McGurk’s Bar

#Baggott: PSNI should no longer be accountable

John Ó Néill on June 27, 2014, 12:10 pm

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Matt Baggott is pretty much leaving the PSNI in the same way as he joined in 2009. At that time, he was being pressed by the Coroner John Leckey to release files on shoot-to-kill cases from 1982 so that inquests could be held. His predecessor, Hugh Orde had been ignoring a similar request since 2007. At the time, the PSNI released a statement saying: The PSNI wishes to re-emphasise its willingness to co-operate fully with the coroner and continues to …

So… #GerryFittWASaBrit

John Ó Néill on June 12, 2014, 1:30 pm

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“Gerry Fitt Is a Brit” was what used to be said about the founder member of the SDLP and former member of the Irish Labour Party and then the Republican Labour Party. Republicans in the Dock Ward who were contemporaries of Fitt used to claim, based on what they knew of him, that they would vote unionist before they would vote for Fitt. The Irish News (££) today is running a story revealing that Fitt pressed the British government in December …

#Panorama to show absence of very good tools to critique the state

John Ó Néill on November 21, 2013, 4:55 pm

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Tonight’s BBC Panorama programme will detail allegations about the operation of the Military Reaction Force, or MRF, and how it killed unarmed civilians as part of its work up until 1973. The programme has identified ten unarmed civilians it believes were shot by MRF members operating undercover. It also will include a claim that a Ministry of Defence review concluded that the MRF had “no provision for detailed command and control”. As with so much reportage about ‘the past’, they aren’t particularly new …

Attorney General re-opens #Ballymurphy inquests

John Ó Néill on November 16, 2011, 12:16 am

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Eleven people were shot dead by British soldiers in Ballymurphy in the three days following the introduction of internment without trial on 9th August 1971. Today, more than forty years later, John Larkin, the Northern Ireland Attorney General, has ordered fresh inquests into the deaths. The original inquests returned an open verdict in 1972 but there was no serious investigation into the behaviour of the paratroopers who carried out the killings. In 1998, some of the families of those that were killed began …

While Ireland still holds these graves…

John Ó Néill on October 14, 2011, 8:00 am

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There is nothing that casts the gulf in language and empathy between nationalists and any sort of long term reconciliation within the UK in such stark contrasts as episodes like Pat Finucane’s murder by agents of the state, and, the unfolding of the subsequent attempts by the state to simulate a process of legal and judicial redress. Both nationalism and unionism regularly struggle under the weight of their preferred histories but the diametric perspectives offered by their differing requirements for a relationship with London can often find ways to securely root those histories in relatively …

Serious issues of independence and effectiveness in the Police Ombudsman’s Office

John Ó Néill on August 17, 2011, 9:22 am

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Sinn Féin’s policing spokesman Gerry Kelly has added his voice to calls for the removal of Al Hutchinson as Police Ombudsman and restoration of independence and effectiveness in the office. Barry McCaffrey, over at The Detail, has seen the draft version of a Criminal Justice Inspectors report on the Office of the Police Ombudsman (OPONI) and it appears to make for damning reading. This follows swiftly on from the the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) publishing a report on Human Rights …

Ombudsman’s Report into McGurk’s Bar

Turgon on February 21, 2011, 9:20 pm

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The report into the McGurk’s bar bombing has finally come out. It did come out previously when Al Hutchinson published his report to a storm of protest from the families. Hutchinson then promptly withdrew the report though bizarrely denied it was embarrassing: “I wouldn’t say it’s an embarrassment, I take it as a learning opportunity – we must do better.” The new mark two report is now out (full report PDF here) and seems somewhat more to the families’ liking. …