Danny Morrison on Freddie Scappaticci and how the north has transformed but unionism hasn’t changed
Danny Morrison has witnessed dramatic changes in his 72 years.
A teenager at the beginning of the conflict, he has lived to enjoy the fruits of the electoral seeds he and others sowed in the 1980s, with Sinn Féin now topping the polls in Westminster, Stormont and council elections.
But electoral success doesn’t automatically deliver political solutions.
“The objective is to improve people’s lives, to move resources from the rich towards the poor, but obviously they (the Sinn Féin-led Stormont executive) are constrained by being connected to Westminster and the British exchequer,” he says.
“But I have never viewed Stormont as a permanent institution. To me, this is an experiment and it’s an experiment that unionists continually undermine.”
He argues that rather than “quote unquote making Northern Ireland work, unionists do the exact opposite”.
He accuses unionist politicians of a failure to reciprocate gestures by republicans, such as Michelle O’Neill laying a wreath at the Belfast cenotaph or attending King Charles‘s coronation.
But despite intransigence, Morrison says he has seen northern society transform.
Continue @ Irish News.
The charlatan of Carrigart- hiding in plain sight
ReplyDeleteThat would be my view. What is your own take on what was going on there if you care to share it?
DeleteThere is no coincidence only the illusion of coincidence. From an intelligence perspective the Carrigart operation does not make any sense and the multiple happenstances that ensured that all those who were in Carrigart eventually walked free, some with hefty compensation can only lead an objective observer to one conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThe battle for supremacy in the intelligence world was being played out on the streets of West Belfast in 1990. The RUC Branch at that stage thought they had the IRA on the run, penetrated and compromised. British Military Intelligence was playing the longer game helped by agents and agents and agents of influence, they knew the war was “drawing to a close”.
The Branch Sacrificed a mid-level informer in Belfast in the hope of catching a “bigger fish” from the Army Council. The net they cast caught more than they had wanted including the “golden egg” and someone who by their own admission was intent on pursuing entirely political means from at least 81.
Heaven and earth were moved by the prosecution to ensure that this case collapsed, the withholding of evidence from the defence and the subsequent admission that evidence was withheld paints a picture of incompetence that the Brits just are not renowned for.
Scap, Maguire, Hodgies and the Martins were all busted flushes by this stage, the theatrics, the chance “witnesses” and all the “fluke” circumstances surrounding the collapse of the case benefitted only one person.
Muiris, you touch on an important point here. Morrison was central to the peace process as it was emerging then. Why we he snapped up? It's a crucial question that was not addressed in any of these interviews, nor the BBC podcast series on Scap.
DeleteThere is the story about the householder, alarmed by so many bleeps and buzzes in her home, quipped that she considered ringing her solicitor to ask for help: my house is full of informers but only one of them is tied up.
DeleteWhy was the ostensible press conference to be held in the house? Why not just untie the alleged tout and bring him to Connolly House? Nobody would risk arrest then.
There was more chance of Sandy going to Jupiter than to a press conference.
There is the very real possibility that different agencies were working at cross purposes and to separate agendas. Did the Branch, for example, know who MI5 were bringing to the scene?
I think the answer might lie in a conversation that took place the evening prior to the Scap outing in May 2003. While Scap was guilty as sin, he wasn't the subject of the conversation. The trail leads back to Carrigart and P O'Neill.
Hodgies was first unlucky and then lucky. He got jailed because of machinations he had no clue about. Then he got compensation - but most likely only because the intended beneficiary had to have cover for a payout. While not alone, he is one of the good guys in this sordid affair.
He was snapped up by accident in a Branch operation designed to make a high profile arrest. The Branch did not know that the most valuable person to Military Intelligence in that house was their ( the RUC) primary target. The Branch had the house and the M/O since the Fenton murder and they wanted Bangers. When the shit hit the fan, they jointly agreed on a damage limitation strategy. There is only one reason the Brits would have given up on the "golden egg" that was Scap and that is if they also owned the goose that laid them. Carrigart was an "op" that clearly did not go through the Joint Irish Section ( JIS).
ReplyDeleteWant to point out that there is no inference from me that Hodgies was on the wrong side of this. Definitely one of the good guys
ReplyDelete