So An Taoiseach has said he has some sympathy with Donald Trump regarding the media. As far as I know he didn’t go into minute detail, but it was notable that yesterday he stood up in the Dail and said – can you believe it? – he was in favour of an independent media.
Personally, since Leo took over, I think he’s been given a fairly easy ride by the media.Whether it’s merited or not is debatable, but it has been smooth. So I’m not sure what he’s talking about.
But if you want an example of how a crucial part of the south’s media operates, look no further than The Irish Times. When my former classmate and a man I admire, Eamonn McCann, stepped down as an IT columnist, he was succeeded by Newton Emerson. Whether Emerson writes as well as McCann is another debate; that he has ever written a column which presented the Troubles in a much-needed historical context is not. Emerson comes from a unionist background and it shows.
But if you want a specific example of anti-republican media at work, check out the IT’s coverage of the appointment of Drew Harris. In its editorial a week or so back, the IT let fly at anyone, particularly Sinn Féin, who might think of criticising in any way the appointment of Drew Harris, late of the RUC and the PSNI, as Garda Commissioner. Today in the IT, columnist Stephen Collins adds to that attack with elbow and boot.
Stephen’s argument is that “by any yardstick”, the appointment of Harris is a step on the road to mutual understanding on this island. Mary Lou McDonald gets a thump for not being sufficiently inclusive in her reaction to Harris’s appointment.
Collins goes on to commend Harris’s ordering of the arrest of Gerry Adams in connection with the death of Jean McConville. What’s more, Mary Lou showed “how out of step she was with the other political parties” in the Dail.
By now you probably get Stephen’s drift: the appointment of Drew Harris was an unreservedly Good Thing that happened after international trawling for a suitable Garda Commissioner, and far from being a disadvantage, his background as a police man in the north is an advantage, not a handicap.
So let’s have a look at some of the things Stephen likes about Harris.
He believes that “by any yardstick”, Harris’s appointment adds to understanding north and south of the border. Well, how about the yardstick of the RUC being an acceptable police service? That force was so tainted by its past, including assaults and worse on civil rights workers, it had to be replaced by the PSNI. There’s no suggestion Harris was involved in any of the RUC’s brutal activity, including one of the first deaths in the Troubles, the fatal beating of Sammy Devenney in his own home. And of course Anne Cadwallader’s excellent book, Lethal Allies, documents dozens of cases where RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitaries resulted in the deaths of dozens of totally innocent Catholics. So while as I say there is no suggestion that Mr Harris was involved in these matters, the police force of which he was a member of has a deeply tainted history. By that yardstick, Harris’s appointment does raise questions. He’s been a member of one muddied force and is now being asked to supervise reform of another muddied force.
Stephen appears to see Harris’s arrest of Gerry Adams as somehow being commendable. Many people in the north have suspicions that Adams’s arrest was politically motivated, since it happened shortly before an election, because an arrest was made when Adams had made it clear he was available for questioning at any time, and because he was released several days later as there was no evidence to support the arrest. That may be Stephen’s idea of smart policing; to me it sounds like Keystone Cops with a splash of venom.
Stephen thinks Sinn Féin doesn’t welcome his arrival because he knows too much about republican activities. Think for a second. If he had incriminating information on republicans, don’t you think he’d have passed that to the south’s gardaí years ago? Of course he would. So please, Stephen. Do be sensible.
Drew Harris may prove to be a resounding success. But as was often said of Adams himself, Harris comes with a lot of baggage. To think that an international recruiting trawl was made, and Mr Harris was the best candidate to be found anywhere, is at least surprising.
When he worked as a police officer in the north, Harris is reported as having close and regular engagement with MI5. The south will now have to live with an unnerving prospect. The man in charge of their police force is a man with a history of working closely with the British intelligence service. That’s hardly a fact to celebrate. The south of Ireland is surely trying to escape from domination by Britain, not adding to it.
Here’s the link to Stephen’s article:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/stephen-collins-reaction-to-drew-harris-exposes-sf-hollow-rhetoric-1.3553932
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