(This blog was first published on 6 June 2016, but provides a nice companion-piece to ‘BBC – MURDERING HISTORY’)
FLAMING JUNE was ushered in on the 1st of this month with a screaming headline in THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH by Laura Abernethy – “Outrage as media commentator compares Boys Brigade to dissident republicans.”
I’ve listened to BBC Radio all my life, read Dublin newspapers for 65 years and British daily and Sunday papers for over 50 years. Many insults have been offered to Irish
people of nationalist sentiment and Irish Catholics over the years from British media commentators and Ulster “Loyalists” and crimes crying to Heaven for Vengeance
have been inflicted on them by British Government agencies and their collaborators. I may be wrong, but have never seen a headline in any paper nor heard any broadcast
commentary of Irish Nationalists, Republicans or Catholics being “Outraged.” JIngoist Britons and Ulster Unionists would appear to have a monopoly on being “Outraged.”
It goes back a long, long way, even before 1912 when Unionists were so outraged at Winston Churchill’s intention of speaking in favour of Home Rule in The King’s Hall,
Belfast, that they occupied the premises in advance and he had to get a circus marquee and thousands of troops to defend his life as he adressed orderly Nationalists
in the Falls area.
The same Mr Churchill could be as Flaithiul with fictions as he was economical with the truth. In the 1940s one edition of Raidio Eireann’s popular “Question Time” was broadcast from Belfast through the co-operation of the BBC. A contestant was asked a question, the expected answer for which was “Hans Christian Andersen” the famous teller of Fairytales,but the man mischievously answered “Winston Churchill.” Churchill by this time was a hero amongst Unionists, only begetter of the Black and Tans, and midwife and funder of the “A”, “B” and “C” Specials. Loyal Ulster was Outraged.
In 1959, Alan Whicker, who had served with a British Army Film Unit in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War, and had been a reporter in the Korean War, and a TV reporter of genius all around the world came unstuck in Belfast. He had interviewed Dictators and Wacky Celebrities, letting them unconsciously condemn themselves
out of their own mouths, with diplomacy tact and charm, far removed from the confrontational style of, for instance, John Humphries.
Whicker and his team filmed eight reports, “a broad spectrum of life in the Six Counties.Each was matter of fact and straight down the middle…..we filmed in Belfast and
Armagh and were in a Londonderry hotel on the night the first of our short series was transmitted………..The opener concerned, of all things, betting shops. It was ‘Tonight’s’
usual topical look at an innovation, for they operated legally in Ulster and were just about to appear in the rest of Britain. To start the series I set the Ulster scene briefly with
general shots of the Stormont and City Hall, showed the usual gabble of wallside graffiti -‘No Pope Here’……’Vote Sinn Fein’………’Ulster is Ours’ -mentioned that Northern Ireland,
though intensely loyal and the birthplace of Britain’s best Generals, had armed police but no conscription.Then we went into the betting shop to show viewers how the imminent addition to the high streets of Britain operated, and to talk to the punters.
When the report ended there was silence in our hotel lounge. The man I had been drinking with turned to me: ‘You can’t say that sort of thing.’ I was baffled. During the previous
year I had reported in exactly the same straight-forward way from 17 countries without being told I could not get away with it.”
Whicker continues –” The Ulster sky then fell on ‘Tonight’, and on me: a Bishop and a Senator flew to London to complain, Stormont threatened to remove broadcasting from the BBC, and the Corporation’s Northern Ireland Controller replied with a craven statement grovelling at their ‘distress and indignation’. The Chairman of the Tourist Board expressed outrage and a BBC Sportsview team was dragged down from its camera stand and attacked.”
All this was 57 years ago, I suspect many decades before Laura Abernethy was a distant glimmer in her Grandparents’ eyes. But she and the Belfast Telegraph are in a mental
time warp.
Alan Whicker, an Englishman of a conservative disposition, was contemptuous of the Loyalist cry of “outrage” and the spineless behaviour of the BBC on hearing it. The more
the Blimps and Jingoes cry “outrage” the more Iwill I be satisfied that commentators are doing an honest job.
r
)
FLAMING JUNE was ushered in on the 1st of this month with a screaming headline in THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH by Laura Abernethy – “Outrage as media commentator compares Boys Brigade to dissident republicans.”
I’ve listened to BBC Radio all my life, read Dublin newspapers for 65 years and British daily and Sunday papers for over 50 years. Many insults have been offered to Irish people of nationalist sentiment and Irish Catholics over the years from British media commentators and Ulster “Loyalists” and crimes crying to Heaven for vengeance have been inflicted on them by British Government agencies and their collaborators. I may be wrong, but I have never seen a headline in any paper nor heard any broadcast commentary of Irish Nationalists, Republicans or Catholics being “Outraged.” Jingoist Britons and Ulster Unionists would appear to have a monopoly on being “Outraged.”
It goes back a long, long way, even before 1912 when Unionists were so outraged at Winston Churchill’s intention of speaking in favour of Home Rule in The King’s Hall, Belfast, that they occupied the premises in advance and he had to get a circus marquee and thousands of troops to defend his life as he addressed orderly Nationalists in the Falls area.
The same Mr Churchill could be as flaithiul with fictions as he was economical with the truth. In the 1940s one edition of Raidio Eireann’s popular “Question Time” was broadcast from Belfast through the co-operation of the BBC. A contestant was asked a question, the expected answer for which was “Hans Christian Andersen” the famous teller of fairytales,but the man mischievously answered “Winston Churchill.” Churchill by this time was a hero amongst Unionists, only begetter of the Black and Tans, and midwife and funder of the “A”, “B” and “C” Specials. Loyal Ulster was outraged.
In 1959, Alan Whicker, who had served with a British Army Film Unit in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War, and had been a reporter in the Korean War, and a TV reporter of genius all around the world came unstuck in Belfast. He had interviewed dictators and wacky celebrities, letting them unconsciously condemn themselves out of their own mouths, with diplomacy tact and charm, far removed from the confrontational style of, for instance, John Humphries.
Whicker and his team filmed eight reports, “a broad spectrum of life in the Six Counties.Each was matter of fact and straight down the middle…..we filmed in Belfast and Armagh and were in a Londonderry hotel on the night the first of our short series was transmitted………..The opener concerned, of all things, betting shops. It was ‘Tonight’s’ usual topical look at an innovation, for they operated legally in Ulster and were just about to appear in the rest of Britain.
To start the series I set the Ulster scene briefly with general shots of the Stormont and City Hall, showed the usual gabble of wallside graffiti -‘No Pope Here’……’Vote Sinn Fein’………’Ulster is Ours’ -mentioned that Northern Ireland,
though intensely loyal and the birthplace of Britain’s best Generals, had armed police but no conscription.Then we went into the betting shop to show viewers how the imminent addition to the high streets of Britain operated, and to talk to the punters.
When the report ended there was silence in our hotel lounge. The man I had been drinking with turned to me: ‘You can’t say that sort of thing.’ I was baffled. During the previous year I had reported in exactly the same straight-forward way from 17 countries without being told I could not get away with it.”
Whicker continues –” The Ulster sky then fell on ‘Tonight’, and on me: a Bishop and a Senator flew to London to complain, Stormont threatened to remove broadcasting from the BBC, and the Corporation’s Northern Ireland Controller replied with a craven statement grovelling at their ‘distress and indignation’. The Chairman of the Tourist Board expressed outrage and a BBC Sportsview team was dragged down from its camera stand and attacked.”
All this was 57 years ago, I suspect many decades before Laura Abernethy was a distant glimmer in her Grandparents’ eyes. But she and the Belfast Telegraph are in a mental time warp.
Alan Whicker, an Englishman of a conservative disposition, was contemptuous of the Loyalist cry of “outrage” and the spineless behaviour of the BBC on hearing it. The more the Blimps and Jingoes cry “outrage,” the more I will I be satisfied that commentators are doing an honest job.
r
Comments are closed.