I try to get a few pages in every day but with 42 books on the Vietnam War in my library I have yet to read, the 700 odd pages of "Matterhorn" place it a little down my reading list. Notwithstanding the many other genres I like to get through as well.

    I curse those able writers as there are too many of them. Too many excellent books and too few days left to read them. Good books are unfortunately written at a pace that no-one can keep up with their publication. That is why I often take umbrage at a book which I feel is poor.

    "Matterhorn" will have to wait for another day I am afraid because I cannot put sufficient time aside not because I fear it isn't a good book. But I think "Matterhorn" has a particular value in that it has a book by the same author which looks very much like an accompanying volume. One fiction, one non-fiction. Such things are rare and often hold invaluable perspectives and insights.

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  90. Simon,

    at John McGuffin's funeral Eamonn McCann said he spoke to him shortly before he died and McGuffin said that he had so many good books to get through before he died and 'still there's bastards writing more.'!!

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  91. For fuck sake do a review on this book ,and while your at it do one the bible I havent read it either,

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  92. Simon,
    700 pages? I have one here my friend bought me for Xmas and it has 900 so I'll dig out 'Matterhorn'

    Mackers,
    A good book is like a good friend increasingly hard to come by.

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  93. Nuala,

    what is the 900 page one?

    My ma had that attitude to good books: they were like friends to her.

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  94. Marty, All you need to know about the bible is that it is a little bit "preachy".

    Fionnuala- I sound like a lightweight but until I get more spare time I will be avoiding the longer books. I might even focus a little more time on some short-stories.

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  95. Mackers,
    The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 by Diarmaid Ferriter.

    I have to agree with your Ma Mackers. My only problem is I will constantly read back over books I love, itt's as if you can't let go of them, like friends I suppose.

    Simon,
    I'm not quite a short story book person loved them in the Ireland's Own though.
    I don't think I'm quite up to the 900 words these days either.

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  96. Nuala,

    Carrie's ma got me that book. I have it here but haven't read it.

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  97. Mackers
    Apparently it is quite a read and it's another one I intend to start.
    At the minute I am back reading 'A Tale of Two Cities' for easily the tenth time just because I love it.

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  98. Nuala,

    I hope to get there eventually but McGuffin's words to McCann always come back to me when I think of good books. The one book I tend to go back to is The Outsider by Albert Camus. Such a beautiful piece of writing. Believe it or not, another one I want to read again is The Wrong Man by Danny Morrison. For some reason I found that captivating. The stick I shall get for that admission!!

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  99. Mackers,
    That's the reason I love 'Tale of Two Cities' I think Dickens is an amazing writer and great story teller.
    And we all know Danny was a great story teller.
    Interesting though that you think that because I would never imagine him as being able to captivate

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