Philip McGarry a recently retired co consultant psychiatrist examines the contrasting words of Pam Morrison and Gerry Adams in respect of the former IRA chief of staff Kevin McKenna. He sees in them a a reflection of the Better Angels Of Our Nature and The Worst Of Our Past.

Last week saw two very significant and contrasting interpretations of our recent history in Northern Ireland.

The first was the moving testimony of Pam Morrison, speaking publicly for the first time about her three brothers who were separately hunted down and murdered by the IRA in rural Fermanagh in the 1980s.

The second was the funeral of Kevin Mc Kenna, allegedly a former IRA leader.

Ronnie Graham was killed in June 1981 as he was delivering coal.

In November 1981 Cecil Graham was leaving his in-laws’ house where his Catholic wife was staying with their prematurely born five week old son Darren, when the IRA shot him 16 times.

In February 1985 Jimmy Graham was parking his school bus at a primary school in Derrylin when he was shot 26 times.

Continue reading @ The News Letter.

Better Angels Of Our Nature Or The Worst Of Our Past

Philip McGarry a recently retired co consultant psychiatrist examines the contrasting words of Pam Morrison and Gerry Adams in respect of the former IRA chief of staff Kevin McKenna. He sees in them a a reflection of the Better Angels Of Our Nature and The Worst Of Our Past.

Last week saw two very significant and contrasting interpretations of our recent history in Northern Ireland.

The first was the moving testimony of Pam Morrison, speaking publicly for the first time about her three brothers who were separately hunted down and murdered by the IRA in rural Fermanagh in the 1980s.

The second was the funeral of Kevin Mc Kenna, allegedly a former IRA leader.

Ronnie Graham was killed in June 1981 as he was delivering coal.

In November 1981 Cecil Graham was leaving his in-laws’ house where his Catholic wife was staying with their prematurely born five week old son Darren, when the IRA shot him 16 times.

In February 1985 Jimmy Graham was parking his school bus at a primary school in Derrylin when he was shot 26 times.

Continue reading @ The News Letter.

14 comments:

  1. I wonder (no I can accurately predict) what the reaction of nationalist cultural warriors if Catholic soccer playing relatives of those massacred at Ballymurphy (for example) were forced out of Linfield or Glentoran after being called Fenian or Taig bastards in their own dressing room and got no support from the IFA. If the GAA (and I grew up following but not participating in Gaelic games) is serious about outreach to the PUL community, it should apologise profusely to this young man. Mickey Harte (who has brought more pride, joy and happiness to the people of Tyrone than Kevin "two for the price of one McKenna ever did) has shown the way in this respect.

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  2. Barry - it should happen to no one. Even in prison I had empathy for the parents of the three Graham brothers. And if I remember, a sister died of cancer while the parents were still alive. I felt they were much like the parents of the McKearney brothers - too much grief to be borne and I have no idea how each set of parents managed to cope. I knew the McKearney parents and found them wonderful people. I am sure the same applied for those who knew the Graham parents.
    I would give no credence whatsoever to the remark attributed to Kevin McKenna - it came from Sean O'Callaghan which makes it valueless given his unreliability to put it mildly.

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  3. Barry - I think there is a lot more could be said in respect of Philip's piece - I did not agree with much of it but that is neither here nor there and certainly no reason for not carrying it. The blog is useless if it is an echo chamber for what we already believe. Again it made me reflect on how people viewed and continue to view our campaign and those who led it. What they think is not what we think but the fact that we both think so differently and seem destined that never the twain shall meet, merely reinforces my view that one of the least useful terms in the post war lexicon is Truth & Reconciliation. There is neither and we need to consider giving up on the mantra that truth reconciles. In fact it is more likely to repel. That is no argument for not pursuing it but reconcilaition at the end of the truth rainbow again prompts the thought that never the twain shall meet.

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  4. A sister of the the three Graham brothers was also a member of the UDR and predeceased them. She died of her injuries as a result of a vehicle collision while on duty with the regiment in 1979.

    Horrific and all as this vignette reads, neither the IRA nor the UDR were 'immaculate conceptions'. Dr McGarry's commentary is wanting of context and belies a deep and complex history which laid out the necessary conditions for such tribal feuding.

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    1. Henry Joy - pretty much my own take. But context is alibi and the alibi Philip offers is different from the one we offer. While I can see why he would hang it on the Graham family, given the sister's comments, I feel his point could have been much more incisive had he selected Bea Worton. Not that the Graham sister has no right to speak but rather that the IRA and the UDR are pretty much viewed as combatants whereas the Kingsmill people were simply innocents slaughtered in a war crime.

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    2. Context may be alibi. However, as confirmed by American Psychological Society research, alibi strength varies according to evaluator perspective.

      The tone of Philip's contribution fails to make allowance for the complexities of our difficult history. Focusing on atomised events devoid of context and not set out in a longer timeline, offers little potential for integrated understanding and the subsequent incremental progressions which potentially follow.

      Exclusive and arbitrary condemnations of single acts in isolation, including the war crime of Kingsmills, does little to facilitate a deeper understanding of what was both an unavoidable and an unjustifiable conflict.



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    3. AM

      Henry Joy - alibi strength varies according to a wide range of things. The complexities of our difficult history are not immune from the vagaries of evaluator perspective. Our difficult history might be less relevant to Philip's point than the outcome. The very outcome settled for by the IRA was a negation of everything it proclaimed to fight for which from a consequentialist perspective rendered the campaign avoidable (arguably) and unjustifiable.

      The difficulty with context and a longer timeline, is that it does not address the very human and fundamental point raised in the piece: the individual story. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the exclusive and arbitrary condemnation of single acts like Bloody Sunday or Kingsmill. The rider is that in doing so we can't claim to speak exclusively about them, nor should we jump down the throats of others who select a different incident.
      When we criticise the author what we are doing is claiming he is not taking into account what we think he should take into account.
      The book which the title is presumably taken from by Steven Pinker is a brilliant read.

      Nevertheless, because I too harbour the same feeling as you do that Philip's piece is not good history,

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    4. Of course, 'there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the exclusive and arbitrary condemnation of single acts like Bloody Sunday or Kingsmill'. On the other hand, how useful are they?

      One of the reasons Pinker proposes as a driver for a reduction in violence is The Escalator of Reason – an "intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs," which "can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own interests over others', and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won. (my emphasis)

      Commentators who selectively and exclusively focus or pick at individual past sores do little to facilitate solutions. The danger is it becomes just a further out-playing of an already embedded top-dog/under-dog adversarial pattern.

      My contention is, the more accurately a challenging situation is defined the more likely a solution; the more objective the history, the greater the propensity for a stable future. None of this though precludes the telling of individual stories of loss, pain and hurt. Rather that such narratives ought not dominate.

      Difficult as it will be for some, the unavoidable and the unjustifiable elements of all sides' actions will eventually be integrated; integrated though not necessarily reconciled.


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    5. They are very useful - a means of solidarity and empathy with the wronged, an ethical statement of disapproval and resistance that might cause people to reflect and work to prevent, a reinforcing of the ringfence that serves to keep some actions outside the "civilised". Great hurt has been caused to people because of the silence surrounding the wrong done to them.

      As you say re Pinker - one reason. There is a lot more to his work than that, with a greater emphasis on governments and commerce than mere reasoning. But we reason as we go not as the result of some elongated tablet of stone handed down to us.

      People being accused of selectively and exclusively focusing or picking at individual past sores, is maybe more a problem than their focus. It really only matters if the people try to stop other commenting or focussing on what matters to them or doing it out of political motivation rather than ethical considerations.

      The more accurately defined is a good start but invites the question of who has the power to more accurately define. There is a cultural battle at the heart of definition here. What looks accurately defined to me might look like PR to the other person. Individual narratives should not dominate but should not be denied the right to co-exist with other more metanarratives.

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    6. AM

      ffs, where in my commentary is the inference that reasoning has anything to do with elongated tablets of stone!

      Also, where in the world has there ever been an 'ethical' conflict and where in the world has there been such a prolonged post-conflict industry as exists in the North?

      Unfortunately, not everything gets sorted; very little gets neatly packaged and finished-off with pretty little ribbons & bows.
      Lived lives are sometimes messy and the lives of those caught up in conflict particularly so!

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    7. Henry Joy - your comment on Pinker's escalation of reason linked to you comment on "atomised events devoid of context and not set out in a longer timeline" linked to your comment on "the more accurately a challenging situation is defined the more likely a solution; the more objective the history" - running in order of the selected comments: reason, elongated, tablet.

      Everywhere in the world there have been degrees of ethics applied in conflict - not everyone rapes, not everyone commits war crimes. As an admirer of Camus you are familiar with his observation that "even in destruction there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits."

      And to really rip it, I'll end this on a Camus observation: "Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world."
      That's as good as it is likely to get.

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    8. LOL,

      and there I was thinking you were banging your atheist drum again!

      We all have our own idiosyncratic opinions about how to reduce the suffering of the world. With age I too have come to realise that perhaps we ought not so often allow the perfect become the enemy of the good ... not the easiest of journeys, particularly not for the brainwashed idealists among the population!

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  5. Anthony very profound thoughts. Can the truth ever make one free, i wonder?

    I feel that having chasen up and read Fintan O'Toole's 2007 article in the London Review of Books on the tragedy of the Graham brothers; I must revise my views on how the GAA dealt ewth the sectarian abuse of Darren Graham bny acknowledginging that it did make an awkward apology to him.

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    1. In some cases it can but in others it becomes such a burden they would rather not have learned it. I think people have the right to access the truth but an equal right to decide if they wish to access it.

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