Southern government terrified by British-Unionist bombs in 1974 - the lessons for today

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Monday December 11, 2006 03:27

by Harry Wells - The Well, Well, Well Foundation

MI5 and RUC special Branch set up 'pseudo gang' to kill the agreement, nationalists and republicans

The Mail on Sunday returns today to the story the Irish Times and Irish Independent don't want to touch with a forty-foot pole. It is ironic that an Irish edition of a Conservative English newspaper shows more gumption in exposing this scandal than Irish owned newspapers.

See also: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80012 - for previous Mail coverage of this story and how the Times and Indo have effectively ignored it.

Who are these newspapers protecting? The Fine Gael-Labour coalition of 1973-77, who ran scared from the bombs and instituted a reign of repression and terror against republicans and the (minority) of socialists who stood up to them, that's who.

The Cosgrave coalition turned on republicans after British bombings

It was the era of Conor (‘UK Unionist’) Cruise O'Brien, Paddy ('cockroach') Cooney, Paddy ('Thundering disgrace') Donnegan and Liam ('tin pot') Cosgrave. It was the era of the ‘Heavy Gang’ in the Gardai, of censorship in RTE, of a President - Commander in Chief of the Army - forced to resign after Donnegan referred to him as a “Thundering Disgrace” in front of army officers. The two most reactionary ministers, Cooney and O’Brien, lost their seats in the 1977 general election. O’brien was infamous after 1974 for arguing that no one should say anything that might anger loyalists, in case they might bomb Dublin again. MI5 had the unionist appeasers in Dublin on the run. The Gardai wound up The Dublin Monaghan bombing enquiry – still the biggest single mass murder of the Troubles - very quickly. The Justice Minister, Paddy Cooney (who denied that the ‘Heavy Gang’ existed) and the rest of the Labour-Fine Gael cabinet did not protest.

The incoming Fianna Fail government in 1977 sacked the Garda Commissioner, Ned Garvey, who had set up the ‘Heavy Gang’. They never said why.

Unionist killer and “long time supporter” of DUP dissents

Fianna Fail and the mainstream media do not want to embarrass Fine Gael Labour too much on the issue today, as it also draws in British responsibility for acts of terrorism. It is important for all these forces to maintain a clear focus of pressure on Sinn Fein.

The DUP and the unionist killers that Ian Paisley influences also want to maintain this agreed focus on Sinn Fein. The clear link between the DUP and unionist killers is revealed in The Sunday Tribune today. The story is not on the Sunday Tribune website – most peculiar, just like the (page 17) Irish Independent report of November 30th on British collusion with unionist killers is not on the Independent website (see link).

Ian Paisley Jnr and Jeffrey Donaldson are revealed as trying to persuade “loyalist double murder Pastor Kenny McClinton” (who Paisley calls a “long time supporter”) to keep the focus on trying to split Sinn Fein. At one point Donaldson, in warning against a “deeply green Plan B”, asks the loyalist killer: “Is this what you fought for, Kenny?”. The insane sectarianism that characterises unionist politics is revealed in this exchange, with unionist killing supporting unionist politicking - and vice versa.

Donaldson addresses McClinton as a “brother in the Lord”, while McClinton opens an email with:

“Grace and peace unto you and yours in Christ’s great and omniscient name, my friends, may your hearts and minds be filled with thoughts of Him, and the peace He alone can bring. Amen.

McClinton explains at one point how he ”shot a man DEAD” in support of Paisley’s 1977 loyalist strike. Mr Holier than though Donaldson, who has nothing to say about this sectarian killer’s killings, says in the body of the article that the release of the emails is ”unchristian” (possibly because the Bible did not reveal the big C as having ever sent or received any).

Fianna Fail DUP alliance on police

While Paisley’s DUP put pressure on Sinn Fein to “support” the PSNI in order to try and split republicans, Bertie Ahern reinforces the DUP message today by demanding that Sinn Fein to call an Ard Fheis on policing before the British government have brought in the Patton reforms that destroy the Special Branch 'force within a force'. Fianna Fail do not care that they are in support of DUP bigots in making these calls on Sinn Fein.

In 1976 the Labour-Fine Gael government were acting as loyalist appeasers. Is Fianna Fail playing the same role today? Has anything changed? In a taunt to Republicans, former SDLP leader Seamus Mallon called the Good Friday Agreement "Sunningdale for slow learners". Maybe he was right in ways he did not intend, since the SDLP and successive Irish governments have tried to blame republicans for the bringing down of the Sunningdale Power Sharing Agreement in 1974. The Dublin Monaghan bombings went off in the middle of the loyalist 'strike' and mass intimidation that brought down the Faulkner-Fitt executive. Maybe the SDLP and the Dublin government will learn that they are up against the same forces today as they were in 1974 - the combined weight of unionist sectarianism, the remnants of RUC Special Branch and elements of British intelligence.

Maybe they are the “slow learners”. They should cop on and cop out of making demands of Sinn Fein on policing.