Padraic Mac Coitir
shares some thoughts on a book he has just finished reading.

 
 
The other week I read an article in The Guardian by Ian Cobain about a book he'd written titled Anatomy Of A Killing - Life And Death On A Divided Island. I found the article very interesting and by coincidence later that day I called to see a couple of friends. Before I mentioned the article one of the lads told me he had just met Harry Murray who told him that much of the book had been written about him and a few other lads. I've known Harry a long time and was in gaol with him for a number of years. He got life for killing an RUC man in Lisburn in 1978. 

Cobain interviewed Harry plus two others who also got life for the killing - Micky Culbert and Gary Smith. I also met Micky in gaol and was on different blocks with him. Another man interviewed was Feilim Ó hAdmaill. Feilim was charged with the killing but after a number of months on remand in Crumlin Road gaol the charges were dropped. He was captured in England in the early 1990s and was given a heavy sentence. Like other Irish Republicans he was transferred to Long Kesh after the IRA ceasefires. 

Without going into too much detail here all four were interrogated in Castlereagh RUC barracks at a time when the peelers tortured people. Cobain writes a lot about it and also about the death of Brian Maguire. 

Cobain has written another very good book, Cruel Britannia, about Britain's role in countries such as Kenya, Aden and of course Ireland. 

No doubt his critics would say he was sympathetic to Irish Republicanism in his latest book but I would argue anyone being objective about Britain's long involvement here can't be anything else.

If anyone wants to know more about the IRA in Belfast and especially about the operation carried out against the RUC man in Lisburn (the first to be killed in that town since Swanzy in 1920) then this is one such book. It also gives an historical context to the conflict. As soon as I started it I couldn't put it down and will no doubt read it again soon.

Ian Cobain, 2020, Anatomy Of A Killing - Life And Death On A Divided Island. Granta Publications. ISBN-13 : 978-1846276408

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Anatomy Of A Killing

Padraic Mac Coitir
shares some thoughts on a book he has just finished reading.

 
 
The other week I read an article in The Guardian by Ian Cobain about a book he'd written titled Anatomy Of A Killing - Life And Death On A Divided Island. I found the article very interesting and by coincidence later that day I called to see a couple of friends. Before I mentioned the article one of the lads told me he had just met Harry Murray who told him that much of the book had been written about him and a few other lads. I've known Harry a long time and was in gaol with him for a number of years. He got life for killing an RUC man in Lisburn in 1978. 

Cobain interviewed Harry plus two others who also got life for the killing - Micky Culbert and Gary Smith. I also met Micky in gaol and was on different blocks with him. Another man interviewed was Feilim Ó hAdmaill. Feilim was charged with the killing but after a number of months on remand in Crumlin Road gaol the charges were dropped. He was captured in England in the early 1990s and was given a heavy sentence. Like other Irish Republicans he was transferred to Long Kesh after the IRA ceasefires. 

Without going into too much detail here all four were interrogated in Castlereagh RUC barracks at a time when the peelers tortured people. Cobain writes a lot about it and also about the death of Brian Maguire. 

Cobain has written another very good book, Cruel Britannia, about Britain's role in countries such as Kenya, Aden and of course Ireland. 

No doubt his critics would say he was sympathetic to Irish Republicanism in his latest book but I would argue anyone being objective about Britain's long involvement here can't be anything else.

If anyone wants to know more about the IRA in Belfast and especially about the operation carried out against the RUC man in Lisburn (the first to be killed in that town since Swanzy in 1920) then this is one such book. It also gives an historical context to the conflict. As soon as I started it I couldn't put it down and will no doubt read it again soon.

Ian Cobain, 2020, Anatomy Of A Killing - Life And Death On A Divided Island. Granta Publications. ISBN-13 : 978-1846276408

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

28 comments:

  1. Picked this up yesterday - about 1/4 way through. It's a very good read. Look forward to finishing it. Good stuff Chopper.

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  2. Double recommendation then so
    Thanks lads

    (Was in the bookshop yesterday for the first time in yonks
    Local library no longer offering book & collect

    Since Covid began I've read Robert Harris's 'Cicero Trilogy' - 'Imperium', 'Lustrum' & 'Dictator'
    Three great stand alone reads, but obviously best read in sequence
    Great reads, especially so for those of us interested in the journey to political power and the machinations therein
    I enjoyed Harris's insightfulness and his storytelling style so much that I immediately followed up the trilogy with his 'Pompeii'
    Also highly recommended

    And as happens when I take to an author I set about finding something else by him
    Which led to my purchases yesterday
    First planned purchase; 'Munich' by Harris, a thriller set around the Hitler/Chamberlain meetings of 1938
    Followed up by an impulse one from the popular psychology section, 'Confessions of A Sociopath'

    First dip-ins to both are encouraging
    But of course that may be buyers confirmation bias)

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    1. have we a series of reviews to look forward to then?

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    2. given that you liked Say Nothing you will like this - same type of chilling, dusky ambience.

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  3. " As Murray fired his final shot McAllister’s seven-year old son Alan appeared behind him. He screamed once: “Daddy!” Then he screamed again: “Mummy!” Murray turned and ran."

    He was a person. He was a father. The fact he was a PHOTOGRAPHER with the cops somehow justified taking his life, did it? Cotter's sectarnism just seeps through from every article he writes despite his attempts at obfuscation.

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    1. Steve - there is absolutely nothing sectarian about the above piece. The guy who died was shot because he was a cop. It was a brutal killing but all killings are brutal. War, guerilla or otherwise. It was terrible for the child who witnessed it but that makes it ruthless not sectarian. The author of the piece would be very hostile to the British state and its security services but to accuse him of sectarianism because of that is misplaced.

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    2. AM,

      You're right, just seemed to be dehumanising to the person murdered by dismissing him as just a cop and not highlighting the person mourned by the child. Easy to see how hatred goes both ways.

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    3. I think war does dehumanise people - it denies them the right to life. What can be more dehumanising? I think it is important to be anti-war without taking the opt out position of pacifism. I think what the book does is move the focus from guerrillas as abnormal people to normal people.
      War is the ideal forum for bringing out hatred and allowing it to be perpetrated.

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    4. Indeed, that's why soldiers are trained by shooting at figures on wooden boards, so they see the enemy as a lifeless object than the human behind it. I'm not anit-war when it comes to ISIS but do they become less human given their horrific actions?

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    5. studies have shown that most soldiers aim to miss in combat. By eschewing pacifism, anti-war people can still agree to wars in certain circumstances, but as a last resort, never a first one. ISIS is barbaric but no more so than the war criminals of Bomber Command or the Napalm bombers of Vietnam. Even today - we find your government acknowledging Aussie special forces war crimes.

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    6. Yes, it's horrendous, wonder what the redacted part of the report said. They won't release it to save public outrage but the Head of the SAS came right out getting his apology out first. But there's something a bit off insisting those that we send to fight are held to a moral code higher than what the enemy would give us.

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    7. Steve - without that higher moral code war would just become a race to the bottom. There would be no such thing as war crimes: an anything goes type mindset where everything becomes okay for us if they sink to it first. The IRA killings at Kingsmill could be justified on that logic and those of us who feel it is a war crime advised to go and play with the buses. I think Camus had a great insight when he said "even in destruction there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits."

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    8. Isn't war a race to the bottom anyway though? By it's actions it brings out the very worst in humanity, even among those who claim that moral high ground?

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    9. There is that risk. But it will not be arrested of slowed down by restating it and surrendering to it as an inevitability. Were it not for international opprobrium what would stop Israel gassing Palestinians? It would certainly not be morality.

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    10. War can quickly become a race to the bottom, the less restraint, the quicker the descent.

      The Geneva Conventions, International Courts and observers are all in place to ensure this descent doesn't happen.

      You cannot have a war without war crimes but just like you cannot have a peaceful society without crime you can only mitigate it, the best you can.

      A free-for-all in war will only lead to limitless abuse and atrocity. Which is why international law differentiates between terrorism and an army. This definition includes need for discipline and a coherent structure which is given the same weight as the uniform.

      We mightn't be able to prevent all war crime but we can mitigate it through discipline, ethos and command rather than allow a race to the bottom.

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    11. What DID stop the Israeli's? In the midst of bloodlust or thirst for abstract revenge they paid little heed to decorum much less care for international opines. Morality is irrelevant, and is only the preoccupation of the similarly inflicted. War by definition is Hell. Why do we train our young to embrace violence yet be repulsed by the consequence? And what does it say about us if we turn our back on them?

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    12. America has thus far stopped then waging war on Iran. That might not last. That they have not yet built gas chambers for Palestinians is an indication that something stops them. If Sam Harris is right, Israel for all its war crimes has been much more constrained than the US or UK ever was in its wars. What constrains them? You are right it is not morality. But in Realist theory on how states behave in an international arena reputation is an asset. The Israelis have been sensitive to the PR battle and have invested huge amounts of money into upending the attacks on its standing.
      We train our young in the legitimate use of force. When they commit war crimes we should walk away from them as readily as we would walk from clerical rapists. Should you not walk away from the Bloody Sunday/Ballymurphy Paras? Should I not walk away from the Kingsmill Killers? What does it say about us if we don't?

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    13. While the action is abhorent what do we gain by walking away from them? Surely then it becomes a case of virtue signalling? Is it not better to bring the rule of Law down on them but ALSO those who commanded the act be taken? I've had first hand dealings with the Para's and they are a different breed. Taught to be hyper-aggressive at all times with any weakness attacked like jackals. But that's postively encouraged in their training. We should charge them with the crime were warranted but also change their training or else it will happen again.

      Australia is already thowing it's SAS troopers under the bus to protect their officers. As usual the ones with power sheild themselves.

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    14. if the act is virtuous why fear it being signaled? If it is just a blocking signal to cancel out a different signal with no other purpose, you would have a point. The SAS killers of Afghan civilians should be thrown under a bus and their officers with them. Even by bringing the rule of law down on them, is still walking away from them while throwing them under the judicial bus. Is that any less virtue signaling?
      Changing the training to discourage them from becoming psychopaths is an interventionist strategy utilised before the fact. There is no suggestion that society walk away before the fact. After the fact, it has an ethical obligation to walk away.

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    15. That's a fair point thanks for responding Anthony.

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  4. Sean Mallory comments

    Must give this a go when I come across it... I have that other one Cruel Britannia but haven't got around to reading it yet...may be because I don't expect to learn anything new about Britain...I once read an historical account of Europe's superpowers and its wars from the medieval ages up until the late 1970's and for the life of me I can't remember the title of it or the author's name...I think it was The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy...not sure, but besides being a fascinating read one aspect of it that shone through was the deceitful and duplicitous nature of Britain....there were a lot of wars that it had never actively participated in but whole heartedly funded and quite often were the main protagonists and quite belligerent in instigating these conflicts for it's own commercial gains...those who were once allies quickly became foes and vice versa...I suppose that's why the term Perfidious Albion arose and with the Tory's reneging on their Brexit deal it isn't difficult to see why....
    Harry the Crab...haven't come across that in a long time and Micky Culbert...was he known as Tick Tock or something along those lines....I read an article in the Irish News I believe where he was interviewed last year or the year before...Christ my memory is going...but it mostly was about his GAA activity and his success at club level with cross referecning his republicanism and his gaol time but one thing stood out in it...he was quoted as saying that a United Ireland will only come about with Unionist consent....when I read that I thought...mmmmmm.....now that certainly wasn't the talk in the Big Cell now was it?.....I suppose you don't bite the hand that feeds you, especially when you crawl out of the Bog Meadow .... shit manager too!!!!

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    1. Cruel Britannia is a great read
      You would have been laughed at or worse in Cell 26 for suggesting unity only by consent. But that is how it has turned out. Violently opposing it is useless but that does not mean the consent principle has to applauded or the pretence mounted that it was what we always agreed with. Best to just recognize it for what it is - an inversion of republican logic, acquiesced in without the dignity that would come with acknowledging it as the jewel in the British crown's triumph over the Provisional IRA's principle of coercion.

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  5. What was Eíre Núa but an appeal to Northern Unionists for consent to a United Ireland comprising autonimous jurisdictions in four provinces ?

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    1. Rory, Éire Nua was designed to make a United Ireland more palatable for unionists once the British unilaterally withdrew. This was around the early years when victory was still thought possible, a time of the truces when the British contacts stated British withdrawal was a distinct possibility. However unlikely this seems now, it never included a referendum particularly two referendums, North and South which both need 50+1 for unification.

      Éire Nua was designed to prevent a spiral of unionist violence once the British withdrew and Ireland was united.

      The whole picture was based on sweetening the deal after the fact not lookimg for consent for it to happen.

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  6. International opproprium did not stop Assad from gassing his own citizens. UN agreed proportionate action to enforce International Prohibition on the use Chemical Weapons would have.

    International opprobrium did not stop the Burmese military from massacring the Royingha people. Enforcement of the 1948 prohibition of genocide could have prevented future genocidal atrocities.

    International opprobrium is not preventing China's slow genocide of the Uighur people because China has the power to give its middle finger to the world because of its military and economic might.

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  7. Allegedly gassing his own citizens.

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  8. David

    Assad gassed his citizens first in Eastern Gouta in August 2013 in plain sight (unless you believe the 'staged incident' narrative of the anti-White Helmet liars and conspiracy theorists). When he was given a free pass by Obama and the House of Commons to cross the red line his forces perpetrated at least two more mass casualty sarin gas attacks.

    Assad's responsibility for these atrocities is confirmed by the UN investigating team.

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  9. Barry,
    There's too many actors and agendas in Syria to take any of that in face value. I'm sceptical of all. I can remember watching a video of a UN investigator, Henderson maybe, saying the Douma attacks were inconclusive, so I think there's enough doubt to say allegedly.

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