Coolacrease - The Hidden Interview - an Indymedia EXCLUSIVE!

national | history and heritage | feature

Sunday December 02, 2007 23:07

by Pat Muldowney

Audio of the evidence RTE censored - published in the interests of FREE SPEECH

Local PhD Student Bites Back

This exclusive comes in a tradition of Indymedia exclusives that brought you the British Ambassador’s letter in 1969, when the then Managing Director of the Irish Times, called his Editor and fellow Protestant, Douglas Gageby, “a renegade or white nigger” for his coverage of Northern Ireland.

RTE broadcast a 'Hidden History' programme on 23 October 2007, about the IRA shooting of Richard and Abraham Pearson of Coolacrease, near Cadamstown, Co. Offaly, in June 1921, during the War of Independence. It was made by Niamh Sammon and featured (unelected) Senator Eoghan Harris of the Sunday Independent.

The programme was accused of editing interviews to encourage a view that the IRA in Offaly were sectarian, land grabbing and Catholic peasants. Back in early October Indymedia users played with the title of the documentary strand and began to ask was history being bent to the will of a hidden agenda?

Now a researcher, PhD student Philip McConway, has accused the programme of distorting his views. Local historian, Paddy Heaney, related to an IRA volunteer who died from stomach wounds inflicted by the Pearsons, said the programme left the guts of his interview on the cutting room floor. Another interview, with Pat Muldowney, never made it at all, not one second. His interview with Niamh Sammon of Reel Story Productions, has never been heard by the public. Until now that is...

Today, tonight (to coin a phrase), Indymedia brings you audio of the Muldowney-Sammon interview. Not all of it, we are not miracle workers, and the quality is, we admit, not the best. But it is good enough.

The interview is accompanied by a transcript, with comments by Dr Muldowney on the conduct of the interview. One way to figure it is to see the way in which the interviewer is seeking to extract segments with a closed off beginning, middle and end that she can use for her argument. But Dr Muldowney would not play ball. Did he know what was going on? Was he media savvy? Sadly, from Ms Sammon’s point of view, that seems to be the case.

There was nothing Sammon could use to bolster her argument, so she censored Dr Muldwoney’s evidence, which is devastating. He produced evidence showing that the British authorities agreed that the Pearsons took up arms against the IRA. He showed that there was a British Court of Enquiry. He showed that the British agreed with the Irish Court of Enquiry evidence that sealed the Pearson’s fate. No sectarianism, no land-grabbing. One incident in a war against Irish democracy and independence.

Listen and make up your mind.

[Pat Muldowney COMMENT:
Ms Sammon’s invitation to interview me on 28/7/07 arrived on 18/7/07. I received the British Military Court of Enquiry papers from the British Public Records Office a few of days before the interview. After leaving on July 27 to go to Kinnitty Castle for interview at 10.30 a.m. on July 28, I received a series of messages postponing the interview. It eventually started at about 4.30 p.m. on the 28th.]

[0 minutes]

S: OK Dr Muldowney, could you tell me how you first became aware of this story.

M: I read the Eoghan Harris piece in the Independent in 2005, and then I read Paddy Heaney’s letter. I come from not far from here in Co. Kilkenny and know about the Stanleys through agricultural connections, and I’d heard a little bit about the trouble here. Through curiosity, in a sense, I got hold of Stanley’s book. The events as described by Harris were horrific, and when I read Stanley’s book it reinforced that. It was a difficult read, and I read it again, and problems with it began to emerge. For one thing, the first thing that struck me was his stance on the War of Independence, that the British made a grievous mistake in not dealing with this as a military operation.

[1 minute]

That presumably means a strategy of using their military forces as they were used directly afterwards in Iraq, for instance – bombing, shelling, perhaps gassing. That it seems is his view. What had happened is that a government had been elected in Ireland with an overwhelming mandate and the mandate was reinforced in successive elections, and the government then had to implement that mandate, it couldn’t resile from it. And when the British government refused to accept it, and in fact sent in forces to suppress the legitimate, elected, democratic government then either people give up their democratic choice and resign themselves in effect to what would have been perhaps the first instance of overthrowing an elected government by force. There have been many instances subsequently in terms of the brownshirts, the fascisti, marching on Rome and so on

S: Let me interrupt you there … Just to go back quickly, you said something, you said that when you read that story initially you found it quite horrific. What did you find so horrific about it?

[2 minutes]

M: Well, the idea that … the way that the execution is presented, these men are taken, stood up against a wall, they are fired at with dum-dum bullets to the genitals, the family is forced to watch, the object is to make some ghastly point about ethnic cleansing, and to send out a message, that anyone who would resist it would be treated accordingly. Of course it turns out that that is a complete misrepresentation of what actually happened.

[3 minutes]

That didn’t happen at all, by the evidence that the family themselves gave to the Court of Inquiry. It was something quite different. In fact the execution itself was botched, they received superficial wounds, and died from lack of medical attention. As you go through the book there’s a lot of … in fact the whole thing turned out to be a recital of atrocity propaganda which is a complete misrepresentation of what actually happened, and I presume the purpose of doing it is to renew the propaganda of the time, which was, in order to subvert … to accompany the military suppression and overthrow of the democratically elected government, that this kind of stuff would be fed into the public arena, for Ireland, for England, for America and so on. That is the problem with the book. That’s how I got into it. My own sort of background, in a way, is, I come from Kilkenny which is not too far from here, and I’ve worked in the North since about 1970 and had an involvement, in a sense, campaigning for a recognition of a right of self-determination for the Ulster Protestants, which means in effect that they are recognised as a separate, independent national community of some sort, and that means the removal of the claim in the Irish constitution of a de jure right to rule the Six Counties.

[4 minutes]

At the time that would have seen by most people as quite outrageous but in effect that’s what happened in the end. As the Peace Process went to a conclusion, there was a referendum to amend the constitution in that respect, and the general idea that there would be some sort of forced integration of the Six Counties …

S: (interrupts) Just to come back, why do you think the Pearsons were targeted by the IRA?

[COMMENT: Niamh only wanted to hear some fairy-tales about good people and evil people. Grown-up talk about politics was not on her agenda. The more I found out about the Pearsons, the less impressed I was with them. But it was not Good versus Evil, not in the way Niamh sought to portray it, nor the converse. In the end, what happened to the Pearsons was simply a result of the British reaction to the Irish independence vote, not local land or religious issues.]

M: Well, they engaged on the side of the military terror of the Imperial government in its efforts to suppress the elected government. There is no doubt about this, this is the nitty gritty of the whole thing. We have the responsible authorities on the Irish side, which is the officer in command of the executions, and the commanding officer for the county, reporting to the commander in chief who was answerable to the government, who had in fact insisted that the situation in Offaly, in terms of the presence and the activities of the Black and Tan forces

[5 minutes]

and so on, that something be done about it in the crucial time of run-up to the elections [SHOULD BE Truce]. So that was why, on the Irish side that was the thing. And on the British side,… if you take for instance Stanley’s standpoint on this, I presume he would rule that out of order [I MEANT HERE THE IRISH AUTHORITY AND REPORT OF THE EXECUTIONS] in the sense that he regarded them as criminal rebels as opposed to a democratically elected government with their armed forces and their various officials, the county councils which were part of it and supported it, the courts and so on …

S: (interruption)

M: The point being, that if you rule that out if it, then the other responsible party would be the authority on the British side, which is the RIC. And the RIC give exactly the same reason, that the Pearsons were shot because of the fact that they had engaged in an armed attack on the Volunteer forces, shot two of them and, they thought, killed one. As it happened, that person was blasted in the stomach with a shotgun, but in fact he survived because he got medical attention, unlike the Pearsons when they were shot in a botched execution by inexperienced soldiers.

[6 minutes]

Mick Heaney recovered in Tullamore Hospital. The Pearsons were seen by a local dispensary doctor after two or three hours, and then he died in the field by about ten o’clock. The other one was brought to Crinkle Military Hospital and was seen at two o’clock by the relevant army doctor who then went back to bed. He reports again superficial wounds. When he got up the second man was also dead. So, the British side also comes to the same conclusion as to why these executions took place. So, the point being, as an action of the forces of the elected government, in terms of fighting, of resisting the attempt to overthrow the elected government by these Black and Tan forces, the forerunners of the Brownshirts, Stormtroopers, whatever you want to call them, this kind of anti-democratic militia, becoming a feature of the post-war situation; so, the British, then, also have the same interpretation.

[7 minutes]

In fact this is the point, going back to Stanley’s book, that, if you look closely at it, it turns out that his father was in fact a paramilitary from Laois who had been involved in a loyalist paramilitary outfit, and ordered out because of his activities. He reports to his son that the Pearsons and, I presume, himself, went down there to the roadblock, then returned with shotguns, he says, fired over their heads. In fact two men were shot. Three in fact, another one was a civilian who was under arrest; in fact he lost a lung …

S: Just to come back to that, actually, this is a very important incident obviously. Where is the evidence that anybody was shot that night?

[COMMENT: Niamh zeroes in on “the evidence”. A bit rich, now that we realise she was planning a cover-up of the British Military Court of Enquiry evidence! The dramatic highlight is when Niamh delivers the killer punch: “Where is the body?” (of the IRA man, Mick Heaney, blasted in the stomach by the Pearsons.)

As if the long, public, agonising demise of the man was some kind of mystery, hidden from relatives, friends and neighbours. As if the RIC could not quickly discover that their retired colleague, Bert Hogg, had been shot by the Pearsons as he tried to get away from the roadblock and out of their range of fire.

In contrast, Niamh allowed Professors English and Dooley to present wild speculation about land grabbing without offering a shred of actual evidence to back up their speculation. Not much sign of Roghan Harris’s “factualism disease” there!]

M: The evidence is what was considered by the responsible authorities on the Irish side, at the time, and by the responsible authorities on the British side, which is the RIC. Now, they would have had the evidence presented to them. We take it that these people are not … On the Irish side, these people are the forerunners of our present … - as was Mick Heaney, of course, who was shot – of our present apparatus of state, our system of law and order and so on. And on the British side the RIC. They took evidence. They reported to a formal Military Inquiry, they reported in fact that the Pearsons had shot two men. Now we can’t expect … we don’t have a video of the thing,

[8 minutes]

we’re not here to re-run that Military Tribunal. Of course we can’t do that. It was done by people who weren’t fools. This then is the fully documented explanation of the executions of the Pearson brothers …

S: (Interrupts) In terms of documented evidence, can you tell me what that documented evidence …

M: The documented evidence is in the British Public Records Office, on the one hand, on the British side, and in the Bureau of Military History and other archives on the Irish side. The British one is the Report of the Court of Inquiry which includes the RIC explanation of the … of their investigation of the shootings, and their report on it. And it’s quite clear, there’s no doubt on any side. And it’s clear from …

S: (interrupts) … I’ve actually read that Court of Inquiry file, and it doesn’t actually say categorically that they shot members of the IRA.

M: The wording used … obviously they don’t say that the forces of the elected government executed two people who were collaborating with the terrorist forces

[9 minutes]

who were organising a coup, a revolution, against the legitimate government. They don’t do that. What they say is that it was a revenge killing by the IRA for shooting two of their men. That is pretty well verbatim, I can show it to you if you want. But …

S: (interrupts) I guess that is the reason the IRA gave for the attack. But what I’m saying …

M: (interrupts) Oh no, no, no … it’s the reason the RIC …

S: (continues) There isn’t any medical evidence that anyone was actually shot that night. You actually say, in one of your own documents, that Mick Heaney was mortally wounded that night. I suppose what I’m asking you is: Where’s the body?

[COMMENT: “Where is the body!” I presume this is the point where Eoghan Harris-style bluster and rhetoric were supposed to make me fall apart.]

M: Mick Heaney was wounded sufficiently that he died later. If you want his death certificate … But the point is, we are not, …

S: (interrupts) …

M: … we are not running the British Military Tribunal, you see. We’re hardly qualified to do it. They did it. The RIC are the investigating body on the British side. They report that the Pearsons were shot

[10 minutes]

because they had engaged with gunfire against the Volunteers and shot two of them. They thought one was shot fatally. In fact the man recovered because he was treated in Tullamore Hospital.

S: Did he die or did he survive? I’m not clear about that.

M: It would appear that he survived for a number of years. Obviously, if you get shot in the stomach with a shotgun blast you’re not going to be an Olympics candidate. So, the documentary evidence sends us back that RIC report. If you take the Stanley view that the Irish reports, the reports of the democratically elected government are somehow out of … not to be considered – all of the reports say exactly the same thing. And we do know, from Stanley’s book, that they went - they were armed – they went back to the thing, they fired shots, he says over their heads. The RIC say that two of them were shot, they thought one was killed, …

[11 minutes]

[Comment: Is it a rumor? Is it an allegation? Is it an altercation? Is it a bad case of trespass? Eoghan says he has the answer, in a secret, one-page RIC Report (Sindo, November 18, 2007). Could the Senator be coming down with a dose of Factualism Disease? If so, Indymedia will be the first to report it!]

S: (interrupts) What the RIC report actually says, it reports the fact that the IRA say the two Pearsons were shot because they were involved in an altercation…

M: (interrupts) It does not. Let me check it …
…
M: OK. “The C.I. of Queens County” (that’s the Chief Inspector)

“said that the two Pearson boys a few days previously

[12 minutes]

had seen two men felling a tree on their land adjoining the road, had told the men concerned to go away, and when they refused, had fetched two guns and fired and wounded two Sinn Feiners, one of whom it is believed died.” And so on. “It is further rumoured when the farm house was burning, two guns fell out of the roof.”

That is their report. They report to the Military Inquiry that the Pearsons had fetched guns, fired, and wounded two Sinn Feiners, one of whom, it is believed, died. That essentially is the same as the Cordial report, that is Michael Cordial who was responsible for the executions, responsible for administering the decision of the court martial of the Commanding Officer for the County, …

S: (interrupts) Were they not basing that on local reports though?

M: (laughs) This is what it says.

[13 minutes]

What other meaning can we take out of this, except that the Pearsons fetched the two guns, fired, and wounded two Sinn Feiners, one whom it is believed died – pretty clear.
(… Silence …)

S: … medical records …

M: (interrupts) That is the RIC business. I presume they dealt with that. This is a Court within the legal system …

S: (interrupts) … my question …they were taken to a secret ward in Tullamore Hospital …

M: …(interrupts) We need to talk about … which are we talking about? Are we talking about the verdict of both the Irish authorities and the British authorities on this execution, or what? The point was that a military engagement took place. We have two forces at war in the county. They were civilian.

[14 minutes]

They were not officially part of the British forces. They engage with the Irish Army when it’s conducting its resistance to the Black and Tan forces. It’s too clearcut. There isn’t much further to go on that. You can go … you can look at William Pearson’s deposition to the Distress Committee. He says … what is it he says? “We worked for the Crown Forces”, something of that sort. He didn’t mean that they were making sandwiches for them or ironing their uniforms …

[15 minutes]

S: (interrupts) … He didn’t actually say that …

M: … something of this nature …

S: What he said is that he was an ardent loyalist …

M: An ardent loyalist and … let’s check that … no, I don’t have it with me.

[COMMENT: HERE IS THE RELEVANT QUOTE FROM THE PEARSON DEPOSITION TO THE DISTRESS COMMITTEE THAT I COULD NOT FIND in the heat of the moment:
”5. Do you claim that the loss or injury described was occasioned in respect or on account of your allegiance to the Government of the United Kingdom? If so, give particulars on which you base this claim”.
{Pearson’s response:] ”Yes. I was always known as a staunch Loyalist and upholder of the Crown. I assisted the Crown Forces on every occasion, and I helped those who were persecuted around me at all times.”]

The thing is, the truth is that the …. every official, responsible report on the executions has this. There really isn’t much more to say. And in Stanley’s book - in fact that is the thing that really swung it for me in Stanley’s book

[16 minutes]

- he sort of casually says that his father William Stanley has been involved in an armed outfit which did target practice and worked with the Auxiliaries, the Black and Tan terror forces, you might call it that, that they went down to this roadblock, fired, but over their heads. Another interesting thing in Stanley’s book is, he quotes his father’s cousin, Oliver Stanley, - it’s the same thing in fact – he says that the IRA thought,

[17 minutes]

that at the roadblock two men of the IRA had been wounded - I can’t remember whether he said killed or not. But that it was a mistake, it was the security forces, the Black and Tans or such had done it, so Oliver Stanley said it was sort of a genuine mistake, you know, that the IRA had mistakenly got the impression that the men had been shot, in other words, that the Pearsons had done it. That if they had done it, they had brought this upon themselves. Which is the general view of this thing. Tragic, of course. Who wants war?

[18 minutes]

And who knows what individuals of particular backgrounds …

S: (interrupts) I suppose what Alan Stanley is saying is that late at night, when the light wouldn’t have been great, and there was this uncertainty about …

M: There is no uncertainty in the reports. The thing is that Oliver Stanley wanted to believe that the Pearsons really hadn’t done it, you see. He doesn’t want to believe it. If they had done it, the implication of what he says is that, really, they got what was coming to them. Which is what everyone really understood – that’s how everybody understood it.

S: When you say everybody, who do you mean?

M: This is why the story was a dead one, you see, until this Harris/Stanley publicity on the thing …

[Technical pause.]

S: To stick with this incident, this important incident …

M: (interrupts) It’s a bit more than important. There is no other incident in connection with this case, in terms of the reasons for the executions. They were not executed because of some nonsensical squabble over a mass path. They were not executed for informing, spying or anything like that. That’s not what they were charged with. Of course, if they were prepared to go out and engage militarily, … If you prepared to go in and steal a video camera you’re surely prepared to go in and steal a bag of crisps. You know what I mean? It’s a much lesser issue, if you know what I mean. But the point was, in terms of the official records
[19 minutes]
of an event which was officially investigated, in a formal sense, according to procedures, at the time, by both sides, both the Irish side and the British side, that is what they were executed for. Nothing else came into it.

S: Did Tom Burke’s statement to Headquarters not mention that they were suspected of spying?

[COMMENT: Niamh is desperate for me to say I thought they were spies, so she could then ask me what was my evidence for that (mobile phone records??), to which I would have to say I had no documented evidence, which she could then include in the documentary, so she could boast that her documentary was so completely even-handed that even the letter-writing crank Muldowney was given a chance to try to make a case against the Pearsons.]

M: Why wouldn’t they? You see, this is my point …(interruptions) … they were executed for – what it says in those documents is that they were executed for carrying out the attack. Now, spying – you can take it as read, if they were prepared to do that – why wouldn’t they? If they had the bottle, if they had the bottle to go down and do that, that is no little thing. Do you think they would hesitate – these were people who knew and understood the area.

[20 minutes]

They had strong beliefs. They had powerful beliefs. Their beliefs – they were destructive, negative, they were anti-democratic; in fact they conformed with the general trend of the time towards violent attacks on elected governments, assassination of elected representatives and so on and so on and so on. That was where their beliefs lay. As it did in many other countries. So the spying thing, … is pretty much irrelevant. Obviously, if they had enough courage – they certainly weren’t short of courage – then there is no question where their loyalties lay, and so on. And they put their money where their mouth was.

S: OK let’s just examine those things. Obviously there is some distance between being a loyalist and actively spying. I spoke to Paddy Heaney and Philip McConway and obviously we looked at everything. Can you tell me what proof you have discovered that the Pearsons were spies?

M: I’m not interested in spying things. I just assume that … We know that they were shot, or executed, for their actual….

[20 minutes and 33 seconds]

SECOND AUDIO CLIP. Starting the clock at zero again.

[0 minutes]

(M:) they also mention the mass path, the mass path is also a kind of mood music, background music. It’s a red herring, to be honest with you.

S: Do you not believe Tom Burke’s statement?

****
[COMMMENT: Here is the extract from Thomas Burke’s IRA Court of Enquiry Report that Niamh is referring to:
Burke: “THE ENEMY IS KEPT WELL-INFORMED OF THE ACTIONS AND PERSONNEL OF OUR FORCE IN THE DISTRICT AND ARRESTS HAVE BEEN FREQUENT. THERE IS GOOD GROUNDS FOR SUSPECTING THE FAMILY OF TRANSMITTING INFORMATION”

So I told Niamh yet again what I believe. I believe exactly what it says on the tin. The Pearsons were executed for the reasons given in the Irish Court of Enquiry, as corroborated by what the Queen’s County RIC Inspector said. And Niamh tried yet again – and again, and again – to get me to say something……… which she could broadcast?

If you think this was dishonest, think about what she did to Paddy Heaney. Her academic geniuses, Dooley, English and the other one could give her nothing to actually support her/Harris’s land-grab theory. So Paddy Heaney explains that the Pearson place was allocated to ex-British soldiers and other people unconnected to the independence movement, proving there was no land-grab. But he points out, for the record, that after many of these went out of business, some people with IRA connections got land there. Niamh censored the first part and broadcast the last bit. And that was what she offered on the land-grab!]

M: I told you what I believe. I told you what is reasonable. How many ways is it possible to explain this? That being seriously, and devotedly, committed to this particular cause [MILITARY SUPPRESSION OF THE IRISH GOVERNMENT], they were prepared to fight for it, they would be damn fools if they didn’t do the simpler work [SPYING/INFORMING]. The formal reasons for the executions were what we discussed. The other things [SPYING/INFORMING]– they are interesting. We could go on and on. This whole argument is a five-minute argument. It’s an open-and-shut case as to what they did, in terms of the reasons for them being shot. And … there is no disagreement about it.

S: In one your letters to me you mention about them being guilty of helping the Black and Tan terror campaign. In what respect?

[1 minute]

M: When they engaged … You have two opposing military forces, the forces of the Irish government, and the forces which were seeking to overthrow it by violence, and by assassinations, and by hostage-taking, and by shooting up football crowds, and so on and so on and so on. You have this. And when they got into a fight with one side, it was because they were on the other side. How better can you possibly help the Crown Forces than by actually taking up arms on their behalf?

S: In terms of these spying allegations, you say they would have been damn fools not to spy. What evidence do you have that they were spying?

M: When I say they would have been damn fools not to spy, that’s all that I am saying. The thing is, as far as I am concerned, it’s not an interesting issue. I mean,.. I suppose you could say that, … let’s see – various things happened. Hmm … yeah; we can operate at the level of, say, proof; in terms of the appointed authorities, that’s to say, what findings they came to, and what they have left to us. Now, we could take endless pleasure in speculation,

[2 minutes]

about history and so on. If we want to join in that, let’s see. Yes. The case of the rows, this sectarian squabbling over the mass path. They fell a tree, they knock down a tree, then they spread excrement on a stile. And these are family groups going to Sunday service. Then they pull guns on them. Just think about it. These are women and children, in their Sunday best. And they threaten them. The IRA then have to restore order in some way. They make them back off. Those two guys, Horan and Dillon, are arrested the following day. So … what happened? Are we to assume that the Pearsons said we can positively identify Horan and Dillon, they came up here and warned us off with guns, we’ll stand over that. And we know where they live. This is the kind of thing. That’s speculation, you see.

S: (interrupts) You say that happened, or …

M: I can speculate about it. I believe that, if they had the bottle

[3 minutes]

to actually go out and fight for their beliefs, …. they paid the price, as people around here actually said, that they brought it upon themselves. They paid the price for it. Tragic, of course. But that was it. They fought for it. Why would they not do anything else that was required? I mean, this is speculative stuff that you’re asking me to get into … There was no Court of Inquiry about spying. There was no Court of Inquiry about mass paths. What can we do, then, except take on board what is consistently spoken about. And there is consistency in it. On the other side, you see, there isn’t consistency. William Pearson’s deposition, it’s so full of flagrant lies that the credibility … And the same applies to David Pearson’s letter, and to stuff that’s coming through to us on the Stanley side. The misrepresentation of what happened, in terms of these … let’s call them advocates .. of the Pearsons, is so self-contradictory, and so …

[4 minutes]

What did William Pearson say, he said 500 men came into the yard; he said that he had gone to Crinkle that morning to get help, in fact when everyone else says he went to Mountmellick to a religious meeting, the Annual Convention of the Cooneyites. Yes, he said that his daughter was fired at, that she lost a chunk of her hair, a convenient thing to lose when you say it in 1929 [SHOULD BE 1927]. He didn’t say that they blew her hand off. No-one fired at any of the daughters. Because if they had, it would have come out at the Inquiry, it would have been said at the time. Because the Dublin Castle propaganda statement would have picked it up to the nth degree. These contradictions on that side …What we are trying to do here is trying to assess the various kinds of things which can’t be verified by formal … like, say, the Military Inquiry or the IRA Reports to the government. When those things agree, we know we are on pretty firm ground. (…? …On these other issues(?)) we are not, obviously. There is no point in beating the air and demanding “Give me the evidence, give me the evidence”.

[5 minutes]

Do you want a video of it, or what? ( … interruptions…) What I’m saying is that the … in terms of this kind of mood music that’s coming down from the two sides, the Pearson side is very unreliable …

[5 minutes and 18 seconds]

END OF RECORDING

[COMMENT: The interview continued in this vein for about two hours, with Niamh making frequent exits from the room, to return for fresh assaults, mostly on the spying/informing issue. If I can get around to it, I will post more of my recording of the interview on this thread.

At some point towards the end of the contest, perhaps out of genuine curiosity, Niamh asked me why I was so “passionate”, as she put it, about this issue. I was not minded at the time to tell her to her face what I thought of people like her and Harris. But for sure, the maligning of people like Mick Heaney and his companions at the roadblock is reason enough to muster a bit of passion.]

Audio One - the Hidden Muldowney interview - Part one

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Comments (110 of 110)

RTÉ Atrocity Propaganda and Censorship, Part 19

Thu Apr 03, 2008 19:17

A critique of the Broadasting Complaints Commission adjudication can be read at http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Main/CoolaCrease where further documents will be made available, exposing the methods of RTÉ and BCC.

This matter is not closed

by John Martin - Irish Political Review

Wed Mar 19, 2008 18:57

Given there was a fair amount of postings – although possibly by the same person – between the time the BCC decision was known by a select number of people and the time it was published, it was maybe surprising that there has been nothing but a series of irrelevancies from supporters of the documentary since the decision has been made public.

But the reticence of the defenders of the documentary is only surprising for those who have not read the BCC decision. The BCC found in favour of RTE and the Producer of the programme, but to give it its due, it gave a reasonable, if incomplete, summary of the arguments for and against the documentary. So readers can make up their own minds.

There are a lot of things that can be said about the BCC’s decision and no doubt they will be said on this thread, but the most remarkable aspect is that the BCC revealed that it had made up its mind before it had even examined the evidence. And by revealing this it showed why this whole controversy is of such fundamental importance.

How did the BCC reveal its prejudice? In each of its 7 decisions against the complainants it advertised its decision in advance by making the following statement:

“The broadcast in question is Hidden History: The Killings at Coolacrease, which explored the murder of two brothers in Coolacrease during the War of Independence in 1921.”

Is that not a remarkable statement? The Pearsons were murdered?! This goes further than the makers of the documentary. The killings were not merely an incident in the war of independence, but a criminal act. Who decided that it was a criminal act? A British Military Court of Inquiry decided that the IRA was guilty of “wilful murder”. It follows from this that the BCC regard the British army of occupation as the legitimate authority in 1921.

Nobody disputes that the execution of the Pearsons was authorised by the IRA. Therefore it also follows that the IRA’s chief of staff Risteard Mulcahy, a revered Fine Gael icon, was a criminal.

Of course, anyone is entitled to their opinion and it would appear that some contributors to this thread agree with the BCC. But the BCC claims to be an independent statutory authority. It was set up by a state – this State.

This State is of the opinion that its war of independence was a legitimate struggle against British imperialism. It calls the current Dail the 30th Dail and believes that the first Dail was in 1919. The 1919 Dail authorised the war against British occupation following the 1918 election.

The opinion of the BCC that this State was founded on a criminal conspiracy is an opinion which should be explained by the BCC and its members. However, there is no appeals procedure available to complainants. Therefore the only institution that can require the BCC to explain itself is the State itself through its public representatives.

Sammon V Johnson

Thu Mar 13, 2008 14:02

I’m happy to give people time to read the BCC’s judgements before I make any detailed comments.

But in the light of the recent post by Johnson, it is interesting to note that Niamh Sammon’s defence against my complaint was that J.J. Dillon’s comments countered Eoghan Harris’s false statement that the Pearson brothers were shot in the “genitals” or “sexual organs”.

I don’t believe that Dillon’s statements in the documentary counter Harris’s statement in the least. But let us assume Johnson is right and Dillon shares Harris’s views. Then I don’t see how Dillon’s comments could possibly have contradicted Harris.

I have no intention of trying to contact J.J. Dillon. The question of whether he wants to participate in this debate (in whatever forum) is entirely a matter for him and in my view it is very irresponsible to encourage people to phone him.

However, I find it very strange that if he does believe that the Pearsons were shot in the genitals, he wasn’t persuaded to say so in the documentary. As Johnson suggests, such a person’s views would carry much more weight than a professional polemicist’s such as Harris.

Not true

by Browser

Thu Mar 13, 2008 13:28

I mentioned the controversy was similar to the Ballyseedy and
States of Fear documentaries,which both provoked a national
uproar-nowhere did I liken critics of the Coolacrease program to the Catholic ultra-rightists
who objected to Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan's latter documentary.
The Ballyseedy doc. was about the violent execution of
Republicans by Free Staters during the Civil War.

Gosh

by Joseph

Thu Mar 13, 2008 13:11

Gosh, then, you're saying, Browser, that the people who are attacking this programme are like people who did not like to see Catholic clergy accused of sexual abuse.

Mmmmm, this is very, very serious, so the people attacking the Coolacrease programme are sort of, in a way, by implication, subconsciously, associated with pedophiles. As I said, gosh.

I wonder where does that leave Eoghan Harris and his poetic friends who are attacking an RTE documentary programme that alleges western sexual exploitation of teenagers in Nepal? Even more guilty by association, I would have thought.

Better get the thought police on to this one also.

Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:49

The Link to the BCC's decision is here:

http://www.bcc.ie/decisions/feb_08_decisions.html

There were seven complaints about the "Hidden History" programme (looks
like a concerted campaign against it) and all were rejected.

The last time I remember a TV history documentary causing such a
ruckus was the one about industrial schools (States of Fear,wasn't it called?)
and the Ballyseedy one a close second.

Pot, kettle, black

Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:43

"Now we wait patiently for the few contributors to this blog to tear it apart."

What, just like Eoghan Harris is trying to tear apart the RTE documentary on Cathal Sharkey's exploits in Nepal? Perish another thought.

BCC decision - now online

by Lehi

Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:53

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission have published the entire complaints and rejections on their website.

Now we wait patiently for the few contributors to this blog to tear it apart.

Is it nearly April Fools Day?

Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:18

And I know a very good man for the job - come back Senator Joseph McCarthy. Your (old) country needs you for a 'House too-Irish Activities Committee' inquiry.

Failing that, Eoghan Harris, one-time supporter of the old, Official, rusty-guns, bullets in the air, whining, never-shot-a-man-in-the-groin (unless he was a provo), IRA might do the job.

'Nationalist bias....' Oooooooooooh, perish the thought.

History Ireland

by Tony O'Neill

Thu Mar 13, 2008 09:40

Will the articel in History Ireland be part of any further investigation? What is that magazine's agenda? I note a very distinct nationalist bias in its reporting.

What Niamh is really saying ...

by Joker

Thu Mar 13, 2008 05:37

Why is Niamh (for it is she!) so desperate to make an impression here on Indymedia, when she had, first, her programme, then RTE, and now the BCC to make her case for her? For the past few days she has been here practically round the clock.

Why is she so obsessed with Indymedia? Because, folks, it is right here in the People's Court of Indymedia that the rights and wrongs of this sorry affair were decided.

When the Harris/Sammon Show was broadcast nearly five months ago, things immediately started to go pear-shaped for Eoghan and Niamh. First, Tom McGurk, Pat Muldowney & Co planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of newspaper readers, that things might not be quite as they seem on Planet Eoghan. But where did people then come to find out what was fact and what was propaganda?

Why, right here to Indymedia, that's where! For instance, this is still the ONLY place where the medical evidence (re-posted above by Reel Journalist) can be read in full. And that's only a small part of it. Despised Indymedia has been doing the job that pampered RTE should have done, but didn't.

But it is only right that Niamh should be heard here in Indymedia. Unlike RTE and its glove-puppet the BCC (Miriam O'Callaghan, for God's sake!), Indymedia stands for free speech. Eoghan posted here once or twice back at the start, in transparent disguise, and then chickened out like the miserable blowhard he is. But to be fair to Niamh, and making allowances for pathetic attempts to disguise herself, she HAS stepped up to the plate here to try to justify her ridiculous programme. Let's give her that much at least.

So what can we make of Niamh's latest, above?

According to Niamh, JJ Dillon's father was at the Pearsons to requisition arms prior to the roadblock attack. So why did JJ Dillon's father and his companions on the IRA arms requisitioning party not get the shotguns that the Pearsons used to fire "into the air(!!!)" at the roadblock a week or so later? IF they got to search the premises, it can't have been much of a search!!

With the rest of the Cadamstown IRA, JJ Dillon's father was imprisoned, thanks to the Pearsons, immediately after the Pearson attack on the roadblock, and remained there. None of the Cadamstown IRA were around for the executions, and the primary source of information that the Cadamstown locals had about the executions was the local newspapers - one of which was quoted above by Reel Journalist. NOBODY in the community, then or since, had access to the full medical facts about the Pearsons' gunshot wounds until this information was published here in Indymedia. JJ Dillon's father could not have known these medical details, no more than anyone else in the community.

Another person who did NOT have access to what happened at Coolacrease was Alan Stanley's father, who went on the run BEFORE the executions. Alan Stanley's father was not an eye-witness, and being on the run in the North, probably did not even see the local newspaper reports.

Alan Stanley himself did not read these newspaper reports until after his father died in 1982. And this is what Niamh based her programme on!!!

But Niamh Sammon had the medical reports and could have used them. But they were no good to her, because they contradicted her and Harris's propaganda. So she censored them! It's as simple as that!

Not-Niamh Knot

by Ted

Wed Mar 12, 2008 23:22

So, which member of the human race did he have this conversation with, not-Niamh?
And you will see I am on topic with my point about unnecessary speculation, not-Niamh.

No, this is not Niamh Sammon

by Johnson

Wed Mar 12, 2008 22:47

Ted, being a bit slow, didn't get the name first time round - Johnson.

Ted wrote:

"Eh... in conversation with whom? Was it with yourself Niamh?"

John Joe Dillon has communicated with more than one member of the human race - if you're going to make completely irrelevant points, Ted, go elsewhere. Otherwise stick to the salient points, and discuss the subject at hand.

Sammon-Johnson

Wed Mar 12, 2008 22:39

re: The "shooting in the groin" issue
by Johnson Wed Mar 12, 2008 22:48

"No, it wasn't in the documentary, he mentioned it in conversation"

Eh... in conversation with whom? Was it with yourself Niamh?

Consider this, Niamh, what does it matter what anyone thinks, speculatively, when we have the doctor's report?

re: The "shooting in the groin" issue

Wed Mar 12, 2008 21:48

John Martin asked:

"Where has John Joe Dillon gone on record that local people believed that the young men had been shot in the groin? Certainly not in the documentary".

No, it wasn't in the documentary, he mentioned it in conversation. He has also stated that his father was on a raid on the house a week before the shootings. A search was made of the house and no ammunition or explosives were found. This contradicts the other rumour that they were running some kind of militia (This has already been mentioned by someone earlier in this thread).

He's in the phone book by the way - he'd be happy to verify it.

With respect to Reel Journalist, Ted, John Martin and others to their responses to my last message, it would seem to me that John Joe Dillon's opinion would be far more relevant and important than the opinions of a few bloggers. To have that link to his father, who was in the local IRA at that time, and knew the Pearsons, is indespensible, and would seem to me to carry much more weight.

But maybe others disagree.

Groin or Genitals

Wed Mar 12, 2008 21:12

Regarding the question of what a groin is, firstly:

The Collins English Dictionary says:

“1) The depression or fold where the legs join the abdomen.”

It then says

“2) Euphemistic. the genitals, esp the testicles”

The word "euphemistic" is in italics.

I consider it very unlikely that a medical doctor would use euphemisms to describe injuries in a military court of enquiry.

Secondly:

A shot in the genitals may be more embarrassing and humiliating than a shot in the groin, but is not likely to be deadly. Castration was widely practiced in the Middle Ages without fatal consequences.

The groin (“the depression or fold where the legs join the abdomen”) is the point of junction between the blood vessels of the body and the legs.

While it is very unlikely that anyone would die from blood loss from a wound in the testicles, it is not at all unlikely that they would suffer death from blood loss in the femoral or groin artery.

But all of this applies to Richard Pearson only. Abraham Pearson was not shot in the groin at all.

It's all...

Wed Mar 12, 2008 20:05

balls.

Dictionary history

Wed Mar 12, 2008 19:15

OK then.

So the Pearsons were shot:
“very deliberately, in the genitals, in their sexual parts, in their sexual organs”

Or was it:
“very deliberately, in the lower rectus abdominis musculature”?

Or maybe
“very deliberately, in the inguinal region”?

Or how about “very deliberately, in the symphysis pubis”?

Or “very deliberately, in the upper portions of the adductor muscles of the thigh”?

But then we have the problem of it being the right lower rectus abdominis musculature, not the left.

Or perhaps the right inguinal region. Or … or what?
Looks like we’re right back where we started! Oh dear!

Groin? Genitals? It's all a bit confusing...

Wed Mar 12, 2008 18:30

A few dictionary definitions of the term "groin":

Oxford Dictionary of English: the area between the abdomen the thigh on either side of the body; the region of the genitals.

Chambers Concise Dictionary: 1) the part of the body where the lower abdomen joins the upper thigh.
2) the male sex organs.

New Penguin English Dictionary: 1 (a) the field marking the join between the lower abdomen and the inner part of the thigh.
(b) the male genitals.

Online there was...

Answers.com and thefreedictionary.com: The crease or hollow at the junction of the inner part of each thigh with the trunk, together with the adjacent region and often including the external genitals.

And perhaps most authoritatively, emedicine.com:

The groin consists of the area where the abdomen meets the legs and includes the structures of the perineum. The groin, therefore, includes the following: the lower rectus abdominis musculature, the inguinal region, the symphysis pubis, the upper portions of the adductor muscles of the thigh, and the genitalia, as well as the scrotum in males.

A reference to genitals/sex organs in six separate sources, but according to the medical experts in this blog, it's not the same as groin.

First the BCC. Then dictionaries.

Is the whole world out to get Indymedia?

Johnson

Wed Mar 12, 2008 08:45

Johnson says:

“It's important to realise that this issue didn't just start with Eoghan Harris in the documentary. In fact it's as old as the incident itself. John Joe Dillon (whose father was in the local IRA, though not on the raid of the house that day) has gone on record to say that the people of Cadamstown and the surrounding area (at that time and subsequently) always knew that the young men had been shot in the groin and that many of them were very uncomfortable with this truth.”

Where has John Joe Dillon gone on record that local people believed that the young men had been shot in the groin? Certainly not in the documentary. Nowhere in the documentary could Dillon be persuaded to say that “the young men” were shot in the groin. No local from Offaly could be found to say in the documentary that the young men had been shot in the groin. Eoghan Harris and Alan Stanley were the only people to raise this issue.

The medical evidence doesn’t say that the “young men” had been shot in the groin. It says that Richard Pearson alone was shot in the groin among numerous other parts of the body. Abraham Pearson was not shot in the groin.

Finally, Eoghan Harris didn’t just say that they were shot in the groin. He said they (i.e. both) were shot in the “genitals” and “sexual organs”. Neither Richard nor Abraham were shot in the genitals or sexual organs. (The groin is the hollow between the thigh and the torso. It is not a sexual organ). Harris’s statement was a complete fabrication.

The next step...

by history buff

Wed Mar 12, 2008 05:02

It was a stitch-up on the part of ideologically motivated individuals in the belly of the RTE beast at Montrose. What ought to be done as a follow-up to this blog thread and the other two is to bring the detailed refutation to a wider public that doesn't visit indymedia, and a public that doesn't use the internet (still quite a lot of Irish households, I gather). I'd urge a series of whiparounds to raise funds so that Muldowney can publish his comments and facts in book form. Don't let sticky journalists and antinationalist historians corner the market in scholarly books. Don't let the machinations of RTE historiographers and social commentators go unchallenged. We pay these people to promote public broadcasting and we have a right constantly to talk back to them and 'out' their distortions and veiled biases.

Sigmund Freud meets historical fraud

Tue Mar 11, 2008 23:48

People in the area know the programme was a stitch-up from beginning to end. The previous rubbish but 'silence' is an attempt to make the whole thing very 'mysterious' - a specter of the countryside for credulous middle class townies. Eoghan 'Sigmund Freud' Harris made a sex-and-death soundbite out of one bullet in one of the two brothers. The story gets legs from associating the rest of the bullets from the execution party with the 'sex-and-death' projectile. The execution party must have been remarkably bad shots, since they all, apart from one sharpshooter, missed this vital organ they were supposedly all aiming at - though if that were the case then the whole theory falls apart, since the one bullet that passed through one brother's groin was presumably (on the balance of probability) badly aimed also.

It is quite simple, a badly executed execution that the brothers would have survived had they received competent medical attention. And, by the way, they were working, like many loyalists, directly with British forces. That is the real hidden history that does not suit the mindset in Dublin 4.

Harris versus the medical evidence

by Reel Journalist

Tue Mar 11, 2008 23:35

SENATOR HARRIS’S ALLEGATION:
"Shooting them very deliberately, in the genitals, in their sexual parts, in their sexual organs" (Pearsons documentary, October 23 2007).

THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84547 Fri Oct 26, 2007 17:21

RICHARD PEARSON:
1st Witness: Frederick William Woods civilian medical Practitioner of Kinnity Kings County having been duly sworn in states:-

At Kinnitty on the 30th June 1921 I was leaving the dispensary in the village at about 18.55 hours. A civilian informed me that he was sent in to ask me to go out to attend to two of the PEARSON boys who had been shot. I at once proceeded to COOLACREASE house where the PEARSONS live, arriving there about 1930 hours and found RICHARD H PEARSON lying on a mattress in a field at the back of the house. I examined him and found a superficial wound in the left shoulder, a deep wound in the right groin and right buttock, the entrance (?) of the latter being in front. In addition there were wounds in the left lower leg of a superficial nature and about six in the back which were glancing (?) wounds. In my opinion these wounds were all caused by either revolver or rifle bullets, and were fired at close quarters. I dressed the wounds anti-septically and after attending to his brother ABRAHAM PEARSON I returned to KINNITTY at about 20.45 hours. At about 22.40 hours the Police came to my house and asked me to come to COOLACREASE House I found RICHARD H PEARSON dead. In my opinion the cause of death was shock and sudden haemorrhage as a result of gunshot wounds. The fatal wound in my opinion was that on the groin.

Cross-examining by the Court
Q No. 1 Do you not consider a groin wound to be a serious one?
A 1 I do if such a wound implicates the blood vessels.
Q2 Did the groin wound of the deceased implicate the principal blood vessels?
A2 It did not
Q3 Did any of the other wounds implicate any of the principal blood vessels?
A3 None that I saw.
Q4 When you first saw the deceased was he losing much blood?
A4 He had apparently lost a considerable amount of blood.
Q5 In view of this loss of blood was the deceased’s condition precarious?
A5 It was.
Q6 On being called by the Police to examine the deceased for the second time did you find any wounds which you had not previously discovered?
A6 I did find one.
Q7 Was this wound a dangerous one?
A7 It was.

ABRAHAM PEARSON:
1st Witness. Lt. Colonel C.R. Woods R.A.M.C. (retired) in medical charge of CRINKLE BARRACKS, BIRR, having been duly sworn states:-
At 0200 hrs on 1 July 1921 I was called to the MILTARY HOSPITAL, BIRR. I found the deceased lying there suffering from gunshot wounds. His wounds were dressed by me. I examined his wounds and found extensive wounds on left cheek, left shoulder, left thigh and lower third of left leg. In addition there was a wound through the abdomen. The latter wound had an entrance at the front and appeared to have its exit at the lower part of the back, fracturing the lower part of the spinal column. In my opinion death resulted from shock due to gunshot wounds.
(Signed) C.R.Woods Lt. Col. RAMC Retired.

Extract from the account given in the King’s County Chronicle (local Unionist newspaper) on July 7 1921:

A military enquiry, in lieu of inquest, was held at the Military Barracks, Birr, on Sunday morning of last week, at 11 o’clock, to investigate the cause of death. A “Chronicle” reporter was permitted to be present during the taking of medical evidence.

Dr. Frederick W. Woods, M.O., Kinnity, stated that on Thursday night a civilian called to his house and said that his presence was required at Coolacrease House, where two men had been shot. The messenger asked him to go at once, as one of the men was dying. He left immediately on his bicycle, and on arriving, found the two men on a mattress in a field. He first attended Richard Henry, who was in a dying condition, and then attended to the other man, Abraham. He treated the wounds of both men antiseptically. Richard seemed to have bled considerably, having superficial wounds in the left shoulder, right groin and right buttock, in addition to which there were several wounds in the back, one of which had probably penetrated the lung. He also found a wound in the lower left leg, also of a superficial nature. They might have been caused by rifle or revolver bullets, which, in his opinion, were fired at close range, the wounds being saturated with blood. He spent an hour and a half at the house, which he left at about 9.15 p.m. On his way home he met Dr. Morton, who also examined the wounds. Both of the men were then removed to the Military Barracks, where Richard Pearson died of his wounds about two hours after admission, and Abraham on the following morning. In his opinion the cause of death was shock and sudden haemorrhage, caused by gunshot wounds, the fatal shot having been that which entered the right groin.

The medical evidence in connection with the death of Abraham was identical.

No injuries to the genitals are recorded. The medical evidence proves that the Pearsons received no gunshot wounds “in the genitals, in their sexual parts, in their sexual organs”.

The "shooting in the groin" issue.

Tue Mar 11, 2008 21:44

The Kolpik/Ted Staples/Levin spat earlier on in the thread about the "shooting in the groin" issue has raised some interesting points.

It's important to realise that this issue didn't just start with Eoghan Harris in the documentary. In fact it's as old as the incident itself. John Joe Dillon (whose father was in the local IRA, though not on the raid of the house that day) has gone on record to say that the people of Cadamstown and the surrounding area (at that time and subsequently) always knew that the young men had been shot in the groin and that many of them were very uncomfortable with this truth.

This is hardly surprising, considering that 1) it was a small community where everybody knew the people involved; and 2) the people would have read of the account and the medical evidence given at the time, as reported in the newspaper. Consequently, it was never spoken of, only in whispers.

John Joe Dillon, an honest and powerful contributor to the Coolacrease documentary summed it up in the opening scene:

"The silence...that people didn't want to talk about it. I mean I never wanted to talk about this, I never did".

Article

Tue Mar 11, 2008 20:27

It is "historical research" which people with open minds (historians, BCC and the like) have dismissed.

by PDF link

Tue Mar 11, 2008 19:54

Actually, It is called historical research, which people with open minds read.

Philip McConway's "Comprehensive article" - irrelevant

Tue Mar 11, 2008 16:51

It's a sad case when you have to recycle old material to prop up a now discredited argument.

Philip McConway's "Comprehensive article", contains all the points that would have been included in Muldowney's formal complaint; now officially rejected by the independent Broadcasting Complaints Committee.

Irrelevant.

Comprehensive article on Pearsons during war of Independence in Offaly

by PDF Link

Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:48

From Tullamore Tribune 7 & 14 November 2007

By Philip McConway, researcher on the Coolacrease Hidden History Programme.

McConway wrote to the programme makers prior to broadcast informing them that something he had said in an interview was not accurate - as a result of further research in the British Public Records Office in Kew. They ignored him and broadcast it anyway.

DOWNLOAD linked PDF of articles.

Two articles form the Tullamore Tribune by Hidden History researcher, Philip McConway (download linked PDF)