Does the name Maurice Oldfield mean anything to you? For me it rang a faint bell but I couldn’t have said why until I was sent a newspaper article announcing a new book titled The Life of Britain’s Most-decorated Cold War Spy and head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield.
Oldfield in some ways was quite different and some ways similar to your traditional British spook. He was different in that he didn’t go to Eton or Oxbridge, was a farmer’s son who attended a provincial grammar school. He was similar in his self-deprecating air. When Martin Pearce was a boy he asked his uncle what he did. “Oh, it’s quite boring really, dear boy. I’m a kind of security guard at embassies.” And there are claims that he was the model for John Le Carré’s Smiley.
Even more interesting is the fact that he appears to have used top-of-the-tree contacts he had in the Catholic Church to recruit informers from within the IRA. Maggie Thatcher sent Oldfield here in 1979 as “security co-ordinator”. I haven’t read the book so I can’t vouch for the veracity of the claim, and even I had read it I might still be unable to vouch for its veracity. But if it’s true, it’ll be interesting to see different reactions to it. For some – mainly in the unionist community – it’ll be seen as a clever move, using clergy that were embedded in the community and no doubt Catholic bishops who would have had information not readily available to the British. “He saved many lives through his informant network” will probably be the judgement of some on Oldfield’s activities. Others will see his efforts here as another example of the Catholic Church working comfortably with the authorities to snuff out the republican flame.
Which raises another point: were the Catholic clergy working with the British authorities like Oldfield when they refused to allow into their churches coffins adorned with flag, beret and gloves of a dead IRA volunteer? Or were they simply refusing to allow politics in their churches, or any hint that they condoned the violent actions of the IRA?
It’s odd thst there appears to be an expectation here that the church ought to have supported the Provisional IRA, and an annoyance that it didn’t. Surely the expectation should be the opposite.
“It’s odd thst there appears to be an expectation here that the church ought to have supported the Provisional IRA, and an annoyance that it didn’t”
The Orange Order and some within political Unionism might disagree with you there MT.
You omit mention of Oldfield’s links to the Kincora paedophile ring. The abuse of young boys in this home by British intelligence services is surely one of the most deplorable episodes in Britain’s counter insurgency war.
“You omit mention of Oldfield’s links to the Kincora paedophile ring. The abuse of young boys in this home by British intelligence services is surely one of the most deplorable episodes in Britain’s counter insurgency war”
They used Kincorra to blackmail the paedophiles, which consisted of members of Loyalist paramilitaries, Unionist political parties and, of course, the Orange Order. The deputy director of MI6, Sir Peter Hayman, was a paedophile. He even recorded in a black book the times, dates, with whom, etc he had sexual intercourse with children, often orphans. His accuser was at Kincorra, Richard Kerr, who said he was brought to London to be raped by MP’s and other powerful figures. Kerr even said children were murdered to silence them. Yes, all this was done by those who control the British State.
There has been numerous accusations of child abuse made against the British Royal family, such as Lord Mountbatten and most recently Prince Andrew. Mountbatten and his wife effectively had an open relationship, apparently he once told Prince Charles to sleep with as many women as he could. As we know Charles cheated on Diana. Diana herself cheated on Charles too. Mountbatten apparently said: “Me and my wife were never out of other peoples beds”. The British Royals are far from the “model family”. Same goes for all Royal Families, its shocking that in the 21st century such entities still exist.
Prince Andrew has been accused of sleeping with underage girls, including prostitutes. An American Banker friend of Prince Andrews was convicted of sleeping with underage girls. The same girl said Prince Andrew slept with her, she was only 14 or 15. Its been around 3 years since her accusations and still nothing has been done about it….
I think the evidence is there from many families of victims, to support the belief that the Catholic clergy were on the side of the British, berets & flags to one side. They may have carried out the service, however, was there support for the bereaved during & after the rituals were performed, in my personal experience, NO.
Here is a story from 1973. At the time the inglorious glousters were billeted in Mulhouse St Barracks, a converted factory beside The RVH on the Grosvenor Road. The factory had a feature of a hole in the floor , probably remains of a tool installation, soldiers bring ing suspects in, laced them in the hole and then proceeded to urinate on them. It happened to my brother.
Anyway, one bright morning the residents ofLeeson St, Cyprus St, Raglan st etc awoke to find a wall on The Scrap yard adorned with a mural depicting the glorious battles the Glousters had been involved in.
Taking it as an affront a group of adult women (most of the local men were either interned or on the run) went to Mulhouse St to complain to the OC about the mural. Being told in best BA tradition to remove themselves, they said the they would go get Canon Murphy, who was pp of St Peters.
The Guard told if they waited, he was upstairs with the OC as they were both getting ready to go and play golf…….
Dosent surprise me at all. I was walking through the city cemetery with my youngest daughter recently and came across his grave. It faces St Johns Chapel. I started telling her about this priest and how i remembered him. Lets just say we didnt say any prayers for him.
If Sir Maurice Oldfield rang a faint bell for you, Esteemed Blogmeister, it is a fairly safe bet it would have been his namesake, Mike, who’d have set the tubular bells echoing through your inner campanile.
Mike Oldfield, of course, is the musical innovator from Reading in Berkshire who some forty years ago or so correctly read the prevailing musical trends and released an album entitled:
-Ommadawn.
Now that, of course, is the English spelling of the Leprechaun word ‘amadan’ which, when translated into Hiberno-English, comes out as
-Eeejt.
Mike’s Mammy (with two m’s in the middle) was an Irish nurse, name of Maureen Liston. Mike Oldfield whose musical m.o. incorporates the ancient with the ambient, also released a memorable version of ‘In Dulci Jubilo’, a honey of a Christmas carol which dates back to 1305.
Which, funnily enough, makes it a deal yougner than ‘Ommadawn’, the footsteps of the original Eeejits having been carbon dated to reveal a back story of many millennia on the Me Eyeland of Ireland.
Now, whatever about the power which the Catholic Church wields in Norneverland it wields d-all to zilch down here south of the Black Sow’s Dyke. We know this because the Leader of the Mosquito Groupeen known as the Labour Party told us so on RTE yesterday.
-We do not live in a Theocracy here.
Brendan Howlin (for it is he !) was speaking, oops, E-NUNC-I-A-TING about the neverending referendum re the Aborting of the Eight Amendment. BH is never one to merely speak: being the polar opposite of an Ommadawn / Dunce (he says so himself) he finds it much less inappropriate for him, as a Lord of the German Q’s English, to E-NUNC-I-ATE.
That’s why he gets invitations and other deiseanna to address such Ard Fheiseanna as The British Labour Party Annual Conference. Recently, while standing at a specially reconstructed podium , the no-nonsense non-nationalist scolded the (gulp) British Electorate for being ‘ommadawns’.
Now, this was not the actual word he used, (it not been shaped for E-NUNC-I-A-TION), rather did he imply they were wearing a conical hat with the D on it – and he, incidentally, almost as an afterthought, casually called for a (gulp) ‘second Referendum’. On the Mainland, of course.
Eh?
Here surely is a PM-in-Waiting with cojones: as for bells, specifically, church bells, whether, tubular or not he is against them, but then again, he is not. It all depends on which scrotum-tightening bells are involved.
When his former leader and object of awe, Conor Craze O’Brain campaigned against the Catholic Camponile over RTE, aka, the Angelus Bells the champagne socialist from Wexico bubbled, but in silence. He remained cutely mute. Shoot, he approved. Of the campaign. Not the bells.
But, of course, there are bells and then there are bells. There are the bells of – say, of Christchurch, aka the de facto bells of RTE when the ‘In Dulci Jubili’ of Xmas or the Blue Year of Dublin is having its new born neck wrung. Again, the champagne socialist has remained mute; no campaign for removal here.
Merrily on high in the Dublin Nightsky they can be heard to chime with The Unionist Times:
Everything from:
-We’re here to be only heard and no,never to be seen
We’re here to celebrate the Divine Right of the Queen.
To:
-Bong ! If you do want to ding a dong
Do ding a cringeworthy colonised dong.
Of course, there is no Theocracy in the Free Southern Stateen. Which is not quite the same thing as saying that there is no, erm, Sheocracy.
Now that the RC for Hirearchy have lost all shred of moral authority that self same shred now is not only worn by a Zed (nee Zee) but is seen to be worn by She who must be Adored . She who definitely proves the sheer over-rated standing of The Great (allegedly) Shakes who pontificated that:
-Zed is that unnecessary letter.
Zed (nee Zee) is what Katherine Zappone is affectionately known in such disinterested and objective quarters as the Liffeyside media. Born into a humble Dworkin Class family in distant Seattle, Washington State and with no known Irish blood coursing through her vanity-free veins it is unclear why she left the comparative obscurity of the Land of Aunt Samantha to subject herself to the harrowing trauma of super-stardom in the Emerald Isle.
Local mischief-making mutterers (who, alas, are always with us) have darkly hinted she could well be a plant of the (gasp) CIA. And that is the sole reason why she has since being catapulted into the dizzy role of the First Lesbian Minister for Children, south of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
The Perkin’s inner superspook seeking toff, scoffs at this ludicrous idea. The reason for her seamless Trans-Atlantic transition has been simpler than that, much simpler:
-There is no Zed in the Leprechaun.
Thus, the fact that she cannot tell her leanbh from her banbh is neither here or there. Irrelevant, totally..
Which is not to say Zed (nee Zee) has not been neither here nor there, but indeed she had been just about everywhere in the Free Southern Stateen.
Consider this Girly-gruelling schedule:
On a Saturday she was at the head of a right-on ‘Right to Choose’ march through the prohibitively dry streets of Dublin, Texas not, but,yes, the boozy streets of Dublin sur Liffey. Dressed down in a T-for trendy T-shirt, calling upon, nay, demanding of the Government to Abort the Eight Amendment.
Zed wants, it is said,, the Government to remove the second and the second last syllables from the A-word. That would be the, erm, same Government of which she is a (gulp) member.
No sooner was this onerous and television-basking task completed than she was vroomed over to the Wesht to the location (exact) where the unmarked graves of of numberless unnamed children were located in the grounds of a, yes, Nun-run Sunshine House, not.
Once again, she was compelled to run a gauntlet of intrusive media cameras. No cowardly Ommadawn she.
Re-spect.
Z from ZEE to ZED
Zee did flee from the US of A
To bed in as Zed, here to stay
Apres a march re womb
Vroomed to a Tuam tomb
On a v. good Burke and Hare day.
I remember one priest in Greencastle, north Belfast who refused to allow a tricolour draped coffin into his church (not really his, actually the people’s), but yet a week later the same ‘Christian’ attended a British military function in St Anne’s Cathedral, bedecked in union jacks.
No need to ask the affiliations of this quisling!
“I remember one priest in Greencastle, north Belfast who refused to allow a tricolour draped coffin into his church (not really his, actually the people’s), but yet a week later the same ‘Christian’ attended a British military function in St Anne’s Cathedral, bedecked in union jacks.”
I’m sure the priest would equally have attended an Irish military function bedecked in southern tricolous. So your comparison is spurious.
“So your comparison is spurious”
For once I agree with you MT. No way could the republican movement be compared to the British military. I know the republican movement made some mistakes but they were no where near as bad and immoral as the British military!
“I remember one priest in Greencastle, north Belfast who refused to allow a tricolour draped coffin into his church (not really his, actually the people’s), but yet a week later the same ‘Christian’ attended a British military function in St Anne’s Cathedral, bedecked in union jacks.
No need to ask the affiliations of this quisling!”
At my grandmothers funeral in 2006 the Priest didn’t mind the Irish flag draped over her coffin. Brendan Hughes even spoke in the chapel. My grandmother was a great emotional help for him during the darkest times of his life and treated him like a son. That was the first and last time I ever met Hughes. I’ll be honest, I never really knew who he was, having very little interest in politics then.
So all Priests are different Sherdy. In my own personal experience I find some of them to be cowards, some are very naïve (much like a few in Ardoyne these past few days) and some have their heads screwed on and are genuine. The Catholic Church is just full of different people with different views. There’s no one size fits all. But I suppose that goes for every group.
“He saved many lives through his informant network”
That’s the new line being churned out to excuse murders committed by the British Government and their agents. “For every one killed it saved many lives”, which, of course, is nonsense. As Margaret Thatcher herself would’ve said: Crime is Crime is Crime, and oh boy, didn’t old Maggie commit many crimes….
” Others will see his efforts here as another example of the Catholic Church working comfortably with the authorities to snuff out the republican flame.”
The Catholic Church is a very slippery fish. At present, its certainly not what Christ wants it to be, you can be sure of that. There is characters in there that certainly shouldn’t be but there are decent Priests, many of them very republican. My great, great Uncle was a Catholic monk/priest. I obviously never met the man, he was dead long before I was born but according to my father he was “a right old grump”. Born into a family of teachers, he was a highly intelligent man, constantly educating himself all his life and devoutly Irish Republican.
“Or were they simply refusing to allow politics in their churches, or any hint that they condoned the violent actions of the IRA?”
What people/groups say in public is sometimes the opposite of what they say/do behind closed doors. The DUP/UUP alone is a good example of this…..
“That’s the new line being churned out to excuse murders committed by the British Government and their agents. “For every one killed it saved many lives”, which, of course, is nonsense.”
Who is churning out this line to excuse murders? Have you a link to someone saying this? Or are you making it up?
“Who is churning out this line to excuse murders? Have you a link to someone saying this? Or are you making it up?”
MT, you must be living in your cupboard or your just hearing what you want to hear (I think I know which…). Ever since British agents were exposed killing people with the permission from their handlers that’s the line being churned out: “it saved many lives”. I wonder how it “saved lives” when British Intelligence knew about Loughisland (or even helped plan it) or when they refused to intervene when many RUC were killed despite knowing about plans in advance?…
“Or are you making it up”
I’m not a Unionist, I don’t make up things. Read more than just the newsletter MT, expand that mind of yours.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32887445
Check below “Crime impunity”.
“MT, you must be living in your cupboard or your just hearing what you want to hear (I think I know which…). Ever since British agents were exposed killing people with the permission from their handlers that’s the line being churned out: “it saved many lives”.”
If that’s the case you’ll be able to provide evidence. Where is it?
“I wonder how it “saved lives” when British Intelligence knew about Loughisland (or even helped plan it) or when they refused to intervene when many RUC were killed despite knowing about plans in advance?…”
They didn’t know about Loughinisland nor did they plan it. Does it never occur to you to question why your views are dependent on fantasy and lies?
“http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32887445
Check below “Crime impunity”.”
I did. There’s nothing there that describes anyone excusing murder. On the contrary there’s a quotation from a government source saying collusion should never have happened.
So it seems you are making it up?
“At present, its certainly not what Christ wants it to be, you can be sure of that.”
Have you any insight into what our Lord actually does want it to be?
Clerical errors
Mrs Thatcher was keen to deploy Mr Oldfield here in 1979 and equally as keen to have him removed…
“the smear probably came from within MI5…More likely it was a variation on the Thomas Becket model: for ‘Will nobody rid me of this troublesome priest?’ read ‘bloody Maurice, interfering again.’…” (p348)
Maybe the spooks ‘turned’ the entire Catholic Church by threatening to expose it’s dark secrets, I.e paedophilia? It’s an oul tried and trusted tactic for them. Plenty of paedophiles have done the spooks bidding in all walks of life right up to the present day.
Would it not be better to read the book before you make any firm conclusions?Suppose it’s much easier to speculate and draw conclusions which go to the discredit of the Catholic Church.Cant’t think that the late Bishop Daly would have been manipulated by M I 5!
“Would it not be better to read the book before you make any firm conclusions?”
Preposterous!
You’ve gone too far this time Argenta.
Gio
I know!How outrageous of me to demand evidence before coming to conclusions?!!The very thing that Jude insists we all do before making allegations on various topics!
The Bee Gees song how deep is your love comes to mind reading the responses here. Hopefully it goes deeper than the shit excreted by your post and spread so lovingly on the walls of the history of our glorious fight for freedom. There were priests who were a wee bit loyal and there were priests who were rebels. Sean O’Callaghan tells the story of going to a priests house after the murder of an RUC man in Omagh were the good father commented, “he was a bad man”. And who could forget the good father Ryan with all his egg timers. If we’re going to stir the pot lets do it right. As the helicopter gunner in Full Metal Jacket said, “Ain’t war HELL.
Is that thee ‘Sean O’Callaghan’ you quoted? Snigger
Yea, a sort of Stakeknife with brains (laughs)