Notwithstanding the absence of a Sinn Féin spokesman, there was a fairly comprehensive discussion on Stormont Live of DUP MLA Nelson McCausland’s comments yesterday. Beginning with his ejection from the Assembly chamber today by Speaker Willie Hay.
As part of NICVA’s series of masterclasses from its Centre for Economic Empowerment project, there was a morning seminar on the topic of the “creative class” (as popularised by Richard Florida) and its applicability to Northern Ireland. The agenda was to: Explain Richard Florida’s idea of the “creative class” and the link between economic outcomes [...] read our review »
The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of the [...] read our review »
“blair, are the other people in the vicinity ira members?”
The one in front of him certainly was. Martin Meehan is in front of him. He was a convicted and self-confessed member of the IRA.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/martin-meehan-399034.html
“And why would an ira man walk beside a coffin without hiding his face?”
It was not unusual in the 1970′s Martin McGuinness appeared at one in uniform.
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5811/mcguinness1972hy0.jpg
McGuinness gave a TV interview as such:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG6cNaM1a5U&feature=related
(See 4 mins 39 secs)
The IRA leadership held open press conferences too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l3Tw-UPUOE&feature=related
(See 2minutes 18 secs in – confirmation of Adams IRA membership is given at 3 minutes 20 secs by a former PIRA Chief of Staff too)
Peter, don’t get drawn into these types of discussions with these people. They will continue to see black as white because it’s in their interest for the people of N.Ireland and N.Ireland to be unworkable.
Fact is: Gerry hasn’t sued Maloney and the others, so his failure to sue, shows he’s as guilty as sin.
Re fair deal, see that is the kind of thing I am talking about. Not rumour but something to back up a point.Fair enough.
UMH as a father of two I do want to see NI work. I certainly do not want my children grow up in the NI that I grew up in.
And your logic is a bit warped,if he doesn’t sue he is guilty.Maybe he sees the attitude of people like you and thinks winning a libel case isn’t going to change your opinion of him.And given that he would have to prove he was not in the ira to win it, it would be a hard case to win. I mean, I would have a hard time proving I was not in the ira and I wasn’t. How do you prove something like that?
But it is the case that ira funerals do have people other than the ira escorting the coffin
http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/detail/16602
ciaran
“[i]UMH as a father of two I do want to see NI work. I certainly do not want my children grow up in the NI that I grew up in.”[/i]
Fair play to you.
“[i]And your logic is a bit warped,if he doesn’t sue he is guilty.”[/i]
don’t do a Trowbridge H. Ford. I said “his failure to sue, [u]shows[/u] he’s as guilty as sin.”
Maybe he sees the attitude of people like you and thinks winning a libel case isn’t going to change your opinion of him.
And do you really think Gerry cares two hoots about what Unionists think or believe of him?
The value of winning a libel case would be a lot far-reaching than that- it certainly wouldn’t hurt at the ballot box and would also go along way towards building that Mandela-esque image he so obviously craves overseas.Might even win the Nobel Peace Prize…if we won the libel, of course.
UMH, I would think his failure to sue shows a better understanding of the british legal system, especially in the case of libel. Burden of proof seems to be on the “victim” and no legal aid, so big costs.
Oneill, the value of winning is a matter of opinion.Even if he won , more than just unionists might still not believe it. Opinion is pretty set on that matter. As I posted before, some people still think the guildford four are guilty.Hard to change some peoples minds, even with the truth.
“blair, are the other people in the vicinity ira members? And why would an ira man walk beside a coffin without hiding his face? Maybe they thought british intelligence would think it was a frank spencer theme funeral.”
Ciaran,
I would say it is a fairly safe bet that the ones in the berets are. Unless the dead man was a big Frank Spencer fan with a whacky sense of humour. They don’t wear masks now you’ll notice. No threat of arrest or being whacked by Loyalists. Just as it was when this funeral took place.
“His coffin was draped in the National flag with beret and gloves placed on top and was flanked by a republican Guard of Honour.”
Ciaran,
That would be IRA men.
So republican only means ira, not sinn fein then?
does anyone know how many IRA men/women were buried without the obvious Republican honours?
So, UMH, is on another ramage, contending that GA’s declining to sue Ed Moloney and Nelson McCausland – despite what I have stated about the difficulties of any such libel action anywhere – shows that he is guilty as libelled – what UMH last contended after Chris Ward was found not guilty of the Northern Bank heist.
How much longer are the administrators going to allow UMH to libel anyone, as he sees fit?
It’s pathetic!
I hereby switch my allegiance to this thread. Here’s another mindless post to go alongside those made by Ulster’s My Homeland.
“Yes, he could lose a case in the USA because of the standard required to win a libel case for a politician, and the costs incurred, and in the UK, while the standard is much lower, the damages would certainly not be worth the expense.
When I thought I might sue the editor of Eye Spy magazine, Mark Ian Birdsall, for refusing to pay for many articles of mine he had published in his magazine, I was told that if I could not at least have a chance of winning £5,000, it would not be worth the costs.
I doubt any N. I. court would give Adams that much if Moloney had called him a serial killer of women and children.
People must be aware of all the variables in such controversal disputes.”
As a practicing lawyer although with only theroetical expereince of libel this is tosh THF
Libel awards in the UK are so easy and so significant many US celebs sue over here instead of in the US retaining a Belfast specialist to do so
http://www.johnsonssolicitors.com/Site/53/Documents/SundayTribune_310808.pdf
just be careful it isn’t libellous to falsely accuse somone of committing libel! More substance less spin please…
‘Only one small alomst insignificant difference – Robinson is not at an IRA funeral’
But Peter, he’s leading a paramilitary parade complete with loyalist paramilitary beret.
But i suppose ‘constitutional’ unionists have always been happy to go to paramilitary funerals, like Paisley attending his UVF mate George Seawright.
http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/detail/15648
I remember Ian Paisley attending the wake of UVF leader John Bingham. A number of other high-ranking unionist councillors attended Bingham’s funeral.
Those present when John Bingham’s coffin – draped in a UVF flag, beret and gloves – was carried from the church, included the then north Belfast MP Cecil Walker, former DUP councillor George Seawright, former UUP mayor John Carson and councillors Joe Coggle, Frank Millar and Hugh Smyth.
What was Bingham convicted of? Oh that’s right nothing – same as Gerry but let’s apply 2 different standards of proof one for loylaists another for republicans.
I accept that Bingham, Billy Wright, Joe Bratty etc were all terrorists and I and the vast majority of the unionist community had and indeed have no time for them (let’s not forget that the catalyst for my resignation from the UUP was Ervine’s arrival) and 200,000 of us don’t vote for their parties but when Gerry claims he was at home watching TV on his own on Bloody Friday it must be true.
There’s a word for treating 2 groups of people differently because of their religion or political beliefs = take your pick from discrimination, racism or sectarianism.
Robinson and other dipped their toes in UR (something I have been very critical of and vocal about in the past – as anyone who was there the night Ballymena Council debated the Agreement will testify to) but they were long gone before the gun running by their former colleagues and didn’t carry anyone’s coffins. McCrea sailed closest to the wind over Billy Wright and I am glad he personally suffered politically for it but sad that his replacement was an actual terrorist not someone who simply associated with them.
In his book “The IRA A History”, Tim Pat Coogan also asserts that Gerry Adams was in the IRA.
Is Coogan’s book reliable? Or British propaganda?
‘Robinson and other dipped their toes in UR but they were long gone before the gun running by their former colleagues’
Peter Robinson campaigned on behalf of the ‘Paris Three’ long after they had supposedly left Ulster Resistance.
Your use of what starlets can get in libel suits if defamed with what Gerry Adams et al. could get if innocent and treated likewise by people like reporter Ed Moloney is patently absurd.
All you need do is look at how Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy fared when he took offense to The Times stating, on the basis of what informer Sean O’Callaghan claimed, that he was the Chief of Staff of the IRA’s Revolutionary Council. O’Callaghan also claimed that SF President Gerry Adams attended one of its meetings in 1983.
Murphy lost his case solely on the basis of what the Irish government agent contended.
In case you have forgotten what happened in the trial, here is a link:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/informer-identifies-iras-top-personnel-450327.html
For this apparently false testimony, O’Callaghan had 533 years inprisonment quashed of a 539-year sentence for his alleged crimes:
http:/www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/iras-informer.shtml
Whatever Adams, Murphy et al. did, for anyone to believe a serious word from O’Callaghan is beyond belief.
And Adams, given O’Callaghan’s continuous false statements, could never win a claim that he was not in the IRA, though he might not have been, only Moloney’s most-damaging specualation that he set up and ran “the unknows”.
Just stick to your theortical lawyering!
“So republican only means ira, not sinn fein then?”
Ciaran,
Republican can also mean Sinn Fein, but to the best of my knowledge Sinn Fein is not a uniformed organistaion. So we are left with two options for the funeral in question. Either the guard were IRA members, or the dead IRA man was a big fan of Frank Spencer who wanted a Frank Spencer themed funeral.
Which do you reckon?
“All you need do is look at how Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy fared when he took offense to The Times stating, on the basis of what informer Sean O’Callaghan claimed, that he was the Chief of Staff of the IRA’s Revolutionary Council. O’Callaghan also claimed that SF President Gerry Adams attended one of its meetings in 1983.”
Trowbridge,
A jury of Irish men and women sat in court and listened to the evidence which was presented by both the Sunday Times and by Slab Murphy. They concluded that Slab Murphy was lying.
What, apart from the fact that your hero lost, is your problem with that?
Blair, I am no friend of Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, but I have all kinds of problems with trials like this where the chief witness, Sean O’Callaghan, is a longtime informant of the government in which the trial is taking place, and he gets his sentence reduced by 533 years for telling lies to suit his employers.
What jury would not convict under such circumstances?
As for juries being always reliable in the most obvious cases, just remember what happened to O. J. after he murdered those two. Juries in the most controversial cases do what is expected of them.
The Murphy case is political justice of the worst sort.
And to show what a scumbag O’Caalaghan is, I shall try to link the article again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/ira-informer.shtml
“As for juries being always reliable in the most obvious cases, just remember what happened to O. J. after he murdered those two.”
THF – aren’t you the person who complained so bitterly when after Ward’s acquittal UMH persisited in implying he had some involvement?
Are you a hypocrite then? Or just racist?
Sorry, Big Maggie, for making the race closer, but I must respond to Peter Brown’s spin too. Big Maggie, you will just have to keep the other one in the lead.
PB, I am neither a hypocrite nor a racist: just a seeker of truth and justice
I have explained on the other thread that justice was not done in the Murphy jury trial because the Irish government bribed the key witness, Sean O’Callaghan, by reducing his sentence for all kinds of viuolent crimes by 533 years, so that he would give false, but convincing claims in the libel trial that Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy brought against The Times.
Justice was, consequently, not achived in that trial, as it wasn’t in the OJ Simpson one.
As for the one against Chris Ward, it was such a miscarriage of justice that the presiding judge stopped it in mid course.
You, in sum, are just a troublemaker!
Trowbridge,
We have established that you are not in favour of jury trials (at least not when they don’t go your way). What alternative do you propose?
Can you provide any evidence of the Irish government bribing O’Callaghan in order to get him to give evidence against the innocent farmer Slab. Can you explain why they have such a gripe against this innocent farmer?
I have great reservations about jury trials, though not when they don’t go my way – as I have no such ways – but when they generally don’t appear to be correct.
How many people still think that justice was served when OJ was acquitted of murdering his wife and Ron Goldman?
Actually, jury trials, especially in criminal cases, are so bad that defendants accept plea bargains which send themselves to prison rather than face the whims of juries. And in tort cases, they are usually worse.
Here in Sweden, the trials are with lay and professional judges, and they seem to do much better in achieving fair verdicts, though it often requires appeals to higher professional courts to achieve a final result.
As for the miscarriage of justice in the Murphy libel trial, he no sooner started it than Sean O’Callaghan was released from prison after having served only 6 years of a 539-year sentence for no reason other than helping defeat Murphy’s case against The Times.
No fair government would ever have allowed him to appear after his release from prison under these conditions, and if he had been allowed to appear while still serving time, the Irish government should have provided a full appraisal of his claims – stating pretty much that he was a witness of questionable reliability whose stories seemed dubious.
Trow
I think justice was served by the jury in the OJ trial
The prosecutor completely failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that OJ was the murderer. They only proved he could have been the murderer but thats not the american standard of justice
Maybe Gerry could sue the Guardian also (obvioulsy the vatican did were not able to edit this one like they did the wilkipedia):
Gerry Adams yesterday denied that he had ever been a member of the IRA amid a series of fresh allegations in a book by the journalist Ed Moloney.
Mr Moloney, author of A Secret History of the IRA, claims the Sinn Fein president took over the Provisionals’ Belfast brigade in late 1972, and that he had previously set up a special IRA unit which murdered and secretly buried at least nine people in the 1970s and early 1980s, the so-called Disappeared.
Mr Adams said he had consulted lawyers about the book. He said: “I find some of the claims outrageous and think some people will be deeply upset by a mixture of innuendo, recycled claims, nodding and winking. I have not been and am not a member of the IRA.”
Senior police sources allege that Mr Adams and fellow MP Martin McGuinness have been members of the IRA’s seven-strong ruling army council for years, and security and republican sources were incredulous at Mr Adams’ denials yesterday.
Last year, Mr McGuinness admitted that he was second-in-command of the IRA’s Derry brigade when soldiers shot dead 13 unarmed men on Bloody Sunday in January 1972.
But he said the Provisionals took their weapons out of the Bogside to avoid confrontation with the army, and refused to give any further details of his paramilitary career.
Mr Adams, however, has always denied being part of the IRA, but last year, Dolours Price, one of the 1973 London bombers, was quoted by the hardline Republican Sinn Fein president, Ruairi O’Bradaigh, at a republican commemoration as saying Mr Adams was her commanding officer at the time and it was “too much” to hear senior Sinn Fein members deny their history.
Anthony McIntyre, a writer on republican affairs, noted recently that the west Belfast MP’s autobiographical book, Before the Dawn, was “like George Best writing a book about football without mentioning Manchester United.” However Mr Moloney, a journalist with the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, believes Mr Adams transformed from a young paramilitary to a towering figure in Irish political history.
Although details of the IRA campaign will enrage Northern Ireland unionists, Mr Moloney thinks the overall picture is of a brilliant strategist who manoeuvred the IRA into the peace process.
“To begin with, he was 22 years old and the war was raging in Belfast and the place was full of anger,” he said. “I think they genuinely believed at that time they could win the war. But he began to realise they were in for a long war and his mind turned to the political process.
“There are elements of Adams’ character that some people will find distasteful, his ruthlessness for example. But it was probably his ruthlessness which enabled him to push forward the peace agenda.
“He stands there with people like Michael Collins as a very significant figure. He is a man of strategic genius. I think he should have won the Nobel prize for what he did.”
The book also reveals how the IRA came within a whisker of murdering Sir Geoffrey Howe when he was foreign secretary, and how the SAS killing of three IRA members in Gibraltar may have been linked to this.
British intelligence thwarted the attempt to assassinate one of Margaret Thatcher’s most senior ministers, now Lord Howe, in a massive car bomb in Brussels in January 1988, heralding the start of a vicious new campaign of violence in mainland Europe.
But Mr Moloney finds it puzzling that the security forces did not move against the IRA in Brussels, and given the SAS shootings of Mairead Farrell, Danny McCann and Sean Savage in Gibraltar two months later, he suggests that Mrs Thatcher knew weeks in advance of the IRA plan to blow up a military band in the colony and wanted to give them a “bloody nose” there instead.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/oct/01/northernireland.northernireland
Without going back through the trouble Ed Moloney caused GA over “the unknowns” issue – what put GA between a rock and a hard place, given the connivance by the Irish government in the freeing of its informer Sean O´Callagan to nail not only Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy but also GA – it should be noted, thanks to Sam Graham’s additions, that his book itself is just a hodge-podge of disinformation.
For starters, he based his whole book on the capture of the Eksund, without seriously trying to determine who ‘Steak knife’ really is, only suggesting feebly that he might be Martin McGuinness. Moloney, as far as I can see, never even mentions the top tout in the PIRA’s Council code name – what set the stage about how many such knives there are, and who they might be.
Then look at what Graham added, though he made no mention of the Enniskillen bombing triggering what he did mention.
It got the British government involved in setting up ‘Steak knife’ for the attempt on Howe, and then the cull on The Rock – what got them only blowback because of overkill rather than ‘Steak knife’ who went on to achieve a negotiated settlement with the Brits.
You would think that given the importance of Enniskillen – what the Provos did in revenge for the betrayal of the Eksund – Moloney would have said something about it, especially when you look at his index – where one is told that it can be found under PIRA operations.
Unfortunately, when one looks there, there is no such reference.
The book, in sum, is just a bunch of wild cherry-picking, apparently to suit Moloney’s masters, the bosses in Downing Street and Whitehall.
Take back the bit about there being no mention of Enniskillen. Moloney blamed it all on the Northern Command, rather than local activists in several places, angered by the betrayal. (p. 347)
Listen up you libellous unionists.
Gerry was never in the IRA. During the 1970s he was a ‘community organiser’ in Ballymurphy. He did a lot of work ‘behind the scenes’ – organising, good deeds, social work, yogic flying, walking on water, etc. As for that photo – well its a fake.
Seriously though, I can’t believe this discussion is even taking place , let alone that certain contributors are so brainwashed / mendacious as to deny what is self-evidently true.
When Gerry Adams denies that he was ever in the IRA he is insulting us all. When he calls for ‘truth’ he is guilty of the most mind-boggling affrontery. The man is a compulsive liar and those he lies to most are his own supporters.
Ciaran, pat, etc. – WISE UP!
Picador, All I have done is ask for proof which still has not been produced. It may be self evident to you but I prefer proof, to following others opinion sheeplike.
Its a bit like believing in god, I don’t, unless I get proof, Not a big believer in faith.
Getting close to post no. 100
“Here in Sweden, the trials are with lay and professional judges, and they seem to do much better in achieving fair verdicts, though it often requires appeals to higher professional courts to achieve a final result.”
Trowbridge,
You prefer the Diplock system then?
“As for the miscarriage of justice in the Murphy libel trial, he no sooner started it than Sean O’Callaghan was released from prison after having served only 6 years of a 539-year sentence for no reason other than helping defeat Murphy’s case against The Times.”
Do you have any sort of evidence to back up your claim that O’Callaghan was released specifically to sink Murphy? Can you give me any kind of inkling as to why the Irish government would have a problem with a man who you reckon, laughably, was nothing more than an innocent farmer?