In the light of David Cameron’s statement, to keep my head above water in the flood of information and angry comment I itemise questions of fact I‘d like to keep sight of. Perhaps others can add to them. Update I intend to add to the list myself as I plough through the review and review comment. I’ll add convincing answers as they emerge. The Q&A will not all be about new material but will also include matters which deserve repetition …
Cameron’s just delivered the headline findings of the Finucane inquiry. Some of it is frankly, shocking. The details of the killing itself is less shocking (only because we’ve become so familiar) than some of the wider contextual information. The thing that stunned me was the fact that 85% of the intelligence held by the UDA in the 1970s was sourced within the state and that de Silva is “satisfied that this proportion would have remained largely unchanged” by the time …
Newton at The Detail at his withering best as he tries to grab that most Protean of Troubles/Peace Process™ watchwords, collusion… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
The revelations last week from the Smithwick Enquiry that Martin McGuinness allegedly authorised the murders of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan as well as the use of human proxy bombs have made few enough political waves. In most western democratic societies the claim in a judicial setting that the Deputy First Minister was involved in such heinous crimes would be a scandal: here it was little more than a ripple. There are a number of possible reasons …
An Sionnach Fionn has a lengthy article on the ‘Ingram’ document, with some interesting detail, not least because he’s spotted some contradictions between detail between claims made about the penetration levels within the document and those made by Hurst/Ingram six years ago in the Sunday Tribune: “It’s time ordinary republicans stopped being led like sheep and started asking questions. At grassroots level, around one in 20 members are British agents. Higher up, it’s one in three.” The claim in the …
The families of the Miami Show Band members gave their reaction to the HET’s report today on the killing of three members in 1975. In a detailed statement, the survivors of the attack report that the HET concluded: ‘To the objective, impartial observer, disturbing questions about collusive and corrupt behaviour are raised. The HET review has found no means to assuage or rebut these concerns and that is a deeply troubling matter.’ This is in specific reference to evidence relating …
The latest updates on proceedings at the Smithwick Tribunal in the BBC and the RTÉ reports both lead with news that the tribunal is to relocate to the Special Criminal Court for Monday’s appearance by convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt. But the bulk of both reports concern the [repeated] non-appearance of former Assistant Garda Commissioner Kevin Carty. As the BBC report notes Kevin Carty assisted in an internal garda probe conducted in the days after the murders, into what garda officers or …
Mary Lynch was mentioned on slugger a couple of months ago when there were complaints about her column in the Impartial Reporter. Ms. Lynch refers to those comments in her latest piece saying: “I may not say things that people want to hear but these things need to be said.” On this occasion one of the things Ms. Lynch felt the need to say was about her “illegal and inhumane treatment in 1978” (by the RUC). This treatment seems indeed …
The Smithwick Tribunal may have opened in 2006, but the public hearings are only to begin in June this year. The tribunal’s terms of reference are Tribunal of Inquiry into suggestions that members of An Garda Síochána or other employees of the State colluded in the fatal shootings of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and RUC Superintendent Robert Buchanan on the 20th March, 1989. And the Tribunal’s rules of procedure adds a interpretation of those terms 9. The Tribunal’s Terms …
As claim and counterclaim proliferate over collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, there is a first few tentative calls for something like a truth commission to bring the conflict to some kind of final rest. Whilst Ulster does its usual summer trick of ritually beating itself up, there may be a thread of hope that no conflict can drag on forever. James Murray Brown speculates that: “There is a hope that this summer could see the quietest Drumcree in …
