Calls increase for new investigation into Joanne Mathers’ murder
The call by Lowry Mathers for further investigation of his wife’s murder (which I covered on Wednesday) may or may not achieve justice for them and their son. Whilst the precedents for success are not good, his comments, after 30 years of dignified silence, seem to have struck something of a chord. It is worth noting that this story came back into the public consciousness due to the work of Londonderry Sentinel journalist Eamon Sweeney whose comments are here.
The actual events of the murder are utterly shocking (though not much more so than so many other murders of the Troubles):
As Mrs Mathers collected the census forms a masked man dashed forward, snatched the clipboard she was holding with one hand, placed a gun to her neck with his other hand and fired.
The victim cried out and ran past the householder into his home. The house owner slammed a glass pannelled door in the hallway shut in an attempt to stop the killer following.
But, the gunman kept coming, smashed through the glass door and as Joanne Mathers lay dying on the ground, took the rest of the census forms. He then made his escape whilst brandishing the murder weapon in the air as a deterrent against anyone attempting to apprehend him.
Initially the IRA (and INLA) denied their involvement; indeed it seems that Mr. Mathers did not know that the IRA had admitted the crime until his recent meeting with Mr. Sweeney.
After the Londonderry Sentinel’s article (which also appeared in the News Letter) the BBC and Belfast Telegraph have both run with the story. Several unionist politicians have now echoed Mr. Mather’s call for the murder case to be looked at again
Gregory Campbell (from the BBC):
“What we need to do is try to find and establish who the perpetrators were and ensure whatever limited form of justice all these decades later,” he said.
“This could at least help to bring some closure to the Mathers family.”
Jim Allister and Tom Elliott have both called for Martin McGuinness to assist the investigation:
Jim Allister:
“I, therefore, call on McGuinness to come clean – not Father Chesney style – and tell the police what he and his cohorts know about the sanction, planning and murder of Joanne Mathers.”
Tom Elliott:
“It is long past time he came clean about what he knows about the crimes committed by the IRA in Londonderry whilst he was in command.”
It remains to be seen if advances in forensic technology can help solve this murder case or indeed whether Martin McGuinness will feel that Sinn Fein’s comment:
“The family of Joanne Mathers are entitled to the same considerations as all others looking for answers,” will override his oath to the IRA. It is difficult to know whether there will be any closure for Mr. Mathers after all these years.
Topic: Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
We’re over here boys , are we ? alan and alf sitting in a tree , K.I.S.S I.N.G, first come alan’s come on …………
You’re starting to sound like a bit of a flibbertigibbet now alan .
First point: Alan Maskey is a troll, and very probably someone whose politics are unionist, or is insane.
Either one, take your pick, but his views should be disregarded as he is inconsistent and really, deeply, silly.
Now, to the subject of this thread: I hope the HET find and identify the murderer of Joanne Mathers.
I hope we get a name. I hope they don’t sleep at night worrying about that. And I also hope that when they do, this “person” is made to explain to the Mathers family and to the people of this country why he felt able to shoot a young woman DEAD for the terrible crime of collecting census forms.
The person who committed this act, if alive, is evil. That’s right, evil. They are down there with the Shankill Butchers and the Yorkshire Ripper.
We talk about war and war crimes, and this was most certainly a war crime.
What type of person and how cancerous must be their hate and, depressingly for the rest of us, how pathetic, how utterly pathetic, is it to tie your soul and life to the power of the gun, to lethal force, that you murder a defenceless young mother.
Whoever they are, they need to be identified, we need to know, society, and humankind need to know, why this person committed this atrocity.
We need it to be able to move on, the make things right, to build a better society.
Was this person a psychopath? Certainly. And what brought this sociopathy out – the Troubles.
And waltzing away from his atrocity while raising a gun demonstrates that.
“this was most certainly a war crime.”
Bullshit. It was a sectarian hate crime.
Alf , are you near anything sharp ?
Mark
Alf , are you near anything sharp ?
Clearly not his whit.
Clearly why we need a unit price for alcopops
“this was most certainly a war crime.”
Bullshit. It was a sectarian hate crime.
Alf, you’re right. I have no answer to that. It WAS a sectarian crime. And it was disgusting.
Mark, you don’t seem to understand the North. There was an element of sectarianism in this murder, and the PIRA, despite their best PR efforts, were not averse to sectarian killings.
And even now, in the days after, I can still see and experience “volunteers” screeching and screaming about “the huns” during SPL games.
Bigots are there and always have been.
An event tonight brought it home: visited my Dad in hospital and during the course of conversation (he has early onset dementia) he mentioned the “wee girl” shot dead in a petrol station on the Crumlin Road by the PIRA in 1976 (don’t know about the date) – but someone with me said that did happen.
He expresed disgust at this – my Da always hated the Provies and he had cause to even though he was from one of their “heartlands”, as ignorant, stupid journalists would put it.
In this instance, they went in and shot her and another worker in the back of the head.
The Provos were, at times, as sectarian as the loyalists. Thank God it all stopped. And here’s hoping it stays stopped.
West Sider: The person who murdered Ms Mathers did so under orders. Are you trying to say the guy who pulled the trigger was all the nasty things you said and the guy, most likely well known, who ordered it, is not culpable.
And of course, if we switch to Belfast, we come to another well known hate/war criminal but hey, demean people (disidents, unionists, church goers) who pick holes in the Sinn Fein bs.
Alf: war crime or sectarian hate crime. We are agreed it is a crime that stinks to heaven for justice. No great point getting the monkey if the orgaqn grinder struts his stuff at Stormont.
i am watching the move Bold native now. Let’s hope it does not give ideas to Sinn Fein’s enemies. For Derry Sinn Fein rather than the Mathers or Gillespie families are the real victims. I wonder how many jokes Sinn Fein voters made after Mathers was murdered and if Marttin McG chuckled along.
West Sider: The person who murdered Ms Mathers did so under orders. Are you trying to say the guy who pulled the trigger was all the nasty things you said and the guy, most likely well known, who ordered it, is not culpable.
And of course, if we switch to Belfast, we come to another well known hate/war criminal but hey, demean people (disidents, unionists, church goers) who pick holes in the Sinn Fein bs.
The guy who did it was all the nasty things I said.
The guy who ordered it is all the nasty things I said.
I don’t understand the next point you make. Or are you making a point? This is a forum for debate – so you need you make points that I can respond to.
Do you have have the inclination or ability to do that?
Just noticed what you said to Alf:
I won’t be responding to any of your posts, as you’re a crank and quite possibly bonkers.
So, do one.
Good to see WS beleives that Martin McGuinness, if he had a role in this crime or in others, should be held to account. Better be insane/a crank/ a Unionist than a war/hate criminal.
Everyone is not here to debate with aploogists for Sinn Fein.
Back to the movie where pop has touted on the son. That’s the only Irish angle in it so far.
Westsider ,
Thanks for that patronising comment , you’re an hour away , you’re not on Jupiter ……. and without taking the 5th , I can’t really comment …… but that bullshit ” you don’t understand ” .. please ,
Which part of the north are you talking about – really ….I’d like to know .
Neither Mark or Alan are worth it. Troll all before you, guys. Get a girl, write your parents, step outside and have a life…
Good man , thanks for that ….. back to the samaritan’s hotline … didn’t catch where you were from though , maybe when you grace us with your presence next time you decide to drop in to change the world , you can let me know , then you can start to judge me , until then …..
As to whether it was a sectarian hate crime or a war crime…it can’t be the latter under international law and highly questionable whether it can be the former under domestic law. Either way, it was straightforwardly a crime and there seems little debate about that, which is a start. Claiming a political motivation for a crime doesn’t unmake it a crime.
As such, no more to be said other than where the cops/HET are with it. The difference between the ugliness of the conflict here and equal ugliness in, say South Africa (e.g. necklace killings) is that in the latter admissions and truth-sharing could subsequently happen because (i) the conflct is over (as well as the fact that there is no question as to why there was a conflcit in the beginning); and (ii) the conflict has been resolved in the, so to say, right way which is now only disputed by inconsequential fringe nutters.
Neither of those conditions applies in the north which is why we cannot have truth, admissions and full amenability to legal redress for those responsible for criminal acts.
Nunoftheabove: Interesting point. Any comments on why British MPs l;anded in the clink over the expenses chump change, why Peter Sheridan got done for perjury and why members of FF and SF are not banged up?
Ireland is, indeed, a very funny place sir.
alanmaskey
There is that dimension as well of course but from a straightforwardly political p.o.v. it won’t/can’t happen for the reasons provided. With the best will in the world I do wish some of these paid reconciliators and all manner of religious do-good types would get a grip and realize this also and place their quest for ‘healing’ in some form of semi-coherent political context.
Nunoftheabove: I feel the lie must, along with the gun, be also decommissioned from the Irish mind set. The Irish have been conditioned to do the most unconscionable things and to justify them. The belligerents in the North, FF and SF in the South.
In other places, it seems to have been a passing phase. In Ireland, it seems to be almost a part of the psyche.
I posted a link here to John Noonan, ex Dublin Brigade PIRA leader, who did a few years in the Kesh. The CAB are after him for a few million euros. How many other “ex” Provos are in CAB’s sights and how many have got get out of jail cards in the interests of the interminable Peace Process?
The line between the criminal and the Provo political seems very blurred. Perhaps the line is as much a figment of our imaginations as the clean war is to the imaginations of Provo apologists.
The IRA did not fight a clean war. (And to the Provos: neither did the Orangies/Brits). But the Provos’ multiple war/hate/psycho type crimes, most notable in Derry City and the operating area of of the Second Batallion Belfast Brigade PIRA seem not only decidedlly sick but they have robbed Republicans of any right to the moral high ground.
Regarding the Third Batallion, well the Short Strand mob seem to have been a right bunch of sick perverts.
Turgon is right to bring up these “forgotten” cases and, from his perspective, it must seem odd that a non drinking mass going RC Pioneer is at the centre of all this.
Calls increase for new investigations into the deaths of
1)patrick rooney(9)
2)francis mcguigan(2)
3)carol ann mccool(3)
4)bernadette mccool(9)
5)denise ann dickson(5)
6)angela gallagher(17months)
7)desmond healy(14)
8)james mcallum(14)
9)damian harkin(6)
10)leo mcguigan(15)
11)annette mcgavigan(14)
12)marie mcgurk(13)
13james cromie(13)
14)tracey munn(1)
15)colin nicholl(7months)
16)martin mcshane(15)
17)margaret gargan(13)
18)william crothers(15)
19)shaun o’riordan(14)
20)david mcauley(13)
21)micheal connors(14)
22)francis rowntree(11)
23)roseleen gavin(8)
24)joan scott(12)
25)micheal mcgee(16)
26)martha campbell(13)
27)manus deery(15)
28)david mccleneghan(15)
29)harold morris(14)
30)tobias molloy(15)
31)alan jack(5months)
32)stephen parker(14)
33)catherine eakin(9)
34)joesph connolly(16)
35)william temple(16)
36)daniel hegarty(16)
37)daniel rooney(15)
38)alec moorehead(15)
39)micheal turner(15)
40)william doherty(4)
41)william warnock(15)
42)paula strong(6)
43)clair hughes(4)
44)rory gormley(14)
45)james reynolds(16)
46)eugene devlin(15)
47)bernard fox(16)
48)peter waterson(14)
49)philip rafferty(14)
50)kevin heatley(13)
51)sean o’riordan(13)
52)anthony mcdowell(12)
53)eileen mackin(14)
54)daniel rouse(15)
55)paul crummey(4)
56)henry cunningham(16)
57)brian mcdermott(10)
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Given that this is census weekend, does anyone know if Sinn Fein will be shooting any female census workers this year or have they given it up for Lent?