Clifford McKeown, who shot dead Catholic taxi-driver Michael McGoldrick during the Drumcree crisis of 1996, died on Tuesday. A member of the UVF, he had served a long prison sentence for the murder of Michael McGoldrick whom he killed during the Drumcree dispute. Mr McGoldrick had graduated not long before with a degree from Queen’s University. His murder was horrifying and remains so, but it shouldn’t have been surprising. I feel safe in saying that when McKeown pulled the trigger five times and left his victim dead, he believed he was doing something good.
Because that’s how many loyalist gangs operated back then. Their strategy was simple terrorism: we will kill as many Catholics as we can, and this will mean the Catholic community will be cowed to such an extent, they’ll disown the IRA. “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea” Mao Zedong said. The actions of Clifford McKeown and other loyalist killers didn’t work out as Mao predicted they would. The IRA continued to swim in the sea of its community.
So was it as a UVF man who believed he’d help strike terror into the Catholic community that McKeown acted? Maybe. But I suspect another motive, at least in part.
When President Mary McAleese was involved in the sixtieth anniversary of Auschwitz, she drew a comparison with our local Troubles.
“They gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews in the same way that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics”.
The people she was referring to were Protestant/Unionists in NEI. She was wrong, if she was claiming that this was what the majority of Protestants did. She was right if she was claiming that this was what a considerable number of Protestants/Unionists/Loyalists did.
When Clifford McKeown fired five bullets into Michael McGoldrick, he was acting out, at least in part, the monstrous prejudice that he had been raised with.
Very good Jude
Thank you, James…
Was it also True, that Michael McGoldrick, was murdered as a Birthday present for Billy Wright.
Sacrificed if you like.
Spot on Jude, as usual
Well stated,Jude. Such clarity is essential to better community/ government operations .The undertone of family exposure,education and community participation free of prejudice are foundation to growth.
What kind of person killed (insert)…
Jude, You are scraping the barrel with your sanctimonious commentary.
We are all products of our environment, ‘accidents of birth’ as Hume said..
We justified all our ‘killings’ by the slogan inscribed on a gable wall, ‘No crime a man commits on behalf of his freedom can be as great as the crimes committed by those who deny his freedom’
I assumed that came from one of our gallant freedom fighters.
Only later did I learn that the quote came from the fictional book, Trinity, by Leon Uris.
What we thought was ‘justified’ in our youth no longer seems acceptable as we learn from experience that brainwashing was as prevalent in our own community as it was in the Unionist community.
Was I taught to hate?
No.
It just came naturally.
Were they taught to hate?
Yes.
Or, So I thought.
But, what if I was wrong and ‘they’ felt they had no alternative, and had as much justification for their killings as I thought we had?
Ah,, I never considered that when ‘the blood was up’ and the adrenaline was flowing.
And now we know, there was never a ‘war.’
It was just ‘The Troubles.’
We shot. We bombed, That was ok.Gallant!
They were bad bastards for shooting us. Cowards!
The long night of the soul and distance from that time has taught me two lessons; one; hate is a disease, as intoxicating as alcohol or drugs, and two; never believe any scribblings from a blogger, journalist, newspaper, politician, or something written on a gable wall!