Profile for John Ó Néill
Latest posts from John Ó Néill (see all)
John Ó Néill has posted 133 times (4 in the last month).
Party support and #NILT’s soft politicised underbelly
Tweet And the recurring problem with the NILT Survey (and it hasn’t gone away you know)? Political party support (%) DUP/Democratic Unionist Party 17 Sinn Fein 12 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) 10 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) 13 Alliance Party 8 Other Party (please specify) 2 None of these 24 Other answer (please specify) [...] more »
#SpAdBill, the #GFA and the long shadow of the Boundary Commission
Tweet I have been intending to post on the SpAdBill for a while but nothing has encapsulated the shrill histrionics of any public debate involving unionism since, well, the fading #flegs crisis or whatever the issue was just before that. And don’t get me wrong, there is no doubting the sincerity of Ann Travers or [...] more »
@rustyrockets on #Woolwich
Tweet Superb piece of writing from Russell Brand on his blog reflecting on his own response to the killing of Drummer Lee Digby in Woolwich, social media and how to respond to it. Set aside whatever preconceptions you might have based on Brand’s comedy or acting or writings and give it a proper read. Brand [...] more »
According to Question Time, SF=IRA, DUP=Goodies
Tweet Great bit of on the spot photojournalism from Simon Whittaker. During the filming of last nights Question Time by Mentorn Media for the BBC, he captured the notes attached to the television camera. It gives affiliations for four of the six panellists with an additional note below two, IRA below ‘Sinn Féin’ for the [...] more »
“…go around to every fool on this planet and open their eyes to the mountains that surround them in life.”
Tweet And as much as I’d love to go around to every fool on this planet and open their eyes to the mountains that surround them in life, I can’t. But maybe if I shout from mine they’ll pay attention. The words of Donal Walsh who passed away yesterday at the age of 16. If [...] more »
Uniting Ireland: no #abortion, no #equalmarriage
Tweet Some revealing attitudes in the debates on equal marriage and abortion either side of the border this week. Last night the heads of the proposed Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 were published in Dublin (full details here courtesy of the Journal.ie). Initial reaction has been mixed on both the pro-choice and anti-abortion sides, with [...] more »
#Reilly legislation on abortion: It’s truly idiotic
Tweet And the abortion debate rumbles on …. Yesterday Health Minister James Reilly denied that it was ever being proposed that the opinion of six doctors would be stipulated in legislation covering abortion where there was a risk of suicide. This morning, Fionnan Sheahan published details of the draft legislation: • “One obstetrician and two [...] more »
#Thatcher: Ten Children Dead
Tweet From Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister on the 4th May 1979 until her resignation on the 28h November 1990, ten children aged sixteen or under were killed by the security forces (the number is actually eleven as Hugh Maguire should be included in this list, see below). For anyone who wishes to evaluate or find [...] more »
#MHE: the devil will be in the detail
![748574283[1]](http://sluggerotoole.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/7485742831-160x90.png)
Tweet This Wednesday voters go to the ballot box in the Meath East by-election. With a large government majority (albeit as a coalition), the outcome of the by-election will have no functional impact on the Dáil arithmetic. Given the circumstances of the by-election, which has arisen due to Fine Gael TD and junior Minister Sean McEntee taking his own life, it seems quite [...] more »
#SpunOut.ie: Fine Gael TD rejects cost-border threesomes advice
Tweet SpunOut.ie, a cross-border charity providing mental health and sexual advice to young adults aged 16-25 has become the latest source of outrage for Fine Gael TD for Mayo, Michelle Mulherin. Her focus is one, of about 3000 articles on the SpunOut.ie website, which concerns threesomes. It offers advice on how to deal with the issue if [...] more »
Latest comments from John Ó Néill (see all)
John Ó Néill has commented 1,278 times (15 in the last month).
Comment on In learning from the past do honesty and comprehensiveness cancel each other out?
on 14 June 2013 at 1:56 pm
Mick, I think that scope is due to Hassan ‘blogging’ from Belfast. Derry saw sporadic intense violence and there were deaths in Armagh and other places. None very well documented by later historians. I put a link to Hassan in archive.org above you can search the text through it (it has various formats). The Swanzy killing was attempted once (from Cork) without Belfast Brigade assistance. The potential for reprisals dominated IRA strategy in Belfast.
Tacapall, my Granny was from Sailortown, by NQueenSt/York St, I meant to include from Vicky Barracks to the Docks out to Weaver St.
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Comment on In learning from the past do honesty and comprehensiveness cancel each other out?
on 14 June 2013 at 12:16 pm
You are close but he was only single jobbing. The book was a compilation of summaries of current events Collins had requested be sent periodically from Belfast and Hassan was considered as relatively neutral, and being in Chapel Lane, well placed to get the picture across the city (most trouble centred on Norh Queen Street-York Street, Carrick Hill, Ballymacarret, the Markets, the Bone and Lower Falls).
Frank Crummey was the Head of Intelligence for the Belfast Brigade and supplied different information entirely to Collins.
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Comment on In learning from the past do honesty and comprehensiveness cancel each other out?
on 14 June 2013 at 9:31 am
mr x – thank you for illustrating the lack of knowledge of the 1920-22 period.
There were 455-59 people killed between 1920 and July 1922 (depending on the particular source). I don’t have it in front of me, but I think Kieran Glennon in his From Pogrom to Civil War suggests that the numbers keeping going up until about October 1922 as people injured in earlier attacks succumbed and that a figure of around 480-90 is more accurate. Glennon includes detailed breakdowns on the various areas. There are a couple of sources that detail the individual deaths (the DCU source is very limited in actual detail) – G.B. Kenna’s Facts and Figures of the Belfast Pogroms 1920-22 includes a lengthy list with a handful of omissions. The book was suppressed and the print run destroyed by the Catholic hierarchy on publication in 1922 (in case it derailed the Treaty debate): G.B. Kenna turned out to be a pseudonym or Fr Hassan of St Marys in Chapel Lane – a handful of copies survived and it was only reprinted in 1997. Joe Baker includes a much more detailed listing in The McMahon Family Murders published by the Glenravel Local History Project and includes a number of deaths omitted by Fr Hassan. (Obviously Parkinsons Unholy War and Eamon Phoenix have covered this period as well).
There are also detailed accounts of individual actions collected during the 1940s from members of the IRB/Volunteers which became the Belfast Brigade of the IRA’s 3rd Northern Division. These are searchable via the Bureau of Military History’s website. Many of those who gave oral histories had served in the 3rd Northern Division and then followed Michael Collins into the pro-Treaty camp and the Free State army. They would be worth re-publishing and discussing in their own right as they also reflect some of the tensions between the pro-Treaty and Executive IRA in 1922 and later.
There were only a handful of members of the IRA killed in Belfast between 1920 and July 1922. According to the roll of honour, they were Ned Trodden, Sean Gaynor, Sean O’Carroll, Seamus Ledlie, Freddie Fox, Murtagh McAstocker and Sean McCartney. The most significant proportion of those killed appear to be civilians, but due to the limited historical work done this has yet to be fully explored. There were large numbers of ex-servicemen available to attack/defend areas on both sides, and the oral histories collected from IRA members and contemporary documents clearly show that Collins and others were reluctant to authorise IRA operations in Belfast since Unionists would (a) carry out reprisals against civilians, and (b) paradoxically, then cite the violence as evidence of the sectarianism they faced in Belfast.
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Comment on In learning from the past do honesty and comprehensiveness cancel each other out?
on 13 June 2013 at 5:24 pm
I’ve been thinking about this recently and there is a much deeper well of issues here than the more recent phase of conflict in the north. If you go back to interviews from 1968 and 1969 older people make reference back to 1920-22, which may seem a long time ago now, but is not much further than 1968 is back from today. There is a yawning gap in historical research into the violence in Belfast (in particular) in 1920-22, when around 480-490 people were killed. Even though it obviously provides a significant backdrop to what happened in the 1960s, it has been largely left alone by professional historians (with a handful of honourable exceptions) and has only recently began to be re-visited in various guises (eg see a paper by Niall Cunningham here).
Not discussing such violence is an extension of the political motivation behind the violence – it is meant as a deliberate act in itself. If the violence itself is intended to extract submission, albeit by coercion, the redaction of the violence from popular histories and public debate and discussion of it, its denial, and any consequences flowing from all that, are meant to perpetuate the same submissive behaviours. Hence, the British government spent hundreds of millions to avoid acknowledging what happened for decades after Bloody Sunday when the rest of the world knew straight away.
In retrospect, an underlying flaw in the Good Friday Agreement is that it did not include clauses specifically requiring the British government to admit to its roles during the violence (ie decommissioning its weapons). Given the vast media coverage and literature around deaths caused by republicans in particular, it is hard to see what former members of the IRA, INLA etc might fear in terms of revelations. The key gaps here are in what flowed from the protocol agreed in July 1972 that operated so that security members did not face prosecution for their actions (and still apparently in force if Saville is anything to go by), and, in the interactions between the security force members and advisers and paramilitaries and their role in the direction of political violence and the carrying out of extra-judicial killings.
In many respects there are remarkable similarities here between the violence in 1920-22 and since the late 1960s.
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Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
on 8 June 2013 at 9:27 am
By the way there have now been a number of lengthy threads on this over the last few years so there is a lot of back reading there for anyone interested. Here’s an extract on context I added to one of Mick’s and there is more in there and linked on eye-witness accounts etc.
Tom Travers had been in the news relatively recently beforehand (in mid-March 1984) as he was the magistrate in the court case involving Gerry Adams where Adams was wounded in a loyalist gun attack when leaving the court. At that time there were two catholic High Court judges (Higgins and Curran), while another judge, William Doyle, had been shot dead after mass outside the same church in January 1983. I think there were a number of attacks on the Higgins and Curran homes over the subsequent years (both lived around the Antrim Rd at one point), although I’ve no idea of whether their homes had been attacked prior to April 1984. There had been a bomb placed under the car of another judge, Carswell, in January of 1984.
Two days after the attack, the Irish Times reported that the IRA had issued a statement in which they stated “It is believed, although it is not certain, that the bullet that fatally wounded his daughter passed through Mr Traver’s body.” That may be the only ‘corporate’ statement published on the issue and any full text of an IRA statement isn’t given.
The RUC speculated the next day (11th April, again Irish Times) that two IRA men had attended Mass in the church intending to attack another target who was too well protected and so, had abandoned that target in favour of Travers. The basis for the speculation isn’t given in the article.
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Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
on 8 June 2013 at 9:15 am
Newt – the Catholic Emancipation reference was actually Mick’s, but I was lumping you together for polemic reasons.
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Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
on 8 June 2013 at 8:09 am
A couple of things are clear from Newt – whether intentionally or not, he presents the #SpAd Bill as an exercise in re-writing history to promote a reading comfortable to unionists (just a further admission of sorts that it’s less to do with ‘victims’ and more to do with legislating to underwrite a politicised and intentionally one-dimensional vision of the past).
The reference to Catholic Emancipation is nonsensical and just reeks of a derisory cartoonish worldview. But introducing Sunningdale just underscores the weakness of the analysis here as I don’t think you can expect to be taken remotely seriously if you argue that it was anyone but Unionism that brought it down? IRA support would not have saved Sunningdale, and republicans are more likely to point to the British governments failure to face down unionist coercion against Sunningdale as evidence of the unwillingness of London to confront unionism in any meaningful way.
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Comment on In praise of… Jim Allister
on 30 May 2013 at 5:04 pm
I just wondered if it was a conscious decision to describe it that way since the public line that is being talked about is about ‘victims’ and trying to present the Bill as being for all victims. The bulk of those lining up behind the bill have been rather less than equivocal in supporting those who would be ‘victims’ of state actions, or those of proxies operated by the state and very dismissive of their claims to being considered as victims. So, lustration isn’t exactly an equitable concept in the north and this legislation will reinforce that and that is the intention of many of those promoting it. I don’t doubt the sincerity of Ann Travers and others in her position, but I doubt she would be afforded this platform if her sister had been shot by a special branch agent operating in the UDA.
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Comment on In praise of… Jim Allister
on 30 May 2013 at 2:03 pm
“… for putting it up to SF”
Was that an intentional lift of the bonnet on this, or just a subconscious one? Since this was about all victims etc…
I’ve written about the immaturity of public debate on here before and I do intend to come back to this as soon as I get time – but I think you might have accidentally acknowledged the reality of what is going on with the #SpAdBill which isn’t the same as the public claims.
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Comment on According to Question Time, SF=IRA, DUP=Goodies
on 24 May 2013 at 9:37 pm
Thanks Anne, I’ve updated the post with that link.
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