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“Unionism Decayed 1997-2007″ by David Vance: book review
I initially wrote this when the book was first published three years ago; whilst certain elements of it now sound dated, its basic premise that the period of 1997-2007 was a period of irreversible decay for Northern Irish Unionism can still be argued as a valid opinion. My own feeling is that it did indeed [...] read our review » -
Have we Learned our own Lessons? Book Review of John Brewer’s Peace Processes
Northern Ireland’s peace process has been promoted as an international success story. The Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs has its Conflict Resolution Unit, which aims to disseminate the ‘lessons’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. And some of the prominent players in our peace process have travelled abroad to other troubled spots to share their [...] read our review »
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The peace process not such a good model after all
Which reminds me…. Platform for Change’s driving force Robin Wilson has produced a corrective to the notion that the lessons of the NI conflict are easily exportable. Like myself, Robin is associated with the Constitution Unit. He introduced his new book in a CU blog which I here reproduce. The water crisis in Northern Ireland [...] read our review »
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Comment on Further to Morrison’s attempted revisionism
on 1 January 2012 at 3:26 pm
Excellent quotes, Terry.
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Comment on Further to Morrison’s attempted revisionism
on 1 January 2012 at 3:10 pm
Was Morrison lying then or is he lying now?
Lie then or lie now? Is Duddy still an honourable man?
Ten Men Dead describes in detail the offer Danny was tasked with bringing into the prisoners (it can be read online). Lie then or now?
Morrison today says “the British Government had yet to even formulate its position, never mind proposing a ‘deal” – Adams in 2009 said, “Danny Morrison visited the IRA and INLA Hunger Strikers to tell them that contact had been re-established and that the British were making an offer.” How could the British be ‘making an offer’ if as Danny now claims, contrary to what he wrote in 2006 and in 2009, they had yet to even formulate its position or propose a deal? Is Gerry lying or is Danny?
What was the purpose of Danny’s visit to the prison?
Paragraph 16 of the document being discussed explains:
Morrison was chosen because he had ‘a full grasp of the situation including knowledge of the SOON channel’, he had ‘the status enable them to act authoritatively’, and – ‘the key to accepting any agreement’ – he had the knowledge, education and ability to persuade needed.
To suggest that his only purpose in going to the prison was to tell them that the channel had been opened and no more is, especially given the urgency of the negotiations, utterly ridiculous. He went into the prison to explain the offer that had come through the channel and to report back whether it would be accepted or not.
That is what the ‘current position’ of the British was when asked by Martin McGuinness during the 2pm SOON conversation on July 5th, after Morrison had been dispatched to the prison:
As said before, the British explained that it was ‘important before drafting any documents for consideration by Ministers’ that the British should ‘possess the Provisionals view’. Their view, of course, could not be known until after Morrison returned from delivering the offer to the prisoners and was debriefed. McGuinness told Duddy their views would be relayed to the British ‘after discussion in light of Morrison’s visit’.
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Comment on National Archives 30 Year Papers – July, 1981
on 31 December 2011 at 12:29 am
Previous comments in this thread have claimed:
“There was no deal offered in early July 1981 reading the transcript of calls between duddy and london they were negotiating but the British wanted movement first”
“At the time of Morrison’s visit to the prison on the afternoon of Sunday July 5th, 1981, the British government had yet to even formulate its position, never mind proposing ‘a deal’.”
“The Brits had not even sent a proposal through – and did not do so until Monday night!”
“We now know, from call no 4, that the British had not even formulated their response while Danny Morrison was in the camp.”
“Get that, it was only after Danny Morrison’s visit that the British were prepared to formulate their position.”
“The O’Rawe account was of a ‘deal’ brought into the camp by Danny Morrison. We have established from the recently released papers, courtesy of call no 4, that the British were waiting on Danny Morrison to come out of the camp before they formulated their position.”
For clarity’s sake, regarding the purpose of Danny Morrison’s specially arranged visit into the prison to see the hunger strikers and Bik McFarlane, please consult:
Danny Morrison, writing in Daily Ireland in June, 2006 and again in An Phoblacht in April 2009; his timeline of events, about the 5th of July and his visit into the prison:
See also David Beresford’s Ten Men Dead, where the 5 July offer is described on pages 292-294:
The “current British position” discussed in the phone calls being referred to here by some could not be formulated until Morrison delivered his report on the response from the prisoners to what he was specially tasked to bring to the prison to ascertain.
That is only a logical sequence of negotiating volleys. That in no way, obviously from the historical record we have provided by people like Danny Morrison himself, means that the British ‘had yet to even formulate a position’ on July 5th.
To suggest anything of the sort is incredibly ridiculous, and to expect anyone to believe such nonsense is beyond wishful thinking at this stage.
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Comment on “We on the outside finessed…”
on 13 January 2011 at 10:49 pm
Mark and Brian,
This has been previously discussed in detail on Slugger, comments 20 & 21. It is also archived on the longkesh.info site.
To wit:
“If you take a look at page 299 of Denis O’Hearn’s biography of Bobby Sands, Nothing But an Unfinished Song:
“The movement had sent comms to let him (Sands) know that the British government was sending a courier with a document that might be a solution. But Bobby never got the comms until the next day because “the lad had to swallow them”. It would not have made any difference because the authorities refused to let Sands go to the hospital, where the drama of the negotiations and pressures on Brendan Hughes was unfolding…”
“The next thing he knew, he was taken to the prison hospital at 6:45 in the evening. What he found there shocked him.
And also look Adams’ description of the end of the first hunger strike as he writes of it in A Farther Shore, pages 12-13:
But with the commencement of the hunger strike, the British government opened up contact with republicans. Through this contact in the British Foreign Office – code-named “Mountain Climber” – a channel of communication which had been used during the 1974 IRA-British government truce was reactivated. Father Reid’s role had been filled by another Redemptorist priest, Father Brendan Meagher. The British said they wanted a settlement of the issues underpinning the protest and committed to setting out the details in a document to be presented to all of the prisoners formally and publicly after they came off their hunger strike.
Mountain Climber brought the document to Father Meagher, who delivered it to Clonard Monastery where I and a few people who were assisting the prisoners were waiting for him. As he was briefing us, Tom Hartley, the head of our POW department, burst into the room where we were meeting to tell us the hunger strike was over in the blocks.”
See also pages 108-109 of Richard O’Rawe’s Blanketmen:
By 18 December the hunger strikers had not eaten for over seven weeks. Bobby was summoned to the camp hospital about ten o’clock that night. (We later found out that while there, he had met Father Meagher, who presented him with a document from the British government on prison procedures.) You could feel the tension on the wing as Bobby got ready to leave for the hospital. Everyone knew this was an important meeting, because reports had been circulating that Sean McKenna was in a critical condition. After an hour and a half, Bobby returned with the news that the hunger strike was over. My immediate reaction was one of huge relief, but this was tempered when Bobby said, “Ní fhuaireamar faic.” (‘We didn’t get anything.’)
Brendan Hughes had made a commitment to Sean McKenna that he would not let him die, and when he was close to death, he kept his word and called the strike off, before any British documents came in or any deal could be done.
As he wrote in a letter to the Irish News, 13 July 2006, “Risking the lives of volunteers is not the IRA way”:
In a recent BBC documentary Bernadette McAliskey said she would have let Sean McKenna die during the 1980 hunger strike in order to outmanoeuvre British brinkmanship.
Implicit in her comments was a criticism of those senior republicans who decided against pursuing the option favoured by Bernadette.
As the IRA leader in charge of that Hunger Strike I had given Sean McKenna a guarantee that were he to lapse into a coma I would not permit him to die.
When the awful moment arrived I kept my word to him.
Having made that promise, to renege on it once Sean had reached a point where he was no longer capable of making a decision for himself, I would have been guilty of his murder.
Whatever the strategic merits of Bernadette’s favoured option, they are vastly outweighed by ethical considerations.
Terrible things happen in the course of any war and those of us who feel obliged to fight wars must take responsibility for the terrible consequences of actions we initiate.
I can live with that – in war we kill enemies and expect to be killed by them.
I can stand over the military decisions I made during our war against the British.
But there are no circumstances in which I was prepared to make a cynical decision that would have manipulated events to the point where a republican comrade would forfeit his life.
Twenty-five years on, I have no reason to change my mind that the decision I made to save the life of Sean McKenna was the proper one.
Faced with similar circumstances I would do the same again.
History may judge my actions differently but preventing Sean McKenna from becoming history rather than my own place in history was my prevailing concern.
Brendan Hughes, Belfast.
At the meeting in Derry, this was discussed and former blanketmen Gerard Hodgins, Tommy Gorman, Dixie Elliott and Gerard Clarke, and Richard O’Rawe, were all very clear that there was no deal for the British to renege on, and that those inside the prison at the time knew this. They had decided to save face, however, and claim that was what ended the hunger strike in order to keep the pressure on the British. This discussion should be available in the You Tube videos and when I have time I will find it for you later, if you have not already viewed them.
So the idea that the rejection of the British offer in July during the second hunger strike was based on the prisoners’ fear of the British ‘dirty joeing’ them again is a nonsense. The Brits could not renege on a deal that had not been struck. It is propaganda, nothing more.”
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Comment on “We on the outside finessed…”
on 13 January 2011 at 2:12 pm
I see Pat’s been sent in to clean up Danny’s mess. Sleight of hand won’t rectify this, nor will shouting “Bobby!” or “Brendan!” in the hope that blaming everything on dead men will get the leadership a free pass. The most important point is, Danny has started telling some truths – which he should be commended for.
The sleight of hand being applied here by Pat is shifting the timing of when the British “reneged”. But Danny has throughly exploded that myth. No amount of backspin now can save it.
There was no deal, no offer, no promises. “We got nothing,” Brendan Hughes said, “‘Ní fhuaireomar faic”, as Bobby Sands put it. Brendan called the strike off to save Sean McKenna’s life, with no thought to any promise, deal or document. It was done.
Bobby knew immediately there would be a second hunger strike.
He was also angry at reports that Sinn Fein was spinning the end of the hunger strike as a victory, unhappy with “a buoyant Danny Morrison”, saying he had a “brass neck”.
Danny Morrison now eloquently describes what was on offer from the British at that time: unsecured promises. The first word negates the second. In other words, absolutely nothing.
But face had to be saved, and momentum towards the second hunger strike had to be built. So in this, Pat’s important point is correct – Bobby, the prison leadership and the leadership on the outside all eventually agreed to present a united front, to put pressure on the British, to give cover to the claim that the British had reneged. But they all knew that was a fig leaf designed to spare their own blushes. The British had reneged on nothing, as there was nothing there to renege on.
And Danny now admits the truth of it in his Andersonstown News article.
“We on the outside finessed the sequence of events for the sake of morale”
“At a midnight press conference [we] merged the secret arrival of a British government document (promising a more enlightened prison regime: falsely, as it turned out) with the ending of the hunger strike”
“It was either that or admit – which to the republican base was inconceivable – that Brendan had ended the strike without getting a thing.”
“Bobby – who turned out to be right – did not believe the British had any intention of working the unsecured promises contained in the document. But we begged him to put them to the test and that if the administration made things impossible then it could be claimed that the Brits were reneging.”
The importance of all this is that it is the first time Danny Morrison has admitted it.
The fiction that there was a deal that the British reneged on underpinned Morrison’s, and those who carried the can for him, claims about the handling of the second hunger strike. He’s now exploded that myth and with it the legs out from under him when his argument attempts to stand against O’Rawe’s.
By the time of the July, 1981 offer from Thatcher, things had radically changed from where they stood in December, 1980. Not least was the amount of people who had already died on hunger strike, and those who were poised to. In addition to that, Thatcher was dealing directly with the IRA through Adams and his cadre. The prisoners all knew the truth of how the first hunger strike had ended, and they knew too the fiction of the document they pretended to work, the happy face they were forced to put on. Did Danny and company decide a second time to “finesse” the situation, for the sake of appearances?
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Comment on Former Hunger Striker Calls on Adams to Resign from Sands Trust
on 29 December 2009 at 8:55 pm
Actually, Padraig, the headline should have read, “Fomrer Hugner Stikre Sllacs No Sadam to Gernis Rofm Dans Rustt”!
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Comment on Former Hunger Striker Calls on Adams to Resign from Sands Trust
on 29 December 2009 at 8:37 pm
A typo, now corrected. Thanks.
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Comment on 1981 Hunger Strike: Feint and Retreat
on 5 October 2009 at 2:16 pm
Regarding Garret Fitzgerald – let us read his own explanation. From his autobiography, All in a Life, published in 1991. Page 371.
It does not get more clear than that.
However, to make it a little clearer – in last week’s Irish News, Fitzgerald revealed:
“They were keen to accept that. We knew that. We had our sources within the prison,” he said.
“As well as from the commission, we knew something was happening in the prison from other sources.”
This would also be a factor as to why the then-Taoiseach could not press the British or make public what they knew.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 5:52 pm
Danny, you know who I am. I am the rusty nail on which your woolly lies have become unravelled.
Sin é
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 5:12 pm
@circles:
You should know by now that I do not say anything I am not absolutely sure of or am unable to verify.
@Danny:
I am not the one who rejected the prisoners wishes and spent the next two decades covering it up.
That would be you.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 4:56 pm
@”blanktetmanH7″:
Did you forget what block you were in on the blanket, Danny? Was it H3 or H7?
The bond between blanketmen will not be destroyed because the truth of what happened in July has emerged. The blanketmen are not at fault for this; they were loyal volunteers who did literally lay their lives down for each other.
An opportunity arose in July 1981 to resolve the hunger strike and prevent further deaths. This is now a matter of record.
The onus is now on the members of the Adams committee to explain why they rejected the offer.
Crying “British duplicity!” and leaving it at that will not be enough. We have just been treated to an awful show of Republican duplicity from those same leaders of that time; people are not so foolish or naive anymore to fall into line like Pavlov’s dog at the uttering of a worn-out cliche.
What was on offer in July, and rejected by your committee, was what the British implemented when the hunger strike came to an end.
Keep on with telling the truth, Danny, hard as it might be. It is far better than to desperately continue to cling to the lies.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 3:35 pm
@”blanketmanH3″: You wrote:
So how could Joe who died on the 8th be sacrificed for that or the others!!!!! Also spoke to the Scull who is the person on the tape. He is raging that thngs that he said about thngs that he only knew little about,that is Richards youphoria, which he definitely witness and which I accept, is being turned into an offer refused.
Get a grip. We were dealing with Thatcher that had let Bobby (MP!) and the three lads die and we were supposed to say okay it s off, A phone call from a Brit in London to MountianClimber in Derry to McGuiness, to Adams to Bangers to the lads and we should say that’s it its sorted, they’ve offered us half a demand our shirts and trousers and that’s what and Header we went through from 76. Go to hell.
At last, we get to the truth. Thank you, Danny Morrison. I have known it was you from the start.
You have just confirmed that Richard’s cellmate did hear the conversation between Richard and Bik; you have accepted that they agreed to accept the offer you relayed to Bik.
You have now given us the reason that your committee rejected the deal, despite the prisoners’ willingness to accept it. You didn’t think it was enough, so you made the decision for them.
The whole idea that it was the prisoners and hunger strikers themselves that were in control of the hunger strike is now complete rubbish. The Adams committee ran this show, no one else. And when the prisoners themselves felt that the offer from the Mountain Climber had enough that they could settle for, and stop their comrades dying, you, Adams, McGuinness, Gibney and Hartley said, No. It is not enough. And you batted it back to them, Joe McDonnell died, and the hunger strike went on until all told, 10 men were dead.
You are hoisted on your own petard in your foolish attempt to be clever and in a fit of pique and anger at getting so thoroughly caught out.
At least you finally, albeit in a despicably sneaky and cowardly way, have admitted to the truth of what happened on the hunger strike in July of 1981.
Thank you for that.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 2:04 pm
So now that we have looked at the Darragh letter in detail, we turn to Brendan Duddy’s endorsement of it as reported by Brian Rowan.
It is entirely consistent with his position at the Derry meeting, and in keeping with what his knowledge would have been at the time in his role as the Mountain Climber link. The difference is that in Derry, he was presented with the NIO document and able to verfiy that as the offer he conveyed to the Adams committee, he was able to clarify that he was never told of the prison leadership’s acceptance of the offer, and he confirmed the response from the Adams committee was to reject the offer. Brian Rowan, who was at the Derry meeting, did not have the NIO document at the time he wrote his article, and apparently did not ask him if he knew of the prison leadership’s acceptance of the deal. A failure to ask relevant questions does not mean ‘the witness is unreliable’; it means the lawyer is shading the examination, or not asking the right questions.
It is because Duddy answered all questions put to him in Derry, and moved the story forward beyond the Morrison offer/deal fudge because of the clarity his answers brought, that he is now being thrown under the bus by those who previously championed him. His account is still consistent with events as we know them and what knowledge he would have in his role as the link. The contention is that the Adams committee over-ruled the prison leadership’s acceptance of the offer Duddy was aware of; why then, would Duddy, who was not in direct contact with the prisoners, know otherwise? He would only know what the Adams committee told him as to what the IRA’s position was. He knew of the offer going in, and he knew that the offer was not accepted by the Adams committee. So of course he would say, “Síle Darragh got it spot on,” because she is describing what the Adams committee told Duddy.
There’s no contradiction; he has remained consistent throughout, given the remit of his role.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 2:02 pm
Page 293 – the full quote describes the offer made through the Mountain Climber link. This has now been confirmed by Brendan Duddy as the offer obtained by Liam Clarke via FOI requests and can be viewed here.
Page 294 – says that the section on remission is “a vague offer”, but as we see from the NIO document:
III. allow the restoration of forfeited remission at the discretion of the responsible disciplinary authority, as indicated in my statement of 30 June, which hitherto has meant the restoration of up to one-fifth of remission lost subject to a satisfactory period of good behaviour;
(Síle’s letter was written before the NIO material was available and, obviously, before the Derry meeting).
Page 295 – a misleading extract from a comm of Bik McFarlane’s. He is speaking of the offer the ICJP was pursuing:
“I saw all the hunger strikers last night (6 July) and briefed them on the situation. They seemed strong enough and can hold the line alright. They did so last night when the Commission met them. There was nothing extra on offer – they just pushed their line and themselves as guarantors over any settlement.”
So although the word ‘offer’ appears in the line, it confuses things as it is referring to a different offer from the Mountain Climber one.
Page 297 – This refers to when Adams told the ICJP to back off because he had a better offer from the Mountain Climber.
Page 294 and 302 – That Morrison was in the hospital on the day has never been in dispute. However, the reference on page 302 to his visit is worth looking at a little closer. It quotes a comm McFarlane sent to Adams reassuring him that the hunger strikers were accepting the Adams line:
What this reads as is McFarlane reporting back that he had told the hunger strikers what Adams wanted him to and that they believed him.
Darragh then goes in her letter to say “Mr O’Rawe didn’t speak to the hunger strikers, didn’t visit the prison hospital or meet the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace.” This has no bearing whatsoever on O’Rawe’s role, and his knowledge of the acceptance of the Mountain Climber offer between himself and McFarlane.
Continues…
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 2:00 pm
Good morning, everyone.
Some background, to begin:
Sile Darragh is a member of the Bobby Sands Trust, which has a vested interest in protecting the Morrison narrative, not least because Danny Morrison is its secretary.
5 of the current Trust members are party to the dispute over the prison acceptance of the July offer. A further Trust member then weighs in with a letter supporting their position, and it in turn is flogged by Raymond McCartney on Radio Foyle as the new leadership line, which appears also in the Brian Rowan article about Brendan Duddy.
By the by, the Sands family has long disowned the Bobby Sands Trust and have sought in the past to have it wound up. In 2000,
Now, onto Síle Darragh’s letter – which really doesn’t amount to much more than what has already been said by the Morrison crowd; its only value is that it allows them to now say, “Síle Darragh’s letter,” and imply by reference that she is some sort of new authority for having put her name to something Morrison himself likely wrote. No matter – it says:
I have before me Ten Men Dead, too, and so, to look at the pages cited.
Continues…
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 2:03 am
@fin:
Brendan Duddy could only answer to what he was privy to. He, like many others who should have been informed, was never told of the prison leadership’s acceptance of the offer.
This was confirmed at the Derry debate:
Page 184, Blanketmen (2005), describes what happened after the prison leadership had sent word to the Adams committee that they would accept the offer:
From a letter, publicly released in February 2009 and dated 8 July 1981, from Downing Street to the NIO, which shows that the Adams committee rejection was delivered to the British:
So the quote from Brendan Duddy you reference is quite in keeping with his role as the link between the Adams committee and the British. The Adams committee did not tell him the prisoners had accepted the deal, and the message he brought back to the British was the same as what the Adams committee sent into the prison, overriding the prisoners’ acceptance: ‘More was needed’.
I hope this clarifies the point for you.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 28 May 2009 at 12:02 am
As you see, the weight of evidence against Danny Morrison is stacked against him. Other hunger strikers have said they too knew nothing of the offer nor acceptance, which supports what Jake Jackson said, not what Morrison implies. It makes more sense that Morrison went in to put pressure on the hunger strikers to not succumb to the ICJP offer, to let the Army Council, as represented by the Adams committee, handle the ‘contact’ with the British, which was still veiled in secrecy in presentation.
Given Danny Morrison’s track record with the truth, which admittedly is not as terrible as Gerry Adams’, but is still not without its blots, and the weight of primary and contemporary sources not supporting Morrison’s propaganda, if I were to have to state a “position onwho is telling lies there”, the INLA or Bangers? The choice seems to me to be obvious. Sorry, Bangers.
You ask me to explain “the hunger strikers continuing to hunger strike, as if none of them asked whatever happened to the offer???”
Again let us look to a primary source to explain that, in this case, O’Rawe’s Blanketmen.
On page 181, he describes the agreement between himself and McFarlane – “Well, Rick?” he asked. “I think there’s enough there, Bikso.” “I agree. I’ll write to the outside an’ let them know our thinkin’.”
If it were correct that the prisoners were always in control, this would be true, wouldn’t it? Bik would have sent the acceptance of the deal out, and the Army Council, as represented by the Adams committee, would then move things forward from there in accordance with the acceptance. This clearly did not happen.
On page 184:
So there we have the moment when the power shifted from the prison leadership to the Adams committee. Comparing the attitude of the anonymous source in the Brian Rowan piece you like, in which the prisoners are naive, inexperienced and incapable of making a decision, which is why the Adams committee over-ruled their acceptance of the offer, with O’Rawe’s description of the way the prisoners viewed the Army Council, we see a convergence:
It is not true that none of the prison leadership asked the Adams committee about the rejection, the comms were flying from Bik about it; page 187 details some of them. And then Joe McDonnell died, and it became too late to do anything about it: the prisoners, having learned bascially that things were out of their control, kept on with the hunger strike – and would have likely kept going until who knew when – until the families were able to intervene and end it for them.
So between the secrets and lies, half truths and witheld information, is it any wonder the hunger strikers continued on their hunger strike? The majority of them had no knowledge of the offer or acceptance. The prison leadership was following orders they believed had the full weight of the Army Council behind them. And how were they to know otherwise, until now, some 28 years later, when the truth of it all is finally being forced to the surface?
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 27 May 2009 at 11:58 pm
@blanketmanH3:
Let us turn again to primary sources. First of all, to say that “none of them asked whatever happened to the offer” is patently untrue and a very misleading question. It smacks of a desperate grasping at straws. Surely a blanketman wouldn’t have to ask this sort of question? Never you worry; I am happy to answer.
In the first place, as shown in Biting at the Grave on page 96, which has been quoted on Slugger before in reference to Danny Morrison’s claims:
Just because Morrison met all the hunger strikers on the 5th of the July does not mean he told them anything, in terms of the information being discussed here. No one is questioning that Morrison was in to see the hunger strikers on the day. So the faux outrage you are expressing is for naught.
O’Malley, again in Biting at the Grave, page 96, says: “…Danny Morrison was allowed to go into the Maze/Long Kesh to see the hunger strikers on the morning of 5 July…to apprise them of what was going on, although he did not go into detail. Morrison says that he relayed information about the contact and impressed upon them the fact the ICJP could “make a mess of it, that they could be settling for less than what they had the potential for achieving.”
So, it is not in dispute that Morrison went into the prison and spoke with the hunger strikers. Judging from O’Malley’s account, he did not go into any detail – which would lead one to conclude he said there was contact with the British and not to trust the ICJP, given the quote from Morrison himself. Put together with all the other accounts, Morrison told the hunger strikers nothing of substance, only enough to keep them in line with the agenda being pursued by Adams. This would also be in keeping with the Provos doing everything they could to scupper the ICJP deal, as detailed earlier in this discussion.
O’Malley’s account of Morrison’s discussion with the hunger strikers is also corroborated in Holland & McDonald’s INLA: Deadly Divisions, page 179:
We also have the suggestion from Morrison on Radio Foyle that he told Kevin McQuillan about the deal, which was immediately denied by McQuillian, who said: “This did not happen. If he had of appraised me of such a serious development, my first point of reference would have been to contact the National leadership of the Republican Socialist Movement, in particular those delegated with the struggle within the Blocks. At no point had I cause to. Clearly put…it did not happen.”
In addition, Tommy McCourt at the Saturday meeting heartbreakingly related his last visits with Mickey Devine, and lamented that if he had only knew of the offer, nevermind the prison leadership’s acceptance of such, Mickey would not have died on hunger strike.
Continues…
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 27 May 2009 at 7:36 pm
@blanketmanH3:
Brian Rowan’s article, already discussed here on Slugger when it was published, about Brendan Duddy of last week was totally eclipsed and rendered irrelevant by what Duddy himself had to say to a room full of former blanketmen, ex-prisoners, relatives and other republicans activists of all stripes on Saturday evening in Derry. Did you attend the meeting yourself? It was a very powerful night. What Brendan Duddy had to say that night was so important it completely blew the Rowan piece out of the water and rendered it a mere footnote, if not an irrelevance of little substance.
You suggest I go argue with him myself. Well, given that I attended Saturday’s meeting and heard what he had to say for himself directly, and heard him forthrightly answer very difficult questions put to him, does that count? In fact, the man rather to his credit bravely faced a lot of misdirected anger cast his way because of the absence of the people who should have been there to answer questions about exactly what they did during the hunger strike and why. He took the anger and hurt that has been pent up over years and meant for others who had not the stones to face up to the consequences of their actions.
But that is neither here nor there. The Rowan article is lightweight, fluff in comparison to Duddy’s own testimony on Saturday. I don’t need to go argue with him, I went to hear him speak when the opportunity presented itself. I made the effort because it was important to do so.
As for Gerard Clarke. You sign yourself as a blanketman from H3 yet you don’t remember the amount of Irish you would have absorbed just from being there. A silly point. Listen to the man himself explain what he heard – watch the video. And while you watch it, and think you can win this by sneering at him, keep in mind, he is not the only prisoner on the wing who heard the conversation. Go back to this thread on Slugger and read the transcript of Willie Gallagher’s speech, where he quotes from a recording the IRSP has heard. And then tell yourself, if there’s two people, there will be more. Because if you tell yourself that doesn’t prove anything, you will be sadly mistaken as others come forward.
It is time for people to stop the lies. Throw the hands up. If it was an honest mistake, which is completely understandable, for heaven’s sake, admit to it!
Circles is right. It is time now for honest answers as to why. It is absolutely nonsensical and only doing more damage to people’s reputations to keep continuing the absurd denials. Acknowledge the truth, and explain what really happened.
Is it as simple as what the anonymous source in the same Rowan piece you are enamoured of says? That the Adams committee looked down on the prisoners, saw them as naive, inexperienced, incapable of making a decision and so made it for them? Were they so full of some egotistical sense of their own importance that they didn’t even care? They just assumed they knew better than the prisoners what they could live with?
People are human, they come with a lot of frailties and faults. It is more forgivable to say, “I was young and full of myself, it was an intense, pressure filled time, I lost the run of things, and the people around me had other intentions I wasn’t then fully aware of, I am sorry. I meant no harm, I truly believed then I was doing the right thing” than to cling onto a lie that gets shredded more and more with each passing day, and expect people to continue to believe it, and continue to have any respect for you for doing so. Your frailties begin to seem monstrous instead of human in that light, and become more impossible to forgive.
Great hurt, suffering and betrayals have been perpetrated on the Republican community – nevermind the wider community – by their leaders during the troubles. By honestly taking responsibility for their actions and sincerely acknowledging the damage that they have done to their people and their cause, there is a chance to mitigate some of the disaster history will bestow on them as time moves on and more of the truth about who did what when to whom comes to light. And it will.
Depressingly, however, going on past form from those leaders, I do not expect that to happen. We will continue to be treated with more and more contempt and history will later look upon those men as pure evil.
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Comment on “I will not be attending and will not send a representative”
on 27 May 2009 at 7:29 pm
@circles: You wrote:
And to top it all off – there has yet to be a convincing explnation of what Adams motive would have been letting men he knew well die – and without the motive, these are pretty heavy, slanderous accusations for ex-comrades to make.
The only person who can give a convincing explanation of what Adams’ motive was is Adams himself. To date he has lied about his involvement, claiming on RTE he only found out about the Mountain Climber after the hunger strike ended, and, as shown in the above email, he arrogantly refused to attend a public debate in a manner that showed complete contempt for the people he claims to represent, and who he has been the leader of for almost 3 decades.
I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I were you, waiting on that explanation from him.
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