Brandon Sullivan ✒ with a further piece in a series on the events of Holy Cross School in 2001. 

“That’s what you get for being a Protestant” - Gusty Spence, when arrested at home on suspicion of a sectarian murder, 1966.

Please note that when I use the term loyalist, I mean a member of the PUL community prepared to use or justify violence. I would also the term loyalist to describe members of the Orange Order, or those from the PUL community who are explicitly anti-Irish or anti-Catholic.

I understand that not all loyalists (or members of the OO) are sectarian, and that to assume so does a disservice to some loyalists. But I think it does a greater disservice to use the term unionists when describing the actions of sectarian and/or violent elements from within the PUL community. I sigh when I hear Sinn Fein descriptions of “unionist paramilitaries.” Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy is described as “a fanatical unionist” in the blurb of Martin Dillon’s book. Murphy didn’t leave a political manifesto behind, but I don’t think a deep devotion to the political union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is what drove him.

For those interested in the discussions about the differences, if any, between a unionist and a loyalist, please listen to this episode of Talk Back, featuring Gareth Mulvenna, among others.

This is not a piece about the differences between unionism and loyalism, but about Holy Cross. In Northern Ireland, terminology can mean everything. I wrote the disclaimer above because I do not wish to cause offence. I do want to stimulate debate, however, and set out my use of loyalist to better facilitate this.

Researching these reflections took longer, and in some ways was more troubling, than writing about the actual events at Holy Cross, and those leading up to it. Longer, because I wanted to look beyond the depressing statistics, and to sources beyond histories of various paramilitary groups. More troubling, because, as I hope to demonstrate, much rhetoric from the loyalist community remains unchanged. This inevitably leads to a sinister question: could something like Holy Cross happen again?

The Shankill Road, in 1994

One of the sources that struck me was a documentary called Life on the Shankill Road, made in 1994  by Mary Holland and Michael Whyte. Jackie Redpath features in it prominently, an articulate man, who has been at the forefront of community activism for decades, particularly around social housing, and the effects of poor urban planning. Redpath had this to say about the Protestant community:

it is a community in retreat on almost every front [it has] suffered physical and territorial retreat … the Protestant population [on the Shankill] has reduced from ... 120,000 to 56,000 in the past 15 years … beyond that, there has been a political retreat [Protestants] lost much of what it perceived it had … Stormont … B-Specials … the retreat has been economic … [regarding the] notion that the Protestant community had access to employment, there is as little hope of finding work [on the Shankill] as there is in any other community in this Province. (Shankill Road, 1994)

Billy Hutchinson made the point that the “Protestant ascendency” didn’t live on the Shankill Road, and did not benefit from it. Hutchinson went on to say he understood Catholic “anger, frustration, even the hatred” but suggested “they should stop and question what Protestants had – they didn’t have much more” (Shankill Road, 1994).

A female community activist from the Shankill on the documentary described the effects that deindustrialisation had on the men of the area: “being from the Protestant community, they felt that they had a right to those jobs, that they were owed something.” (Shankill, 1994). She described how “Protestants felt degraded at having to sign on [for unemployment benefit]” and told of resistance from local women to applying for a “Children in Need” fund, and of a perceived uneasiness of Protestants “taking from the state.” Trade Unionist and Shankill community activist May Blood (now a Baroness) described how for Protestants “work was part of our ethos” (Shankill, 1994).

Perhaps Catholics should have questioned what Protestants had, in comparison to themselves. Perhaps Protestants could have also questioned exactly what Stormont had done for them in 50 years, and why they were so exercised about its fall. After all, as Billy Hutchinson said “Protestants were discriminated against, in a different sense, but they were still discriminated against … Protestants “might have got a slum house quicker, but it was still a slum.” (Shankill Road, 1994).

Othering

What do the effects of deindustrialisation of Protestant working class areas have to do with Holy Cross? I think that the attitudes of the Shankill residents are relevant. When someone on the Shankill describes how Protestants felt being degraded at having to apply for state benefits, they are describing being disempowered into a position similar to “others” who didn’t have a “right” to employment. Bluntly, they feel lowered to the perceived status of Catholics in Northern Ireland. When they talk of work being part of their ethos, they are implying exceptionalism. Of course, perception and reality often have little in common with each other, and Hutchinson eloquently dismantles mythology around Protestant ascendency and privilege. But what is relevant to reflecting on Holy Cross is the existence of homogenous attitudes within the PUL community, about the CNR community.

Of course, homogenous attitudes towards the PUL community exist in the CNR community, and have manifested in many ways, from the lethal sectarianism of the 1971 Four Step Inn bombing, through the campaign of murdering Protestant civilians in the early/mid 70s, to a recent assault on a youth in Ardoyne. Statistics demonstrate that the majority of killings during the troubles were carried out by paramilitaries emanating from the CNR community. Republican paramilitaries were quite capable of sadistic, brutal crimes. The murder of Jean McConville, for example, is an almost totemic example of inhumanity. The murders of Joanne Mathers, and Karen McKeown are examples of republican brutality against defenceless woman. Less well known is the murder of Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster and informer in the Derry Brigade, who returned home after Martin McGuinness assured his mother of his safety, and she facilitated his return. In the annals of armed republican history, I think this event is almost uniquely evil – to make a mother unwittingly complicit in the killing of her son.

Forgotten to history, and only made known to me during a search for another incident in the Belfast Telegraph, is the case of Imelda Maxwell, a 37 year old waitress at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast. In 1976, Imelda and a friend went to a dance in Newtownards, where they met two men, who invited them to a UDA club in Sandy Row. At some stage, it was discovered that Imelda was a Catholic, and two men took her outside and attempted to beat her to death with clubs and bricks. She survived, but was beaten unrecognisable, and left in need of 24 hour care. Such was the extent of her injuries that ambulance staff she knew from work did not realise they had attended to a colleague (Belfast Telegraph, 2nd June 1978).

The circumstances of Imelda’s ordeal are almost identical to that of Ann Marie Smyth, lured to a house in Belfast in 1992, tortured, and then murdered. Anne Marie was a Catholic. Kevin Myers, in his Irishman Diary had some thoughts on this killing:

There were a couple of particularly striking features about this case. One was the complete absence of any remorse from the defendants. Another was the utter lack of outcry in loyalist Belfast at the murder of this mere Fenian - quite unlike the uproar at the comparable murder some time later of a Protestant girl [Margaret Wright, in April 1994] by Protestants who thought she was a Fenian. There is a third feature, and it is not fashionable to mention it - it is simply inconceivable that a Protestant girl found drinking in a Catholic club would have come to such an end. Whatever passions and hatreds drive nationalists, they do not permit such chummy, semi recreational group murders of a kind which loyalists, from the romper rooms through the Shankill Butchers to the little party in Cregagh Street [Ann Marie’s murder] that night five years [1992] ago, repeatedly indulged in during the Troubles.


Two loyalist paramilitaries were “executed” by their own organisations for Margaret Wright’s murder (Ian Hamilton, Billy Elliot). The UVF members convicted in connection with Ann Marie’s murder served their time on UVF wings, and were not expelled. One man, Stephen Manners, was killed by the LVF during their feud with the UVF.

Savage torture and murder of women was, it seems, permissible by loyalist paramilitaries– as long as the torturing and murdering was done by their members, and the victims were Catholic (or Protestants who were perceived to have transgressed in some way, as in the barbaric murder of Ann Ogilby).
Do you agree with Kevin Myers’ assertion that “it is simply inconceivable that a Protestant girl found drinking in a Catholic club would have come to such an end.” Do you believe that Protestant schoolgirls could find themselves being abused by members of the CNR community without censure, and in full view of the world’s media?

Under Threat?

As Jackie Redpath said:

Protestants perceive themselves to be constantly under threat, and the source of that threat is Irishness … the biggest blockage to relating to that which is Irish about us is threat, and violence.

Clearly, Imelda Maxwell, Anne Marie Wright, and the schoolgirls of Holy Cross were no physical threat to Protestants, and yet they were targeted by loyalists, anyway. And those persecuting the aforementioned female non-combatants (and many hundreds of others) were not censured by the communities that they came from.

Why is this? As Jackie Redpath also said: “You cannot move on if you’re being shot at, and bombed, and perceive that you’re under threat.”

By the time Holy Cross happened, the great majority of shooting and bombing was being committed by loyalists, often amongst themselves, but usually against Catholic targets. That word again: perception. Did Holy Cross happen because loyalists constantly perceive themselves as being under threat? If that is the case, as opposed to base sectarian hatred, then why did loyalists feel under threat years after the IRA ceasefire, and why do they still feel under threat now? Will they ever stop feeling under threat?

What is striking from the sombre tone of community spokespersons on the Shankill documentary is the sense of losing ground – even as the IRA was winding up its campaign, and loyalist paramilitaries were on the rampage. Billy Hutchinson remarked in 1994 that:

Loyalist paramilitaries feel isolated … they feel that nobody is listening to them, particularly their own politicians. They are looking at what other people have achieved [republican paramilitaries] and they have upped the ante [in terms of violence] (Shankill, 94). 

This statement could just as easily be made today, perhaps not by Hutchinson, but it is eerily similar to those made by loyalist spokespersons today.

And then there was the quote from Gusty Spence that I started this article with. The quote reeks of aggrieved entitlement, of victimhood and harassment. What he got for being a Protestant (suspected of murder) was arrest, trial, conviction, and a long stretch in jail. What 18 year old Peter Ward got for being a Catholic drinking in a Protestant pub was his life being ended (as an aside, I had a great deal of respect for Gusty Spence).

Was Holy Cross an “own goal”?

I have often dismissed claims that Holy Cross was an “own goal” for loyalism. Loyalism, I contended, didn’t care about world opinion, and loyalist paramilitaries, and the protestors themselves, were not censured by their host communities for targeting schoolgirls. But it occurs to me that Holy Cross, and the relentless pipe-bombing campaign that preceded and ran alongside Holy Cross, were indeed “own-goals.” Condemnation of the actions at Holy Cross was not swift, decisive and unequivocal. Unionist MPs did not walk with the schoolgirls. The DUP, or the UUP, did nothing to help the children and parents of Holy Cross. Unionist politicians seemed to spend more time describing what the protestors endured rather than inflicted. The girls of Holy Cross are now women, and those women will not have voted for Nigel Dodds. I suspect that many thousands of Catholic victims of loyalist brutality will not want to retain the political link with Great Britain. Sinn Fein’s John Finucane is now MP for North Belfast, and I don’t think that is unconnected to Holy Cross.

Just today, the Irish News published a story that included a story of a study suggesting that “new figures suggest no unionist majority in any of the north's six counties.”  Loyalism created many enemies in the Catholic community, and that community will soon hold the balance of voting power in Northern Ireland, if it doesn’t already.

Could something like Holy Cross happen again?

The final paragraph of the CLMC’s 1994 ceasefire statement reads:

We are on the threshold of a new and exciting beginning with our battles in future being political battles, fought on the side of honesty, decency and democracy against the negativity of mistrust, misunderstanding and malevolence, so that, together, we can bring forth a wholesome society in which our children, and their children, will know the meaning of true peace.

Fine words, delivered by Gusty Spence who undoubtedly sincerely believed every word he spoke. But seven years later, loyalists were attacking Catholic schoolgirls, ensuring that they did not know “the meaning of true peace.” Gusty Spence would himself experience the type of intimidation visited upon thousands of Catholics by loyalists, when his house was ransacked by the same organisation behind some Holy Cross actions.

Professor Peter Shirlow had this to say: 

What is fundamentally wrong with loyalist paramilitaries, especially those attached to the UDA, is there is no rationale – it is simply made up as they go along. Loyalism is reactive; it is about maintaining boundaries. It is not about creating anything. Loyalism is in difficulties because it is trying to preserve something impossible. (Holy Cross, p223).

This week, a Belfast primary school has said that an "ongoing social media hate campaign" means that an Irish language nursery will now not open at the school.” 

Would loyalists have attacked nursery age children on their way to learn Irish at Braniel Primary School? There is a difference between online trolls and adults throwing bags of urine at schoolgirls. But has loyalism changed much since 2001?

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.

Reflections On Holy Cross

Brandon Sullivan ✒ with a further piece in a series on the events of Holy Cross School in 2001. 

“That’s what you get for being a Protestant” - Gusty Spence, when arrested at home on suspicion of a sectarian murder, 1966.

Please note that when I use the term loyalist, I mean a member of the PUL community prepared to use or justify violence. I would also the term loyalist to describe members of the Orange Order, or those from the PUL community who are explicitly anti-Irish or anti-Catholic.

I understand that not all loyalists (or members of the OO) are sectarian, and that to assume so does a disservice to some loyalists. But I think it does a greater disservice to use the term unionists when describing the actions of sectarian and/or violent elements from within the PUL community. I sigh when I hear Sinn Fein descriptions of “unionist paramilitaries.” Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy is described as “a fanatical unionist” in the blurb of Martin Dillon’s book. Murphy didn’t leave a political manifesto behind, but I don’t think a deep devotion to the political union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is what drove him.

For those interested in the discussions about the differences, if any, between a unionist and a loyalist, please listen to this episode of Talk Back, featuring Gareth Mulvenna, among others.

This is not a piece about the differences between unionism and loyalism, but about Holy Cross. In Northern Ireland, terminology can mean everything. I wrote the disclaimer above because I do not wish to cause offence. I do want to stimulate debate, however, and set out my use of loyalist to better facilitate this.

Researching these reflections took longer, and in some ways was more troubling, than writing about the actual events at Holy Cross, and those leading up to it. Longer, because I wanted to look beyond the depressing statistics, and to sources beyond histories of various paramilitary groups. More troubling, because, as I hope to demonstrate, much rhetoric from the loyalist community remains unchanged. This inevitably leads to a sinister question: could something like Holy Cross happen again?

The Shankill Road, in 1994

One of the sources that struck me was a documentary called Life on the Shankill Road, made in 1994  by Mary Holland and Michael Whyte. Jackie Redpath features in it prominently, an articulate man, who has been at the forefront of community activism for decades, particularly around social housing, and the effects of poor urban planning. Redpath had this to say about the Protestant community:

it is a community in retreat on almost every front [it has] suffered physical and territorial retreat … the Protestant population [on the Shankill] has reduced from ... 120,000 to 56,000 in the past 15 years … beyond that, there has been a political retreat [Protestants] lost much of what it perceived it had … Stormont … B-Specials … the retreat has been economic … [regarding the] notion that the Protestant community had access to employment, there is as little hope of finding work [on the Shankill] as there is in any other community in this Province. (Shankill Road, 1994)

Billy Hutchinson made the point that the “Protestant ascendency” didn’t live on the Shankill Road, and did not benefit from it. Hutchinson went on to say he understood Catholic “anger, frustration, even the hatred” but suggested “they should stop and question what Protestants had – they didn’t have much more” (Shankill Road, 1994).

A female community activist from the Shankill on the documentary described the effects that deindustrialisation had on the men of the area: “being from the Protestant community, they felt that they had a right to those jobs, that they were owed something.” (Shankill, 1994). She described how “Protestants felt degraded at having to sign on [for unemployment benefit]” and told of resistance from local women to applying for a “Children in Need” fund, and of a perceived uneasiness of Protestants “taking from the state.” Trade Unionist and Shankill community activist May Blood (now a Baroness) described how for Protestants “work was part of our ethos” (Shankill, 1994).

Perhaps Catholics should have questioned what Protestants had, in comparison to themselves. Perhaps Protestants could have also questioned exactly what Stormont had done for them in 50 years, and why they were so exercised about its fall. After all, as Billy Hutchinson said “Protestants were discriminated against, in a different sense, but they were still discriminated against … Protestants “might have got a slum house quicker, but it was still a slum.” (Shankill Road, 1994).

Othering

What do the effects of deindustrialisation of Protestant working class areas have to do with Holy Cross? I think that the attitudes of the Shankill residents are relevant. When someone on the Shankill describes how Protestants felt being degraded at having to apply for state benefits, they are describing being disempowered into a position similar to “others” who didn’t have a “right” to employment. Bluntly, they feel lowered to the perceived status of Catholics in Northern Ireland. When they talk of work being part of their ethos, they are implying exceptionalism. Of course, perception and reality often have little in common with each other, and Hutchinson eloquently dismantles mythology around Protestant ascendency and privilege. But what is relevant to reflecting on Holy Cross is the existence of homogenous attitudes within the PUL community, about the CNR community.

Of course, homogenous attitudes towards the PUL community exist in the CNR community, and have manifested in many ways, from the lethal sectarianism of the 1971 Four Step Inn bombing, through the campaign of murdering Protestant civilians in the early/mid 70s, to a recent assault on a youth in Ardoyne. Statistics demonstrate that the majority of killings during the troubles were carried out by paramilitaries emanating from the CNR community. Republican paramilitaries were quite capable of sadistic, brutal crimes. The murder of Jean McConville, for example, is an almost totemic example of inhumanity. The murders of Joanne Mathers, and Karen McKeown are examples of republican brutality against defenceless woman. Less well known is the murder of Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster and informer in the Derry Brigade, who returned home after Martin McGuinness assured his mother of his safety, and she facilitated his return. In the annals of armed republican history, I think this event is almost uniquely evil – to make a mother unwittingly complicit in the killing of her son.

Forgotten to history, and only made known to me during a search for another incident in the Belfast Telegraph, is the case of Imelda Maxwell, a 37 year old waitress at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast. In 1976, Imelda and a friend went to a dance in Newtownards, where they met two men, who invited them to a UDA club in Sandy Row. At some stage, it was discovered that Imelda was a Catholic, and two men took her outside and attempted to beat her to death with clubs and bricks. She survived, but was beaten unrecognisable, and left in need of 24 hour care. Such was the extent of her injuries that ambulance staff she knew from work did not realise they had attended to a colleague (Belfast Telegraph, 2nd June 1978).

The circumstances of Imelda’s ordeal are almost identical to that of Ann Marie Smyth, lured to a house in Belfast in 1992, tortured, and then murdered. Anne Marie was a Catholic. Kevin Myers, in his Irishman Diary had some thoughts on this killing:

There were a couple of particularly striking features about this case. One was the complete absence of any remorse from the defendants. Another was the utter lack of outcry in loyalist Belfast at the murder of this mere Fenian - quite unlike the uproar at the comparable murder some time later of a Protestant girl [Margaret Wright, in April 1994] by Protestants who thought she was a Fenian. There is a third feature, and it is not fashionable to mention it - it is simply inconceivable that a Protestant girl found drinking in a Catholic club would have come to such an end. Whatever passions and hatreds drive nationalists, they do not permit such chummy, semi recreational group murders of a kind which loyalists, from the romper rooms through the Shankill Butchers to the little party in Cregagh Street [Ann Marie’s murder] that night five years [1992] ago, repeatedly indulged in during the Troubles.


Two loyalist paramilitaries were “executed” by their own organisations for Margaret Wright’s murder (Ian Hamilton, Billy Elliot). The UVF members convicted in connection with Ann Marie’s murder served their time on UVF wings, and were not expelled. One man, Stephen Manners, was killed by the LVF during their feud with the UVF.

Savage torture and murder of women was, it seems, permissible by loyalist paramilitaries– as long as the torturing and murdering was done by their members, and the victims were Catholic (or Protestants who were perceived to have transgressed in some way, as in the barbaric murder of Ann Ogilby).
Do you agree with Kevin Myers’ assertion that “it is simply inconceivable that a Protestant girl found drinking in a Catholic club would have come to such an end.” Do you believe that Protestant schoolgirls could find themselves being abused by members of the CNR community without censure, and in full view of the world’s media?

Under Threat?

As Jackie Redpath said:

Protestants perceive themselves to be constantly under threat, and the source of that threat is Irishness … the biggest blockage to relating to that which is Irish about us is threat, and violence.

Clearly, Imelda Maxwell, Anne Marie Wright, and the schoolgirls of Holy Cross were no physical threat to Protestants, and yet they were targeted by loyalists, anyway. And those persecuting the aforementioned female non-combatants (and many hundreds of others) were not censured by the communities that they came from.

Why is this? As Jackie Redpath also said: “You cannot move on if you’re being shot at, and bombed, and perceive that you’re under threat.”

By the time Holy Cross happened, the great majority of shooting and bombing was being committed by loyalists, often amongst themselves, but usually against Catholic targets. That word again: perception. Did Holy Cross happen because loyalists constantly perceive themselves as being under threat? If that is the case, as opposed to base sectarian hatred, then why did loyalists feel under threat years after the IRA ceasefire, and why do they still feel under threat now? Will they ever stop feeling under threat?

What is striking from the sombre tone of community spokespersons on the Shankill documentary is the sense of losing ground – even as the IRA was winding up its campaign, and loyalist paramilitaries were on the rampage. Billy Hutchinson remarked in 1994 that:

Loyalist paramilitaries feel isolated … they feel that nobody is listening to them, particularly their own politicians. They are looking at what other people have achieved [republican paramilitaries] and they have upped the ante [in terms of violence] (Shankill, 94). 

This statement could just as easily be made today, perhaps not by Hutchinson, but it is eerily similar to those made by loyalist spokespersons today.

And then there was the quote from Gusty Spence that I started this article with. The quote reeks of aggrieved entitlement, of victimhood and harassment. What he got for being a Protestant (suspected of murder) was arrest, trial, conviction, and a long stretch in jail. What 18 year old Peter Ward got for being a Catholic drinking in a Protestant pub was his life being ended (as an aside, I had a great deal of respect for Gusty Spence).

Was Holy Cross an “own goal”?

I have often dismissed claims that Holy Cross was an “own goal” for loyalism. Loyalism, I contended, didn’t care about world opinion, and loyalist paramilitaries, and the protestors themselves, were not censured by their host communities for targeting schoolgirls. But it occurs to me that Holy Cross, and the relentless pipe-bombing campaign that preceded and ran alongside Holy Cross, were indeed “own-goals.” Condemnation of the actions at Holy Cross was not swift, decisive and unequivocal. Unionist MPs did not walk with the schoolgirls. The DUP, or the UUP, did nothing to help the children and parents of Holy Cross. Unionist politicians seemed to spend more time describing what the protestors endured rather than inflicted. The girls of Holy Cross are now women, and those women will not have voted for Nigel Dodds. I suspect that many thousands of Catholic victims of loyalist brutality will not want to retain the political link with Great Britain. Sinn Fein’s John Finucane is now MP for North Belfast, and I don’t think that is unconnected to Holy Cross.

Just today, the Irish News published a story that included a story of a study suggesting that “new figures suggest no unionist majority in any of the north's six counties.”  Loyalism created many enemies in the Catholic community, and that community will soon hold the balance of voting power in Northern Ireland, if it doesn’t already.

Could something like Holy Cross happen again?

The final paragraph of the CLMC’s 1994 ceasefire statement reads:

We are on the threshold of a new and exciting beginning with our battles in future being political battles, fought on the side of honesty, decency and democracy against the negativity of mistrust, misunderstanding and malevolence, so that, together, we can bring forth a wholesome society in which our children, and their children, will know the meaning of true peace.

Fine words, delivered by Gusty Spence who undoubtedly sincerely believed every word he spoke. But seven years later, loyalists were attacking Catholic schoolgirls, ensuring that they did not know “the meaning of true peace.” Gusty Spence would himself experience the type of intimidation visited upon thousands of Catholics by loyalists, when his house was ransacked by the same organisation behind some Holy Cross actions.

Professor Peter Shirlow had this to say: 

What is fundamentally wrong with loyalist paramilitaries, especially those attached to the UDA, is there is no rationale – it is simply made up as they go along. Loyalism is reactive; it is about maintaining boundaries. It is not about creating anything. Loyalism is in difficulties because it is trying to preserve something impossible. (Holy Cross, p223).

This week, a Belfast primary school has said that an "ongoing social media hate campaign" means that an Irish language nursery will now not open at the school.” 

Would loyalists have attacked nursery age children on their way to learn Irish at Braniel Primary School? There is a difference between online trolls and adults throwing bags of urine at schoolgirls. But has loyalism changed much since 2001?

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.

7 comments:

  1. The sheer savagery, sadism and depravity involved in the loyalist killings referred to invites the question of whether it was the work of individual psychopaths or was there something more structural there - the outworking of an embedded assumption about the inferiority of the victim. John White is reputed to have said about the killing of Irene Andrews and Paddy Wilson that killing the person is the purpose and that the method of killing them is secondary to that. I find that impossible to agree with.
    While I don't think loyalism in general can be characterised as such I do feel that there is a subcultural element within it that is accommodated and interacts with the wider phenomenon of loyalism.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As time goes on, you get reflective and ponder whether you had psychopathic tendencies over things you were a component in. There is no doubt in my mind that people I was associated with, even loved were psychopaths. Republicanism had it's share. I know I am biased and I know my knowledge on psychology is very limited, but, to me it seemed the collective loyalist movement almost had a shared detachment to us, the triumphalism, the posturing, even their Scottish football team's motto 'we are the people' stinks of cultural superiority. I struggle to find the proper words to properly accentuate what I am trying to say, but, their certainly seemed a callous disregard towards us. The way they would openly say any Catholic will do to put pressure on the IRA would allow hatred to fulfill my heart. I understand I am looking at it from my perspective, my feeling was we were nothing but scum to the pul community.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Luke Kelly had the line We Are The People in his song Free The People so it has a wider use than Scottish football teams. Wars and violent political conflict must always bring psychopaths into play. It is low hanging fruit for them no matter how good the cause.

      Delete
  3. Regarding John White, to borrow a phrase, well, he would say that, wouldn't he? For those of us who have lost someone close to us, the circumstances of the death are of primary importance. I recall reading about how the father of John O'Neill, beaten to death by UVF men in 1986, was haunted at the knowledge that his son died in the company of men consumed with hatred.

    Sean O'Callaghan alleged that Davy Payne told him in prison that the use of torture in the murders carried out by White, Payne and others were strategic, that the aim was to inflict intolerable pain on the Catholic community that they'd pressurise the IRA to stop. I think this "strategy" would be laughable, were it not so obscene and tragic.

    Republicans, the security forces, and loyalists all used torture during the conflict. In a majority (but not all) of cases, republicans and security forces used it to extract information, rather than for pleasure (though I imagine that a fair number of practitioners from those organisations enjoyed their work). I think Payne's supposed rationale for ritualistic torture murders can be dismissed. The communal aspect of those killings, and the fact that they occurred throughout the conflict suggests that loyalism contained within its ranks sadists, who were not restrained by the structures, procedures and culture of their respective organisations. The comparative fate of the murderers of Margaret Wright and Ann Marie Smyth indicate structural attitudes at play about the attitudes of those with power in paramilitary loyalism.

    The culture of republicanism, and Irish nationalism, dehumanises informers as a discrete class of people - they are "other'd". I think significant and powerful elements within loyalism dehumanises Catholics in a similar manner. The strident, supremacist elements within loyalism will attract (as all supremacist sects do) dysfunctional, insecure and anti-social personalities into their ranks. Coupled with a toxic dehumanising culture, atrocities occur. I think this, broadly speaking, is what happened at Holy Cross, and in the premises where Ann Marie Smyth met her fate.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brandon
    As usual, thanks for taking the time to write for us all. Whilst there are some issues regarding Holy Cross I would agree with you on, as previously spoken about, there are other factors which I think should come into play in respect of the actual 'dispute' and how it was seen by the world in general.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am I reading these posts correctly? There is a debating going on about as to who has the higher ground when it comes to the methods of murder?

    ReplyDelete
  6. @ David

    Interesting you bring up "we are the people" - I had originally planned to use that (not in relation to RFC) as example of "othering" - we are the people basically means we aren't those "other" people, and with it is an implied superiority.

    @ Not Really Here - Thanks for taking the time to talk to me about the dispute. I could have written a much, much denser piece, if time and other pressures allowed, which would have given me time to delve into other issues. I took the view that some issues were secondary issues. Did Sinn Fein make political capital out of Holy Cross? Of course they did. And I think that thousands of words could be written about the choices facing the parents of Holy Cross children. But ultimately, I don't think that they are as important as the "protest" itself. But I look forward to discussing these issues and others in person :).

    Terry - I think that's too reductive a reading of the discussion. For me, it isn't about higher ground, it's about the structures that permit, perhaps even encourage, barbarism. I don't think I've let militant republicanism off the hook in my piece, but I'm happy to be challenged on that?

    ReplyDelete