As published earlier this year in THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW
In 1994 when Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, in pursuit of peace in Ireland and Britain, sought an American Visa for Gerry Adams, who held an Irish Passport, the British Government and its cronies did its damnedest to scupper his initiative.
One of the cronies was Simon Jenkins, a veteran journalist who had been Editor of London’s Evening Standard, and of the more prestigious TIMES of London. Jenkins had no scruples, and years after his effort to scupper the Peace Process had failed, boasted, without shame, of how he had briefed officials in President Clinton’s White House. He had told them thatsince 1969 the IRA had killed “3,000 Britons.”
Approximately 3,000 persons had been killed in the conflict, 1,700 or so by Republicans and the balance by the British Crown Forces,their collaborators and admirers. A great many of those killed were not British but Irish, and if they held passports, held Irish ones. An experienced journalist such as Jenkins would have known this, even if he had not been a successor to Harold Evans in the Editor’s Chair of THE TIMES.
Perhaps here I should explain the Hiberno-Irish term “Corner-Boy.” I have never seen it defined in a dictionary, but I have always thought it meant a creature lower in the esteemof decent people than a Louse, or a Lout. My late mother might have equated it with “a Kinatt” a term current in Dublin when James Joyce lived there.
In 1981 when Harold Evans was Editor of THE TIMES, the paper sought to defend its assertion that in the years between 1969 and 1981 that the IRA had killed “over 2,000Protestants.” As the total fatalities in the conflict totalled that number, the intended implication was that all fatalities were inflicted by Republicans and all those killed wereProtestants. After 9 months Britain’s Press Council reluctantly upheld complaints lodged independently by myself and another reader in Paris.
The night the Press Council’s adjudication was published I turned on the TV to see Harold Evans awarded the accolade of “Editor of the Year” by his fellow British Editors.
A few months later, all on the same morning, at least three London papers, The Daily Express, The Daily Star and the Daily Mail, in a concerted attack on Ken Livingstone, then the leader of the Greater London Council, repeated verbatim the untruths for which THE TIMES had just been censured by the Press Council.
A gentleman in Birmingham reported the Daily Express and the Daily Star to the Press Council, which took another 9 months to uphold its complaint. I complained about the Daily Mail to the Press Council, but all in vain. Its lies had gone out over the name of Sir Humphrey Atkins, recently HM Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the Press Council decided to let lying dogs sleep.
Shortly thereafter the Press Council. which had a reputation for toothlessness, was renamed the Press Complaints Commission, and Sir Humphrey Atkins. raised to the Peerage, also changed his name, and was appointed to the Press Complaints Commission. The wages of sin may be death, but not this side of the grave, and I reckon Atkins was on to a nice little earner.
Some time later Simon Jenkins and Harold Evans were simultaneously knighted. Evans, I understand, lives a celebrity life in Manhattan. I wonder can he be the source of the nonsense spouted by Cardinal Dolan of New York equating the IRA with ISIS?
you havent put how many killed by protestant corner boy gangs in your figures above.
I once wrote Simon Jenkins an e-mail after he published a piece condemning Gerry Adams, I told him Adams had in fact played a leading (maybe THE leading) role in bringing the conflict to an end. To his credit Jenkins replied, but, it was obvious to me that he knew as much about Irish politics as I knew about the Chinese pop charts. That mythical figure of three thousand killed by the IRA has been bandied about for years, unfortunately the British people do not care about the north of Ireland and wallow in their collective state of ignorance. Even if the IRA had killed every person who died here, why is it only in our war that the number of fatalities inflicted makes you the `bad guys`? This yardstick is not used in any other war. Would Unionists accept Britain was guilty over the superior numbers killed by their forces in the Falklands/Malvinas?
The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express The Daily Star and Simon Jenkins
deliberately and in concert asserted that all those killed were Protestants or British and
that the killers in every case were Republican.
In 1981 I obtained from a reliable source a breakdown of victims and perpetrators and
after getting the run-around from the Press Council for nearly a year the Council upheld
my complaint against THE TIMES.
The ink of that judgement was barely dry before the other 4 papers repeated the falsehood
all in the one morning.
The Pseuds, Corner Boys I was referring to were Sir Simon Jenkins, Sir Harold Evans and Sir Humphrey Atkins, smartarsed blackguards who create and sustain the political situations
which give rise to violence and suffering. PSEUDS, CORNER BOYS is a series I wrote for
THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW. It included prominent commentators and politicians whom I
consider humbugs, but not footsoldiers or rank and file activists of any persuasion.
rank and file activists of any persuasion.