CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS by Donal Kennedy

Under the above heading THE TIMES OF LONDON (London Edition June 24 ) has the following – ” A picture agency error led us to misdescribe  the 6th Marquess of Cholmondley, photographed with the Queen at the state opening of parliament in 1974 (News, June 21) . He was the Lord Great Chamberlain, not Black Rod.”.                                                                                                                                                                                                          I’m amazed at the priorities of THE TIMES. Embarrassed at such minor trespasses. But shameless when publishing, defending and repeating blatant politically motivated lies. In the 1880s it published a series “PARNELLISM AND CRIME” which climaxed on the morning of the day fixed for the Second Reading of Irish Secretary Arthur Balfour’s Perpetual Coercion Bill in the Commons in April 1887  The paper printed  a facsimile of a letter purportedly written by Parnell condoning the Phoenix Park killings of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Gladstone’s Irish Secretary and his Undersecretary, Thomas Henry Burke,on 6th May 1882.  Parnell denounced the document as a forgery but THE TIMES stood by its story. Parnell’s party demanded a Parliamentary Inquiry. The Tory Government refused and suggested a libel action, a Civil Action, where a judge had no power to compel the production of evidence, even purported documentary evidence. Any case would be heard in London where juries were not notably sympathetic to Irish claimants. So Parnell did not proceed with a libel case.                                                                                                                              But a former member of Parnell’s Party DID sue THE TIMES for libel, on the grounds that as a Parnellite at the date of the document quoted, he was supposedly involved in crime. But he had no evidence other than copies of the paper complained of. Counsel for THE TIMES spent three days reciting all the evidence on which THE TIMES had based its series. The libel action failed leaving THE TIMES undamaged.                                                                                                                      The Government offered Parnell a Special Commission of Enquiry and provided

THE TIMES the Attorney General and the Solicitor General (in their “private capacities”) to defend their attack on Parnell. The Attorney General and Solicitor General called on various characters to claim outrages had been committed in Ireland, something that nobody denied, but were not eager to produce the one piece of evidence which, if authentic, might prove prove their connection with Parnell or “Parnellism”.  Finally,Counsel for THE TIMES told how an agent for the paper had bought letters, for cash, in a hotel room in Paris, from an Irishman, Richard Pigott, who was supposedly acting for unidentified Fenians, who had ” found them in a black bag, where they had been left by somebody else, who had disappeared. Pigott was subpoenaed  and THE TIMES, which was shown to be dependent on the papers bought by it from him, was compelled to put him in the witness box. After two days cross-examination,  even the Judges laughed him to scorn. The weekend intervened during which Pigott left a written confession of forgery and absconded to the Continent. An extradition warrant was issued and, pursued to Madrid, Pigott blew his brains out with a revolver. The loss of public trust in THE TIMES almost drove it into bankruptcy. Pigott had been  merely a pawn, a cog in  a scheme where the Government lent the State’s Senior Law Officers, drew on the resources of Scotland Yard and the Secret Services and hired perjurers to support THE TIMES and damn Parnell and his party. Pigott, in the end was so shamed that he couldn’t live with himself whereas the Tory Government and THE TIMES were shameless. Fifty years after the publication of “PARNELLISM AND CRIME” the paper was still trying to justify its dishonesty.                      Ninety-nine years after the Phoenix Park killings which THE TIMES had sought to connect with Parnell, the paper and and a Tory Government (led by Margaret Thatcher) were again conspiring to deceive the world about the situation in Ireland. Continued British rule in Ireland in the teeth of its repudiation by most of the Irish people, and chronic British misrule and repression in the North of Ireland had resulted in an armed struggle. Republican prisoners deemed criminal by the British, following years of protest at being ordered to wear convict clothes went on hunger strike and one of them, IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands,was elected to represent the wishes of the voters ofFermanagh/Tyrone as their (abstentionist) Member of Parliament. He polled over 30,000 votes but the never-elected Lord Carrington, Britain’s Foreign Secretary,declared that the IRA represented nobody.  Bobby Sands.died on 5 May 1981 on the 66th day of his hunger strike. An estimated 100,000 mourners attended his funeral two days later.

THE TIMES, like many newspapers around the world, reported the funeral on its       front  page the following day. But true to its own crooked tradition, it reported it dishonestly. Its Correspondent in Ireland, Christopher Thomas, wrote –

“The Roman Catholics buried Robert Sands yesterday  as Protestants lamented. their 2,000 dead from 12 years of terrorism.” and went on to refer to “2,000 victims of of Bobby Sands’ collaborators”

I telephoned the newspaper and politely asked them to correct their story, as I knew that of the 2,000 plus people killed in the conflict were hundreds of Catholics killed by “Loyalists” as well as hundreds of people, including IRA members killed by Crown Forces. (I didn’t at the time appreciate that Loyalists Paramilitaries were often armed , manipulated and directed by British “Security” Forces. )                                                        I got a letter from the paper’s Managing Editor saying their correspondent had checked his figures with various sources.                                                                            So I complained to Britain’s Press Council, which, though it was every bit as dishonest as THE TIMES and acting in cahoots with it, had eventually to uphold my complaint, but not in the forthright manner it required. Nine months later when its adjudication was published I turned on the TV to see the paper’s Editor, Harold Evans being hailed as EDITOR OF THE YEAR by his fellow Editors, and if I recall rightly saw the then Editor in Chief of the Observer, Conor Cruise O’Brien amongst those congratulating him. THE OBSERVER  did not report The Press Council’s censure of THE TIMES. I believe some shadowy outfit gave O’Brien a “Valiant for Truth ” award.

The untruth in THE TIMES had been uttered by Unionist MP James Kilfedder, Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher before I saw it in that paper, and following its condemnation by the Press Council was simultaneously repeated in a co-ordinated hatchet job on Ken Livingstone by the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star. In later years when the death toll had risen  the accumulated toll was  still being  attributed to the IRA, notably when Simon Jenkins, an ex-Editor of THE TIMES, acting on John Major’s behalf, trying to scupper the peace process, briefed White House Staff with the untruth that the IRA had killed “3,000 Britons”.

I see “THE TIMES” now prints an “Irish” Edition. I would be very surprised if it hasn’t hired a spiritual heir of Richard PIgott to carry on the bad work.