On 16 June 1916 I had a BLOG here mistakenly headlined “ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE”
It was a review of ALL HELL LET LOOSE by Max Hastings, dealing with the Second World War.
Whatever his expertise on warfare, his remarks on Ireland’s neutrality and on Eamon de Valera
had me worrying about what the guy was smoking when writing them.
In THE SUNDAY TIMES 2nd April 2023 his review “THE BOMBER WHO CAME FOR THATCHER”
of the book “The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown” by Rory Carroll, Hastings
appears to have returned to his old smoking habits, if not merely laying a smokescreen or just
hiding in the fog of a Propaganda WAr.
Patrick Magee, the IRA volunteer who planted the Brighton Bomb, was described by the Judge who
gave him three life sentences as a man of exceptional cruelty and and inhumanity, and by Hastings
as eager to spill more English blood in the eight months between the Brighton explosion and his arrest.
Hastings’ own professional diagnosis of Magee is of “a killer in the obsessive tradition of Gavrilo Princip,the French OAS and Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Having delivered this infallible verdict, Hastings surmises -“But the English might fare better in combatting his kind if we worked harder at understanding Ireland.”
Hastings himself has never tried understanding.
Apparently Rory Carroll’s book suggests that Gerry Adams “could have vetoed the attempt to kill
Thatcher, but chose not to, his primacy was being challenged by the Provos’ extreme militarists.To
this day Adams denies his leadership. indeed membership, of the IRA.”
As a young man I assumed that Garrett Fitzgerald was a member of Fine Gael. His father had represented the party in the Dail. Garrett sat on the Fine Gael Benches in the Senate.
But Garret had never joined the Party and when he decided to stand for election to the Dail he
approached the Elder Statesman John A Costello, for guidance.
The latter replied, “been in politics forty years, Taoiseach Twice, never joined the Party.”
Personally I would take Gerry Adams’ word as soon if not sooner than that of a Blueshirt.
My local MP, Anthony Berry, was killed by the Brighton Bomb. I had lobbied him about the
Birmingham Six, and the Maguire Seven, victims of exceptional inhumanity and cruelty by
police and prison staff, and the vindictiveness of Lord Denning. He had been polite and helpful
but to no avail. And he had me admitted to the Visitors Gallery where I saw a brilliant and
witty speech by Robin Cook on a Friday Afternoon. It had both sides in stitches and as Margaret
Thatcher wasn’t present it was like a classroom on the eve of a holiday. I was sorry Anthony
Berry was killed, but I would not have mourned Thatcher.
The Beneficiary of Magee’s handiwork, was Michael Portillo, the son of a Spanish intellectual
who had escaped Franco.
In December 1973,,Franco’s Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was killed by a bomb
planted by the Basque Separatist ETA Guerrillas in Madrid. Michael Portillo recorded that his
father shed no tears for the the departed statesman.
Comments are closed.