not dealing with the past

Bloody Sunday soldiers to face investigation…

Mick Fealty on July 6, 2012, 9:40 am | Readers 74

So, presumably on foot of the mountain of material generated by the Saville Inquiry, the PSNI is to open a major criminal investigation into the deaths of Bloody Sunday. Well, if proof were needed it certainly kills off the notion that anything that happened before 1998 has some sort of immunity. Well, yes, except that earlier in the week, the Secretary of State told families of the Ballymurphy/Springfield Park killings from about six months before (and involving the same regiment) …

… to prosecute cases if the evidence emerges …

John Ó Néill on February 5, 2012, 9:56 am | Readers 51

The Detail has an interesting piece to set alongside the DPP’s comments regarding confronting the past. It concerns the RUC and HET investigations into the killings such as the attack on Sean Grahams on the Ormeau Road which involved a Browning that was handed to the UFF/UDA by the RUC. The Detail outlines how: In 2010 the families were informed by the Historic Enquiries Team (HET) that police had “disposed of” interview notes of two loyalists who’d been caught in possession of the …

While Ireland still holds these graves…

John Ó Néill on October 14, 2011, 8:00 am | Readers 18

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 …