• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
McGuinness was a convicted terrorist, and a man deeply involved in vile crimes:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGuinness#Provisional_IRA_activity

maximus otter

The Chief Constable talks about how he worked with McGuinness, things move on. How McGuinnes went through his various phases has to be viewed through the lens of a changing NI. He was born in a NI where UK citzens were denied Civil Rights taken for granted for granted in other parts of the UK. It would even be worth watching Belfast, a film by about Belfast in 1969/70, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Police, Army, Loyalist Terrorists also murdered people, read back through this thread.

My cousin was murdered by an MI5 agent in the IRA. I came close to being killed by an IRA bomb, fortunately only the detonator went off.

We get nowhere if we only demonise one side in the past conflict. Sinn Féin members now serve as Ministers of he Crown and support the PSNI.
 
The film 1971 is worth a look if you want a bit of how it was for people of all stripes on the ground. Take a look at The Wind That Shakes The Barley while you’re about it.
 

Bloody Sunday victims remembered on 50th anniversary​

By Mike McBride & David Wilson
BBC News NI

Published 8 hours ago


Relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday have been remembering their loved ones on the 50th anniversary.
Thirteen people were shot dead when soldiers opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Derry on 30 January 1972.
Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin laid a wreath at a memorial ceremony in Londonderry and said he supported the families' campaign for justice.
...
Presbyterian minister Dr David Latimer told the crowd the Bloody Sunday families have "tirelessly, across the decades, toiled to clear their loved ones' names".
He said their fight for justice has been inspirational across the world.
Archbishop Eamon Martin said the "horror inflicted on Derry" on Bloody Sunday has "thankfully been exposed and challenged".
The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland was addressing a service in Derry's Saint Eugene's Cathedral.
"Very painfully the Bloody Sunday families were denied for too long the truth about what happened to their loved ones, and sadly they are not alone," he said.
A separate march organised by the Bloody Sunday March Committee, from Creggan to Free Derry Corner, also took place on Sunday.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-60130409

Anybody catch Taylor's retrospective?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00141l1
 
More on collusion

At least two of the UFF killers involved in the Sean Graham’s Bookies Shop Massacre were RUC Special Branch agents, the Sunday World has been told.

The lead gunman – who used an AK47-style assault rifle to mow down innocent punters placing their bets – has never even been questioned by police about his role in the slaughter.

On February 5, 1992, five Catholics were killed and another seven seriously wounded, when two loyalist gunmen entered Sean Graham’s bookmakers on Belfast’s Ormeau Road and opened fire.

And this Tuesday – three days after the 30th anniversary of the horror atrocity – Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson will deliver her report into what happened.

https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/i...-were-ruc-special-branch-agents-41318999.html
 
Ombudsman's report reveals details of collusion.

A gun used in a 1992 massacre at a Belfast bookmakers, in which five people were murdered, was handed to a known loyalist terrorist by police, a report by Northern Ireland’s Police Ombudsman has found.

Marie Anderson’s investigation lays bare a litany of “collusive behaviours” between police and the loyalist paramilitaries as they escalated their murderous campaign against Catholics during the 1990s.

She said police were guilty of “significant” investigative and intelligence failures in relation to 11 loyalist murders and several attempted murders by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), the report states. These included the attack on Sean Graham Bookmakers on the Ormeau Road on February 5th, 1992.

Ms Anderson’s inquiry reveals that “deactivated” and “live” weapons were handed over to loyalist paramilitaries by police at the time, despite officers knowing that the terrorists had the ability to reactivate them.

A Browning pistol, used in the Sean Graham killings, was originally stolen from the Ulster Defence Regiment — an infantry of the British army — along with other weapons and “made available” to police by an informant, who was a “quartermaster” in the UDA/UFF.

The gun was deactivated but returned to the quartermaster along with other weapons, which were not deactivated, the report says.

The Browning was then reactivated by the loyalist paramilitaries and later used in the attack on the bookmakers. It was also used to murder Aidan Wallace in the Devenish Arms Inn in north Belfast in December 1991. ...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/cri...aham-massacre-to-loyalist-terrorist-1.4796117
 
Now another side of collusion: Stakeknife's secrets and those of his handlers.

The UK’s Security Service, MI5, has been forced to disclose top secret files to an investigation into historical operations in Northern Ireland for the first time, it has emerged.

The revelations by the British chief of an investigation into an alleged spy at the heart of the IRA come as an influential US congressman denounced British government plans for an amnesty for those involved in crimes during the Troubles as a “cover-up”.

Jon Boutcher, former chief constable of Bedfordshire police, has spent five years examining the involvement of a state agent codenamed Stakeknife in IRA kidnappings, torture and murder. He told Congress his Operation Kenova investigation had now extended to 250 murders.

He also told Congress he had made successful legal challenges to MI5 and was getting fresh information on crimes that had never been seen by previous police heads, including three official government inquiries led by the former Met commissioner John Stevens.

“We’ve recovered records that other investigations, previously commissioned, were not provided access to. We have access into MI5, into the military and into the PSNI, direct access. It’s something I insisted upon, having spoken to a lot of those who previously led legacy investigations,” he said.

“It’s realistic to suggest that some of the access that wasn’t provided years ago was because of the proximity of those investigations to the conflict. There [were] a lot of people in those organisations leading those organisations who were affiliated to a side in the conflict and therefore they made it hard to get the material.” ...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...n-ireland-operation-kenova-us-hearing-amnesty
 
Another indictment of UDR Collusion.
.
.

The UDR: A potent weapon in Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in Northern Ireland​

Declassified files reveal the stunning level of collusion between the regiment and loyalists


... For nationalists, an encounter with the UDR at one of its roadside checkpoints was frequently hostile, often brutal and sometimes fatal. Many recall approaching the red torchlight swung by a soldier in the road and hoping it was the regular army ordering them to halt.

In one notorious incident, the Miami Showband stopped their tour van at what they thought was a British army checkpoint. Instead, it was a trap set by members of the Glenanne gang, serving (but off-duty) UDR soldiers who were simultaneously members of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Three of the band members were murdered that evening and two were seriously wounded. The killers were UDR by day, UVF by night.

Declassified British government and Ministry of Defence files disclose the stunning extent of collusion between the UDR and loyalist paramilitaries, the penetration of that regiment by loyalist paramilitaries, and the extent to which all of this was known about, tolerated and encouraged by the British government and military command.

The extent of weapons losses from UDR armouries, or from the homes of UDR personnel, amounted to a steady flow of military equipment straight into the hands of loyalist gangs

Official references to collusion between state forces and loyalist paramilitaries can be found in reports dating from as early as 1971. Reference to the theft of a rifle from the UDR on September 2nd, 1971, appears in a note about weapons losses forwarded, in 1972, to the office of a British under-secretary of state – that is, to ministerial level. Internal British army documents throughout the 1970s used the word collusion routinely and repeatedly.
.
The extent of weapons losses from UDR armouries, or from the homes of UDR personnel, amounted to a steady flow of modern military equipment from the British army straight into the hands of loyalist gangs.

A 1973 military intelligence document, titled Subversion in the UDR, found that 5 to 15 per cent of the UDR members had paramilitary links, with “widespread joint membership of the UDA” – referring to the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. In fact, in many areas UDR commanders considered dual membership normal. ...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...ain-s-dirty-war-in-northern-ireland-1.4846097
 
More shoddy if not actually dodgy police work.

The PSNI has made an undisclosed settlement to the family of a GAA official murdered by loyalists in 1997 and apologised over inadequacies in the original investigation.

Sean Brown, 61, was abducted in Bellaghy, County Londonderry and shot near Randalstown, County Antrim. He was locking the gates of GAA club Bellaghy Wolfe Tones when he was taken by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). No-one has ever been convicted of the murder. It is 25 years to the day since Mr Brown was killed.

A statement agreed between Mr Brown's family and the PSNI was read out in court, in which the victim was described as a "devoted family man and a pillar of the Bellaghy community".

It added that the PSNI "continues to engage fully in the ongoing inquest proceedings".

The resolution follows years of campaigning by the Brown family and a number of reports criticising the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) investigation into the killing. The RUC was the police force at the time of Mr Brown's murder. It was reformed and renamed as the PSNI in 2001.

In 2004, the office of Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan said an investigation by the RUC into Mr Brown's murder was "incomplete and inadequate". It said the investigation had not been "efficiently and property carried out" and that "no earnest effort was made to identify those who had carried out the murder".

Mr Brown's murder was then re-examined by the now defunct Historical Enquiries Team, which was also critical of the RUC investigation.
However, the coroner's inquest into the killing has been consistently delayed due to the issue of disclosure of documents.

In 2015, it emerged during the inquest that relevant classified material was lost and redactions, including the blanking out of names, on 34 folders of non-sensitive material had not been completed by the PSNI.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-61420587
 
McGuinness was a convicted terrorist, and a man deeply involved in vile crimes:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGuinness#Provisional_IRA_activity

maximus otter

The Chief Constable talks about how he worked with McGuinness, things move on. How McGuinnes went through his various phases has to be viewed through the lens of a changing NI. He was born in a NI where UK citzens were denied Civil Rights taken for granted for granted in other parts of the UK. It would even be worth watching Belfast, a film by about Belfast in 1969/70, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Police, Army, Loyalist Terrorists also murdered people, read back through this thread.

My cousin was murdered by an MI5 agent in the IRA. I came close to being killed by an IRA bomb, fortunately only the detonator went off.

We get nowhere if we only demonise one side in the past conflict. Sinn Féin members now serve as Ministers of he Crown and support the PSNI.

More on collusion

At least two of the UFF killers involved in the Sean Graham’s Bookies Shop Massacre were RUC Special Branch agents, the Sunday World has been told.

The lead gunman – who used an AK47-style assault rifle to mow down innocent punters placing their bets – has never even been questioned by police about his role in the slaughter.

On February 5, 1992, five Catholics were killed and another seven seriously wounded, when two loyalist gunmen entered Sean Graham’s bookmakers on Belfast’s Ormeau Road and opened fire.

And this Tuesday – three days after the 30th anniversary of the horror atrocity – Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson will deliver her report into what happened.

https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/i...-were-ruc-special-branch-agents-41318999.html

A man that I once knew had a close relation killed in that incident, he was only going in to place a few bets. The British running of agents involved in mass murder is as disturbing as it is sickening.
 
A man that I once knew had a close relation killed in that incident, he was only going in to place a few bets. The British running of agents involved in mass murder is as disturbing as it is sickening.

A cousin of mine was murdered by the SB/MI5 agent Sean O’Callaghan, he diverted attention away from himself by framing my cousin. A similar tactic was used to protect SB agent Freddie Scappaticci (Stakeknife), an SB agent in the UVF diverted them away from Stakeknife to kill an innocent man.
 
On the appointment of Shailesh Vara as Secretary of State for NI, I'd just like to say that it's good to see an Indian among all of those cowboys. He may be glad of his black belt in Tae Kwon Do though.
 
Last edited:
I realise there is a lot of past misery here . But my two lovely friends - Karen and Naomi - are from either side of the old divide. They have left it n the past, and when I asked they reckon the younger generation no longer care about all this. I can't comment myself, I come from an entirely different tradition, but I'd say trust your young, They have grown up.

Incidentally Georgie Best, all those years ago, would have nothing to do with the sectarian dispute either. I do have some understanding of the bitter history, and I understand those who still bear grudges. What can I say? Nothing will diminish that past damage. it's a matter of history. But neither will anything done today repair it, just like the loss of a loved one we have to try and move on.
 
Justice, I reckon, the soldier was criminally negligent. I don't think he was part of any conspiracy to murder Aidan McAnespie though. If Securocrats wanted to kill him they wouldn't have entrusted the job to an 18 year old on his first day of checkpoint duties.; also, he was killed by a ricochet.

Former soldier David Holden has been found guilty of the manslaughter of Aidan McAnespie in Tyrone 34 years ago.

The 53-year-old is the first veteran to be convicted of a historical offence in Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Mr McAnespie was killed by a shot which ricocheted off the road and struck him in the back. He was walking through a border crossing on his way to a Gaelic football match

The judge found that Holden had pointed a machine gun at Mr McAnespie and pulled the trigger, while assuming the gun was not cocked. The judge said: "That assumption should not have been made."

He also told the court that Holden had given a "deliberately false account" of what happened. The judge dismissed the defendant's claim that his hands had been wet from cleaning duties.

The court heard Mr McAnespie was unarmed.

A further hearing to determine the sentence will be held in the new year.

Holden, who was serving in the Grenadier Guards and was aged 18 at the time, was on his first day of checkpoint duties. Mr McAnespie was known to security forces as a "person of interest" - an IRA suspect.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-63754980
 
Justice, I reckon, the soldier was criminally negligent. I don't think he was part of any conspiracy to murder Aidan McAnespie though. If Securocrats wanted to kill him they wouldn't have entrusted the job to an 18 year old on his first day of checkpoint duties.; also, he was killed by a ricochet.

Former soldier David Holden has been found guilty of the manslaughter of Aidan McAnespie in Tyrone 34 years ago.

The 53-year-old is the first veteran to be convicted of a historical offence in Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Mr McAnespie was killed by a shot which ricocheted off the road and struck him in the back. He was walking through a border crossing on his way to a Gaelic football match

The judge found that Holden had pointed a machine gun at Mr McAnespie and pulled the trigger, while assuming the gun was not cocked. The judge said: "That assumption should not have been made."

He also told the court that Holden had given a "deliberately false account" of what happened. The judge dismissed the defendant's claim that his hands had been wet from cleaning duties.

The court heard Mr McAnespie was unarmed.

A further hearing to determine the sentence will be held in the new year.

Holden, who was serving in the Grenadier Guards and was aged 18 at the time, was on his first day of checkpoint duties. Mr McAnespie was known to security forces as a "person of interest" - an IRA suspect.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-63754980

It's good to see this guy finally convicted. Poor McAnespie had no chance.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just watched the Banshees of Innisherin. Class. Sure isn't it a parable of all we've been talkin' about here these many many many years. So it is.
 
An interesting story.

A US trucker who spied on a dissident Irish republican group says the security service MI5 did not want its leader arrested.

David Rupert infiltrated the Real IRA, the group behind the 1998 Omagh bomb atrocity, for the FBI and MI5. His undercover evidence was used in 2003 to prosecute Michael McKevitt, the leader of the Real IRA, for directing terrorism.

told BBC Spotlight MI5 wanted to keep gathering intelligence. The programme put this to MI5 but they did not respond.

The recent shooting of a top police officer in Northern Ireland shows the threat from dissident republicans has not gone away. Dissident republicans have not signed up to the peace process and remain committed to using violence to try to bring about a united Ireland. ...

Watch Spotlight - I Spy on the iPlayer or on BBC One Northern Ireland on Tuesday 21 March at 22.40

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65013703
 
Waterboarding wasn't originated by the CIA to combat Jihadists.

The family of a Belfast man has been awarded £350,000 in damages after he was tortured into admitting to killing a British soldier in 1972.

Liam Holden was subjected to waterboarding techniques while in military custody and his treatment led to a confession, the High Court ruled.
His conviction for murdering Private Frank Bell was quashed a decade ago.

The last man in the UK sentenced to hang, Mr Holden died last September, aged 68.

He always maintained he was hooded, waterboarded and had a gun pointed at his head before wrongly admitting to shooting Private Bell.

His death penalty was reduced to life in prison before a 40-year fight to clear his name resulted in his murder conviction being quashed in 2012.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65063511
 
MI5 spy disobeyed Brit orders to move peace forward after Warrington.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65038587
Peter Taylor has tracked down Robert, who came into one of Brendy Duddy’s secret meetings in 1993 to tell McGuinness and G Kelly that the goal of the Crown was the unity of Ireland.

Program on BBC2 now. Only in UK & RoI t

Think that "historical train" has now become a runaway.
 
Freddie Scappaticci, the man suspected of being Stakeknife, the Army's top agent within the IRA, has died.

Mr Scappaticci, who was in his 70s, always denied he was Stakeknife.

He left Northern Ireland in 2003 after media organisations alleged he had been working for the Army while head of the IRA's internal security unit.

Jon Boutcher, who is heading an investigation into Stakeknife's activities, said Mr Scappaticci died last week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65244928
 
More collusion.

The family of a nationalist politician murdered in 1974 were failed by the police as a result of "a wholly inadequate investigation", the Police Ombudsman has found.

Patsy Kelly was shot dead after being abducted on his way home from work at a pub in Trillick, County Tyrone in 1974.

The Police Ombudsman found that police had failed to verify the alibis of UDR soldiers suspected of involvement. She also said there was evidence of collusive behaviour. Marie Anderson said the RUC special branch had withheld intelligence from the original murder investigation.

She also said that there had been a failure to pursue forensic evidence, including a footprint at the scene of Mr Kelly's abduction which was from boots "associated with a type worn by members of the security forces".

Mr Kelly's son Paddy Kelly said that the family felt "vindicated" but this was just one more step in the process of finding the truth. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65389703
 
More on Freddie Scappaticci:

The man suspected of being one of the British Army's top agents within the IRA admitted in 1990 that he had shot dead a suspected informer.

The detail has been uncovered in a court document during a BBC Spotlight investigation into his activities.
Freddie Scappaticci, who died in April, had always denied that he was the agent given the codename Stakeknife.

Stakeknife is thought to have been linked to more than 20 murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
By 1990 Freddie Scappaticci had become the IRA's chief spy catcher within its internal security unit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65748734
 
A bit late but welcome nevertheless.

An apology from the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been issued to the so-called "Hooded Men" over their treatment under interrogation in 1971.

The 14 men were arrested during internment without trial and questioned by the police and the Army. Two years ago the UK Supreme Court ruled that the techniques they were subjected to would be characterised as torture by today's standards. They have long-campaigned for an apology.

It comes a day after the death of one of the men, Joe Clarke, at the age of 71. Their case has been the subject of multiple legal actions in the UK and Europe for decades.

During interrogation at Ballykelly Army base, they were hooded, beaten, deprived of sleep, food and water and forced to stand in the stress position.

On Tuesday morning, the surviving members of the group received an apology from the PSNI at a meeting in Belfast.

During the meeting it was disclosed that an apology had been hand delivered to Mr Clarke before his death on Thursday
.
Solicitor Darragh Mackin said the apology had come after "weeks of intense negotiation in which drew to a close in the days before Mr Joe Clarke tragically passed away". ...

He also paid tribute to high ranking PSNI officers, particularly ACC Todd and head of Legacy Branch, Mr Ian Saunders who "despite the sensitivities engaged in an extensive negotiation, and against all odds, ensured the delivery of an apology before the passing of Mr Clarke".

"The time is now for the government and Ministry Of Defence (MoD) to apologise for their part in these torture techniques. Today proves, nobody is above the law," he added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65892145
 
Another cover up revealed.

An inquest has found a soldier shot dead an "entirely innocent" teenager in Belfast in 1975, and that his patrol concocted a story of being fired on to cover it up.

Leo Norney, 17, was "in the wrong place and the wrong time," the coroner added. The soldier involved, Lance Corporal John Ross MacKay, died in 2015. The inquest heard it had been his intention "to waste someone" on the night the shooting, in the Turf Lodge area of the city.

Coroner Patrick McGurgan described the killing as a "deliberate act" and said other soldiers gave false accounts of what had happened out of fear of LCpl MacKay.

Mc McGurgan also criticised the Ministry of Defence in his findings, adding that the soldier had posed a risk to the public. He said LCpl MacKay had been convicted of a violent offence and served time in prison prior to Mr Norney's killing.

Counsel for the Norney family, Fiona Doherty KC, described the findings as "devastating". ...

At a previous hearing, a soldier who was at the scene when Mr Norney was killed, said LCpl MacKay wanted to "waste someone" after an attack on the soldiers' west Belfast base.

The witness, known as M2, said he had falsified his previous statements and wanted Mr Norney's family to know the truth.

During a statement, M2 described being at a security fence in Turf Lodge and glanced over to LCpl MacKay, who had fired his rifle towards an area known as Shepard's Path. M2 said he did not recall hearing or seeing any other gunshots before LCpl MacKay fired.

He then heard a person groaning from the direction of Shepard's Path and a soldier, believed to be LCpl MacKay, pointed his rifle at the ground and fired one round, the court heard.

M2 told the hearing he did not see a body from his position but recalled hearing LCpl MacKay kicking an unseen object on the ground.

When asked by the coroner why he gave a false narrative of events, M2 said he was scared of LCpl MacKay, who was a "violent and unpredictable person".

"I had just seen what I had seen and I wasn't going to put myself in a position of going out on patrol with someone who had did that," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66066527
 
More evidence of collusion as Attorney General orders new inquests.

New inquests are to be held into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) murders of five Catholic men in Mid-Ulster more than 30 years ago.

The move was ordered by Attorney General Dame Brenda King, who took account of "deficiencies" in the original investigations and inquests. Sean Anderson, Thomas Armstrong, Dwayne O'Donnell, Thomas Casey and Phelim McNally died in four separate attacks. Their families suspect soldiers were involved in the killings.

In a letter to their solicitor, the attorney general's office stated there was new information not considered at the first inquests. That included intelligence "as to whether state agents/bodies played a role in the deaths" and "wider evidence suggestive of collusion".

Gavin Booth, the solicitor acting for the men's families, said the cases were linked "through suspects, geography and ballistics".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66424040
 
Supergrass Haggarty was a paid Special Branch informant for 13 years.

Former UVF commander turned supergrass Gary Haggarty said the group "targeted two innocent Catholic workmen" and knew they were not republicans.

Eamon Fox, a 41-year-old father of six, and 24-year-old father of one Gary Convie were shot dead as they ate their lunch in north Belfast in May 1994.

James Stewart Smyth, 57, is accused of their murders.

Haggarty took the stand on Tuesday morning for a second day of questioning in a packed court.

He has been in witness protection in England since being released from prison in 2018 after serving a reduced sentence for terrorism offences.
The offences included five murders, among them the two workmen that Mr Smyth is on trial for.

Haggarty was questioned by a defence barrister who asked: "When did the UVF discover your targets weren't republicans?"

He replied: "I don't think Tiger's Bay UVF's military commander and director of operations thought they were anything other than innocent Catholics. I think it was a front to say they were republicans," Haggarty said. "They were two innocent Catholic workmen. I think the leadership of the UVF knew that at that time."

Haggarty was a paid Special Branch informant for 13 years.

He told the court he informed his handlers that "something was going to happen" that day. He said: "I took the day off work, had to test fire a weapon.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-67206430
 
Not forgetting that while the IRA had its roots in a political struggle, many parts of it were criminal gangs operating under the 'flag' of the IRA. This is why any peace process was hard-won - for many members, it was personally highly lucrative.
 
Back
Top