SAOIRSE32

Shops in Derry are losing trade during Apprentice Boys demonstrations, business people in the city have said.

Apprentice Boys held their largest parade of the year

Saturday’s main demonstration passed off without major incident, although police were attacked during minor disturbances afterwards.

About 50 petrol bombs were thrown at police in the Bogside on Friday.

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Derry City Centre Initiative, said the day was more peaceful but most shops on the route closed during Saturday’s march.

“We had pretty much a ghost town along the parade route,” he said.

SDLP mayor Helen Quigley offered to meet traders

“These traders weren’t concerned about public order or violence, what they said to us was that ‘this is a bad day for us, we don’t do any trade’.

“We persuaded a number of them over the years to open and they would say they normally took in the region of 25-35% of their normal Saturday trading, so it wasn’t really worth opening.

“The shopping centres and wider city centre have reported to us a drop in trade of between 30% and 70% for individual traders.”

SDLP mayor Helen Quigley said the overall picture remained positive but she has offered to host a meeting to discuss retailers’ concerns.

“I walked up Shipquay Street and traders were open - at least two of them spoke to me expressing their concern that trade was paralysed in the city centre at the peak of the tourism season,” she said.

The main parade of about 10,000 Apprentice Boys and 130 bands did pass off without major incident.

The parade celebrates the actions of Protestant Apprentice Boys who shut the city gates against the forces of the Catholic King James in December 1688.

King James laid siege to the city until the Protestant forces of Prince William of Orange relieved the city in August 1689.

The Apprentice Boys and the Nationalist Bogside Residents’ Group had appealed for trouble-makers to stay away from the parade.

Police said they were pleased the main parade was peaceful.

Belfast Telegraph

By Kathryn Torney
14 August 2006

The police did not conduct an investigation into the disappearance of Jean McConville for more than 20 years, a Police Ombudsman investigation has concluded.

The investigation into a complaint from Mrs McConville’s family has also revealed police had received information from military sources which suggested the abduction was a hoax and that the mother-of-ten was known to be safe and well.

These are two of the findings of an investigation into a complaint by some of her children that police failed to investigate her disappearance

Mrs McConville, a widow, was abducted from her home at Divis Flats in west Belfast in December 1972 by the IRA and killed.

Her body was found on Shelling Hill Beach at Carlingford in Co Louth in August 2003. She had been shot in the head.

The Police Ombudsman has written to members of the McConville family outlining details of the investigation.

It established that there was no formal police record of Mrs McConville’s disappearance.

There is no evidence as to when she actually disappeared and the family think it was on December 7, but they are not certain as to the date.

The Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, said she has upheld the complaint that police did not properly investigate Mrs McConville’s disappearance at this stage.

“We have evidence that by January 2 police were aware that the mother of ten was missing,” she said.

“By January 16 a spokesman was being quoted as saying the matter was being investigated but we have found no evidence of this. There is no crime file about any investigation of the abduction in 1972.

“Even if we look at the intelligence the police received which suggested that Mrs McConville was alive and had either left of her own will or was being held by the Provisionals in Dundalk, we found no evidence that either of these issues were looked at,” said Ms O’Loan.

Mrs McConville’s son Michael said he felt vindicated by the report and added that if police had acted sooner his mother may still be alive today.

“They didn’t do enough work on the case in the first place, I think it was a big let down for the McConville family,” he said.

The RUC launched a review of the case in 1995.

“I would like to have a meeting with the Chief Constable of the PSNI, Sir Hugh Orde,” added Mr McConville.

Earlier this month, the Police Ombudsman said that her investigation had found no evidence that Mrs McConville had been an informant.

The investigation has also raised questions about the long held view that Mrs McConville may have been killed because she went to the aid of a solder who had been shot.

Records show that the only terrorist attack on a solder in the area around the time of Mrs McConville’s abduction was on Private D who was shot in the thigh on December 15, 1972 - eight days after the abduction.

BN.ie

14/08/2006 - 07:24:47

A recruitment drive for the new part-time garda reserve is underway, with advertisements in all of today’s main newspapers and on national radio.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is hoping to hire 900 members by September in what he says is an exciting and important development for policing in Ireland.

The criteria for applying are similar to those of a full garda position, with members subject to full background checks and having to pass a medical.

They will get 120 hours of training and will work for a minimum of 208 hours a year, but not in their own neighbourhoods.

The reserve officers will have the power of arrest, but will not carry any firearms.

The two bodies representing rank-and-file gardaí are still opposed to the reserve force, which they say will be poorly trained and will be used as cover for the Government’s failure to hire extra full-time gardaí.

The Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have already voted against cooperating with the reservists and are expected to meet this week to discuss the latest developments in the situation.

BBC

An attack on a house in Armagh is being treated as sectarian by police.

A front window of the property in Greenfield Court was smashed and graffiti was sprayed on the house and a nearby fence.

The windscreen of a car was also broken during the attack which took place durnig the early hours of Saturday.

A man, a woman and 2 young children were in the house at the time but were not injured. Police have appealed for information.

BBC

The cross-border railway line and the Newry bypass have reopened after police recovered a device near the track during a security operation.

The device, which had already exploded, caused minor damage close to the railway line. Trains were disrupted over the weekend during the search.

One youth has been arrested after police were attacked with up to 30 petrol bombs on Sunday on the bypass.

The dissident republican Real IRA said it had left two devices on the line.

Last Wednesday, police found a separate device which had also exploded.

The Real IRA said on Friday it had also carried out firebomb attacks in Newry which destroyed a number of shops.

BBC

Jean McConville was abducted and murdered in 1972

Police in NI have apologised to the family of an IRA murder victim after the Police Ombudsman criticised their investigation into her death.

The report by Nuala O’Loan said a proper investigation into Jean McConville’s murder in 1972 was not carried out for more than 20 years.

It found there was no formal police record of her disappearance, nor of attempts at the time to find her.

Police said they “apologised unreservedly” to the family.

“Police policy and practice into how it deals with missing persons and how it conducts investigations has changed significantly since 1972,” a statement said.

“We apologise unreservedly to the family for any failings made by police.”

Shootings

Deputy Chief Constable Paul Leighton said that in 1972 more than 470 were murdered in Northern Ireland and people had to realise what the situation was like then.

“There were over 10,000 shooting incidents, these are statistics that are difficult nowadays to comprehend,” he said.

“I am not using that as any excuse for failure in police action.

“I think if there is a failure in police action, then we need to say sorry and that is what I am doing, but I think it is important for people to realise just what the situation was at that time.”

“If police had reacted more quickly, my mother might have still been alive today.”
Michael McConville
Victim’s son

Mrs O’Loan’s investigation upheld a complaint brought by two of Mrs McConville’s children.

Her report found there had been intelligence that she was still alive some time after being abducted from her home in December 1972.

The investigation of her murder will now form part of the work of the PSNI Historical Enquiry Team.

Mrs McConville, who was a widow, was killed after she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her home in west Belfast’s Divis flats.

The IRA insists the mother-of-10 was a British army informer, although a police ombudsman inquiry earlier this year found no evidence of this.

Mrs McConville’s remains were finally found at Shelling Hill beach in County Louth in the Irish Republic in August 2003.

Investigation

Mrs O’Loan said: “By 16 January (1973) a spokesman was being quoted as saying the matter was being investigated but we have found no evidence of this.

“There is no crime file about any investigation of the abduction in 1972.

“Even if we look at the intelligence the police received which suggested that Mrs McConville was alive and had either left of her own will or was being held by the Provisionals in Dundalk, we found no evidence that either of these issues were looked at.

“An Garda Siochana (Irish police) have said they are not aware of an investigation by them into Mrs McConville’s death prior to the discovery of her body.”

Mrs McConville’s son Michael said he felt vindicated by the report.

“They didn’t do enough work on the case in the first place, I think it was a big let down for the McConville family,” he said.

“If police had reacted more quickly, my mother might have still been alive today. I think that to start an investigation 20 years later is a bit late.”

SDLP assembly member Alex Attwood said the report was “a deep indictment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary”.

“Questions must be answered by the police about their approach, and questions must continue to be put to the IRA to ensure that they account fully and publicly for their actions.”

BBC: ON THIS DAY

14 August 1969

The British Government has sent troops into Northern Ireland in what it says is a “limited operation” to restore law and order.

It follows three days and two nights of violence in the mainly-Catholic Bogside area of Derry. Trouble has also erupted in Belfast and other towns across Northern Ireland.

It also comes after a speech by the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, Jack Lynch, regarded by many as “outrageous interference” in which he called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be sent to the province.

He also called for Anglo-Irish talks on the future of Northern Ireland.

Exhausted police

The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Major James Chichester-Clark, responded by saying neighbourly relations with the Republic were at an end and that British troops were being called in.

The British Home Secretary James Callaghan was in a plane on his way to talks with Prime Minister Harold Wilson in Cornwall when he received a radio-telephone call asking for troops to be deployed.

Shortly after 1700 hours local time, 300 troops from the 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, occupied the centre of Derry, replacing the exhausted police officers who had been patrolling the cordons around the Bogside.

The troops have been on standby for the past couple of days at MYS Sea Eagle, the Royal Navy base on the outskirts of the city.

The arrival of the British troops was greeted with cheering and singing from behind the barricades in the Roman Catholic area of Londonderry.

They were chanting: “We’ve won, we’ve won. We’ve brought down the government.”

The trouble began three days ago during the annual Apprentice Boys march, which marks the 13 boy supporters of William of Orange who defended Derry against the forces of the Catholic King James II in 1688.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary were forced to use tear gas - for the first time in their history - to try to bring the rioting under control.

But tensions mounted with the mobilisation of the B Specials. The special constables, who are armed and mostly part-time, were supposed to help the RUC restore order - but they are regarded with deep suspicion by the Roman Catholics.

On the streets of Belfast, the appearance of the B Specials led to an escalation in the violence while the special constables reportedly stood by and watched.

In Context

The army’s warm welcome was short-lived, as was the British Government’s intention to pull out the troops within days.

It soon became clear the violence was not going to end.

As more British troops were deployed in Northern Ireland, fresh questions were raised about the role of Westminster.

Although the army in Northern Ireland came under the control of the Secretary of State for Defence in London many Catholics saw it as a tool of the Unionist Government in Stormont.

The violence increased, internment was introduced in August 1971 and on 24 March 1972 the British Prime Minister Edward Heath suspended Stormont and direct rule was reimposed.

It was not until the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 that there appeared to be any real prospect of peace.

After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 terms were reached to reduce the number of troops in Northern Ireland.

In November 2004 there were 11,000 British soldiers in Northern Ireland - down from a peak figure of about 30,000 in the mid 1970s.

It is planned to reduce the force by a further 6,000 by the summer of 2006.

Times Online

By David Sharrock
August 14, 2006

A WIDOW with ten children whose kidnapping, murder and secret burial by the Provisional IRA became the emblem of the campaign of the so-called Disappeared of Northern Ireland was badly served by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Police Ombudsman for the province says in a report today.

Police did not conduct a proper investigation into the 1972 disappearance and murder of Jean McConville, a Protestant woman who married a Catholic, for more than twenty years, according to Nuala O’Loan.

Mrs O’Loan said this was despite intelligence that Mrs McConville was still alive some time after being abducted from her home in the Falls Road in Belfast in December 1972.

A complaint about the police investigation was brought by two of Mrs McConville’s children. Her body was not found until 2003, on Shelling Beach in Co Louth in the Irish Republic. She had been shot in the head. No one has been convicted of her murder.

An Phoblacht

10 August 2006

A republican woman remembers

Jennifer McCann was a comrade of Bobby Sands and a protesting prisoner in Armagh Jail. She remains a republican activist and here talks to ELLA O’DWYER about her memories of the 1981 Hunger Strike.

Jennifer McCann, from the Twinbrook area of West Belfast was arrested on 5 March 1981, five days after Bobby Sands started his fast to the death. She knew the Sands family before her arrest. “I’d have been running around with Bobby’s sister Bernadette and had been in and out of the house.”

When she was 12, McCann’s family, like so many others, including the Sands family, had to leave the predominantly loyalist Rathcoole area of North Belfast, going to live in Twinbrook. Jennifer McCann recalls intimidation from loyalists as she went to school. She remembers that at about the age of eleven she and her schoolmates encountered fear.

“We used to have to go through a loyalist area called Mount Vernon. The intimidation got so bad that we had to wear our own clothes to school rather than our uniforms so they couldn’t be identified. We were just kids.”

Along with an early introduction to loyalist sectarianism, McCann’s interest in Irish history influenced her decision to join Cumann na gCailiní, the republican organisation for girls. Na Cailiní carried out tasks such as selling Republican News and marching at commemorations. Young republicans came under heavy attention from the crown forces. “Growing up in West Belfast you were used to being arrested. I was arrested five times before I was 18. It was known as screening.”

When she reached 17 Jennifer McCann joined the IRA and Bobby Sands was her local leader.

“He was a great role model and great with young people. He always had time for everybody and brought himself to your level. He was never arrogant and treated everybody with respect. Bobby was already a leadership figure in his community.”

Asked if Bobby Sands was all seriousness, she said Bobby was a singer who enjoyed a social evening and was very good at bringing people together: “He always had the guitar and would sing a song.”

When McCann was 20 she was arrested and taken to Castlereigh after an IRA operation. An RUC member was shot in the incident and Jennifer herself was injured along with another comrade. On arrest they expected a thrashing and they weren’t disappointed.

“We got a bad beating, both on the spot and afterwards in Castlegreagh.”

She and a co-accused called Joe Simpson got a beating. They were sentenced to 20 years. While not recognising the court, Jennifer McCann declared aloud that Bobby Sands and his comrades were political prisoners and so was she. In his diary entry for Friday 6 March 1981 Bobby Sands says: “My friend Jennifer got 20 years. I am greatly distressed.”

This forced the women onto a no-wash protest just as it had forced their comrades in the Blocks. By the time McCann had arrived into the remand wing of Armagh Jail the women had been on the no-wash protest for about six weeks. Remand and convicted prisoners could only meet at Mass on Sundays. Because the women prisoners could wear their own clothes and didn’t have to wear the blanket, they took visits. The protesting prisoners would ask Jennifer and the other remand prisoners if there were a smell from their bodies. As young women, they had also to deal with monthly menstruation, a factor that is often lost on people.

Towards the end of 1980, at the height of the first Hunger Strike, the women POWs in Armagh decided they would join their comrades in the Blocks on the fast. The numbers in Armagh were proportionately low in terms of the women’s capacity to maintain the kind of momentum that could keep pressure on the British Government and yet three women joined the fast - Mary Doyle, Sheila Darragh and Mairéad Farrell and stayed on it until the first hunger strike ended.

Asked how the prisoners in Armagh coped with the realisation that their comrades in the Blocks were dying while they could not even go on the streets and protest, McCann says: “It was kind of surreal. We had a small crystallised radio and were aware of what was gong on. We also had a very good ‘comm’ system.

“One of the hardest days was when Dolores O’Neill, who was engaged to Thomas McElwee, found out that her fiancée had died. She had finally been allowed a visit him in the hospital and came back feeling upbeat. The next day Thomas was dead.”

Recently Jennifer McCann made a visit to the hospital wing of the H-Blocks: “That day I thought about what the families went through and the physical pain the men endured.”

Now 25 years on, the memory of the Hunger Strike is very vivid for her. At a recent meeting called to launch the 13 August March in Belfast she said:

“The Hunger Strike opened up the struggle to everyone. People who might formerly have seen themselves as spectators in the conflict could now get actively involved in building political strength, just as Bobby Sands had been within the Twinbrook community.”

By way of closure she added: “This conflict has been a long and hard one and I have seen a number of close friends and comrades die long before their time.”

She went on to recall Bobby Sands’s well-known words “Let our revenge be the laughter of our children”. For McCann the struggle is about future generations living in a just and peaceful society.

Jennifer McCann is married with three children and now works with a community drugs programme in the Falls Community Council.”

Now 25 years on, the memory of the Hunger Strike is very vivid for her.

:::u.tv:::

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has called for compromise and confidence in dealing with unionists during a mass rally in west Belfast.

SUNDAY 13/08/2006 18:28:20
By:Press Association

He was speaking during the 25th anniversary commemoration of the deaths of ten IRA hunger strikers in 1981 in a protest for political status.

Mr Adams said republicans needed to take power and said positions needed to change if real progress was to be made.

“The challenge facing us is to be avowedly anti-sectarian, to face up to the challenge of making peace with the unionist section of our people and that means we should not be afraid to make correct strategic compromises,” he said.

Mr Adams was speaking ahead of intensive negotiations expected this autumn in an effort to restore the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly by November 24.

Unionists want assurances about the commitment of republicans to policing and law and order.

Speaking at Casement Park in west Belfast, Mr Adams said supporters of Sinn Fein needed to take courage from the actions of the hunger strikers who died in cells in the H-Blocks in Long Kesh, County Antrim.

“We need to achieve leadership, we need to continue to be strategic, we need to have the confidence to take political power,” he said.

“We have a mandate, we are in a transitional phase. We are about a new egalitarian society on this island, we are Irish Republicans and we are proud to be republicans.”

He added that supporters and leaders needed to remain united.

The West Belfast MP was speaking amid concerns about renewed dissident Republican activity.

The Real IRA firebombed a number of business premises in Newry in County Down, close to the border with the Irish Republic this week and there has been a number of security alerts in the area.

The mainstream IRA declared an end to its campaign last summer and its behaviour is being monitored by the Independent Monitoring Commission set up to advise the British and Irish governments.

Its report this autumn is expected to be crucial to Unionist willingness to go into power with Sinn Fein.

Mr Adams added: “We need, and this is essential, confidence in ourselves and in our position.

“The hunger strikers knew exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and the effect that actions would have.

“We also, friends, know exactly what we are doing, why we are doing it and the effect our actions will have and that is how are we are going to continue to build this struggle.”

Singer Mary Black performed before the crowd who were earlier addressed by Sinn Fein member of the European Parliament Mary Lou Macdonald as well as relatives of the hunger strikers and ex-prisoners.

The Sinn Fein leadership had fronted a parade up the Falls Road involving supporters from across Ireland.

Men and women were wearing brown sacks representing rags worn by protesters in 1981.

They also carried pictures of the dead men as well as Irish flags and political slogans.

Sunday Business Post

13 August 2006

A report due to be published by Northern Ireland police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is expected to provide ‘‘damning’’ evidence that the Special Branch allowed loyalist informers to carry out more than a dozen murders of innocent people.

A report due to be published by Northern Ireland police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is expected to provide ‘‘damning’’ evidence that the Special Branch allowed loyalist informers to carry out more than a dozen murders of innocent people.

O’Loan’s report is expected to be published in the coming weeks. It is understood to provide some of the most serious evidence ever uncovered on the murders.

The investigation is the culmination of a nine-year campaign by Belfast man Raymond McCord Sr to bring the killers of his 22-yearold son to justice. Raymond McCord Jr was beaten to death by a UVF gang at Ballyduff Quarry on the outskirts of north Belfast in November 1997.

The 22-year-old, who was himself linked to the UVF, is understood to have been murdered to protect a senior loyalist who was being investigated by the UVF leadership over involvement in drug dealing.

For most of the last nine years, the victim’s father fought a hopeless campaign claiming that his son’s killers were Special Branch informers who had been allowed to kill citizens with the full knowledge of their police handlers.

However, a UVF attack on Belfast doorman Trevor Gowdy in December 2002 was to bring a dramatic breakthrough in the case.

North Belfast UVF leader Mark Haddock and other members of the paramilitary organisation’s Mount Vernon unit were arrested and charged with Gowdy’s attempted murder.

The case and the publicity that came with it forced the Special Branch to cut loose one of its most prized agents.

While McCord continued to allege that Haddock was a police informer and had ordered the murder of his son, few took the claims seriously.

Little attention was paid to the news that O’Loan had agreed to investigate McCord’s allegations in 2003. However, it was the decision by former RUC detectives Johnson ‘Jonty’ Brown and Trevor McIlwrath to publicly endorse McCord’s allegations that put the first hole in the wall of silence.

Brown and McIlwrath had both been police officers for more than 30 years before they retired. More importantly, they were the men who had sent Johnny Adair to jail in 1994 after secretly recording him admitting to directing UDA terrorism.

Brown and McIlwrath, however, were not afraid to speak out about the Special Branch allowing informers to murder with impunity.

In 1991, they secretly taped UDA man Ken Barrett admitting the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane.

However, they claimed that when the Special Branch became involved in the case, the confession tape went missing and they were blocked from charging Barrett with Finucane’s murder.

Crucially, Brown and McIlwrath recruited the 16-yearold Mark Haddock to become an informer in 1985 after he was arrested for petrol bombing a bus.

For six years, Haddock fed them information about low-level crime, but in 1990, when he told them he had joined the UVF, Special Branch took over control of the agent. What took place over the next decade will be the subject of O’Loan’s report.

Haddock is alleged to have shot dead Catholic taxi driver Sharon McKenna in north Belfast in January 1991 after the UVF suspected she might be an informer.

Brown and McIlwrath would later claim that, within days, they had enough evidence to charge Haddock with McKenna’s murder.

However, they claim that Special Branch blocked them from moving against the agent.

Over the next decade, Haddock is alleged to have been involved in more than a dozen murders, yet no charges were ever brought against him.

When he was charged with the attempted murder of Trevor Gowdy in August 2003, the Special Branch could no longer protect Haddock. In February of this year he was shot and seriously wounded by UVF gunmen for being a Special Branch informer.

He is on remand on a hospital wing inside Maghaberry prison awaiting judgment in the Gowdy trial.

In October last year, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte used Dail privilege to name Haddock as a Special Branch informer who had been involved in murder.

In May, Sir Reg Empey, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was widely criticised after he allowed Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine to join his party’s assembly team at Stormont.

Ervine’s party is accepted as having close ties to the UVF.

In an ironic twist, Brown, McIlwrath and a third former police officer were arrested by O’Loan’s detectives earlier this week and questioned about alleged attempts to pervert the course of justice.

All three were later released without charge.

The arrest of Brown and McIlwrath is seen as a technicality.

Their questioning is understood to have related to the fact that they had provided evidence of Haddock’s alleged involvement in McKenna’s murder but were blocked from pursuing him by Special Branch.

It is understood O’Loan’s investigators will now seek to question senior police officers in the coming weeks over the allegation that Haddock was protected by the highest ranks within the Special Branch.

O’Loan is understood to be preparing to recommend charges against a number of senior Special Branch officers.

If, as expected, she concludes that senior police officers allowed state agents to carry out more than a dozen murders with impunity, the implications for both the PSNI and the UUP will be immense.

forbes.com

Associated Press
13 August 2006

Survivors of the 1998 car bombing of Omagh, the deadliest terror strike in the history of Northern Ireland, laid floral wreaths and observed a minute’s silence Sunday at the spot where 29 people were slain by Irish Republican Army dissidents.

Each year since the 500-pound bomb tore through a crowd of shoppers, workers and tourists - mostly women and children - relatives of the dead have gathered at a memorial garden in this religiously mixed, largely middle-class town of 25,000 people. (BBC photo)

Nobody has been convicted of the crime, although the accused bomb maker, 33-year-old Sean Hoey, has been in jail awaiting trial for more than a year.

Relatives of the dead, who are also pursuing a civil lawsuit against five senior IRA dissidents, have expressed doubt that justice will ever be done.

Taking part in Sunday’s ceremony were Protestant ministers and a Catholic priest, as well as representatives of both the British and Irish governments.

The Real IRA, a dissident group opposed to the IRA cease-fire of 1997 and Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord of 1998, claimed responsibility for bombing Omagh. The death toll was particularly high because police, responding to vague telephoned warnings, unwittingly evacuated workers and residents toward the bomb, which detonated in the middle of a crowd.

The toll eclipsed a 1974 IRA bombing of two pubs in Birmingham, England, which claimed 21 lives.

Sunday Life

By Stephen Breen
13 August 2006

Dozy Secretary of State Peter Hain has been slammed by internet users for falling asleep during a meeting with the father of a loyalist murder victim and a local MP!

Around 50 postings were made on the popular Slugger O’Toole website after we revealed Mr Hain started to nod off THREE times during a meeting with Raymond McCord and North Down UUP MP Lady Sylvia Hermon.

Hain - now being tipped to succeed womanising croquet fan John Prescott as deputy Prime Minister in Tony Blair’s sleaze plagued cabinet - got a right pasting from Slugger readers.

“McCord should have punched him,” was just one of the postings.

“Disgusting. Absolutely sickening. Sadly typical of Hain’s attitudes to the ordinary people of Northern Ireland,” raged another reader of the current affairs site.

“What does this dozing off say about the attitude of the British to state sponsored murder within both communities in Northern Ireland. Is it boring for them?”

Another offered the opinion: “I remember Hain from his Young Liberal days. It’s a shame how he turned out. He used to have principles.”

“A public apology to the McCord family is in order,” suggested another disgusted Slugger.

Mr McCord, whose son Raymond Jnr was battered to death by UVF informers, told how he has been inundated with messages of support over the last week.

He said: “The phone hasn’t stopped over the last week and everyone is disgusted with Mr Hain’s attitude towards my family.

“I’m also delighted with the response the story has generated on this website and it’s great to see so many people voicing their opinions on the matter.

“I have received nothing but support and everyone agrees that I should have nothing more to do with Mr Hain, because I don’t think he cares about victims.

“I have tried to speak to people at the NIO about the way I have been treated, but nobody seems to care. I think I deserve an apology.”

A spokesman for the NIO refused to comment on the sleeping claims, adding: “Mr Hain listened very carefully to what Mr McCord had to say.

“The Secretary of State fully understands and supports his demands that those responsible for the horrific murder of his son are brought to justice.”

The meeting was arranged to discuss Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report into Mr McCord’s son’s murder and the role of informers inside the UVF.

sbreen@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Sunday Life

See also South Armagh History -The murder of Majella O’Hare

1169 And Counting…

Relatives for Justice

By Chris Anderson
13 August 2006

Hundreds of people gathered for a memorial Mass in south Armagh last night for 12-year-old Majella O’Hare - the schoolgirl who was shot in the back by a soldier.

The 30th anniversary memorial was a poignant moment for 83-year-old Mary O’Hare, who is still searching for the truth about why her daughter was killed as she walked past an Army patrol.

Majella, from Whitecross, was on her way with other children to confession at a nearby church when she was hit in the back by a bullet fired by a paratrooper.

Mary told Sunday Life said she still wants to come face-to-face with the soldier who fired the fatal shot to ask: “Why did you kill my daughter?”.

Recalled Mary: “My husband, James, who was working nearby, ran up the road and found Majella lying on the ground, blood pouring from her left side.

“He cradled her in his arms until a local nurse arrived.”

Later, a military helicopter airlifted Majella, her father and the nurse to Newry’s Daisy Hill hospital.

On the way, Majella lifted her hand up to her father’s chest and said faintly, ‘Daddy, Daddy’. Within seconds she was dead.

Mary said: “He (James) never got over it - he never saw a happy day after it.

“He was a broken man from that day on and he lived for 16 years after it.”

A 24-year-old paratrooper was charged with manslaughter.

He was acquitted when the trial judge accepted his claim to have shouted a warning before firing at a gunman he spotted in a hedge.

The Army’s version of events had been widely disputed and the court verdict provoked controversy.

Soldiers at first claimed Majella was killed in crossfire, but local people insisted only one shot was fired, that no warning was issued and no other witnesses saw a gunman.

At the trial, Mary came face-to-face with the man she believes shot her daughter.

“I asked him: ‘Are you proud of what you did? Are you proud of killing Majella?’. He just shrugged his shoulders and said nothing,” she said.

“I would love to talk to him again now. I would just like to know why. He has nothing to fear from me - the truth is all I seek. Hopefully the truth will bring closure for my family.”

“It’s still hard to come to terms with what happened, even after 30 years. I often think of what might have been. Would Majella have married, had a family? But, I’ll never know, will I?”

In the 30 years the British authorities have never apologised for the death of the 12-year-old. The Army has never spoken directly to the family.

Attempts to uncover the truth, including meetings with NIO officials and former Secretary of State, John Reid, have produced nothing.

“The truth would help ease the pain,” said Mary. “It will never bring Majella back, but the truth would be a comfort after 30 years.”

Last night, several hundred people packed St Malachy’s church close to the O’Hare family home near Whitecross for a memorial Mass.

Afterwards, family and friends placed floral tributes at the memorial stone which marks the spot where young Majella fell.

BBC

13/08/2006 - 22:25:16

There have been disturbances involving up to 100 people on the streets of Belfast tonight.

A stand-off developed in the North Queen’s Street area of north Belfast and is believed to have involved Protestants and Catholics.

The road has been closed off by police.

A spokeswoman said up to 50 people on each side were involved. The incident is understood to have started at around 8.30pm tonight.

BN.ie

13/08/2006 - 23:08:37

Police had missiles and petrol bombs hurled at them during a security alert in the North today.

Officers came under fire from youths as young as 10 while they completed a security operation on the Newry bypass close to the border.

Police arrested one youth and have now completed their work.

Dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the alert. The security forces discovered an exploded device in a lane in the area on Wednesday and another spent explosive earlier this evening.

They were removed for forensic examination. A spokeswoman for the police said they had been intended to injure officers.