Friday, March 14, 2008
Unsung hero of the Troubles worth remembering…
YESTERDAY saw the funeral of Gerry McLaverty, the only survivor of the bloodthirsty gang of loyalist serial killers and sectarian psychopaths known as the Shankill Butchers. McLaverty’s courage - in identifying members of the UVF gang who slashed his wrists (pictured), stabbed him, hacked him with an axe, tied a noose round his neck and left him for dead - undoubtedly meant that lives were saved. Members of the gang were eventually convicted of 19 murders, although suspected of up to 11 more, and McLaverty, described as a gentle giant, eventually recovered, although he rarely spoke of his harrowing experience. You can read McLaverty’s statement to the police in this extract from Martin Dillon’s book on the Shankill Butchers (page 196). I think we’ve good reason to be thankful for Gerard McLaverty; perhaps his bravery deserves to be remembered in some way other than newspaper tributes?
Belfast Gonzo @ 06:04 PM
‘Glenn’ rants about trolls from the USA, then signs off as ‘Rob’.
It would seem that we have a few home-grown trolls as well.
How shameful that a thread set up as a tribute to the memory of a brave man should be abused by sectarian apologists such as this specimen.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 08:23 AMOh dear.
Must say that the RUC incompetence shone through so much that it amounted to willful negligence, intended or not.
Sorry BG, but the downplaying of the butchers impact has become important here.
There is certainly no hierarchy of victims, but there most certainly is a hierarchy of killers/murderers. I mean hardly a day goes by without someone excusing say the Brits for example, since they were apparently legal. Yet now we have these same people (even a usual suspect) muddying the waters and likening the impact of the butchers to other methods of killing/murder, agenda anyone? The butchers, like Prince Philip would be hard pushed to be tried by a jury of their peers. Perhaps a John White, or a few serial killers imported from the states.
I would be prepared to give a pass to those who just do not understand the colossal impact that these guys had on Nationalists in north Belfast. Beano gives us an insight. Their impact still resonates, tales of the ‘murder mile’ and the like have been part of many conversations I have had in North Belfast.
Of course a perceived threat that supposedly forced the withdrawal of a section of the community from Derry, fleeing for their lives over a 20 year period. Now that is traumatic, yet the impact of the butchers is talked down. Definitely an agenda at play, no doubt now!
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 08:41 AMRegular visitors to this site will be aware that it would be practically impossible to post a thread on almost any subject under the sun (and further afield) that will not attract a element of petty whataboutery. The laughter of our common self recognition that greets the old joke, “But are you a Catholic Muslim or a Protestant Muslim?” surely attests to that.
But that does not make Gonzo guilty of inviting such nastiness. Indeed the very tone and content of his post is targeted at our higher instincts . If there are those from within our little Slugger community who respond by acting upon their baser instincts, Gonzo can hardly be blamed.
I went out with a woman a few times whose brother later became one of the Butchers’ victims. On the few times I have attempted to relate to others the horrors that were inflicted upon him I have found that I cannot go on and break down in tears. But I weep not for the poor dead lad, I weep for men who have so abandoned themselves to psychosexual madness that they could plan and carry out such degrading atrocities to feed their dark desires.
I can safely say that although I was an ardent supporter of the Provisionals I never once found it in me to cheer at the succes of any fatalities they inflicted upon the enemy, for they too become victims and it was the enemy policy I hated not the poor drones who enforced it. But I did make an exception when Lenny Murphy got his comeuppance and let out a cry of vicious glee when I heard the news. Which I suppose just goes to show that I too could be capable of falling into that darkness to which Murphy willingly surrendered himself. But for the grace of God I did not.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 09:00 AMHow sick is this thread, at least in the way it has drifted into whataboutery and cant.
Well done Gonzo for raising the sad, yet poignant example of Gerry McLaverty. I can’t imagine the horror of him traveling in a car through Protestant West and North Belfast and seeing one of his attackers. Only the knowledge that he would find some form of retribution can have eased that journey.
Interesting too, that he went with the Police rather than a carfull of armed paramilitaries. I presume that his experience of the horror of being a victim had shown him that the bill for all forms of violence is only ever paid by the victims.
We are all shorn of our humanity by violence, whether we suffer it or support it. I’m sorry also to say that this thread is evidence for the loss of humanity that 30 odd years of violence resulted in.
There can be no valid comparision between atrocities - there can only be grief and dispair. There are times when we act like two sets of fools boasting that their brains are the smaller.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 09:26 AMNot one single poster here has in any way justified, glorified, approved of or downplayed the horrific savagery of what that gang did, not one, certainly not me, as the merest glance at the adjectives I use to describe them in my several posts will attest.
However several posters have jumped on the chance to use the appalling crimes of a gang of serial killers indulging in what Rory rightly describes as “psychosexual madness”, crimes which were carried out by debased, dehumanised, deranged corner boys who thrived in the gangland conditions of 1970’s Belfast and have attempted to tar the entire Unionist population, even the entire British nation, with collective guilt for the dreadful deeds of those loathsome perverts.
Without the least piece of evidence they accuse the people who actually stopped the crimes and arrested the killers of collusion.
However the most galling aspect of this whole sorry business is the smug, sanctimonious belief that their own favoured group of sadistic, savage serial killers had some form of moral superiority over the Shankill Butchers because their boys used semtex and armalites whereas Lenny’s hoodlums used knives.
There is no heirarchy of virtue among sectarian serial killers my friends, none, and if anyone wants me to provide them with the evidence of the Provos’ own gruesome brand of nastiness I’ve got pages and pages of the stuff.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 09:46 AM>>and if anyone wants me to provide them with the evidence of the Provos’ own gruesome brand of nastiness I’ve got pages and pages of the stuff.<<
Oh I’m sure that you have, considering that you don’t have an agenda here, no none at all. However nowhere would you find anything comparable to the butchers. Nor amongst the Brits, the INLA etc.
>>deranged corner boys who thrived in the gangland conditions of 1970’s Belfast and have attempted to tar the entire Unionist population, even the entire British nation<<
God forbid that anyone would try to tar the *great* British nation eh Harry? Gangland conditions? hmmmmmmm? were the butchers replicated anywhere else in these gangland conditions on Britain or Ireland? It is this strange downplaying of the butchers uniqueness to our communities that galls. A reality that affected a whole swathe of North Belfast. Not a percieved threat in Derry mind you, no not as important as that.
I wonder though did the butchers live on mars, and did they only come down to commit their horrific crimes when no-one in the Unionist community was looking? Having read Northern Protestants where Nationalists/Catholics were often referred to using pejorative language like vermin, almost sub-human type references. We have the butchers and John White, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_White_(loyalist) perhaps as a logical outworking of the deep seated hate held by sections of the Unionist community.
I also found it quite creepy that the butchers to a man thought that a sound defence was to claim that they were always pissed up and went out looking for a Taig, to hurt, maim, kill. As if this was a normal kind of leisure activity for your average fella on the piss.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 10:15 AMattempted to tar the entire Unionist population
No-one has tried to that and it says a lot about you that you view condemnation of the Shankill Butchers as an attack on your community. The attempts to downplay their actions here (by way of comparisons) are shameful.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 10:27 AM{i}Onionists are very quiet. Did somebody say something bad?{/i}
latcheeco, there’s not much to debate on a thread like this, the Shankill butchers were murdering psychos who aren’t even liked by UVF members, never mind Unionists. We tend not to support acts of mindless violence, unlike those in N.Ireland who vote Republican murders into government and continually support them on Slugger.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 12:27 PMa few details the posters seem to have missed .
after he went to the police, and indentified his attackers, Gerry mclaverty was “accidently” shot and wounded by his police bodyguard while basher bates and co were awaiting trial.
mcLaverty volunteered to identify his attackers. If you read Dillon’s book you can infer that the girlfriend of an earlier victim, stephen mc cann, could have identified the butchers earlier and saved some lives--if only the police had decided to do it.
To those who say there is no evidence of collusion, it has been proven that a member of the UDR supplied weapons to this mob
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 12:43 PMAs could the wife of Ted McQuaid who was assassinated on the Cliftonville Road in 1975. She got a clear look at Murphy and gave a partial licence plate match on Moore’s taxi.
Murphy and his gang were so confident that even after being stopped by the Brits in a bronze Cortina they went on to shoot Mary Murray on the CVR using the same vehicle. When they were stopped again after the shooting in another stolen car the Brits let all but Murphy go. He was subsequently done for possession of a firearm when the whole gang should have been sent down for attempted murder.
Perhaps most damning of all, on Murphy’s release from jail he abducted Joe Donegan, held him prisoner in his (Murphy’s) OWN house for three days, and tortured the poor man horrifically before leaving the corpse outside his own back door. And still he got away with it.
The negligence / incompetence / tolerance shown with these psycopaths was staggering.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 01:01 PMAfter the last few posts, anyone else want to defend the RUC and British Army in their ‘efforts’ to apprehend the Butchers?
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 01:44 PMAustin
First of all the British Army had no role in trying to apprehend this gang only the police.
Secondly I am not going to say that the investigation was perfect but ultimately it was succesful - it bears comparison with West Yorkshire and Sutcliffe where presumably no-one is going to aleege that the mistakes there were collusion - just policing in an era before forensic science and being overloaded with work. many crimes in Northern Ireland were not properly investigated at this time due to the pressure of work yet the police’s record against loyalist paramilitareies was alwys streets ahead of the clear up rate for republican terrorism. That my be partly due to the relative abilities of the terrorists themselves but the g=fact is that most of today’s prominent loyalists have served time while many republicans have so far escaped punishment for the crimes we all know they committed but we don’t bleat about collusion…
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:04 PMGonzo I don’t doubt your motives for a second and your post is poignantly written but I still can’t see how you didn’t imagine this was coming on a post about the Shankill Butchers. I knew the guy (not well).I heard a story (can’t confirm it was second hand from one who saw it )that after he’d recovered physically he used to travel around loyalist bars on his own looking to face the men who tried to kill him .
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:20 PMUlster’s my Homeland,
Is it “tend not to support” or would rather not talk about it because it’s awkward and upsets their world view?Peter we know they had no role in apprehension the RUC barely had a role in apprehension but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a role.
At no point did I say that repubs. had not committed war crimes.The point is that this was in a different class.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:30 PMSorry Flash,
When you qualify what they did with “ach sure wasn’t one side as bad as the other”.You are down playing or nationalists and it and it’s no better than the “tit for tat” shite that got pumped out of Theipvil’s press section for the news every night by the very people who were orchestrating it.Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:40 PMSorry Flash,
When you qualify what they did with “ach sure wasn’t one side as bad as the other”.You are down playing or nationalists and it and it’s no better than the “tit for tat” shite that got pumped out of Theipvil’s press section for the news every night by the very people who were orchestrating it.Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:40 PMApologies, should read “for nationalists”.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:41 PMIn the summer of 1982 a man who the authorities knew to be a psycopath involved in the abduction, torture and murder of Catholics was released from prison. In October of that year Joe Donegan was abducted from the Falls Road after flagging down a black taxi. He was brought to Murphy’s house in Brookmount Street where he was savagely beaten.
The abduction was very well publicised at the time because the IRA had abducted a UDR man in south Armagh. Murphy used the media to offer to trade Donegan for the soldier. Meanwhile he began pulling his hostage’s teeth out with a pair pliers. Then when the poor man had only three teeth left in his head Murphy beat him to death with a shovel. Disposing of the corpse was simple. He simply deposited it in the alley behind his house where it was discovered the next morning. Apparently Murphy himself was even seen in the TV footage of the crowd of bystanders around the corpse.
What had the RUC done in the previous three days to find Mr Donegan? Did it ever occur to them to go round to Brookmount St to look up a certain Mr Murphy? Did it f*ck!?
Fortunately the IRA took the bast*rd out the following month. 10,000 people lined the Shankill to send off a ‘folk hero’. A number of unionist politicans joined the cortege.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:45 PMSorly,
If you read my response earlier to Turgon you will see that I never implied anything about most unionists.
Rob,
Maybe the thing that should annoy you most is what happened to this man.Are you saying victims of trolls are higher on your list than victims of butchers?Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:49 PMYou armchair detectives really piss me off.
Did, or did not, these cutthroat sadists get caught, tried, and convicted?Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:56 PM‘First of all the British Army had no role in trying to apprehend this gang only the police.’
Pete, I can’t believe that you came out with this statement given the below.
‘Murphy and his gang were so confident that even after being stopped by the Brits in a bronze Cortina they went on to shoot Mary Murray on the CVR using the same vehicle. When they were stopped again after the shooting in another stolen car the Brits let all but Murphy go.’
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:57 PM“he used to travel around loyalist bars”
Latcheeco, read p203 on the Dillon book excerpt link. Nesbitt, an RUC officer, mentions a bar in Sandy Row and also that he tried to persuade McClaverty to stay away from dangerous areas but without success.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 02:58 PMJoe by no means all of them were caught, so don’t be so pissed :)Indeed one was even tried convicted released and apparantly was no longer a suspect at least not by the RUC.
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 03:01 PMCheers Nevin,
When I was told it was the loyalists in the bar who called the cops to come get him.Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 03:05 PMIt’s time someone revisited the topic of the Buthchers in print. Dillon’s book, valuable though it is, is deeply flawed on the following grounds:
- it makes too much of Murphy’s name as an explanation of his hatred for Cathoics
- it doesn’t explore the ideological roots of anti-Catholicism prevalent in the Shankill and other loyalist districts which contributed to sectarian murder.
- in his eagerness to avoid producing propaganda for republicans Dillon glosses over ‘shortcomings’ in the authorities response to the Butcher murders.
- for the same reason he does not countenance any suggestion of collusion between loyalists, the RUC SB, the British Army, the DPP or the Prison Service (Murphy benefited from the leniecy of all four)
- it makes too much of Murphy’s alleged criminal ‘genius’ (he was nothing of the kind)
- it does not offer a full account of Murphy’s crimes and omits to mention the murder of a man that Murphy comitted on his release from prison in 1982.
- the victims of the Butchers and their relatives are given cursory treatment (the victims have walk-on cameos then wind up dead)
- the psychological impact of the Butcher’s crimes on the people of north Belfast is not examined (indeed nationalists who demand police action to stop the Butchers are portrayed as unreasonable)
- Dillon’s geographical knowledge of north and west Belfast is not what it might be (a number of basic errors occur in the text)
- It does not name names and gives psychopaths and their accomplices the benefit of legal protection that they do not deserveDillon’s book should be re-titled ‘The Shankill Butchers: an RUC perspective’
Posted by on Mar 15, 2008 @ 03:41 PM
