Dealing with the Past – Page 15 – Slugger O'Toole

Clash over inquests between the coroner and the Attorney General to be resolved in High Court

Brian Walker on December 19, 2012, 6:39 pm

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Good news for the families, that a new inquest will be held on the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, on application by the Attorney General for England and Wales Dominic Grieve to the High Court in London. The lord chief justice said it was “inevitable” that the emergence of fresh evidence about how and why the 96 victims died made it “desirable and reasonable for a fresh inquest to be heard”. “However distressing or unpalatable, the truth will be brought …

The sad tale of tolerating torture that hangs over us today

Brian Walker on October 29, 2012, 10:05 am

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Ian Cobain a senior reporter on the Guardian is on Radio 4’s Start the Week ( listen on BBCiPlayer or RadioPlayer after 10 a.m. or the repeat at 2100 live tonight). I strongly recommend a listen. The author of Cruel Britannia: a secret history of British torture, he gives a calm and convincing account of how torture techniques were introduced in the colonies after WW2 and applied at the beginning of internment in Northern Ireland in 1971. . Cobain is …

“It is as if someone is trying to hide the sun with two fingers.”

Pete Baker on August 19, 2012, 4:01 pm

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Another ‘lesson’ from the Northern Ireland Process, being implemented in a more systematic manner elsewhere… Afghanistan’s government is rewriting history, literally. The education ministry has endorsed a new history curriculum for school students that deletes nearly four decades of the country’s war-torn past. The government says textbooks based on the new curriculum will help bring unity in a country traditionally polarised along ethnic and political lines. But critics accuse ministers of trying to appease the Taliban and other powerful groups …

“It was always the grunts… who got forensic evidence placed against them in court”

Mick Fealty on July 16, 2012, 2:04 pm

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Interesting quote from AP’s veteran in the field, Shawn Pogatchnik, about how Gerry Adams handles accusations that he was directly involved in any action the IRA’s: He shrugs it off. He has a wonderful Teflon quality about all these things. And the fact is, that when you have been a senior figure in the provisional IRA, or really any sophisticated paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, nothing can be proven because you never got your hands dirty. It was always the …

Sinn Fein’s super discipline “means they shrink at the head, they rot at the head intellectually…”

Mick Fealty on July 9, 2012, 4:45 pm

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This is worth sharing more widely. It’s Henry Patterson talking in a Young Unionist debate about truth recovery. His main point is that Unionists should not back off in talking about the past, or leave the historical narrative in the hands of Sinn Fein. Then he notes the vulnerability of Sinn Fein in these circumstances: You can’t hand these narratives over. One of Sinn Fein’s weakness, although it is seen as its strength by our media class in Northern Ireland, …

Approach to Northern Ireland’s bloody past remains ad hoc and most of all unpredictable…

Mick Fealty on July 9, 2012, 10:10 am

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There is much wringing of hands at the latest turn in the story of the Boston archives. Henry McDonald has a good round up of some of it. As it stands, US law, it seems, affords US institutions of Higher Education little protection against an incoming subpoena. The College is folding on this case, but fighting an attempt at a wider trawl through archives. The two researchers, Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntrye are considering further options in this case. In …

On Monday remember Loughinisland and all those killed on June 18th…

Mick Fealty on June 15, 2012, 2:01 pm

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Trevor Ringland has a letter in today’s Irish Times: In common with many others on this island, I remember well June 18th, 1994. The Republic of Ireland’s win over Italy in the World Cup was fantastic and gave all of us a tremendous boost. All of us that is, except those who walked into the Heights Bar in Loughinisland and sprayed it with bullets killing six people and seriously wounding five others. As news of this terrible atrocity filtered out, …

Loyalists and Republicans using manipulative means to justify terror campaigns?

Mick Fealty on June 11, 2012, 12:25 pm

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Alex Kane weighs into the victims fray: I don’t think there will be a definition of ‘victim’ which is acceptable to all sides. I don’t think there will be a definition of ‘reconciliation’ which is acceptable to all sides. I don’t think there will be a definition of ‘shared future’ which is acceptable to all sides. I don’t think there will be much agreement on what is meant by ‘dealing with the past’, let alone what is meant by ‘putting …

Robinson and the DUP’s anti power sharing past: revision or transformation?

Mick Fealty on June 8, 2012, 4:50 pm

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It was only in seeing Peter Robinson on Hearts and Minds that I realised how little he’s been in public evidence recently. There seems to be a principle here that like the Queen, the less you see of him the greater the impact when he does speak. For my money not enough of the 18 minutes of his very last Hearts and Minds interview was devoted to the party’s relationship with the past. And in particular his recently expressed view …

IRA’s bombing campaign aimed at weakening “awkward minority in a brave new Ireland”?

Mick Fealty on June 8, 2012, 1:48 pm

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Newton Emerson began his column for the Irish News yesterday with an allusion to another sizeable elephant stuffed into the corner of Northern Ireland’s tiny room: the nature and purpose of the IRA’s extensive bombing campaign towards the end of the conflict: …it remains poorly understood and is the subject of almost no study. Perhaps there is an academic prejudice against bourgeois property every bit as much as the bias towards examining ‘state actors’. And: In 1992 with the Hume-Adams …

Is there really no hierarchy of victims when it comes to the past?

Mick Fealty on June 7, 2012, 5:15 pm

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There has been a lot of words written/spoken etc on the issue of Eibhlin Glenholmes (once ‘Britain’s most wanted woman’) being appointed to a panel hand picked by all three of the three Victims Commissioners. Stephen Nolan decided to lance the boil last night, even though as two of panelists pointed out we did not know who else was to sit on the the victims panel. There’s a couple of things to say about this. One, why appoint a set of Victims …

Hearts and Minds: Starting a conversation about having a conversation?

Mick Fealty on June 1, 2012, 4:10 pm

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This exchange from Hearts and Minds last night has two, what I’d call, very very weird moments. One is when Mike Nesbitt tells Noel Thompson to ‘go and talk to his producer’ about the conditions under which he has agreed to do the interviewer. And two is really just the way he stumps Declan Kearney (who holds only a party office in Sinn Fein). This comes at the end of repeated attempts by Nesbitt to get Kearney to start the …

Perhaps politicians should check their own houses are in order before attacking the church?

Mick Fealty on May 8, 2012, 12:33 pm

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On Saturday, I remember reading Noel Whelan’s sage, but ultimately hopeless, advice to politicians to steer clear of beating up on Cardinal Sean Brady, and shaking my head thinking, why would he think they could ever resist the temptation to get in on the act? As a former FF politico he knows the creature better than most. Yet, there’s no doubt it was worth saying. For one, the Catholic church is not the only organisation that has played an ignominious …

“Truth and trust are intertwined. You can’t have one without the other.”

Mick Fealty on April 30, 2012, 12:27 pm

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And Alex Kane makes a fairly pristine argument that there’s nothing stopping Martin McGuinness from going to Smithwick and telling the truth… First of all, he sets the scene: …the truth is that the UUP and DUP – the first time being December 1999 – still participates in an Executive that includes McGuinness, even though he is routinely referred to as a ‘godfather of terrorism’ and as the former officer-in-command of the IRA’s so-called army council. I doubt if there …

A proposal to help us deal with the past: an effective form of storytelling inside a legal structure

Trevor Ringland on April 13, 2012, 3:21 pm

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The context In dealing with the consequences of the conflict, we must maintain a focus on the challenge to build a peaceful, stable and shared society in Northern Ireland, on this island and between these islands. Embedding a sense of interdependence among the people—a vital foundation upon which to build a successful society—should not just be an aspiration but an imperative. Success in this regard would surely be the greatest tribute we could pay to those who died or suffered loss and injury. Let me begin by painting some context. First of all, …

Matt Baggot on the accusation of uneven treatment of witnesses by the HET…

Mick Fealty on April 6, 2012, 1:05 pm

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Interesting little nugget from UTV last night on the accusation that the HET has been treating security forces differently from citizens witnesses, in which Matt Baggot reports that he has ordered an inspection of HET’s procedures, he also wryly notes: I’m very mindful that the Historical Inquiries Team did meet with the researcher back in February again with explanations, but they don’t feature in her report at this stage… The report by Dr Patricia Lundy is just the latest in …

Dealing with the past: Conflicting schools of thought…

Mick Fealty on April 4, 2012, 4:22 pm

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Political Studies Association

Fascinating and genuinely insightful paper from Dr Cillian McGrattan of the University of the West of Scotland and Dr Maíre Braniff of the University of Ulster which was presented at the PSA’s Annual Conference today… It’s particularly enlightening with regard to a much discussed topic on Slugger, i.e. Dealing with the Past… Whilst I would urge you to read the whole thing, I was particularly intrigued in their identification of the endogenous factors in how the past has been dealt …

David Latimer backs Sinn Fein position (again)

Turgon on March 22, 2012, 2:15 pm

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David Latimer is back in the news again. The minister of First Derry Presbyterian Church who previously went to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and told us that Martin McGuinness was “one of the true great leaders of modern times” and that we were all guilty for the Troubles is back again. This time he was responding to Declan Kearney’s comments about republicans thinking about reconciliation. When Kearney first made the comments unionists comprehensively rejected Kearney’s comments as partial and …

Other reasons for McArdle’s resignation?

Turgon on March 14, 2012, 8:45 pm

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Mick has some thoughts on Mary McArdle standing down as a special advisor below. It may have been that Sinn Fein or Ms. McArdle felt the need for her to move on and as Mick says Ann Travers may on UTV have been determined to see it as an act of reconciliation. A slightly different analysis of the situation is presented by the News Letter. Ms Travers said she thought the reason for the timing of the resignation may have …

Thank you Sinn Fein (now how about expanding the shadow of the future?)…

Mick Fealty on March 14, 2012, 5:02 pm

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Was the decision to redeploy Mary McArdle from her job as an advisor by Sinn Fein a routine matter of rotating special advisors? Or was it, as the Minister hinted on UTV last night, Ms McArdle’s own decision to move on. Whichever, Ann Travers’ warm words of gratitude suggest that whatever the original intention, she is determined to see it as a small act of reconciliation. There is a lesson worth unpicking here. Whatever is said in public, the Sinn …