Thursday, August 09, 2007
“If I can see they are trying to do that I will definitely go back.”
An Irish Times report notes Darren Graham’s response to the statement from the Fermanagh GAA County Board, “If I’m selected I will turn out. But I will also be wanting to see what progress they make on the whole judgement around it, and if they are taking a stand.” County Board Chairman, Peter Carty, also said on the BBC’s Newsline that no individuals or clubs had been identified by Mr Graham in the meeting this week and that “There was no official complaint” - which will probably mean that there will be no sanctions against clubs or individuals. Also in the Irish Times, earlier this week, Fintan O’Toole had an interesting article on the background to the abuse. [subs req]
From the Irish Times
They got Ronnie Graham first, while he was delivering coal not far from his own house in Lisnaskea. He was 39, writes Fintan O’Toole
After the killing, the IRA left the guns to be moved by a 13-year-old boy, who had been recruited into its youth wing by a teacher at his school.
Five months later, in November 1981, Ronnie’s younger brother, Cecil, was visiting his wife and their newborn baby at her parents’ house. She had gone to stay there because the baby had been born prematurely and needed constant attention. But Cecil’s wife was a Catholic, and the house she was staying in was in a nationalist area. Cecil was spotted going into the house. As he left, he was shot 16 times.
It took them more than three years to get the third Graham brother. They had tried to get Jimmy in 1980, but he had fought them off, and been given a medal. Perhaps his escape had annoyed them, or perhaps, as many Protestants believed, there was a deliberate plan of ethnic-cleansing, aimed at wiping out whole families. In any case, he was a soft target now. He arrived in the school bus he drove to collect children from a primary school and take them to the local swimming pool. He was parking the bus when they fired the first two shots at him. Then they got into the bus and fired 24 more shots, just to be sure.
..
Darren Graham’s paternal grandfather was a member of the B Specials. His father, uncles and aunt were part-time members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, which allowed the IRA to justify its assault on the family. But his mother was Catholic and so is his two-year-old daughter.
And, after noting the author Colm Tóibín’s references to the murders in Bad Blood
Darren Graham [son of Cecil Graham] didn’t make a big issue of his religious affiliation. But that wasn’t enough to stop other people doing it for him.
What was done to the Grahams - the methodical murders; the naked joy when they got Jimmy at last - left at least some people with a bad conscience. Cecil Graham’s Catholic father-in-law told the inquest in 1983 that he was upset that in the two years since Cecil’s death “none of the neighbours had extended sympathy or even mentioned the murder of his son-in-law”. But the silence belied an unspoken disturbance.
Colm Tóibín, when he walked through the area three years after they got the third Graham brother, found that the dead Grahams were seen as uneasy, vengeful spirits still haunting the place.
As he was talking to two young Catholic men in Kinawley, he mentioned the spate of tragic car accidents in the locality, in which all the victims seemed to be young Catholic men. “People think it’s revenge,” one of them blurted out. When pushed, they explained that the older people maintained that the accidents were a sort of revenge for what was done to the Grahams. “God, you know, did I understand? It was God.”
The unspoken guilt transmuted itself into irrational fear and it is not hard to see how that fear could in turn be channelled into the abuse of Cecil Graham’s son.
Guilt for the murderous campaign against Border Protestants was kept at bay by the notion that the victims were off-duty UDR men and therefore mere ciphers of British imperialism.
Darren Graham had the temerity to punch through that easy tribal stereotype by playing GAA and not defining himself simply as a Protestant. It took the hate that dares not speak its name to make him one now.
Pete Baker @ 06:46 PM
Good man Turg, we’re getting there (but you didn’t answer many of my questions).
“…and desperation to justify PIRA murders”
Wrong. I’ve never justified any killing but you choose to assume that because I post the facts about the UDR being a bunch of thugs then I’ve automatically got to be a IRA supporter. As I’ve posted many times to this site… “I’m not sure what I am (NI pigeonhole etc) but I very damned sure I know what I’m not”. In this case… I’m not someone who assumes that the UDR is an honourable grouping in the NI conflict just because they have a Brit Army uniform. You’ll also note that the Brit Army spent least on the UDR for equipment – they never cared about your Love of Queen and Their Country!
“The Army’s killings of PIRA members were mostly lawful”.
I guess the whole ‘sauce for the goose’ doesn’t work in this case. What are you smoking Willow? UDR members get killed and it’s ethnic cleansing of Protestant while IRA members get killed and it can’t be described similarly as ethnic cleansing of Catholics by the Ustascheeerrrr I mean the British Army SSeerrr SAS.
Can anyone answer “Is a hypocrite in NI the same as a bigot“ ? Case in point Willowfield.
“5-15% infiltration in one year is not what you claim. You’re deliberately misrepresenting the facts. “
no I’m not, but hey, let try this; ok then maestro, then what are the facts of that report? Shock me into reading the report again and see that the UDR were a well trained (not half drunk), cross community, civic minded battalion for the benefit of ALL RESIDENTS of NI.
Finbarr, “…day of the murder that he had asked him to turn up 5 minutes early. It is not ‘local Protestant rumour’”.
Don’t bother. I’m not doubting that the headmaster did ask him to arrive early. I’m saying that it’s a disgrace and sign of your sick mindset that someone being asked to turn up early implicates the asker in the dead person’s killing. I’ve asked my staff to come to work a bit earlier. If killed in the commute or on arriving, does that make me guilty of aiding and abetting their murder!!!?? Don’t bother replying to this either it’s rhetorical. You need help, seriously.
Posted by on Aug 16, 2007 @ 01:29 PMAnonymous,
I said before that I am not fully aware of the surrondings of the Jimmy Graham’s murder but surely you accept that the easiest way to murder a man driving a bus is to do it when he is stationary in said bus for a predicatable period of time.
You said your following was rhetorical but it is worth answering
“I’ve asked my staff to come to work a bit earlier. If killed in the commute or on arriving, does that make me guilty of aiding and abetting their murder!!!??”If hypothetically you asked your staff to arrive early and on arriving on that day they were murdered by people the police might take some interest in why you had asked the person to turn up early. There may well be a good explanation but that does not make it an unreasonable question.
Posted by on Aug 16, 2007 @ 01:55 PMThe easiest way might be when he turns up at the bus depot in the morning or when his shift is finished. Or when he returns home from work in the eveng or on his way home from the pub some evening or lastly anywhere and anyhow as there’s infinite possibilities. Finbarr seems to think there’s only one way and the teacher is involved (you seem to be following that line too) - therefore PERCEPTION becomes cause and action!?!?
Didn’t perception lead to the internment disaster… “fcuk it, they’re guilty, lock’em all up” and the IRA’s best recruitment phase.
“There may well be a good explanation but that does not make it an unreasonable question. “
there possibly (probably) is a non criminal explaination else the cops would have made arrests. However, so many years after the killing, after police investig etc, an ugly rumour is being brandied about.
More importantly the enviroment… Finbarr in broadcasting an ugly rumour in a toubled society where people get killed, attacked, interned or shunned etc. based on UNSUBSTANIATED PERCEPTIONS.
Posted by on Aug 16, 2007 @ 05:08 PManonymous
Wrong. I’ve never justified any killing but you choose to assume that because I post the facts about the UDR being a bunch of thugs then I’ve automatically got to be a IRA supporter.
But you don’t post facts: merely prejudice.
I guess the whole ‘sauce for the goose’ doesn’t work in this case. What are you smoking Willow? UDR members get killed and it’s ethnic cleansing of Protestant while IRA members get killed and it can’t be described similarly as ethnic cleansing of Catholics by the Ustascheeerrrr I mean the British Army SSeerrr SAS.
Your comment makes no sense. I merely stated that most Army killings were lawful: that is correct. If you wish to dispute it, you are free to do so.
no I’m not, but hey, let try this; ok then maestro, then what are the facts of that report?
I already stated the facts: an estimate of 5-15% inflitration in one year (1973). The report doesn’t deal with subsequent years, and we know that recruitment was tightened as a result.
Posted by on Aug 16, 2007 @ 08:25 PMControls? things were tighened and cleared up so much that we’d the Glenanne Gang killings thro’out N Armagh to the Dub Monaghan bombings right up until the proud UDR/RIR cadre killed the two friends in Poyntzpass.!?!?
Yeah that really sorted out the problems… good job (for the sake of the honour of the BA) they only reviewed one year and issued one report.
The UDR were part of the problem as were the RUC and the courts. You can’t accept this and the systematic and complete corruption of the regimment was just a ‘few bad apples’ to quote the unioinist politicos / apoligists for these murderers.
Posted by on Aug 17, 2007 @ 01:42 PMAnonymous,
Don’t you realise that for every person murdered in the style of Jimmy Graham, there are several more people involved in such killings. There will be IRA men and sympathisers scouting the roads to ensure there are no checkpoints. There’ll be the safe house after the event. Someone will dispose of the guns used. And there’ll also be others helping out.
I’ve never once said the headmaster was involved. Merely pointed out ‘A FACT’ which required investigation. The gentleman is dead a long time, 22 years, so I doubt anybody would threaten him unless from beyond the grave!
As for Jimmy Graham, his house was under constant guard from the SAS, he kept the bus at his home so didn’t require to pick it up at the depot in the morning. He was killed in Derrylin because he received no SAS guard there (for some bizarre reason as it’s not exactly a Unionist heartland) and was in an area close to the border where IRA sympathisers wouldn’t have been in short supply.
Just like his brother Cecil Graham, who was killed in Donagh - the most hardline Republican area in all of Fermanagh - the IRA struck when he would be a soft target. Republicans rarely murdered Protestants in Unionist areas in Fermanagh as it would be much more difficult to carry out such a deed and escape; there was always the danger for them of a neighbour who was in the security forces returning fire, and they did not have any sympathisers and agents in such areas to feed them the required information.
Posted by on Aug 18, 2007 @ 12:33 PM
