Last night BBC ran a Spotlight programme which featured First Minister Arlene Foster talking about the day the IRA tried to kill her father. Here are five points that I believe bear consideration in relation to that programme.
- The programme almost certainly elicited sympathy for the First Minister’s trauma as an eight-year-old, when her wounded father made it to the house and safety. As she herself said, memories like that stay with you over the years.
- The pain Arlene suffered was not unique. Hundreds of families here felt the same kind of pain and worse, since many of their loved ones did not survive the attack on them.
- Arlene Foster says she won’t let the memory of the attack on her father prevent her from working in a business-like way with Martin McGuinness, who gave the grave-side eulogy over the coffin of the man who attacked her father. That is good, just as it’s good that Martin McGuinness is able to put behind him the shooting dead of an innocent young man at the end of his street, an event that nudged him into IRA membership.
- Arlene Foster’s father was a member of the RUC. During a period of armed conflict, combatants attempt to kill each other – that’s the nature of armed conflict. The attack on Arlene’s father was paralleled in hundreds of instances: to take one example, the former Tyrone footballer and SDLP member Jim Devlin shot in his drive-way by the Glenanne gang. The combatants that one side reviles are revered by their opponents, and vice versa. That too is the nature of armed conflict.
- Why has the attack on Arlene’s father and the pain it caused been highlighted at this time? Would it not have fitted more naturally into her profile when she became DUP leader several weeks back? Perhaps. But the election in the south hadn’t been called when she assumed DUP leadership, and so criticism of a senior leader in Sinn Féin wouldn’t have had the same impact on the election of Sinn Féin candidates in the south. It’s the election, stupid.
Yes I heard you on talk back yesterday it was unfortunate you didn’t listen to Alex Kane and he had to reprimand you over it.
3.Arlene Foster says she won’t let the memory of the attack on her father prevent her from working in a business-like way with Martin McGuinness, who gave the grave-side eulogy over the coffin of the man who attacked her father. That is good, just as it’s good that Martin McGuinness is able to put behind him the shooting dead of an innocent
There is a clear difference in this her dad was attacked not somebody down the road she decided not to join a terrorist movement and kill people very much unlike McGuiness.
4.Arlene Foster’s father was a member of the RUC. During a period of armed conflict, combatants attempt to kill each other – that’s the nature of armed conflict. The attack on Arlene’s father was paralleled in hundreds of instances – in the killing, to take one example, of former Tyrone footballer and SDLP member Jim Devlin by the Glenanne gang.
So it was a war then if that was the case how many prisoners did the IRA take then they complain if they are taken out rather than taken prisoner.
As for Seamus McIlwaine in the end he was vicious killer who got the quick way out it would have been much better if he had rotted in prison.
Neill, its just my opinion but Alex Kane use to be a Unionist I deemed worthy of respect but ever since his article on Willie Frazer where he stated “there is no evidence Willie has a sectarian or bigoted mind set”, that’s when any respect from me and many nationalists for him was lost. That’s like saying there was no evidence of Ian Paisley Snr having a sectarian, bigoted mind set.
True, it was Arlenes father who was attacked but she did take action, she later joined the UUP Neill and the UUP itself ran a discriminatory and sectarian state and it can be argued they were the cause of the Troubles in the first place, they used the B Specials and RUC as their own paramilitaries (along with the UVF according to Gusty Spence). Witnessing anyone’s death, especially if its a sectarian murder, can cause people to respond in many ways. McGuinness choose to join the IRA, just like the thousands of young people in Derry as a result of Bloody Sunday. They joined to protect their community.
The IRA did say it was a war and obviously they targeted the RUC/UDR/BA/Loyalists because they were viewed as viable targets. The UVF/UDA on the other hand regarded it as a sectarian war, as Gusty Spence himself said “If you cant get an IRA man, get a taig (Catholic)”. The UUP, you know the party Arlene joined Neill? was even said by Gusty Spence to have paid him to start a “sectarian war”. If the IRA had regarded it as a sectarian war, which they plainly didn’t, then there would’ve been 10 times as many Protestants killed as there was, its much easier to target a random person from a protestant area than to take the effort to plan and track an RUC man or Unionist paramilitary. The British Government itself operated by the same Unionist sectarian logic and set up the MRF and FRU, whose members on TV admitted, actually admitted but still not jailed, to murdering people because they were from a particular area and because they were Catholic, no more.
How many prisoners did the IRA take Neill? Well I know Joe McCann captured 3 UVF men and later released them because “they were working class men like him”. From a conflict perspective I don’t think Joe should’ve did that, would the UVF have released 3 IRA men? they wouldn’t even release random Catholic civilians whom they tortured to death, never mind 3 IRA men and who knows how many innocent civilians those 3 UVF men may have went on to murder. That’s not including the UDA’s torture of Catholic civilians and the British Army’s.
Seamus Mcllwaine may have been a “vicious” killer Neill but isn’t that what soldiers are trained for? Don’t the British Army train thousands of men/women each year to do just that? Like in the Mau Mau rising where they even raped and castrated men by the thousands in full knowledge of the British Government? Or are you picking and choosing again Neill?…..
Actually I did listen to him for a considerable time, neill – but I love that word ‘reprimand’. Now I know my place…
Qa bit of a nonsense, “how many prisoners did the IRA take?” For that matter how many prisoners did the French Resitance take before their country was liberated, none.
If Mrs Foster attributes loads of murders to Seamus McIlwaine, without trial or evidence, then it allows the IRA to give the credit/blame for their Killings to dead volunteers. There that’s the IRa’s contribution to to truth recovery taken care of.
The better question that should have been asked of her (maybe it was I didn’t watch) would be what was different between 1998, when she was against making peace and 2006 when she signed up for
Jude
Arlene was 8 I think when she saw her father crawling into their house shot in the head. No doubt the experience Martin McGuinness had influenced him but I don’t think it is comparable to a child witnessing her father shot and bleeding in her own home.
Also he was an easy target for so called combatants. A farmer checking on his cattle at night. McElwaine seems to have been adept at killing of duty combatants.
Another heroic action from physical force republicanism.
Your paranoia about everything in the media being related to the election makes no sense.If this had been inn her profile several weeks ago I have no doubt you would still have blamed the election as you have been doing for several months.
No doubt Peter Robinson faked a heart attack and stood down at the end of last year so that Arlene could be brought in at this moment specifically to embarrass McGuinness over her father.
It all makes sense. Now where is my tinfoil hat
Really, gio, you never cease to surprise me. You don’t think the sight of an innocent friend lying dead is even comparable with a child seeing her father with a head-wound. And could you show me the link to where it says Mr Kelly ‘crawled in’ to his home? As to my ‘paranoia’, the fact that you have to indulge in name-calling says something about the quality of your argument. And you know what I would have said if she’d come up with it earlier. Right. Added to which, of course, the majority of people knew that her father had been attacked. The Spotlight programme was just that: to put a spotlight on an IRA attack that would show how brutal/savage/uncaring republicans were/are. No I don’t think Peter Robinson faked a heart-attack, and again your imaginative loop-the-looping and my reaction to that loop-the-loop says something for the strength of your argument. Sorry, gio. I can detect an uneasiness in every syllable of your contribution.
Jude
“They shot him in the head as he was closing in the cattle. He came crawling into the house, blood streaming down his face. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8452628.stm.
(I wouldn’t mind a link to the detail of Martin’s experience if you have it?)
She was 8 years old Jude. She would not have had the maturity to understand what was happening to her Daddy. Your comparison is not sensible.
I don’t see how paranoia is name calling as it describes your emotional state and I am pretty sure you do that sort of thing all the time (usually to neill).
In fact you call me uneasy, which I might as well suggest is name calling too. What is it you think I might be uneasy about?
My broad point is that you seem to see conspiracy in everything the media does from reporting gangland killings to a profile of Arlene Foster. I doubt if many voters in the South will put much weight in Arlene’s memories of 30 years ago.
Fair enough, gio.That does make it rather more ghastly. But I think your assumption that an adult friendship ended not by a wounding but a killing can’t compare is assuming something you don’t know. The experience drove M McG, non-political to that point, into the IRA, so it must have been pretty profound. As to paranoia – I’ll thank you to retract that, gio. And contrary to what you say, I do not name-call ‘all the time’, that’s simply untrue. Or, if you like, a lie. To say you appear “uneasy” about your own argument is name-calling, gio? You’ve clearly led a sheltered life, both in terms of name-calling and the meaning of words. I detected uneasiness about your confidence in your own argument – it’s called tone. (No, not that Tone.) I seem to see conspiracy in everything: you’re entitled to have that view if you wish. Why don’t you test my conspiracy paranoia and do a count of the number of attacks on SF from Irish media over a two-month period. As to doubting southern voters will put much weight on Arlene’s experience: you underestimate the abilities of the south’s media. Now – do you mind retracting that insulting comment that I suffer from paranoia?
Jude
I meant to add, I do not doubt the incident you refer to took place. I was just hoping for a bit more detail.
Did he witness the killing for example?
How well did he know the victim?
That type of thing.
I think he came to the scene just after the guy was shot. He said he was a friend of his, as I recall.
Gio…Are you forgetting the sight of people lying SLICED to pieces in the alleyways of Belfast by the collusionist butchers. If Arlene Foster is to be first minister then she has to learn to leave her bitterness behind. Anything else makes her place untenable.
Jude
If it bothers you I am happy to withdraw paranoia. But the belief that the BBC planned this program somehow to damage SF in the Southern election is in my view silly(is that ok) and lacking in any evidence to back it up.
Are the BBC doing this at the behest of the state or on their own initiative?
I would have found it odd had the BBC not been doing some analysis on our new First Minister, including her formative years.
As for the media as you are claiming that they have a significant anti SF bias (and perhaps they do!) it is down to you to back it up. Collate that data.
Now as I kindly provided the link you requested, what about a link to the detail of Martin’s story
Gio – a number of things. First and most important, thank you for withdrawing the paranoia remark.As to the BBC operating to an agenda: it’s a slippery thing, agenda. I’ve worked as a freelance on and off over the past 30+ years and there is no doubt there is an..ethos. I think the strongest feature of it is that people self-censor without even being aware of it. Some things simply aren’t done. In my time it was any interest in south of the border – it was as though life stopped at Dundalk, which was of course El Paso. I think the BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation, so for sure they’re not going to do anything that would challenge or hurt the British establishment. It’s a reasonable surmise that the British establishment don’t want SF to prosper, so it”s not all that difficult to join the dots in between. It is of course possible that people like me exaggerate the extent to which republicanism is targeted by the media, but again I’d say, do a spot-check of how many times you get a report or an article that is pro-republican. For example: the narrative of bad IRA, good RUC/UDR/British forces is unquestioned in the BBC.It is a fact that nationalists and republicans were hurt as bad and worse than Arlene; but can you imagine a programme where the centre-piece is a profile of a republican politician recalling in detail how a family member was killed, and that not meeting with outcry? You’re right about collecting data/spot-checks – I should do it. But to be honest, by the time I can squeeze out a daily blog, my energies are on the wane. Finally ‘Martin’s story’ – you mean about seeing a friend shot dead by British army and in his words deciding ‘to fight back’? I haven’t got one. But if you had a Bible handy I’d be happy to swear that I heard and saw him on TV at least once describing that event. I appreciate you only have my word and you may dismiss it as propaganda – that M McG joined the IRA because he liked killing people – but there’s nothing I can do about that. I know for a fact that I heard and saw him tell that story.
Joe
I am not forgetting those things happened of course.
I was specifically addressing the point Jude made comparing Arlene’s experience to Martin McGuinness’s.
Many people suffered a great deal more than either of them I would think.
As to leaving her bitterness behind my understanding is that she was saying it was difficult for her rather than saying she would not work with him. According to the BBC:
“She added that despite her personal difficulties, she would work with the deputy first minister because: “The past is the past”.
Jude
You say the British establishment do not want Sinn Fein to prosper but I am not so sure about that. They are locked together in the peace process and they both know a few dirty secrets about each other.
If Sinn Fein flounder is the peace at risk?Quite possibly. No British government wants that.
I think they (BritGov) really cannot afford to see them(SF) fail.
As for the BBC I would say this. At some point in the near future it is likely there will be a Sinn Fein (or possibly other Nationalist) First Minister.
I am willing to bet the BBC will do a programme on that individual complete with all the background personal history, just as they have done with Arlene. Want to bet against it?
Yes, I accept that gio – they would do one on him/her if FM.I don’t think that’s in dispute. What I’m arguing is that the BBC is the British BC and logically enough attends to Britain’s interests. I’m not sure that all in the British establishment want SF to prosper/not flounder. There are those who’d like to see the IRA reborn and this time crushed, of that I’d feel fairly sure.
Gio, your missing the stark and obvious point to Jude’s article: there’s an estimated 50,000 people, including republicans, loyalists, catholics, protestants, (to lesser extent English, French, German, Spanish people) that were effected in much the same way Arlene Foster and her father have been, in fact many have been effected much, much worse. There is no spotlight programme for all of them.
There is no spotlight programme for my mother’s childhood friend 11 year old Francis Rowntree who was murdered by the British Army (the same British Army Arlene honours) and whose mother, now 90 and in the throes of dementia still talks about her child. There’s no spotlight programme for the thousands of people left limbless, brutalized and some even driven insane due to the actions of the British Government, IRA, INLA, UVF, UDA, etc.
But for some reason there is special focus on Arlene and you think that’s not political? If you don’t understand how media works here Gio then you really shouldn’t be commenting on politics here in Norn Iron because you plainly don’t understand it, I’m not saying your opinion wont be respected but it really wouldn’t be worth seriously considering.
BTW, why isn’t Arlenes experience and Martins not comparable? It wasn’t Arlenes community that was being brutally battered, denied civil rights, denied respect and decency for decades, that was Martin’s, and we know the Unionist Government (whom controlled the RUC/B Specials) and the UVF were different sides of the same coin. As I stated before on this blog many times I’m surprised the Troubles didn’t break out a lot sooner.
Ryan
I am very well aware of all the lives affected.
Arlene Foster gets a programme devoted to her because she is First Minister,its that simple really. I am not saying that is right but that is how the media works, not just here but in every country.
The point is I don’t see how it can be anything to do with SF and their election hopes in the South. The BBC did not arrange the timing of Peter Robinson standind down or Arlene taking up her post,nor did they have anything to do with the timing of the election. Not everything is conspiracy, that’s all I’m saying.
To be fair to Spotlight, they have produced a wide range of programmes over the years dealing with victims, collusion, parading, Kincora, amongst others.
The question of the differing experiences of Arlene and Martin is regarding the specific comparison made by Jude which is about two particular incidents rather than the wider issues you mention. Arlene Foster had no part in the death of Martin’s friend. He on the other hand was a part of organisation that tried to kill her father and he eulogised the man who she believes pulled the trigger.
Gio, fair enough there has been many spotlight programmes focusing on collusion, British Army murders, the activities of the IRA, UVF, etc your correct but I’m pretty sure (though I might be wrong) that there hasn’t been one spotlight programme solely based on one person and her experience of the troubles. Shes First Minister? Does that mean her experiences are any more or any less worthy to explore than a victim of the Shankill Bomb or a victim of Bloody Sunday? Of course not. Do you not see why there is many accusations, from both sides of the community, that there is a hierarchy of victims? Its because of stunts like this.
Yes Gio Martin was part of the IRA, an organisation that tried to kill her father but Arlenes father was a member of the RUC, an organisation that killed and colluded in the killings of hundreds of people. Arlene and many Unionist politicians repeatedly, even more than Martin McGuinness when it comes to the IRA, eulogise the RUC, praise them, spent money on public memorials for them despite the overwhelming evidence of RUC collusion and even the killings of innocent people the RUC committed themselves. Do you not see the hypocrisy? The victims of the RUC, whom thankfully I’m not one of, could easily turn your own argument around on yourself.
In many ways Arlene and Martins stories are similiar, the main difference is that the RUC was “legal” and the IRA was “illegal” and legality means nothing, it doesnt mean somethings moral or immoral, right or wrong. Its a piece of paper, ironically, made in buildings where maybe the biggest criminals and liars in any given country sit, so something being “legal” is no excuse. Besides, when those that make the law, break the law, then there is no law.
Ryan
Again I agree that Arlene’s experience should not be elevated above those of all the other victims. I don’t know if Spotlight has done a focus on a single victim in the past (I suspect the answer might be yes),but they certainly should.
All media outlets focus on the great and good,the movers and shakers and they probably always will. If the new First Minister was a Republican they would also get an in depth programme, I have no doubt
Your comment about the RUC as an organisation,killing and colluding may turn out to be true but it has yet to be established..
The RUC weren’t “combatants” though Jude. They were policemen and policewomen protecting a democratic civil society established by international law and supported by the overwhelming majority of the population in the jurisdiction in which they served.
There were 8500 full timers in the RUC. Over 30 years of the troubles the full timers served more than a quarter of a million years between them. Every one of them had a gun. In all that time RUC officers killed 55 people. So by your definition as a “combatant” the average full time RUC officer would need to serve 4,636 years before killing anyone even though they were targets for assassination every day of their career. Is that the behaviour of “combatants”? Do you really think people that disciplined in uniform became secret homicidal maniacs when they put on their civvies?
Constantly citing the Glenane gang as your evidence of wholesale RUC villainy only serves to show its exceptionality.
People joined the RUC to save lives. People joined the IRA to take them. Only one group were “combatants”.
I accept that there were decent men in the RUC. However, the few-rotten-apples line is beginning to stink a little, BYC. If it was just the odd apple, how is that the entire barrel had to be tossed out and a new policing service created?
Their final sacrifice Jude. Scapegoats to allow physical force republicans to maintain their credibility while moving to constitutional politics. Reciprocation for the retirement of the IRA and INLA so a price worth paying.
And a rebrand and a change of governance was needed to secure cross-community engagement and recruitment to post-conflict policing. A new brand for a fresh start.
More proof of the nobility of the RUC that they would accept such humiliation for the good of all of us :-). And the pensions of course. They weren’t saints – just peelers.
Jude
Would you say that decency was systemic throughout the organisation or was it just a few good apples?
There’s no evidence to suggest RUC terrorists only killed 55 people. In fact it’s ‘probable’ that they murdered a lot more in their spare time. As is standard policy, it’s preferable to get others to do your killing for you, a policy in which the British state is well practised in. But sure you know that anyway.
Btw the demonisation of volunteers such as seamus mcElwaine will be resisted by all right thinking Irish republicans as is their right. It’s time to move on is it not?
Btw the demonisation of volunteers such as seamus mcElwaine will be resisted by all right thinking Irish republicans as is their right. It’s time to move on is it not?
Ok so some banging on about the RUC and Army then or is that a different matter?
wolfie
“There’s no evidence to suggest RUC terrorists only killed 55 people”.
That’s good enough for me. Let’s lock up everyone against who cannot prove they did not kill anyone. Oh hang on…
Gio, if the RUC and other state terrorist organisations want to claim the high moral ground and create the illusion that they did things differently to the IRA; that they were the legitimate peacekeepers then they should put up and then shut up I.e they shouldn’t be so secretive about their ‘peace keeping’ duties etc should they? If they abided by the law then they should have nothing to hide? They should be open and transparent about all their activities as a ‘legitimate’ police/security force claims it is. Why the secrecy? Why the ‘sure the IRA won’t reveal their secrets’ counter? Those arguments would suggest that the IRA we’re as legitimate as the state forces in some folks eyes? That’s fine by me.
Btw, the IRA did cough up some shameful actions which some would argue they didn’t have to do e.g the disappeared. Some would have argued that admitting responsibility to those actions would’ve brought unwanted criticism of the republican movement. Alas they did it anyway. Much more than their enemy has cared to admit that’s for sure. But then the holier than thou image of the British establishment must be preserved at all costs doesn’t it?
“Let’s lock up everyone against who cannot prove they did not kill anyone”
I think the Unionist/British Government did just that to Catholics, didn’t they Gio? Internment they called it…..
BYC, yes the overwhelming majority of Protestants supported the RUC but certainly not the overwhelming majority of Catholics, if you believe otherwise then your ignorant on this topic or just deluded, no offence.
Murder comes in all sorts of ways BYC, RUC members did murder people by their own hand, the vast majority Catholics, they even murdered a child laying in his bed (and their predecessors the RIC deliberately targeted and murdered entire Catholic families under Unionist instruction) but you don’t have to actually pull the trigger or beat someone to death (like the RUC did to a Catholic man in his home in Derry) to be held responsible for murder and that’s where we come to collusion.
Collusion was ripe and systematic within the RUC and there’s evidence to prove it. There’s reports from the British Government itself that say that the RUC/UDR were hiring men who were known to be in the UVF/UDA. Of course the British Government did nothing about it.
From turning a blind eye, to handing over documents, to providing weapons, etc all that is considered collusion, therefore any murders that was carried out by Unionist paramilitaries with RUC/UDR help (and there were many), no matter how big or little help, makes those involved with the RUC just as responsible for the murder of Catholics as the Unionist paramilitary who planted the bomb or pulled the trigger. As we already know too and again its all backed up by evidence, the RUC destroyed evidence in order to hinder investigations and prevent Justice.
So your worn out and already disproven argument that the RUC “wanted to save lives (yeah, only protestant lives maybe)” doesn’t hold water BYC, its simply not true. The assertion that the vast majority here in Norn Iron supported the RUC is common knowledge to be nonsense. The RUC/UDR/British Army systematically colluded with Unionist paramilitaries, protected them (and still do) and did all they could (and still try to) to prevent justice for the people and families they murdered. Just because the Unionist paramilitaries did most of their dirty work doesn’t mean they arent responsible for it.
“It’s the election, stupid.” I agree about the election, the jury is out about, stupid.
Perhaps it is more about the horse trading that goes on after the election. Is it not somewhat disingenuous to seek a political mandate and then to influence and pursue policies that bear no comparison to the original mandate? Consider a number of precedents. The ‘gang of four’, Labour Party members, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins formed the Social Democratic Party in 1981. A political and electoral alliance with the Liberal Party eventually morphed into the Liberal Democrats. In Ireland, the Progressive Democrats was a party founded by former members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in 1985. In more recent days, the Irish Labour Party and the Green Party abandoned mandates in order to support right wing parties in Ireland. It would therefore be stupid to take seriously promises about improving public services and dealing with unemployment this side of an election.
Stability in Ireland at present is best defined as economic migration, unemployment, zero hours contracts for many in employment with no job security, apartheid in health care, homelessness, poor public services and an administration that is held to ransom by international bankers. The jury is out.
It is the election – though what impact Arlene Foster and the DUP will have on Southern voters is open to question. I suspect not a great deal.
Every little helps, Cal…
I have to admit to an uneasyness as to the timing and broadcasting of certain programmes. I’m too cynical to believe in every conspiracy theory which is thrown up .It’s entertaining in a way to think like that ..but do I always believe it? No. No more than I believe in the many things people believe to be the Whole Truth about aliens , religion, Loch Ness Monsters or whatnot .There is no doubt that there are always moves going on behind the scenes, though.Governments have always worked with underhand dirty tricks .There are always spies digging a parallel seam beneath the politics.It’s how human nature operates.It’s why there is a CIA or an MI6 .Scenes within scenes…as we could easily see when “the Docklands Bomb” programme was broadcast on BBC1 only the night before ,… on Monday .
Is it coincidental that these programmes dealing with the violence of the past are being broadcast just now? Two in a row from the same broadcaster? I think the BBC is a fine broadcaster as far as quality and content is concerned but I do question them sometimes .Why drag it all up again at this particular time?
Within the “Docklands Bomb ” was running the alternative story of an ongoing “peace process” in crisis …the inner details of which most people would have been unaware of at the time …possibly even until they were edited and aired just two nights ago, some twenty years after the events happened.Then the bomb and its effect on the politics was wrapped up in a detective story of how the bombers were tracked and trapped in south Armagh. A few mistakes were made by the bombers who left the odd fingerprint on their bomb run which trapped them .The bombers were given some huge sentences amounting to hundreds of years and were then released after serving two or less as the peace process bedded -in.
All of that wrapped up in a neat ribbon-bow for armchair entertainment.
It implies, of course, that everyone watches BBC 1 on a Monday night which probably isn’t the case these days.
On another tack…It is simplistic to believe that Martin McGuinness would believe he did anything wrong in joining a violent republican group as a young man. His community and friends were being openly attacked by the police force who had already made the choice that nationalism was their enemy and the people and families they represented were almost entirely from the unionist community. It’s pointless to pretend that this was a normal society with a normal police force. Black Americans have a similar view of how their own police force works as have many black people in London….at this very moment.
The RUC were unfortunately ,at the time, by historical imperative, an armed unionist force with a small percentage of members from the nationalist community.Their roots were almost entirely entwined in the families of protestantism/unionism/orangeism.That was a product of the strange political set-up that existed. Unfortunate , but true.Arlene Foster’s father was one of them. Did he join because he fancied the job or did he join to fight nationalists? It was a job for himself and his friends within his community .He’d have felt a sense of companionship there.it’s unfortunate that someone decided to shoot him for that but realistically, it was a surety that if a policeman was targetted by republicanism in a war of attrition , there was a very high percentage chance that the person killed would be a unionist.It was a fact of the political set-up .There weren’t as many “catholics” in uniform to target.
It couldn’t be said that their actions represented what the nationalist community actually wanted from “their” police force .When they were caught on camera batoning Civil Rights marchers in Derry, it was there for all to see on a world stage. To be of a certain age at that particular time in that particular position with a police-force acting as a private armed army would provoke some abherrant choices in any young and passionate person. The questions being asked were, “Is this police-force strictly lawful or even moral?” “They are attacking us!”
People didn’t make those kinds of choices or ask those kinds of questions for no good reason. Their re-actions were provoked initially .After that the violence simply grew exponentially and was soon following a structure as events unravelled. Politicians had acted too late and the police-force found themselves on one side of a divide with no way back.
Not everyone joined into the violence , of course, but then some people lived right through the Troubles without it ever touching them. There are parts of the country unscarred by any of it .Some used the Troubles to cruelly murder or settle old scores .Some did it as part of a revolutionary plan .Once it started many individuals put their own personal stamp on it..Some were simply madmen. There were many deaths and families , friends and extended communities walked behind coffins , buried their dead people or made orations at the coffins of old schoolfriends .It’s what people have always done.
Brilliant Paddy!
Great piece from paddykool.
paddy
You say:
“t was a surety that if a policeman was targeted by republicanism in a war of attrition , there was a very high percentage chance that the person killed would be a unionist.”
I don’t know if you are suggesting that his attackers did not know his religion or affiliations but that seems very unlikely. He was shot at his own farm, out of uniform so obviously the gang would have known they were trying to kill a prod and a;most certainly a unionist. No chance element involved, as might have been the case were they engaged in combat with active services, something they rarely chose to do.
Otherwise good sense as usual (though I would dispute the word unfortunate!)
I thought her father was an RUC man…
The temptation, Esteemed Blogmeister, for the Coalition-cheerleaders of the compliant Communications Industry of Anglo-Ireland ( CIA) to put the hobnailed boot of neutrality into the Shinners is always great. But when it comes to SF candidates being on the stump in a General Election the temptation becomes well- nigh irresistible.
Or, rather, this being the deep south of the Black Sow’s Dyke, the Tim Tayshun. As the sublime Jo Stafford pronounced it when singing under the cover-name of the deliberately out-of-toon Cinderella G. Stump. The essential difference between the sublime Jo and the murder of crows in the Anglo-Irish hackitariat is that she never, as Jo, sang out of toon, ever.
Take CIRA, for example. Whereas the first phone call / phoney call got the full bells and whistles in the CIA (see above ) the second phone call which was the non-phoney call, got the no decibels and dismissals reaction in the same CIA.
Engrossing, all the same, how the acronym CIRA echoes another cloak and blagger group, though not among the back-story-denying hackitariat. That would be the Cairo Gang. This was the group of BA agents who were posted, Glennane style, to Dublin for the sole purpose of Paddywhacking the contemporary IRA.
Cairo Gang-land.
Alas, the would-be-whacked got their, erm, own-back , with a pre-emptive strike on the would-be whackers. On the early morning of 21 November 1920 twelve members of the Cairo Gang at eleven different venues were simultaneously attacked (fatally) in their beds by the novo IRA who had more than biros in their trigger-happy hands. Some of the d. dozen even had lasses (and whisper it !!!) lads not their wives in the beds beside them.
That was the first Bloody Sunday. Unlike Uncle Bob Ford of the second Bloody Sunday who actually had a post-graduate degree in Oriental Studies (in the laboratory of Aden University) the Cairo Gang were more of the Occidental Tourist stock. Their sobriquet derived from their habit of meeting in the Cairo Café of Grafton Street, which could be heaven with coffee at eleven.
Coincidentally, Grafton Street was also a popular stomping ground of the Bros Littlejohn of the same bloke and dagger provenance though of a somewhat later time frame.
The uber-organizer of the co-ordinated whack-attack on the Cairo Gang became of course the Patron Saint of the PIRA-baiting Blue-shirted Biro-wielders. Pilgrimages are made on an annual basis to his shrine in West Cork at the aptly named Beal na mBlath where the flowery-mouthed orators sound off about just how mightier the biro was/is/ will be than the sword. That sorta thingy.
To conclude: the mention of the murdered GAA man reminds one of meagre references such murders receive in the Communications Industry of Anglo-Ireland. In contrast to, say, the ample and ongoing coverage the injuring of three rugby chaps in a bomb ambush as they were driving south.
The unspoken implication in the ample coverage is always there to be inferred by the revered gullible reader that they were targeted as rugby players qua rugby players. Which was at variance with the facts on two counts, at least.
No surprise that Today in the Free Southern Stateen feels rather less like Ash Wednesday and more like, erm, Sash Wednesday.
Superb as ever, PW. With your final sentence the most and glowing cherry on the piece. Maith thú! If I knew the Irish for ‘May your hand never lose its cunning’ I’d add that too…
GRMMA,a Mhaistir Ionuin Blog.
Nar lagai Diageo do laoch-lamh dhearg go deo !
PS Perhaps,the Cairo Gang did not die in vain. The Mummification of the Free Southern Stateen, at least, is well nigh complete, no matter how much in denial the hackitariat might opt to be.
Education and entertainment in the same bag of sweeties, Mighty Perk. I’m still tussling with the conundrum of… at which precise moment the past actually begins and is certifiably safe to talk about….
GRMMA, PK.
Re.the conundrum – try tomorrow. Not unlike, Garth Brooks, it never comes.
The Spaniards have a word for it – mañana!
Contrast the BBC`s treatment of Arlene, with that of Alex Maskey, who saw his friend Alan Lundy shot dead while he was helping paint his house. Alex Maskey himself was seriously wounded by loyalists in a later attack, why no mention of his case?
A J – you must really stop asking pointless questions. Nothing to see here, move along…
Great story.jude.Martin.is.a.Great.man.
G.r.m.a.Jim.
Jude I wonder if i shoot your father and saw him crawling in injured wouldnt you be a trifle bitter to her credit Arlene never went out seeking revenge McGuiness certainly did many times and yet you still think he is a good fella.
You’re probably right, neill – I most likely would be bitter. But I don’t think I even hinted that Arlene hadn’t grounds for resentment/bitterness. You classify McGuinness’s response as looking for revenge; I suspect he would describe it in different terms. But as to my thinking him ‘a good fella’ (have you been watching that movie again?), I do admire him. I don’t think I’ve ever said I admired him for being involved in a paramilitary organisation; I have no hesitation in saying I admire him for his political skills, his political courage and his refusal to give up on reconciliation with former enemies. As you suggest, it’s probably more than I could ever do. Btw, I also admire Arlene for consigning the past to the past and getting on with the present and future. If only the media would adopt the same approach to SF, who know what we could achieve?
Some very fair points there Jude.
But is Arlene consigning the past to the past?
How many times have we been told ‘My da was shot’?
Jude, I honestly didn’t bother to watch the Spotlight programme even though I was watching the BBC1 news and it was coming on afterwards. I knew what the programme would be about and how it would be portrayed and what its purpose was, so GoggleBox on More4 was much more appealing to me. A relative of mine who was sitting with me when the spotlight programme was advertised said: “Why are they doing a show on her? Is she the only one who suffered in the Troubles or something?”. I think that question summed it up nicely.
From what I seen of the advertisement of the programme it looked as if the interview with Arlene was done in Stormont. How ironic…..to be talking about the one sided grief of the troubles in a building where it was all deliberately planned. And in front of Stormont the giant statue of the man who brought the gun into Irish politics in the first place…..
Ryan I know sometimes you suffer from obtuseness however the show was about Arlenes first month as First Minister and her background.
I know the show was about Arlene Neill but in my opinion it had a political motive behind it. I’m sure Arlene’s a decent person and would make a nice friendly neighbour but I find her politics and views, and that of most other Unionist politicians, to be hypocritical in the extreme.
Yes, of course her father being on the edge of death was an extremely dark time in her life and you would have to have a heart of stone not to acknowledge that but a lot of nationalists would view her father in exactly the same light Arlene would view an IRA man, he was in the RUC after all. You can be pretty sure if it was Martin McGuinness on spotlight talking about the killing he witnessed and its effects on him, many Unionists wouldn’t be willing to replace their hearts of stone, that’s for sure and the man Martin witnessed getting killed wasn’t an IRA man, as far as I know or read but a civilian. That was just one incident that Martin witnessed that persuaded him to join the IRA, I’m sure the RUC battering peaceful civil rights marchers, aiding and leading Unionist mobs armed to the teeth and killing Catholics had its influence.
But no, no matter what Martin says you can be sure the Unionist heart of stone will remain as solid as it was before Martin was even a twinkle in his parents eye….
The “Spotlight” programme is consistently anti SF and there are obviously some within it’s production team working to an agenda.
Jude
If it bothers you I am happy to withdraw paranoia. But the belief that the BBC planned this program somehow to damage SF in the Southern election is in my view silly(is that ok) and lacking in any evidence to back it up.
Are the BBC doing this at the behest of the state or on their own initiative?
I would have found it odd had the BBC not been doing some analysis on our new First Minister, including her formative years.
As for the media as you are claiming that they have a significant anti SF bias (and perhaps they do!) it is down to you to back it up. Collate that data.
Now as I kindly provided the link you requested, what about a link to the detail of Martin’s story
I wouldn’t withdraw the charge of paranoia, Jude clearly has a bee on his bonnet about SF and how the media treats them. They want power in the south they have to expect to be grilled roughly by the southern media rather than the supine weakness of the Northern media. With all their baggage it isn’t a surprise that the media treat them in a tough manner.
Well since you haven’t made it you can scarcely withdraw it, neill. If you’re now accusing me of paranoia, (i) you’ve got a nerve; and (ii) the fact that I believe SF are the best nationalist/republican party in Ireland and the only one with a genuine interest in the re-unification of Ireland is not paranoia by any stretch. ‘Supine weakness of the Northern media’? Really? So the northern media kow-tow to SF? I’d be interested in, say, three examples of same from the last month.
First Minister’s First Month ? More like a party political broadcast on behalf of the DUP !
Last week`s was the biggest pile of shi….nonsense I have seen in a long time. The reporter even travelled to France to show us the coast. At least she SAID it was France. The constant bias against Sinn Féin is getting really tiresome, it is a waste of time, people who supported them during the conflict are not going to be shocked at any allegations now the war is over. Give it a rest BBC.
ime sure they could come up with a bigger scandal than some peeler getting clipped 30,odd years ago if it was about an election.its just the bbc being the bbc.
Jude
You do seem more than a little tetchy about Gios responses to your blog.Are you really saying that Declan Lawn and the Spotlight team are complicit in putting out a programme merely to influence the outcome of the Southern election?I’m sure they would deny robustly any such suggestion.On the other hand,you seem to have little difficulty with B B C(N I) appearing regularly on Nolan and Talkback.Surely if you feel that the B B C have acted in bad faith against your party,you should refuse to be involved in any such shows!
Sure he gets paid for appearing on those shows!
“Arlene Foster’s father was a member of the RUC. During a period of armed conflict, combatants attempt to kill each other – that’s the nature of armed conflict. The attack on Arlene’s father was paralleled in hundreds of instances: to take one example, the former Tyrone footballer and SDLP member Jim Devlin shot in his drive-way by the Glenanne gang. The combatants that one side reviles are revered by their opponents, and vice versa. That too is the nature of armed conflict.”
Disgraceful use of the term “combatant” as a way to equate the police with members of unlawful terrorist groupings. And even more disgraceful the attempt to equate the Glenanne gang with Arlene Foster’s father.
Completely correct MT
MT, you DO realise the Glenanne gang contained SERVING MEMBERS OF THE RUC don`t you???
It didn’t contain Arlene Foster’s father nor the vast vast majority of police officers.