Last weekend the local news was filled with the images around the deeply unacceptable interference of a PSNI patrol at a commemoration by the families of those who had lost loved ones in the mass murder attack by the UDA on Graham’s bookies in February 1992.
Five people were killed and seven were injured. Each year the relatives and friends and the local community hold a remembrance ceremony at the site of the attack. This year, in keeping with Covid restrictions, only relatives attended.
They wore masks and were socially distanced.
Video footage of the event showed disturbing evidence of a heavy-handed PSNI intervention.
This resulted in relatives being left deeply distressed and one man Mark Sykes – who was shot seven times in the original 1992 attack – being manhandled by the PSNI, handcuffed and arrested. The video footage and the actions of the PSNI have caused widespread and justifiable anger.
It is in marked contrast to the video imagery from several days earlier of PSNI officers failing to intervene when a large group of mask loyalists roamed the Newtownards Road.
Those of you who are familiar with the sad Ormeau Road massacre story will know that the Police Ombudsman’s report into the original mass killing has been delayed. This has been in part because information relating to the 1992 that was discovered on PSNI computers was never disclosed to the Police Ombudsman’s investigation. This revelation has added to doubts about the PSNI’s role in this investigation.
Three years ago solicitor Niall Murphy, who represents the relatives, said that they were taking legal action against the PSNI and the Ministry of Defence.
The families believe, and I quote: “that both parties were complicit in the atrocity and specifically cite that both agencies facilitated the importation of the weapons used by means of supervising an arms importation from South Africa.”
The families also allege collusion. They believe that state agencies were involved in planning the attack with the UDA death squad responsible. It is also important to remember that in the three years prior to receiving the weapons shipment from South Africa unionist death squads killed 34 people. In the years after the shipment they killed 224 and wounded countless scores more.
That’s the background to last weekend’s events. The PSNI have done huge damage to the still developing relationship between the nationalist and republican people of the North. This was a standard of policing straight out of the RUC rule book. It is not acceptable.
I commend Michelle O’Neill who met with the Chief Constable on Monday. It is the duty of political leaders to face the PSNI with their responsibilities, and the leadership of the PSNI in particular. Common sense, treating people decently is all part of community policing. I’m afraid we haven’t got that yet.
REGULAR readers will know that I have frequently raised my concern about the future development of the Moore Street Battlefield site in Dublin. This area stretches from the GPO, through Henry Street, Moore Street, Parnell Street, the Rotunda and O’Connell Street and the laneways and streets in between. This is where most of the signatories of the 1916 Rising fought and eventually held the last meeting of the Provisional Government.
For over a decade there has been a different kind of battle taking place as successive developers, with the support or acquiescence of government, have sought to demolish most of the historic buildings in this area to make way for a shopping mall.
The current developer is due to submit a planning application. From what we know of it the plan will not meet the requirements of the Dublin City Development Plan, the report of the Lord Mayor's Forum on Moore Street, or the report of the Minister's Moore Street Advisory Group 'Securing History'.
Several weeks ago the 1916 relatives announced that they have been working on an alternative plan that would see the area developed as a cultural and historic quarter. They deserve our fullest support.
Easter is only weeks away and in the unusual circumstances created by Covid republicans are again this year planning for an online Easter commemoration. The uncertainty around the future of Moore Street and the nearness of Easter prompted me at the weekend to once again pick up a copy of Last Words, a remarkable book by Piaras F. Mac Lochlainn. It contains the last words of the 1916 leaders as they awaited execution. It records the events of that period in their words and provides accounts of relatives and priests who visited the leaders in the days after the Rising ended and as they faced court martial.
In a letter to his mother dated 1 May 1916 Pádraig Pearse described the events around the evacuation of the burning “My dear Mother,
You will, I know, have been longing to hear from me. I do not know how much you have heard since the last note I sent you from the GPO. On Friday evening the Post Office was set on fire and we had to abandon it. We dashed into Moore Street and remained in the houses in Moore Street on Saturday evening. We then found that we were surrounded by troops and that we have practically no food. We decided in order to prevent further slaughter of the civilian population and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers, to ask the General Commanding the British Forces to discuss terms. He replied that he would receive me only if I surrendered uncondition-ally and this I did... All this I did in accordance with the decision of our Provisional government who were with us in Moore St...”
Dr James Ryan, who was the Medical Officer attached to the GPO garrison, recalls in his contribution how Tom Clarke, who had spent more than 15 years in prisons in England, many in solitary confinement, told him of his experience evacuating the GPO. Mac Lochlainn records: “He (Clarke) was with them as they tunnelled their way through the wall of the houses in Moore Street, as they carried the wounded Connolly in a sheet. He was with them when, some hours later, temporary headquarters were set up in No.16 (Moore Street) and he was, of course, one of ‘the members of the Provisional Government present at Headquarters’ who, at Connolly’s bedside, decided some time before noon on Saturday 29 April to negotiate terms and a couple of hours afterwards to surrender unconditionally...”Éamonn Dore, another member of the garrison, recalled how a British Army officer – Captain, Percival Lea-Wilson – used a rifle butt to stop one of the prisoners relieving himself. Dore said: “The night at the Rotunda was a bit of a nightmare...
About 5 on the morning of Sunday, after the officer had struck Henderson, he took Tom Clarke, Seán MacDiarmada and Ned Daly (all subsequently executed) into the street near the Rotunda Picture House (now the Ambassador) and stripped them down to their boots to search them... Tom Clarke had been wounded at the elbow joint and his arm was in a sling so that he could not get his coat off quickly. The officer pulled the arms straight, opening the wound, and tearing off his coat.”
Percival Lea-Wilson, who abused the frail Tom Clarke at the Rotunda, later became an RIC District Inspector in Gorey, Co Wexford. On June 15, 1920, he was shot dead by two IRA Volunteers. It is claimed Michael Collins, who witnessed Lea-Wilson’s treatment of Tom Clarke, ordered the attack.
Brexit culprits
I HAVE been watching the machinations of the DUP over the Article 16 carry-on. Philip McGuigan MLA was absolutely right when he criticised and raised questions about the DUP’s intervention around alleged threats to workers at Larne Harbour.
Obviously threats of any kind are wrong and are to be condemned and workers have to be allowed to get on with their work without fear or threat of any kind, but the behaviour of the DUP reeks of short-term opportunism. News media reports state that the claims of threats originated with the DUP, that no trade union representatives raised any concerns and the PSNI had no evidence of threats. For me it’s very simple. Brexit is a child of the DUP.
The DUP were hell-bound for Brexit. They disregarded all advice and suggestions from all quarters about the likely consequences. Now they complain. Very much like someone jumpinginto a lake and then complaining about being wet. I wouldnt mind the DUP jumping into a lake on their own. But they try to drag others in also.The DUP havestirred up people’s fears in the past. Many, many, many times. The targets of their outrage have suffered. So too have the lumpen proletariat and the deprived and disadvantaged loyalist and unionist working class.
So let’s be clear. Who has the responsibility for the current Brexit difficulties? The DUP. That’s who! Lets keep reminding them and the Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist people of this indisputable fact.
