Brandon Sullivan ✍  with a brief overview of the UDA’s “Shopping List” killings.

By the end of the 1970s, UDA killings had decreased dramatically, but attacks on actual militant republicans were about to increase, and reach a tempo which Adair’s unit failed to match.

In March 1979, the INLA killed Conservative MP Airey MP, who was in line to become the next Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This was a shocking blow to the British establishment, of whom Neave was a fundamental part. A number of killings of republicans followed. These killings have been linked to South Belfast UDA/UFF leader John McMichael, and are known as the “shopping list” killings. The sequence of events – Neave’s deaths followed by numerous killings of members of the organisation responsible, led to predictable, if somewhat understandable, claims of high level collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, if not direct involvement of British security forces.

The excellent blog Balaclava Street discussed the “shopping list” killings, and notes that:

If we except the UVF killing of former Sinn Fein vice-president Maire Drumm in 1976, John McMichael’s “shopping list” of 1980-81 was indeed the first time loyalist paramilitaries had gone on the offensive against republicans, in this case the INLA/IRSP and those associated with the Anti H-Block campaign. This offensive, said to have been planned in the room above McMichael’s pub, caused serious damage to the upper levels of the INLA/IRSP by eliminating Belfast OC Ronnie Bunting and political leader Miriam Daly.

The following republicans, a mixture of paramilitary and political figures, were killed:

  • John Turnley – killed 4th June, 1980 (Irish Independence Party)
  • Miriam Daly – killed 26th June, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Rodney McCormock – killed 24th August, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Ronnie Bunting – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)
  • Noel Little – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)

And then there was the attempted murder of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband, Michael, by a UDA unit which included Ray Smallwoods. Again, collusion theories abound, with one of the UDA units allegedly shouting "Fuck this for a double-cross!” upon being arrested on leaving the house.

The killing of Billy Carson, in 1979 (discussed in Part Two), would not appear out of place in the “shopping list” of UDA targets and victims – though of course Carson was IRA, and the other victims were INLA, or associated with the H-Block campaign.

Despite the protestations of Adair and his friends, Billy Carson was also the last member of the Belfast IRA killed by the UDA/UFF to appear on the IRA’s Roll of Honour, with the exception of Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh/Kevin Brady, who was killed during the attack on Milltown cemetery.

Murder on the Shankill

On the 4th August 1986, two men, reported at the time as being suspected UVF members, arrived at a council cleansing office on Huss Row, in the Shankill area. The back passenger got off and went into an office where a Technical Services Inspector was standing in for a colleague. The loyalists had somehow found out that the man in the office on that day was a Catholic. The would-be assassin’s gun jammed, and the council inspector grappled with him, got the better of him, and managed to lock himself inside an office toilet. The gunmen fled, and the man was treated for shock and a head injury. One cannot help speculating that the survivor of this nakedly sectarian attack must have been set up for murder by someone he worked with.

Later that day, an IRA unit followed UDR Sergeant Denis Taggart into Battenberg Street, off the Shankill Road (in which Lenny Murphy’s family home was at one point), and shot him dead. Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89) quoted loyalist sources saying that Denis Taggart was also a member of the UVF, though he doesn’t appear on any UVF Roll of Honour that I’ve seen. Taggart's 13-year-old son, Leonard, witnessed the killing.

A tragic postscript to the attack on the Catholic council employee, and other sectarian shootings, was the withdrawal of “meals-on-wheels” services for pensioners on the Shankill. They didn’t have enough drivers, and Catholic volunteers, understandably, did not feel safe.

The Murder of Terry McDaid

Denis Taggart’s brother Michael was also a “UVF man” according to Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89), and would later become implicated in a murder which spanned the UVF and UDA, that of Terry McDaid. Another of the dead UDR man’s brothers, Thomas Taggart, was released on compassionate parole to attend the funeral. Thomas Taggart had been convicted of the 1973 murder of Shankill Road publican Leonard Rossborough during an armed robbery carried out on behalf of the UVF. Michael Taggart became involved in an intelligence gathering ring, albeit a rather unsophisticated one, which involved a Scottish soldier, then Corporal (now Major) Cameron Hastie, and a UDR Lance Corporal, Joanne Garvin. Hastie, described at his trial as a "very fine soldier" by his regimental commandant, passed documents, including a file on politically uninvolved nationalist civilian Terry McDaid, to Garvin, which ultimately ended up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries, including Jackie Mahood UVF), and the notorious British Army agent, and UDA Intelligence Officer, Brian Nelson.

John Ware, for The Telegraph (29/03/98), reported the following:

Winkie’ Dodds, a UDA assassin nicknamed ‘the Big Evil’, had gone to see Nelson. He asked him if he had any "targets" for him in West Belfast. Nelson had suggested Declan McDaid, a man he believed had a link to the Provisional IRA. Nelson had given Dodds what he believed to be McDaid's address … along with a photograph of him.

On May 10, as a direct consequence of Nelson's information, two men burst into 4 Newington Street and, in front of his wife and parents, fired seven bullets into the head and body of the man they believed to be Declan McDaid. His youngest daughter was in the adjoining room. She saw her father dying on the floor. But the man the UDA assassins had murdered was not, in fact, Declan McDaid. It was his brother, Terence. When Nelson asked Dodds about what had happened, the UDA man said:

We got the wrong fella. I didn't know that. I mean, the boys went in to see this fella that looks like him. I mean what are they supposed to do, go up and ask his name?

Joanne Garvin was dismissed from the UDR. Cameron Hastie went on to have a glittering career within the British Army. For all the justifiable criticism the UDR has taken, in this case they took robust action against their criminal member. Hastie’s regiment and the British Army did not. The respective calibre of Garvin and Hastie may have informed the different decisions, but it remains a despicable decision.

Such lethal bungling was to be a feature of C Company’s actions. Whilst Dodds was unrepentant and unremorseful about the botched targeting in this case, Terry McDaid’s widow, Theresa, and her children grieved for their husband and father, but poignantly called for there to be no retaliation.

William “Winkie” Dodds

If Johnny Adair’s importance in histories of the Troubles has received an excess of coverage, the same cannot be said about Winkie Dodds. Dodds was born in 1959, and had what his defence counsel described as “a very bad start in life.” A petty criminal and delinquent, in 1980 he took part in a Post Office robbery. An off-duty RUC officer witnessed the robbery, and identified Dodds going into a club afterwards. He was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 10 years, the Belfast Telegraph reporting that "the judge took into account evidence that Dodds was a man lacking in intelligence and immature for his age."

Newspaper reports had him as living rough in the Shankill area. What is interesting is that him and his brother, Milton, were in prison for the same time. Shortly after his release from prison, in 1986, Winkie Dodds became commander of a militant UDA unit within C Company. Brian Nelson linked Dodds to numerous murder attempts in the latter half of the 1980s. Whilst Dodds and his men almost always failed to kill IRA or Sinn Fein targets, they were acting off up-to-date intelligence files. Nelson described Dodds’ tactics as “thud and blunder” – kicking in doors without checking if the target was at home, and other brutal, hapless practises. But Dodds and his men did kill nationalists that were noted on security force files as republican targets. Indeed, at one point, UDA Inner Council members advised Dodds and others to ignore UDR intelligence as it was usually inaccurate as to the republican bona fides of a particular nationalist.

Brian Nelson had contempt for Dodds and other UFF members. He considered them uncouth and unintelligent, and refused requests from his army handlers to socialise with Dodds.

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

Another Look At The Belfast UDA – Part Ⅲ

Brandon Sullivan ✍  with a brief overview of the UDA’s “Shopping List” killings.

By the end of the 1970s, UDA killings had decreased dramatically, but attacks on actual militant republicans were about to increase, and reach a tempo which Adair’s unit failed to match.

In March 1979, the INLA killed Conservative MP Airey MP, who was in line to become the next Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This was a shocking blow to the British establishment, of whom Neave was a fundamental part. A number of killings of republicans followed. These killings have been linked to South Belfast UDA/UFF leader John McMichael, and are known as the “shopping list” killings. The sequence of events – Neave’s deaths followed by numerous killings of members of the organisation responsible, led to predictable, if somewhat understandable, claims of high level collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, if not direct involvement of British security forces.

The excellent blog Balaclava Street discussed the “shopping list” killings, and notes that:

If we except the UVF killing of former Sinn Fein vice-president Maire Drumm in 1976, John McMichael’s “shopping list” of 1980-81 was indeed the first time loyalist paramilitaries had gone on the offensive against republicans, in this case the INLA/IRSP and those associated with the Anti H-Block campaign. This offensive, said to have been planned in the room above McMichael’s pub, caused serious damage to the upper levels of the INLA/IRSP by eliminating Belfast OC Ronnie Bunting and political leader Miriam Daly.

The following republicans, a mixture of paramilitary and political figures, were killed:

  • John Turnley – killed 4th June, 1980 (Irish Independence Party)
  • Miriam Daly – killed 26th June, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Rodney McCormock – killed 24th August, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Ronnie Bunting – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)
  • Noel Little – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)

And then there was the attempted murder of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband, Michael, by a UDA unit which included Ray Smallwoods. Again, collusion theories abound, with one of the UDA units allegedly shouting "Fuck this for a double-cross!” upon being arrested on leaving the house.

The killing of Billy Carson, in 1979 (discussed in Part Two), would not appear out of place in the “shopping list” of UDA targets and victims – though of course Carson was IRA, and the other victims were INLA, or associated with the H-Block campaign.

Despite the protestations of Adair and his friends, Billy Carson was also the last member of the Belfast IRA killed by the UDA/UFF to appear on the IRA’s Roll of Honour, with the exception of Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh/Kevin Brady, who was killed during the attack on Milltown cemetery.

Murder on the Shankill

On the 4th August 1986, two men, reported at the time as being suspected UVF members, arrived at a council cleansing office on Huss Row, in the Shankill area. The back passenger got off and went into an office where a Technical Services Inspector was standing in for a colleague. The loyalists had somehow found out that the man in the office on that day was a Catholic. The would-be assassin’s gun jammed, and the council inspector grappled with him, got the better of him, and managed to lock himself inside an office toilet. The gunmen fled, and the man was treated for shock and a head injury. One cannot help speculating that the survivor of this nakedly sectarian attack must have been set up for murder by someone he worked with.

Later that day, an IRA unit followed UDR Sergeant Denis Taggart into Battenberg Street, off the Shankill Road (in which Lenny Murphy’s family home was at one point), and shot him dead. Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89) quoted loyalist sources saying that Denis Taggart was also a member of the UVF, though he doesn’t appear on any UVF Roll of Honour that I’ve seen. Taggart's 13-year-old son, Leonard, witnessed the killing.

A tragic postscript to the attack on the Catholic council employee, and other sectarian shootings, was the withdrawal of “meals-on-wheels” services for pensioners on the Shankill. They didn’t have enough drivers, and Catholic volunteers, understandably, did not feel safe.

The Murder of Terry McDaid

Denis Taggart’s brother Michael was also a “UVF man” according to Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89), and would later become implicated in a murder which spanned the UVF and UDA, that of Terry McDaid. Another of the dead UDR man’s brothers, Thomas Taggart, was released on compassionate parole to attend the funeral. Thomas Taggart had been convicted of the 1973 murder of Shankill Road publican Leonard Rossborough during an armed robbery carried out on behalf of the UVF. Michael Taggart became involved in an intelligence gathering ring, albeit a rather unsophisticated one, which involved a Scottish soldier, then Corporal (now Major) Cameron Hastie, and a UDR Lance Corporal, Joanne Garvin. Hastie, described at his trial as a "very fine soldier" by his regimental commandant, passed documents, including a file on politically uninvolved nationalist civilian Terry McDaid, to Garvin, which ultimately ended up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries, including Jackie Mahood UVF), and the notorious British Army agent, and UDA Intelligence Officer, Brian Nelson.

John Ware, for The Telegraph (29/03/98), reported the following:

Winkie’ Dodds, a UDA assassin nicknamed ‘the Big Evil’, had gone to see Nelson. He asked him if he had any "targets" for him in West Belfast. Nelson had suggested Declan McDaid, a man he believed had a link to the Provisional IRA. Nelson had given Dodds what he believed to be McDaid's address … along with a photograph of him.

On May 10, as a direct consequence of Nelson's information, two men burst into 4 Newington Street and, in front of his wife and parents, fired seven bullets into the head and body of the man they believed to be Declan McDaid. His youngest daughter was in the adjoining room. She saw her father dying on the floor. But the man the UDA assassins had murdered was not, in fact, Declan McDaid. It was his brother, Terence. When Nelson asked Dodds about what had happened, the UDA man said:

We got the wrong fella. I didn't know that. I mean, the boys went in to see this fella that looks like him. I mean what are they supposed to do, go up and ask his name?

Joanne Garvin was dismissed from the UDR. Cameron Hastie went on to have a glittering career within the British Army. For all the justifiable criticism the UDR has taken, in this case they took robust action against their criminal member. Hastie’s regiment and the British Army did not. The respective calibre of Garvin and Hastie may have informed the different decisions, but it remains a despicable decision.

Such lethal bungling was to be a feature of C Company’s actions. Whilst Dodds was unrepentant and unremorseful about the botched targeting in this case, Terry McDaid’s widow, Theresa, and her children grieved for their husband and father, but poignantly called for there to be no retaliation.

William “Winkie” Dodds

If Johnny Adair’s importance in histories of the Troubles has received an excess of coverage, the same cannot be said about Winkie Dodds. Dodds was born in 1959, and had what his defence counsel described as “a very bad start in life.” A petty criminal and delinquent, in 1980 he took part in a Post Office robbery. An off-duty RUC officer witnessed the robbery, and identified Dodds going into a club afterwards. He was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 10 years, the Belfast Telegraph reporting that "the judge took into account evidence that Dodds was a man lacking in intelligence and immature for his age."

Newspaper reports had him as living rough in the Shankill area. What is interesting is that him and his brother, Milton, were in prison for the same time. Shortly after his release from prison, in 1986, Winkie Dodds became commander of a militant UDA unit within C Company. Brian Nelson linked Dodds to numerous murder attempts in the latter half of the 1980s. Whilst Dodds and his men almost always failed to kill IRA or Sinn Fein targets, they were acting off up-to-date intelligence files. Nelson described Dodds’ tactics as “thud and blunder” – kicking in doors without checking if the target was at home, and other brutal, hapless practises. But Dodds and his men did kill nationalists that were noted on security force files as republican targets. Indeed, at one point, UDA Inner Council members advised Dodds and others to ignore UDR intelligence as it was usually inaccurate as to the republican bona fides of a particular nationalist.

Brian Nelson had contempt for Dodds and other UFF members. He considered them uncouth and unintelligent, and refused requests from his army handlers to socialise with Dodds.

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

18 comments:

  1. I would place money on McMichael's 'shopping list' being based on Official IRA intelligence.

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    Replies
    1. That is an interesting point Christopher. Recently, someone was telling me that a former OIRA Director of Intelligence was responsible for gathering information on PIRA members which was passed onto Loyalists. Some of the best insights into what as going in within that movement come from those who were members of it. Chatted with quite a few of them over the years. A journalist once said to me that OIRA tried to have the UDA kill him by telling it that he was an INLA Intelligence officer. Conflict gives rise to strange alliances.

      Delete
  2. @ Christopher Owens

    Steve Bruce in his book The Red Hand suggested that OIRA provided intelligence for the "shopping list" killings, and I think it's possible they did provide intelligence on the INLA/IRSP, but I don't think that would have been enough for the success of that campaign.

    But I tend to agree with this analysis in Paul Routledge's excellent book about Airey Neave, Public Servant, Private Agent:

    "In the years since the [Neave] assassination, evidence has been pieced together to suggest that the British Government, through the SAS and its proxy killers in the UDA, exacted a bloody revenge on the leadership of the INLA and IRSP."

    Father Raymond Murray supported this theory, and named it as "Operation Ranc" - Revenge Airey Neave Committee. I am not sure something as formal as a committee existed, and I am not completely convinced it was the SAS and not some other undercover British Army outfit, but I think, generally, elements of the British army and/or intelligence services had a leading and guiding hand in many of the shopping list killings.

    Father Murray linked Bunting, Lyttle, and Daly's killings to "Operation Ranc", but said that Ranc was disbanded following "strong but private" protests from the Irish Government.

    Two UDA men, brothers Eric and Robert McConnell was convicted of murdering Councillor John Turnly of the Irish Independence Party. At their trial, following conviction, they claimed to have an SAS contact named Sgt Tom Aitken, and to have been supplied with weapons and intelligence.

    Apparently Sgt Aitken considered Turnly, a former British army officer, as important because of his links to Laos and Cambodia, and his experience with imports and exports.

    The McConnells could of course be lying, and Father Murray misguided, but I think there's enough evidence to suggest that elements of the British state were involved.

    Whilst researching this piece, I discovered that Bernadette McAliskey and her husband presented the surgeon who saved their lives with a drinks decanter and a note of heartfelt thanks. The surgeon was Lt Col Campbell McFarlane, of the Parachute Regiment. One of those interesting details that I hope isn't lost to history.

    Routledge says that the murder attempt on McAliskey: "had been planned in a room above a pub in Lisburn owned by John McMichael, the UDA commander with links to the security services."

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  3. Certainly, in the case of Bunting, the eyewitness accounts suggest a more disciplined and professional outlet than the average UDA unit. However, according to McAliskey, the unit that tried to kill her were acting like cowboys, a complete contrast. So there must have been a demarcation between INLA and Anti H-Block activists in the minds of the British. And, even then, it wasn't successful as the ones who carried out the Neave operation were not killed and even survived the 1987 feud.

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    1. British intelligence at that time didn't seem to have a fully informed understanding of the INLA.(that would change dramatically within just a couple of years).

      For example, while the notorious leaked British Defense Intelligence document from December 1978 commenting on the strength of the new, cell-based PIRA, predicted an increase in INLA activity in 1979, the RUC responded to an INLA claim of responsibility for an attack the following month by questioning if the INLA was anything but a PIRA covername.

      Ronald Bunting was a key player in the Airey Neave operation but the others involved were never caught.

      That's difficult to understand in

      Delete
  4. I wouldn't believe a word Fr Raymond Murray wrote or said. His book The SAS in Ireland is literally the worst book I've ever read. It is full (and I mean full) of inacuracies. The British Army has Standard Operational Procedures and anyone can find out what they are, except Murray it seems. He also seems to think that every covert op was performed by the SAS and every plain clothes op was the SAS too. When even a UDR private can spot an inaccuracy every 3 or 4 pages the book can be written off as pure ballix.

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    Replies
    1. Peter,

      It was little more than Republican propaganda. There was more than a few pages put up on the walls in Hereford for a laugh I'm told.

      Brandon,
      It's useful to remember the roles. The SAS are the deep penetration, ambush lot. The Det are the sticky beakies in urban areas including women. FRU are the spooks in the British Army running counter insurgency and Agents. MI5 are supposedly the 'bridge' between departments but in reality piss off everyone especially Special Branch by being totally up their own arseholes.

      Delete
  5. @ Peter

    I think you're almost certainly correct when you say:

    "He also seems to think that every covert op was performed by the SAS and every plain clothes op was the SAS too."

    But Fr Murray was writing contemporaneously, when the existence of what I described as "some other undercover British Army outfit" were not as well known. That said, I wouldn't discount what Fr Murray says as a matter of course, but I haven't read his book. Him and Fr Faul were doing vital and dangerous work.

    I think "the SAS" became a bit of a catch-all term, and counter-productive as a certain point. A bit like "collusion" now-a-days. I think they somewhat muddy the debate. I do believe that some killings post the Neave assassination were assisted by some elements of the British state, and possibly reasonably senior.

    Was there ever much chat about the "shopping list" killings within the UDR? I'm going from memory, but possibly one of those convicted of the Turnly murder was a member or former member.

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    Replies
    1. I think that is right - the SAS became shorthand for a wide range of covert activity. They had been in the North long before Harold Wilson pretended that 1976 was the first time they had been sent there.
      I have never read Raymond Murray's book but a lot of his stuff documented along with Denis Faul, I recall as being on the money, mostly about British state brutality.

      Delete
  6. When you read in print about things you know and the writer is repeatedly wrong and the writer has clearly not researched properly, or at all, then you can write that book off and take everything else they write as dubious at best.
    I know nothing of those "shopping list" killings. Before my time. There were murmurings about East Tyrone though. Yesterday I got my copy of Death in the Fields, I can't wait to get into it. But I doubt he will get down to the real story.

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  7. @ Steve R

    "It was little more than Republican propaganda."

    Do you mean the SAS piece in particular or Murray & Faul's work in general? I don't think that's fair or accurate either way.

    I found an extract Fr Murray wrote about his SAS work:

    "SAS DEATH SQUADS
    In November 1990 I published The SAS in Ireland. It may seem a narrow focus, a fraction of the state killings, but I wanted it to be symbolic of all the state killings. The SAS is an assassination squad, like the South American death squads, and it is acting outside the law They kill persons when they have opportunities of arresting them and they are well known for shooting wounded and incapacitated persons lying helpless on the ground. Such actions are contrary to the moral law, the law of the land and the rules of war. There is no declared war in Northern Ireland between recognised insurgents and state forces. The law therefore is eminent and dominant and must be obeyed by every body including the forces of the law The SAS are not therefore justified in killing civilians or IRA members in planned ambushes."

    The focus on the SAS is unhelpful. As you've pointed out, there were a number of differing, often competing agencies.

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    Replies
    1. Brandon,

      Without labouring a previously made point, whining about ..

      "..They kill persons when they have opportunities of arresting them and they are well known for shooting wounded and incapacitated persons lying helpless on the ground. Such actions are contrary to the moral law, the law of the land and the rules of war."

      ...is a perfect example of the propaganda. Did the Provos plan to go out, armed to the teeth, to 'arrest' people'? For fuck sake even the regular Army in combat is told to put two rounds in bodies when they clear houses to prevent any clever bugger from playing possum, then popping up to shoot them. If you were in that position would you do differently?

      The Provos just laughed when Breen and Buchanan waved a white handkerchief.

      Delete
    2. Steve - they were quite right to raise those objections to British state killings. They also raised them when republicans did likewise. Denis Faul ended up hated by many republicans because of the stand he took.

      If the Provos complained then it would seems a double standard but they were often philosophical about their losses and took them on the chin.

      Delete
    3. Anthony, then why did the Shinners bleat on about "Shoot to Kill"?

      Brandon,

      Was it a war? And no priest nor Prod religious minister has moral authority on anything, given their complete lack of commonsense.

      Delete
  8. @ Peter, AM

    Re Trigg's book. I thought it was a decent read. Too short, and not as dense and expansive as Bandit Country, but most of the protagonists in Tyrone are dead.

    I still think there's a lengthy, intensive study of Tyrone during the Troubles to be done, but Death in the Fields wasn't it.

    To quote Peter, I don't think it has "the real story" but has quite a few stories of interest. It felt like it was maybe done in a hurry, or some sources may have pulled out at the last minute. But a decent enough read.

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  9. @ Steve R

    I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that's specifically republican propaganda. If anything, it's liberal/lefty analysis. And Fr Murray isn't exactly wrong.

    I've read a fair number of accounts of Provos saying Loughall and similar operations were war settings. of course others will complain. In Pop Goes NI, Billy Wright complains to Harold McCusker MP about the behaviour of the RUC, and he gave an interview expressing bitterness about the plastic bullet killing of a loyalist named (iirc) Keith White.

    Some loyalists were outraged at the killing of Brian Robinson - I'd describe his killing as "as close to murder as its possible to be" to borrow a phrase from Clive Fairweather.

    I would guess that Fr Murray, like Fr Faul, was keenly aware of the propaganda value of Irish martyrs, and wished for the British security forces to act within the law. Murray and Faul had the moral authority to ask for this, as they weren't shooting and bombing anyone.

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  10. @ Steve R

    "Was it a war?"

    Well, the IRA declared war on the British army and RUC, and similar language was used against them. But according to UKG and Eire, individual IRA men were British subjects belonging to a criminal organisation and were afforded the same rights, privileges, and citizenship of all other residents of the United Kingdom. So, bluntly, unless they were shot in a very specific set of circumstances, set out by UKG, then it's possible a crime took place.

    Of course, as Stiff Little Fingers sang "Irish bodies don't count, life's cheaper over there."

    Of course, Shinners will have made political capital out of "shoot to kill" but they were one voice of many from nationalist Ireland and liberal Britain. Even Loughall, a "clean" ambush if ever there was one, resulted in man being killed by the security forces and his brother seriously injured.

    The actions of one part of society should not excuse the criminal activity of another part of society. Dostoyevsky said that a society should be judged by how it treats its prisoners. Napoleon was asked who he was going to get to guard the "hard cases" in his prison colonies and replied "harder cases."

    I prefer Dostoyevsky's vision. Answering violence with yet more violence and having it sponsored by the state does not lead to anywhere nice.

    All that being said, I'd be lying if I said I cared one iota for Brian Robinson being killed. But that's my individualistic disdain for the man and what he did, and society should be protected from my prejudices.

    ReplyDelete