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A: Cui bono?
B: I beg your pardon?
A: I said ‘Cui bono’ – it’s Latin. Loose translation: Who gains?
B: Oh right. I thought you had something stuck in your windpipe. Who gains what?
A: Who gains from this hullabaloo over the deaths of Gerard Davison and Kevin McGuigan?
B: I know who loses. The families that have been bereaved. Don’t hear much sympathy expressed for them.
A: That’s because there are political gains to be harvested.
B: Cui bono?
A: Too right.
B: So who would you say gains?
A: Well, the DUP for one. They can say they were right never to exchange a civil word with the Shinners, they knew all the time it was a cloak for ugly terrorism.
B: So the IRA was involved in those killings?
A: It’s not quite clear. The PSNI says they were.
B: That sounds clear.
A: But they also say they weren’t. That it was Action Against Drugs people, and that they’re separate from the IRA.
B: So what’s the truth?
A: Whatever benefits you most. If you are a unionist and there are elections early next year, you want to show your detestation of the Shinners. So their truth would be that it was the IRA killed Kevin McGuigan and that it was ordered from high in the command structure and that Sinn Féin are linked with the IRA so they’re not putting up with people like that in government.
B: I see. And are there any other versions of the truth?
A: Well there’s the PSNI’s version. It says that IRA people were involved in the McGuigan killing. And that IRA people weren’t.
B: That’s not very clear.
A: No. They’ve also talked about ‘former members of the IRA’ being involved.
B: Is that different?
A: Very. If you want to claim the IRA is still in existence, only pretending to have gone away, then you grab at the ‘IRA people’ bit. If you want to claim that they have in fact gone away, you grab at the ‘former IRA’ bit.
B: What’s your own view?
A: I’m only guessing here but I’d go with the ‘former IRA’ thing.
B: Why?
A: Because if the IRA exists and was involved in the Davison and/or McGuigan killings, then Martin McGuinness has gone mad.
B: Mad?
A: Well he’s said whoever killed Davison, whoever killed McGuigan are murderers and must be brought to justice.
B: Why would that make him mad?
A: Well he was very high up in the IRA. Is he now saying they’re a bunch of murderers who deserve punishment?
B: Mmm. Unlikely, I suppose. So in twenty words or less, tell me what you think is the score.
A: I think – don’t know, but I think – that both men were probably in the IRA, that there was a serious falling out, and that the killings followed. Note I say ‘were in the IRA’. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who were in the IRA. And people like that tend to know how to get their hands on a gun or guns.
B: So you don’t believe the IRA exists now, with a command structure that was involved in those killings?
A: No.
B: Why not?
A: Cui bono? Sinn Féin have laboured mightily in the political field for the past twenty years and more. If the IRA exists and ordered these killings, then the IRA are clearly intent on sabotaging Sinn Féin.
B: Quite a number of whom were in the IRA back in the day.
A: Correct.
B: So cui bono?
A: Two groups in particular line up in the Cui Bono stakes. Unionists in the north and Fine Gael/Fianna Fail and Labour in the south. Enda Kenny can answer every question between now and the south’s next election by looking sorrowful/angry and talking about Sinn Féin being responsible for the IRA being fully armed and never having gone away.
B: But you think that frankly that’s a bunch of bollix.
A: Frankly, I do.
B: New chapter. Is it true that the UDA is still in existence? And the UVF? And several other unionist paramilitary groups?
A: Almost certainly. You don’t tend to have murals honouring groups that don’t exist, or calls for recruits to a mythical organisation.
B: I’m finding this tricky. Peter Robinson is very very upset about this possibility of the IRA being still in existence – right?
A: Right.
B: Is he also very very maybe even a third very upset about unionist paramilitary groups being still in existence and openly recruiting?
A: Pass.
B: What do you mean, pass?
A: Peter hasn’t voiced his opinion one way or another.
B: He hasn’t mentioned them?
A: Uh-uh.
B: Why’s that?
A: Because unionist paramilitaries are a different matter. Nothing to be concerned about there.
B: Are you sure?
A: Definitely.
B: Why do you say that?
A: Because their only crime is loyalty.
B: Ah. But you think ‘Cui bono?’ is the question to ask?
A: Every time.
B: God I wish I’d done Latin.
A: It can help. Some unionist paramilitary groups use Latin, you know. As their motto.
B: Amazing. A little learning is a dangerous thing.
A: There are more dangerous things.
B: Indeed. Cheers.
A: Slan go foill, a chara.
As Judge Judy, says often “If it doesn’t make sense then it is not true”.
Shameless whataboutery you would almost think this article comes from Connolly House however with Judes “close” links to leading SF members that may well be the case!
How do you know that I have close links to leading members of SF, Neill? Or do we just trust your word, as we do of course the PSNI today?
Your personal veracity is your business as is my however chairing meetings for SF in North Belfast before the General Election would certainly entail some close links to SF.
“Shameless whataboutery you would almost think this article comes from Connolly House”
Much like your comments on here are like something out of DUP or Orange Order HQ Neill. The stench of hypocrisy gives it that impression, you see.
Your assumption that Jude has “close links” with Sinn Fein is rather telling about your mind set. I don’t know if Jude has “close links” with Sinn Fein but even if he did, what’s your issue with that? Or indeed what’s wrong with that? Thousands of people have “close links” with Sinn Fein, it is a political party after all and is the most popular party here in terms of votes.
Ryan you remind me of the man who bores everybody to death in the bar with your boring stories.
and is the most popular party here in terms of votes.
Er no its not the Dup who is the most popular party here if you cant even get the most basic facts right what’s the point of even debating with you?
(DUP 25.7 SF 24.5 General election 2015)
“Ryan you remind me of the man who bores everybody to death in the bar with your boring stories”
Wow, a scathing insult Neill, I wont be sleeping easy tonight now.
“Er no its not the Dup who is the most popular party here if you cant even get the most basic facts right what’s the point of even debating with you?”
Er, no, I was referring to all of Ireland Neill, please do keep up.
Why don’t you stop with the poor attempts at insulting people Neill and answer the questions I asked you? What is your problem if Jude has “close links” with Sinn Fein or if anyone has? What is wrong with that? Now Neill, answer the questions this time, instead of trying to distract away from the questions by trying to insult people.
This whole scenario needs an inquiry. I reccomend a panel consisting of Ms M Cahill,Ms M McCartney and Something or other Ruth Dudley Edwardsand Willie Frazer. Chaired by Malachi Doherty and Jim McDowell. They will of course come to the conclusion that it is all Gerry Adams fault. This will please most i.e FG,FF,DUP,TUV SDLP.Alliance and the Sunday Independant !!!!! Just thinking, I read somewhereSarcasm is the lowest form of Wit. There you go anyway
Low maybe, deadly for sure, JN – go h-iontach!
Dialogue from the top drawer, Esteemed Blogmeister, Even DruidShakepeare itself would find it difficult to top it, apart from getting out the old stepladder and putting it (the dialogue, not the stepladder) on the most northerly point of the wardrobe.
One quibble: one would have preferred if you had substituted Cui B. for the opening line. It’s just that it was a struggle to get past the full B word. Not sure why, but it is a habit one has developed over the years. Still, it was well worth while squeezing past it on this occasion.
And while the B-Specials (see the way yon boys get by without resorting to the full B-word) were pointing the long finger of the law at the C-word /Chuckyheads, the distinguished organ that is The Unionist Times was opening a different front.
Tu- whit, tu-whoo, the dodgy grasp of The Shinners on the leprechaun. This has been a constant hobbyhorse of TUT for yonks now. And it is mainly to be seen in the familiar wonky shape of a three-line, incoherent snarl from a certain Professor Emeritus of Detritus Studies in the Queen’s College of the Rebel County.
Not that J. Augustine Murphy (88) , wearing the classic blue and buff silks of the Queen Mum – for is is he’ ! -has to jockey for position in the letters page of The Unionist Times. This organ has a strict anti-ageist policy and so reserves a spot for the V.I.P. O.A.P. Always.
Curiously enough, it is a different Professor who is quoted in today’s august edition: one, Ciaran Carson (no relation). Though he was not a Prof at the time in q. (1985) but rather a Prof in the Offing. He was then in his then capacity as the Traditional Arts Officer (TAO) of the Norn Iron Arts Council .
TAO, incidentally, is a Chinese concept signifying ‘a path, a track, a route’..
Nonetheless, It is virtually uncertain that the following memo which Mr. Carson penned at the time, on the occasion of meeting with a delegation of Shinners who were there to see that the leprechaun got a leg up, did in no way whatsoever assist in his subsequent elevation. The path to Professorial status is a thornier one nor that, Joxer..
-‘Mr. Carson was critical of the linguistic proficiency of the Sinn Fein delegation, telling officials: ‘Most of those present seem to have a barely competent grasp of the phonetics of the language. It is hardly our place to help them brush up their Irish,but it might be our role to make them aware of the wider cultural implications of the language’.
So intoned the wise-beyond-his-mere-years, thirty-something T.A.O. at the time to his fellow Mandarins.
And, why wouldn’t he / Tuige nach ndeanfadh se ?
Shur, wasn’t the lucky leprechaun-speaking T.A.O. born with the silver spoon of a home language in his fluent mouth. Having been instilled in a critically-acclaimed and competent grasp of the phonetics of the language in Teach/Chez Carson while in nappies, short pants and latter, flares.
The T.A.O. had not to endure the how-do-you-pronounce horrors of a Jailtacht. Unlike – God forbid / Dia idir sinn agus an t-uafas ! – graduates of the particular academically-inferior grind school of Campa na Ceise Fada. Or, the Maze, le pronunciation du jour of the Mandarins.
When, as a result – Dia idir sinn fein agus an t-Uafas / God forbid ! – such songs as ‘Oro, se do bheatha ‘bhaile’ are sung at dysfunctional Shinner functions as if it were composed to the rhythm of a tea-spoon being tapped out in time on an acoustic prison bar.
Mr. Carson now parks himself in a lordly location, the Chair of Poetry of the Queen’s University of Belfast. No doubt, his brief includes Romanian poetry.For his, erm, long festschrift of literary accomplishments includes nothing less than (gulp) translations from the Romanian poet, one Stefan Augustin Doinas.
Perkie’s inner poetaster, is convinced that this translation is from the original Romanian and not from some half-way house of an English translation in prose. This latter is known in academic circles as a Transylvanian translation, i.e,. one which has had all the blood sucked out of an bhun-fhiliocht / verse in the original vein.
Little doubt that his flair for languages was born out of his leprechaun-learning experience in flared trousers.
But of course the memo of 1985 to which The Unionist Times was thoughtfully referring is a good thirty years ago now, And a lot of dirty water has since flowed underneath many a bridge below the town.
Difficult for anybody from a TAO to to Prof of Poetry itself to play keep-uppies with the same Mandarin mindset for that length of rhyme..Still, one just never knows. As C. Berry, Poet Laureate of the Pink Pants Poetry once opined.
Perhaps, a phonetically incompetent lump of a Limerick is called upon to bring some closure.
Bi Ollamh !
Ciaran’s kit-bag is crammed with bullet points and pun
No room, a chara, for d’Armalite, the fluent no-jam gun
Prof Carson eschews arson
Prefers analysing ‘n parsing
Sios libh laithreach , Sinn Fein, chun an ranga, an bun !
who gains,irishmen killing irishmen the only ones gain are the brits,on a different note if stormount falls the irish people gain.
Basically the PSNI (or is that continuity RUC) are speculating. Firstly they speculated that it was the Provies, then they speculated that it was an unsanctioned action carried out by individual members of the Provies, now it is DAAD plus Provies and all this without a shred of evidence being presented.
Of course the local media take this all as gospel without asking for solid facts or evidence.
Now this speculation suits many agendas in the North the Unionists who never really liked this power sharing arrangement, those in the security services enabling them to justify their existence and budgets, and of course the Southern parties who look for every opportunity to nullify the growth of SF. All this whilst ignoring the ongoing actions of loyalist paramilitaries and the continued activities of the British security services,
A piece of mind
12 June 1812, the forces of western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began according to Tolstoy. “millions of men perpetrated against each other such crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms and murder…those who committed them did not regard them as crimes. What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were it’s causes?
We need to reflect on the same questions in relationship to the on going conflict between Ireland and England.
I think you summed the situation up quite well there Jude, what is sad about the whole affair (apart from two more grieving families) is the way Unionists STILL hate the Republican and Nationalist community. You would have thought that twenty years after the end of the conflict they MIGHT start to treat them as `normal`. Neill, do you hate the Republican community? Do you regard them (us) as equal?
Neill, do you hate the Republican community?
No how could I hate an entire community?
I don’t have much time for SF and I truly despise the IRA.
Do you regard them (us) as equal?
Yes of course I do just because I disagree with your opinions doesn’t mean I don’t rate you as an equal to me!
Neill, do you truly despise the UVF, UDA, and the Unionist Government that ran a sectarian and discriminatory state that, it would be very fair to argue, sparked off the troubles in the first place?
Though most would agree the Troubles is ultimately just a continuation of the Irish struggle for freedom that has been going on for centuries.
“So the nub of my argument is that of course Unionists are obviously morally superior people in direct comparison to our dear nationalist neighbours”. Words written by yourself Neill not more than ten days ago.
So which is it? Do you consider yourself all superior or not? If not perhaps you’d be prepared to apologise for your outrageous slur on the nationalist community?
No I won’t apologise however I feel sorry for you when you don’t pick up sarcasm
Haha. The quoted comment was just one of quite a few outrageous ones within a 5 paragrapgh contribution. Ok we shall put it and the other comments down to sarcasm if you like. Or maybe it was just an attempt to get some attention. Either way I’m glad you didn’t really mean it after all. Such an attitude would be straying dangerously close to Nazi territory.
Thanks for your reply, well the way you hate the IRA is the way I hate the RUC/UDA/UDR/UVF/Third Force/Ulster Resistance/British army, so at least we know where we stand. The problem you seem to have is in accepting Sinn Féin as political leaders of the Nationalist community, well we have had to put up with various hues of Unionism so I`m afraid that`s just the way it is. Democracy, huh.
I can’t understand the confusion about who killed Kevin McGuigan. Didn’t a senior peeler say that he thought that there was a possibility that the IRA might have been involved. What could be clearer than that? And as if the word of a police inspector (who dosen’t engage in speculation, I’d have you know) wasn’t enough, Dr. McDonnell also fingered the IRA, In this he had the support of the sagacious local canines.
The Provisional IRA declared a PERMANENT ceasefire many ,many years ago and decommissioned their weaponry …..much to the annoyance of Unionism……( ” the greatest threat to the union in 60 years” …Jim Molyneaux ) .Unionism cannot and will not survive on equality….their whole raison d’etre was to subdue and keep subdued the native population in this part of our island and to have and maintain an exclusive “Protestant parliament for a Protestant people” Since 1998 Unionism and their cohorts have tried ,unsuccessfully, by every means possible to undermine the will of the Irish people and this is just another part of that game ! Their supposed indignation coupled with their ostentatious hypocrisy is so transparent its laughable. AAD , an unsavory bunch of nondescripts have claimed responsibility….sin é agus sin sin . The PSNI , not renown for their competence,have suggested that dissidents and former members of the Provos, MAY have been responsible…..hardly concrete evidence….I was once an “Alter Boy” ….does that mean that if I commit a crime all “Alter Boys” are culpable
Very well put Séamus, I think this whole thing boils down to the PSNI using the term “MEMBERS OF THE PROVISIONAL IRA” instead of “FORMER MEMBERS OF THE PROVISIONAL IRA” . It defies logic that the members of the press core at the press conference didn’t jump on the PSNI spokesman’s wording and ask him to clarify whether it is the PSNI’s assessment that the PROVISIONAL IRA are still operating as a functional organisation. One could almost be forgiven for believing that it was in the media’s interest to let the ambiguity go and have a full week of media frenzy speculation on the fall of the institutions here!
Indeed.
Haha. The quoted comment was just one of quite a few outrageous ones within a 5 paragrapgh contribution. Ok we shall put it and the other comments down to sarcasm if you like. Or maybe it was just an attempt to get some attention. Either way I’m glad you didn’t really mean it after all. Such an attitude would be straying dangerously close to Nazi territory.
Attention seeker love it!