In 1971, during the Troubles, after two years engaged in violence based on a defensive strategy in Irish communal districts of Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA launches an offensive against the United Kingdom. At a meeting of the IRA Army Council in June 1972 the organization’s Chief of Staff, Seán Mac Stíofáin, first proposes making bombing attacks in England. The Army Council does not at first agree to the suggestion, but in early 1973 after its negotiations with the British Government for a truce the previous year had failed to advance the political objective of the removal of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom by the application of the threat of violence, it re-engages its paramilitary campaign and sanctions Mac Stíofáin’s proposal. Mac Stíofáin had put the strategy forward on the basis that extending the urban paramilitary violence of the Northern Ireland state into England would help to relieve pressure being exerted by the British Army on the IRA’s strongholds of Irish communal support in districts in the province, such as west Belfast and Derry, by diverting British security strength from them back into England, while at the same time increasing strategic pressure upon the British Government to resolve the conflict by political concessions to the IRA’s demands. He also believes that a successful bombing campaign in London, as the capital city of the United Kingdom, will offer substantial propaganda value for paramilitary Irish Republicanism, and provide a morale boost to its supporters.
The effects of the previous 1973 Old Bailey bombing appear to give some credence to the idea of the propaganda value of extending violence into London as, although it is considered almost routine in Northern Ireland by the mid-1970s and draws only brief media notice, being carried out instead in London, a global capital city, makes the event world news headlines. However, although the bombing of the Old Bailey is successfully carried out, and gains media attention, increasing political pressure upon the British Government to address the issue of the conflict in Northern Ireland with more urgency, it is costly to the IRA, as 10 out of the 11-man active service unit that carry it out are arrested by the British police while trying to leave England before the bombs they had planted detonate. Drawing the tactical lesson that large teams are a security liability, for the second wave of bombings in England later in 1973, instead of sending a large team to carry it out with orders to withdraw back to Ireland immediately afterwards, smaller detached “cell” units of 3-4 personnel are sent to carry out the operation, with instructions to remain in England afterward and wage a campaign of bombings around England upon a variety of targets.
There are bombings on September 8, 1973, including one at London Victoria station which injures four civilians.
On September 10, 1973, a bomb (with no warning issued beforehand) explodes at King’s Cross railway station in the booking hall at 12:24 p.m. when a youth of around 16 to 17 years of age walks up to the entrance of the station’s old booking hall and throws a bag into it which contains a 3 lb. (1.4 kg) device, which detonates, shattering glass throughout the hall and throwing a baggage trolley several feet into the air. The youth then flees into the station’s crowd and escapes the scene.
Approximately 45 minutes after the attack at King’s Cross, after a telephone call warning to the Press Association five minutes beforehand by a man with an Irish accent, a second bomb detonates in a snack bar at Euston railway station, injuring another eight civilians. One witness at Euston says, “I saw a flash and suddenly people were being thrown through the air – it was a terrible mess, they were bleeding and screaming.” A total of 13 civilians are injured in the two attacks. The Metropolitan Police issue a photofit picture of a 5 ft. 2 in. (157 cm) tall youth they are seeking in regard to the King’s Cross attack.
On September 12, 1973, two more bombs explode, one in Oxford Street and another in Sloane Square, targeting retail shopping centres. Police subsequently announce that they are looking for five people in connection with this second wave of bomb attacks in England.
Judith Ward is later wrongly convicted of having been involved in the late 1973 London bombings, along with the M62 coach bombing. She is later acquitted. No one else is brought to trial for this IRA bombing campaign.
McGarrity is born on March 28, 1874, in Carrickmore, County Tyrone. His family grows up in poverty, motivating his need to immigrate later in life. He grows up hearing his father discussing Irish politics, including topics such as the Fenians, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and Irish Home Rule. By the time he is an adult, he has developed a keen interest in politics himself.
McGarrity immigrates to the United States in 1892 at the age of 18. He is reputed to have walked to Dublin before boarding a cattle boat to Liverpool disguised as a drover, and then sailing to the United States using a ticket belonging to someone else. He settles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and becomes successful in the liquor business. His business fails, however, on three occasions, twice due to embezzlement by his business partner.
In 1893 McGarrity joins Clan na Gael, an Irish organisation based in the United States committed to aiding the establishment of an independent Irish state. Clan na Gael had been heavily involved with the Fenian Brotherhood that McGarrity had grown up hearing about, and by the latter half of the 19th century had become a sister organisation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In the decade just before McGarrity joins, Clan na Gael and the Fenian movement had waged the Fenian dynamite campaign, where they attempted to force the British state to make concessions in Ireland by bombing British infrastructure. However, this had caused a split within Clan na Gael that is not mended until seven years after McGarrity joins when, in 1900, the factions reunite and plead to support “the complete independence of the Irish people, and the establishment of an Irish republic.” In the years that follow the 1880s and 1890s, he is, amongst others, credited with helping to stitch the organisation back together and bring it renewed strength.
McGarrity helps sponsor several Irish Race Conventions and founds and runs a newspaper called The Irish Press from 1918-22 that supports the Irish War of Independence. He is the founder of the Philadelphia chapter of Clan Na Gael.
When Éamon de Valera arrives in the United States in 1919 they strike up an immediate rapport and McGarrity manages de Valera’s tour of the country. He persuades de Valera of the benefits of supporting him and the Philadelphia branch against the New York branch of the Friends of Irish Freedom organisation led by John Devoy and Judge Daniel F. Cohalan. He becomes president of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. He christens his newborn son Éamon de Valera McGarrity, although their relationship becomes strained upon de Valera’s entry back into Dáil Éireann in the Irish Free State.
The Irish Civil War sees a split in Clan na Gael just as it had split Sinn Féin back in Ireland. McGarrity and a minority of Clan na Gael members support the anti-treaty side but a majority support the pro-treaty side, including John Devoy and Daniel Cohalan. Furthermore, in October 1920 Harry Boland informs the Clan na Gael leadership that the IRB will be cutting their ties to the Clan unless the IRB is given more influence over their affairs. Devoy and Cohalan resist this, but McGarrity sees the Clan’s connection with the IRB as vital. While McGarrity’s faction is initially labelled “Reorganised Clan na Gael,” they are able to inherit total control of the Clan na Gael name as Devoy is not able to keep effective organisation of the group. In general, however, the in-fighting amongst the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic is quite disheartening for Irish Americans and in the years to come neither pro nor anti-treaty sides of Clan na Gael see much in the way of donations.
With the scope of Clan na Gael now narrowed, and Devoy and Cohalan removed from the picture, McGarrity becomes chairman of the organisation. He does not support the founding of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and opposes the party’s entry into the Dáil in 1927. Even after the Irish Civil War, he still supports the idea that a 32-county Irish Republic can be achieved through force. in the spring of 1926, he receives Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican ArmyAndrew Cooney to the United States. Cooney and Clan na Gael formally agree that each organisation will support the other and that Clan na Gael will raise funds, purchase weapons and build support for the IRA in the United States.
Going into the late 1920s though Clan na Gael, as are most Irish American organisations, is struggling. Having limped past the split caused by the Irish Civil War, the rejection of Fianna Fáil has caused a second split in the membership. Many Irish Americans see the IRA and Fianna Fáil as one and the same at that point and Clan na Gael and McGarrity’s hostility to them causes much friction.
By July 1929, the Clan’s membership in one of its strongholds, New York City, is down to just 620 paid members. Then in October of that same year Wall Street crashes and the Great Depression hits. In 1933 McGarrity is left almost bankrupt after he is found guilty of “false bookkeeping entries.” His livelihood is saved when he becomes one of the main ticket agents in the United States for the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake. He is a personal friend of Joseph McGrath, one of the founders of the Sweepstake. The sweepstakes allow him to turn his fortunes around.
Despite the trying times of both Clan na Gael and his personal life, McGarrity holds fast in his belief in physical force Irish Republicanism. In 1939 he supports the demand from Seán Russell for the “S-Plan” bombing campaign in Britain, which proves disastrous. He allegedly meets Hermann Göring in Berlin in 1939 to ask for aid for the IRA, which leads indirectly to “Plan Kathleen.”
McGarrity is a lifelong friend of fellow Carrickmore native and avid Republican, Patrick McCartan. When he dies on September 4, 1940 a mass is held in the St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. He remains an unrepentant physical force republican all his life. A number of McGarrity’s papers are in the National Library of Ireland. He donates his personal Library to Villanova University.
The IRA signs all its statements ‘J.J. McGarrity’ until 1969 when the organisation splits into the ‘Official‘ and ‘Provisional‘ movements. Thereafter the term continues to be used by the Officials while the Provisionals adopt the moniker ‘P.O’Neill.’
Accused by The Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sues the paper for libel in Dublin. The original verdict is overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge’s summing up and there is a retrial, which he also loses. At the retrial, both Sean O’Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, testify against Murphy, as do members of the Gardaí, Irish customs officials, British Army and local TDBrendan McGahon. Collins, who had also written a book about his experiences, Killing Rage, is beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, a Dublin court dismisses Murphy’s case after a high-profile trial, during which Murphy states that he has “never been a member of the IRA, no way” and claims not to know where the Maze prison is located. The jury rules, however, that he is an IRA commander and a smuggler.
The Sunday Times subsequently publishes statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper who ferries weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercept the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins details how Murphy met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons to be imported, and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland. According to A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council’s chief of staff since 1997. Toby Harnden’s Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh also details Murphy’s IRA involvement.
On September 20, 2016, the BBC‘s Spotlight airs a programme in which an alleged British spy who had infiltrated the IRA claims that in 2006, Murphy had demanded the killing of Denis Donaldson, an IRA member and British informer, in order to maintain discipline. The BBC says it had tried to contact Murphy but had received no reply. He has yet to respond to the allegation. On September 23, 2016, the Donaldson family’s solicitor says that the allegation is “absolute nonsense.”
In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carry out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk. It is extensively reported in the media that the investigation is aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million-pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC’s Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs, as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses and in property.
A large, purpose-built underground chamber that Gardaí believes the IRA used for interrogation is discovered close to Murphy’s home.
In his first-ever press release, issued on October 12, 2005, Murphy denies he owned any property and denies that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven. Furthermore, he claims that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against The Sunday Times, and that he made a living from farming.
On March 9, 2006, police, soldiers and customs officials from both sides of the Irish border launch a large dawn raid on Murphy’s house and several other buildings in the border region. Three persons are arrested by the Gardaí but are released three days later. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, more than 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques are seized. Four diesel laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which are underground, are also found. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtains seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams makes a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA’s continued presence in South Armagh, Adams says, “Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He’s a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids, and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin’s peace strategy and has been for a very long time.” He adds, “I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.”
Murphy is arrested in Dundalk, County Louth, on November 7, 2007, by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau, on charges relating to alleged revenue offences. The following day, he is charged with tax evasion under the Tax Consolidation Act. He is later released on his own bail of €20,000 with an independent surety of €50,000.
On October 17, 2008, in an agreed legal settlement, Murphy and his brothers pay over £1 million in assets and cash to the authorities in Britain and the Republic in settlement of a global crime and fraud investigation relating to proceeds of crime associated with smuggling and money laundering. After an investigation involving the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, more than 625,000 euros (£487, 000) in cash and cheques is confiscated by the Republic’s courts, while nine properties in North West England worth £445,000 are confiscated by British courts. Murphy is still fighting a claim in the Republic’s courts for tax evasion, relating to non-completion of tax returns for eight years from 1996. On April 26, 2010, he is further remanded on bail.
In 2011, there are claims that Murphy had become disillusioned with the Northern Ireland peace process and that he had fallen out with Sinn Féin. However, there is no evidence to support he is sympathetic to any dissident republican groups. In March 2013, the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), along with members of the Irish Customs Authority and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), raid his farm on the Louth-Armagh border. The Sunday World reports that two hours prior to the raid, at approximately 4:00 a.m., fire is seen coming from Murphy’s yard. There are serious concerns within the Garda and PSNI that a mole may have tipped off Murphy about the raid hours earlier as laptops, computer disks and a large amount of documentation is destroyed in the fires. As a result, an internal Garda investigation takes place.
On December 17, 2015, Murphy is found guilty on nine charges of tax evasion by a three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court trial sitting in Dublin, lasting nine weeks. He is tried under anti-terrorist legislation due to the belief by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that there would not be a fair trial because of the potential of the intimidation of prosecution witnesses and jurors, and the security surrounding the trial.
Murphy is found guilty on all charges of failing to furnish tax returns on his income as a “cattle farmer” between 1996 and 2004. He is prosecuted following a 14-year-long Criminal Assets Bureau investigation, which during a raid of his property uncovers bags with more than €250,000 and more than £111,000 sterling in cash, along with documents, diaries and ledgers. He is remanded on bail until early 2016 for sentencing.
On February 26, 2016, Murphy is sentenced to 18 months in prison. None of the jail term is suspended. Following sentencing, he is immediately transferred from court to Ireland’s highest-security prison, Portlaoise Prison, reserved for terrorists, dissident republicans and serious gangland criminals, under a heavily armed Garda and Irish Army escort due to security concerns.
Murphy appeals the conviction in November 2016. His lawyer, John Kearney, claims that the tax Murphy had not paid had in fact been paid by his brother, Patrick. The Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal on all grounds in January 2017.
Murphy is an active Irish republican paramilitary from his late teens. In March 1972, he is arrested in Dundalk regarding an assault and is sentenced to two years in prison after the Garda Síochána find a loaded revolver in his car. He is imprisoned in the Curragh Camp but escapes in October 1972 and is not recaptured until May 1973. In June 1976, he is imprisoned again, receiving a three-year sentence for firearms offences and a one-year sentence for Provisional Irish Republican Army membership, both sentences to run concurrently. In July 1983, he is arrested in the United States after attempting to buy a consignment of M60 machine guns to be shipped to Ireland for use by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He receives a five-year prison sentence but returns to Ireland in December 1985 after being released early.
In the late 1980s, Murphy begins investing in property and forms a company named Emerald Enterprises in 1990. He purchases the Emerald Bar public house in Dundalk for IR£100,000, and it later becomes a meeting place for dissident republicans. Other investments included 30 acres of land in Drogheda bought for IR£52,000 in 1995, and his company wins contracts for an IR£11 million development at Dublin City University (DCU) and the multi-million-pound International Financial Services Centre in the Dublin Docklands.
Murphy is arrested by the Gardaí on February 21, 1999, for questioning under anti-terrorist legislation. On February 24, he becomes the first person to be charged in connection with the Omagh bombing, when he appears before Dublin‘s Special Criminal Court and is charged with conspiring to cause an explosion under the terms of Ireland’s Offences Against the State Act, between August 13-16, 1998. He is also charged with membership in an illegal organisation, the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA).
On October 10, 2000, the BBC television show Panorama names Murphy as one of four people connected with the Omagh bombing, along with Seamus Daly and Liam Campbell. In 2001, he undertakes legal action against the BBC and Daily Mail publishers Associated Newspapers for contempt of court. The action against Associated Newspapers is settled on July 31, 2001, and the newspaper releases a statement saying Murphy is entitled to be presumed innocent of the charges against him until proven guilty.
Murphy’s trial begins at Special Criminal Court in Dublin on October 12, 2001. The court hears that Murphy had supplied two mobile phones which were used during the bombing. One witness, Murphy’s second cousin, retracts his evidence and the judge calls the conduct of two detectives outrageous, saying they had persistently lied under cross-examination. Despite this, on January 22, 2002, he is convicted of conspiring to cause the Omagh bombing, and on January 25 is sentenced to 14 years imprisonment with the judge describing him as a long-time republican extremist.
On January 21, 2005, Murphy’s conviction is overturned and a new trial ordered, due to the invasion of Murphy’s presumption of innocence, and alteration of Gardaí interview notes and evidence presented by two officers. A week later, his legal case against the BBC is resolved, with the BBC issuing a statement that Murphy “was fully entitled to maintain his innocence of the charges against him and to test the evidence against him at his trial.”
On October 23, 2006, two Gardaí officers are found not guilty of perjuring themselves during Murphy’s trial. On May 23, 2007, it is announced that Murphy is suffering from short-term memory loss resulting from a car accident in 1988. His lawyers attempt to prevent a retrial taking place, on the grounds that his condition interferes with his right to a fair hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeal is scheduled to hear his case again in October 2008. Following a retrial held in January 2010, he is acquitted on February 24, 2010.
In 2009, Murphy is one of four men found by a civil court to be liable for the Omagh bombing in a case taken by relatives of the victims. On July 7, 2011, in Belfast High Court, Lord Justice Malachy Higgins directs a retrial of the civil claims against Murphy. He questions evidence surrounding emails from U.S. undercover agent David Rupert while overturning the judgment on Murphy. The paucity of the email evidence, the lack of consistency in the emails or at least ambiguity, the possibility of initials referring to someone other than Murphy and the fact that they refer on occasions to double hearsay considerably weaken the emails as evidence, he says. Following a civil retrial on March 20, 2013, Murphy and Seamus Daly are found liable for involvement in the bombing.
On the morning of Monday, August 9, 1971, the security forces launch Operation Demetrius, the main focus of which is to arrest and intern suspected members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Parachute Regiment is selected to carry out the operation. The operation is chaotic and informed by poor intelligence, resulting in a number of innocent people being interned. By focusing solely on republicans, it excludes violence carried out by loyalistparamilitaries. Some nationalist neighbourhoods attempt to disrupt the army with barricades, petrol bombs and gunfire. In the Catholic district of Ballymurphy, ten civilians are shot and killed between the evening of August 9 and the morning of August 11, while another dies of heart failure.
Members of the Parachute Regiment state that they were shot at by republicans as they entered the Ballymurphy area and returned fire. The press officer for the British Army stationed in Belfast, Mike Jackson, later to become head of the British Army, includes a disputed account of the shootings in his autobiography, stating that those killed in the shootings were republican gunmen. This claim is strongly denied by the families of those killed in the shootings, including in interviews conducted during the documentary film The Ballymurphy Precedent. The claim is found to be without basis by a later coroner’s inquest, which establishes that those killed were “entirely innocent.”
The six civilians killed on August 9 are Francis Quinn (19), shot while going to the aid of a wounded man, Father Hugh Mullan (38), a Catholic priest, shot while going to the aid of a wounded man, reputedly while waving a white cloth to indicate his intentions, Joan Connolly (44), shot by three soldiers as she stands opposite the army base, Daniel Teggart (44), shot fourteen times mostly in the back as he lay injured on the ground, Noel Phillips (20) and Joseph Murphy (41), shot as they stand opposite the army base. Murphy is subsequently taken into army custody and after his release, as he is dying in hospital, he claims that he had been beaten and shot again while in custody. When his body is exhumed in October 2015, a second bullet is discovered in his body, which activists say corroborates his claim.
Edward Doherty (28), is shot and killed on August 10 while walking along Whiterock Road.
Another three civilians are shot on 11 August: John Laverty (20) and Joseph Corr (43) are shot at separate points at the top of the Whiterock Road. Laverty is shot twice, once in the back and once in the back of the leg. Corr is shot several times and dies of his injuries on August 27. John McKerr (49), is shot in the head by an unknown sniper while standing outside a Catholic church and dies of his injuries on August 20. While a number of eyewitnesses state that soldiers were seen shooting toward the area, the 2021 inquest cannot establish who had killed him. The coroner notes that a more specific finding is not possible, in large part, due to an “abject failing by the authorities to properly inquire into the death of [McKerr at the time].”
Paddy McCarthy (44), an eleventh civilian, dies on August 11 following an altercation with a group of soldiers. His family allege that an empty gun is put in his mouth and the trigger pulled, he suffers a heart attack and dies shortly after the alleged confrontation.
In February 2015, the conviction of Terry Laverty, younger brother of John Laverty, one of those killed, is quashed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He had been convicted of riotous behaviour and sentenced to six months on the eyewitness evidence of a private in the Parachute Regiment. The case is referred to court because the sole witness retracts his evidence.
In 2016, Sir Declan Morgan, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, recommends an inquest into the killings as one of a series of “legacy inquests” covering 56 cases related to the Troubles. These inquests are delayed, as funding has not been approved by the Northern Ireland Executive. The Stormont first minister, Arlene Foster of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), defers a bid for extra funding for inquests into historic killings in Northern Ireland, a decision condemned by the human rights group Amnesty International. Foster confirms she has used her influence in the devolved power-sharing executive to hold back finance for a backlog of inquests connected to the conflict. The High Court says her decision to refuse to put a funding paper on the Executive basis is “unlawful and procedurally flawed.”
In January 2018, the coroner’s office announces that the inquest will begin in September 2018. On May 11, 2021, this coroner’s inquest finds that the ten civilians killed were innocent and that the use of lethal force by the British Army was “not justified.” The circumstances of the 11th death are not part of the inquest since Paddy McCarthy died from a heart attack, allegedly after being threatened by a soldier. Following the inquest verdict, Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, apologises for the deaths at Ballymurphy in a phone call to Foster and deputy First MinisterMichelle O’Neill. The lack of public apology is criticised by some relatives of the victims and Northern Irish politicians.
In May 2021, families of those shot dead by British soldiers in Ballymurphy urge the Irish government to oppose any attempt to prevent the prosecution of British soldiers alleged to have committed crimes during the Troubles.
The killings are the subject of the August 2018 documentaryThe Ballymurphy Precedent, directed by Callum Macrae and made in association with Channel 4.
In the late 1980s, Reid facilitates a series of meetings between Gerry Adams and John Hume, in an effort to establish a “Pan-Nationalist front” to enable a move toward renouncing violence in favour of negotiation. Reid, himself a staunch nationalist who favours a united Ireland and the withdrawal of British forces from Northern Ireland, then acts as their contact person with the Irish Government in Dublin from a 1987 meeting with Charles Haughey up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. In this role, which is not public knowledge at the time, he holds meetings with various Taoisigh, and particularly with Martin Mansergh, advisor to various Fianna Fáil leaders. After the eventual success of the peace negotiations, Gerry Adams says, “there would not be a peace process at this time without [Father Reid’s] diligent doggedness and his refusal to give up.”
After he moves to Dublin, Reid is involved in peace efforts in the Basque Country. In January 2003, he is awarded the Sabino Arana 2002 “World Mirror” prize, by the Sabino Arana Foundation in Bilbao, in recognition of his efforts at promoting peace and reconciliation. He and a Methodist minister, the Rev. Harold Good, announce that the IRA has decommissioned their arms at a news conference in September 2005.
Reid is involved in controversy in November 2005 when he makes comments during a meeting in Fitzroy Presbyterian Church concerning the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. When the loyalist activist Willie Frazer makes remarks that Catholics had butchered Protestants during the Troubles, Reid angrily responds, “You don’t want to hear the truth. The reality is that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland were treated almost like animals by the unionist community. They were not treated like human beings. They were treated like the Nazis treated the Jews.” Reid later apologises, saying his remarks had been made in the heat of the moment. In an interview with CNN, he says that “The IRA were, if you like, a violent response to the suppression of human rights.”
Reid dies in a Dublin hospital on November 22, 2013. He is survived by two sisters and an aunt, and is buried in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast.
At the outbreak of war in 1939, Stronge joins the North Irish Horse as a lieutenant but has to relinquish his commission the following year due to ill health. He is then granted the rank of captain. Resuming his political career, he becomes Assistant Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Finance (Assistant Whip) (1941–42) and then Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Finance (Chief Whip) (1942–44). His period as Chief Whip is marked by more robust and “fluid” debate within the party and significant backbench discontent in early 1943. In June 1944 he is elected chairman of Armagh County Council, and in the following year is returned unopposed in the general election. He becomes Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland in 1945 and in this position he earns the respect of, and makes friends with, politicians of every hue, and is regarded as a moderating influence. It has been said of him that he disproved the myth that politicians at Stormont never spoke to each other. He is unopposed in every postwar election up to 1965, when he sees off the challenge of the Liberal candidate. He does not contest the 1969 general election. He is made Chevalier of the Order of Leopold in 1946 and in the same year is appointed to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland. A member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, he is a delegate to its 1950 conference in New Zealand. Another interest is the Royal Over-Seas League, of which he is president for a time.
Stronge is closely associated with Sir Basil Brooke, Dame Dehra Parker and Sir Henry Mulholland. He is president of the Northern Ireland area council of the Royal British Legion, sovereign grand master of the Royal Black Institution, president of the Federation of Boys’ Clubs, and chairman of the Commercial Insurance Co. and of the Central Advisory Council for the Employment of the Disabled. It is this last position that causes a brief interruption of his speakership, with an act of parliament deemed necessary to remove any doubt about it having been an office of profit. A prominent member of the Orange Order, he is also chairman of the BBC appeals advisory committee and the Northern Ireland scout council. His retirement from public life in 1977 is marked by his investiture as a Knight of Grace by Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
A leading member of the Church of Ireland, Stronge becomes Commander of the Order of Saint John in 1952 and is for many years on the Armagh diocesan synod and council. Until his death, he is a nominator for the position of rector and reads the lessons each Sunday morning in Tynan parish church. In September 1921 he marries Gladys Olive, daughter of Major Henry Thomas Hall of Knockbrack, Athenry, County Galway. They have three daughters and a son, James. In his later life he lives with James, a bachelor, on their 800-acre estate near the border. James is educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. He succeeds his father in the Mid Armagh constituency in 1969, serving as Ulster Unionist MP in the Stormont parliament until 1972. He is firmly opposed to the Sunningdale Agreement of December 1973, which he describes as a “great act of political appeasement.” Although both are known in the locality, neither seeks public attention and both live relatively quiet lives. Stronge likes to work in the garden but has little interest in the farm, most of which is let out to tenants.
Stronge and his son become prominent victims of the Troubles when a unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army shoots them dead on January 21, 1981, at Tynan Abbey and sets the mansion alight, destroying it. The Provisional IRA statement describes them as “symbols of hated unionism” and their killings as “direct reprisal for a whole series of loyalist assassinations and murder attacks on nationalist people.” The killings come five days after an attempted assassination of the former MP Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband. Tynan Abbey is long held to have been an easy target, given its relative isolation and its proximity to the border. In 1985 a man is tried for their murders but is acquitted. In 1999 the shell of Tynan Abbey is demolished.
(From: “Stronge, Sir Charles Norman Lockhart” by Tom Feeney, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Doherty is educated at St. Joseph’s College, Lochwinnoch, and is a site engineer who likes building stone walls. He is the brother of former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member Hugh Doherty, known for his involvement in the Balcombe Street siege. According to The TimesGuide to the House of Commons, he is married with three daughters and two sons.
Over a two-and-a-half-year period, Doherty spends £16,000 on printer cartridges, an amount that he admits is “probably excessive.”
In 2012, to some surprise, Doherty writes to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in support of funding for the loyalist Castlederg Young Loyalist Flute Band. He praises the band for reaching out to “all sections of the community.” The band had sought support for its funding application from a community group who then, unbeknownst to the band, reached out to Doherty. A spokesman for the band, whose website includes sections on IRA atrocities, the controversial B Specials and lyrics to songs, including one glorifying Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) terrorist Brian Robinson, distances themselves from the application, claiming the band is unaware of Doherty’s support and does not want it. He adds that “The band harbours nothing but contempt for Irish republicanism and its attacks on their community.” Four of the band’s members are killed by the IRA.
“Sunday 21 July marks the 30th anniversary of an IRA operation in Belfast in 1972 which resulted in nine people being killed and many more injured.
While it was not our intention to injure or kill non-combatants, the reality is that on this and on a number of other occasions, that was the consequence of our actions.
It is therefore appropriate on the anniversary of this tragic event, that we address all of the deaths and injuries of non-combatants caused by us.
We offer our sincere apologies and condolences to their families.
There have been fatalities amongst combatants on all sides. We also acknowledge the grief and pain of their relatives.
The future will not be found in denying collective failures and mistakes or closing minds and hearts to the plight of those who have been hurt. That includes all of the victims of the conflict, combatants and non-combatants.
It will not be achieved by creating a hierarchy of victims in which some are deemed more or less worthy than others.
The process of conflict resolution requires the equal acknowledgement of the grief and loss of others. On this anniversary, we are endeavouring to fulfil this responsibility to those we have hurt.
The IRA is committed unequivocally to the search for freedom, justice and peace in Ireland.
We remain totally committed to the peace process and to dealing with the challenges and difficulties which this presents. This includes the acceptance of past mistakes and of the hurt and pain we have caused to others.”
P O’Neill, Irish Republican Publicity Bureau, Dublin.
Note: The Provisional IRA issues all its public statements under the pseudonym “P. O’Neill” of the “Irish Republican Publicity Bureau, Dublin.” Dáithí Ó Conaill, the IRA’s director of publicity, came up with the name. According to Danny Morrison, the pseudonym “S. O’Neill” was used during the 1940s.
McIntyre is involved with the Boston College oral history project on the Troubles entitled the Belfast Project, conducting interviews with former Provisional IRA members who, like himself, had become disillusioned with the direction the republican movement had taken, such as Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, and former Ulster loyalistparamilitaries such as David Ervine. The interviews are the basis for the book Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland by Ed Moloney.
In 2011, McIntyre becomes embroiled in controversy when transcripts of the interviews, held by Boston College, are subpoenaed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in relation to an investigation of the 1972 abduction and killing of Jean McConville. In March 2014, the PSNI announces that it is seeking to question McIntyre over newly released Belfast Project recordings, specifically in reference to the alleged role of Gerry Adams in the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville.
McIntyre is a prominent critic of modern-day Sinn Féin and its leadership. He has spoken at Republican Sinn Féin party events. He is a co-founder of The Blanket, a journal which casts a critical eye on the Northern Ireland peace process.
seamus dubhghaill 