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I just found in my attic part of a letter I wrote in 1984. I do not know what paper it was addressed to or if it was published. |
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You may find it interesting.
“In his address to the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis the Taoiseach asserted that the Unionist people have ‘been the victim of a campaign of murder, verging on genocide’.
Professor John A Murphy , as much an opponent of the IRA as Dr. FitzGerald, has shown in a review in the Sunday Press that more Catholics have been killed in the Northern conflict than Protestants. As Catholics are in a minority in that part of Ireland, if I am to take Dr Fitzgerald’s words seriously, the Catholics have suffered a campaign of genocide. If one excludes from the fatalities persons, Catholics, Protestants or whatever, who habitually carry firearms, the proportion of Catholic dead increases still further, and the killers in these cases were overwhelmingly Unionists – illegal (UVF) legal (UDA) or Official (British Regular Army, Ulster Defence Regiment, or RUC.
Dr Fitzgerald’s role is and has been has been to supplement the propaganda of British and Unionist apologists for the anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist campaign of murder.
Three years ago I took the London Times to the Press Council for attributing all killings in the North of Ireland to the IRA and describing all victims as Protestants. After a tedious exchange of letters and the lapse of nine months the Council censured THETIMES.
The Daily Express and its stablemate The Daily Star, plus The Daily Mail subsequently repeated the untruth on the one morning in a co-ordinated attack on Ken Livingstone, leader of the Greater London Council. An elderly Irishman living in Birmingham took the Express and Star to the Press Council, which took a further nine months to uphold his complaint.
I took THE DAILY MAIL to the Press Council because the story had gone out under the name of Sir Humphrey Atkins, Her Majesty’s Secretary for Northern Ireland.
The Press Council did nor censure the paper, The paper printed a buried paragraph admitting a “mistake ” with no mention of Sir Humphrey.
Dr Fitzgerald is given from time to time to writing articles for British papers. I challenge him to repeat the statement that Unionists have been subjected to a murder campaign verging on genocide in a London newspaper, so that his story is subject to Press Council adjudication.
Donal Kennedy
London.
THE STORY SINCE
THE PRESS COUNCIL WAS RECOGNISED AS A TOOTHLESS TRUTHLESS BODY
.So it was renamed THE PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION
HUMPHREY ATKINS was raised to the Peerage, as Baron Colnbrook and was made a MEMBER OF THE PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION
The rules of the Commission (since long abolished0 were more stringent than those of the Press Council.
While the Commission lasted, an ordinary reader of a newspaper would have no locus standi if he/she wanted to complain about a lie told about the IRA. Only a member of that well-meaning organisation would be eligible to make a complaint. Which might be a risky business. Here I am not joking. A Catch 22 or 303 or 45 or 9mm scenario!
MY BLOG “Sir Christopher Meyer ‘Suave Red-Sock Wearing British Ambassador ‘ (12 August 2022) recalled that Meyer “on retiring from the Diplomatic Service became Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.Meyer, instructed by Tony Blair’s Office to “get up the arse of the White House and stay there” following 9/11 will surely have been about as sweet smelling as Humphrey Atkins and a reliable keeper of Official Secrets and Lies.
And the urbane and liberal Garrett Fitzgerald a safe pair of hands for those British treasures.
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