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Ormeau Road collusion exposed
Collusion between
British intelligence, the RUC, UDR, British Army and Loyalist paramilitary
organisations is a fact of life here. This is indisputable. A succession of
reports have confirmed the extent to which loyalist death squads operated under
the patronage of the British state.
This week the Police Ombudsman produced another report. It examines 11 killings in the South Belfast
area, five of which occurred on Wednesday 5 February 1992. That morning two UDA
killers walked into Graham’s bookies on the Ormeau Road and opened fire. They
killed five people on the Ormeau Road and wounded nine others.
Claims of collusion between the
UDA and British security agencies were dismissed at that time by many in the
political establishment and most of the media. 30 years later and within days
of the anniversary of that atrocity, the families were handed a Police
Ombudsman’s report that confirmed collusion. It also confirmed that one of the
weapons involved was part of the consignment from the apartheid South African
regime brought into the North by British intelligence and its agents within the
UDA/UVF and Ulster Resistance.
Collusion worked hand in hand
with a British strategy which sought to demonise republicans and the wider
nationalist community. Every effort was made by the British and Irish governments and our
political opponents to marginalise and censor Sinn Féin. The five who were
killed in the Ormeau Road Bookies were the victims of this strategy. So too
where the three people killed in the Falls Road Sinn Féin office the day before.
Last Friday we held a short ceremony outside the office to remember
Paddy Loughran, Pat McBride and Michael O’Dwyer. They were shot dead when RUC officer Allan Moore walked into the office
claiming to be a journalist. Within moments he had killed Paddy and Pat who
worked in the building and Michael – a young man in the office with his two
year old son to discuss a constituency issue – and wounded two others. Allan
Moore went on to take his own life.
24 members of Sinn
Féin and family members were killed during the conflict. Many others were
wounded. Hundreds of nationalists were killed. Thankfully the war is now over. Though
some are continuing it by other means.
We can make no sense
of any of this except in the context of British government involvement in
Ireland and the malign influence and shameful methods it has used and continues
to use to maintain the union. The resignation of Paul Givan, the attitude of the
DUP and the behaviour of Boris Johnson and his government are all part of all
of this. The end of British rule in Ireland cannot come soon enough. The Good
Friday Agreement has an agreed process to do this, if that’s what the people
want.
I look forward to the
end of London rule here and to the liberation of the unionist and loyalist
people along with the rest of us. Then without the backing of English
politicians they will join everyone else to forge a new future based on
equality. Speed the day
The Proclamation of
the Republic addresses itself to ‘Irishmen and Irishwomen.’ This is recognition
that there must be equality between women and men in the new Ireland.
When the details of
the Treaty became public Dr Kathleen Lynn, who was a
member of the Irish Citizen Army and chief medical officer during the Rising,
recorded in her diary, ‘Peace terms, but what a peace! Not what Connolly, and
Malin and countless others died for”.
The Second Dáil voted
on 7 January 1922 by 64–57 to endorse the Treaty negotiated just weeks earlier.
One month later on the 5 February - 100 years ago last Saturday – almost
500 women gathered in the Mansion House for a convention of the Cumann na mBan.
It was the first of the national organisations to debate the Treaty. When the
vote was taken 419 members voted against the Treaty and 63 voted in favour. The
six women members of the Second Dáil all voted against the Treaty. They were
Countess Markievicz, Kathleeen Clarke, Margaret Pearse, Mary MacSwiney, Kate
O’Callaghan and Dr. Ada English.
Kate O’Callaghan’s husband Michael – a former Mayor of Limerick - had
been murdered by the Auxiliaries. In her address to the convention she said:
‘The women of An Dáil are women of character, and they will vote for principle,
not for expediency.’ Mary MacSwiney, whose brother Terence died on hunger
strike, warned that should the Treaty be accepted she would become the Free
State’s ‘first rebel.’
Countess Markievicz said: ‘I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible
rebel, because I am pledged to the one thing – a free and independent
Republic.’
Republican women took the lead in opposing the Treaty. Sinéad McCoole in
her book – No Ordinary Women – publishes the names of 552 women who were
imprisoned by the Provisional Government and then the Free State government in
Kilmainham Gaol, Mountjoy Jail and the North Dublin Union. The Free State
government banned the Cumann na mBan in January 1923.
In the decades that followed the Cumann na mBan continued to play a
crucial role in the struggle to end partition.
Growing
Older
I have a sore back. I hurt it decades ago playing handball against a
chap twenty years younger than me. It soon got better but every so often it
comes back to trouble me, especially if I neglect to stretch and bend in the
manner prescribed by the physio. It has been niggling at me for the last five
or six weeks.
‘It takes longer to heal as you get older’ your man told me.
He thinks he is an authority on everything. But in this case he is
right. So I wince my way gingerly through my daily routine. I noticed some time
ago that some of my close friends have morphed into old men. I can see it in
the way they walk. Their geriatric gait. The cautious way they traverse
slippery or wet surfaces. Or cross roads. Or journey up inclines. Like oul lads.
That’s the way my bad back has me.
Maybe that’s the way others see me. As an oul lad. That is
certainly your man’s view.
I find that a bit disconcerting. I can still climb the cemetery wall.
And clamber up Errigal if I take my time. Or the Hatchet Field. I can still póc
a sliotar as well as much younger hurlers. But I can’t run too fast for too
long. Or too far. I like a wee nap after my dinner. And I get stiff
sitting in the car on long journeys. Or sitting anywhere - now that I think of
it. And my back is really sore.
‘Three score and ten’ your man told me. ‘that’s what the good Lord gives
us. Three score and ten. You’re already three years over that. You haven’t much
time left’.
‘Don't talk stupid’ I rebuked him. ‘Once the good weather comes in and my
back gets better I’ll be as good as new!’
‘Your days are numbered’ he retorted. ‘You’ll never be as good as new
aris. You’re more recycled material than new ……..’
Only it would hurt me more than him I could have punched him. Especially
when he told me that I am in the last phase of my life. I’ve never thought of
it like that. I don't mind growing older. It’s natural. If you've the right
attitude growing older doesn't mean growing old. That’s my philosophy in any
case. That’s what I told your man.
‘I might be in the Departure Lounge’ I said to him ‘But my flight is
delayed’.
‘Such a yarn’ Your man said ‘you oul lads are all the same. Delusional.
The graveyard will never be full ‘til you’re in it’.
That’s how we left it. He really knows how to hurt me. It’s very
annoying. He should have more respect for his elders.
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