SAOIRSE32

Relatives of the victims to lobby government agencies for help

Irish Independent
By Alan Murray
Sunday December 30 2007

The relatives of the victims of the Omagh bombing will launch a campaign in the New Year to demand the handing over of all intelligence material held by government agencies so it can be used against the dissident republicans involved in the devastating attack on the town.

The British, Irish and Spanish governments will be asked to co-ordinate resources to compile files of evidence against the 10 key republicans identified by intelligence agencies as the main participants in the bombing 10 years ago.

And the new head of MI5 Jonathan Evans will be approached to take the step that his predecessor refused to take and meet with the Omagh relatives.

Omagh victims’ group spokesman Michael Gallagher says that they are determined to pursue the killers of their 29 relatives until they are brought before the courts. And he wants the British and Irish governments in particular to open their intelligence books to convict the bombers.

“We will petition the British government, the Irish government and the Spanish government to begin the process of bringing the main participants in the Omagh bombing to trial,” he said.

“All three governments lost citizens in the attack and it is their responsibility to put together the intelligence evidence and bring these people to court. There is information about mobile phone calls in the files and many other details that we are aware of which have not been used in an evidential way and we want to see all that amassed information provided to prosecutors so the killers can be put in the dock together.”

The Omagh man, who lost his son Aidan in the devastating explosion, said that the trial of Klaus Barbie, the brutal Nazi Gestapo chief in Lyon during the Second World War, was an example of what can be achieved.

“Barbie wasn’t put on trial until 1987 in Lyon, more than 40 years after the war, so that proves that when governments want to bring people to justice they can succeed, no matter how long it takes from the time of the atrocity.

“In the new year we will launch a campaign to bring the 10 most senior republicans involved in the Omagh attack to justice. We are not deterred by anything that has gone before,” he said.

“The two governments here control the intelligence information that could unlock the door to convictions in the Omagh case and we intend to ask them for that information to be presented to prosecutors. The police forces on both sides of the border have that information but to date the necessary cooperation has not been evident and we want that situation to change. We want all that information handed over,” said Mr Gallagher.

And Mr Gallagher said the relatives will again ask MI5 to put their case for disclosure through a face to face meeting with Jonathan Evans.

“We want to specifically ask him why his agency didn’t inform the RUC that it had information in the weeks before the bombing that Omagh was a potential terrorist target,” he said.

“But that is only part of it, we want a concerted effort from the British and Irish governments to compile the legal case against the perpetrators of the Omagh massacre and we believe that can be done.

“The authorities are regularly appealing to the public to come forward to provide information and give evidence but when it comes to putting their own agents at risk they aren’t so adventurous. We want the police chiefs in Belfast and Dublin to do what they are regularly asking the public to do and we want MI5 to put their former agents before the courts to give evidence in the Omagh trials,” he said.

- Alan Murray

BBC
By Diarmaid Fleming
29 December 2007

An exhibition being held in Tralee about the first head of the British Secret Service, William Melville, has caused some shaking and stirring in the county.

Characters from James Bond films were based on Melville

The original spymaster “M” of James Bond fame came from Kerry, but the hosting of the exhibition in the County Museum named after Irish rebel leader Thomas Ashe means it’s not been without controversy.

William Melville was the first head of the British Secret service in 1903.

The original “M” - as later James Bond’s boss would be known - spent much of his earlier career in the new Special Branch, pursuing Irish Fenians and European left-wing radicals in the late 19th century.

Among those he jailed was Tom Clarke, who was later to be executed as a leader of the 1916 Rising in Dublin.

Some Kerry republicans are furious at the exhibition in a hall named after Thomas Ashe, one of Clarke’s 1916 comrades.

Republican Sinn Fein organised a protest against the exhibition and what Matt Leen of the party says is the “renegade” William Melville.

Jack the Ripper was hunted by William Melville

“Me and my fellow republicans think this is an act of treason, to hold this especially in his hall that’s here to commemorate Thomas Ashe who gave his life for the freedom we enjoy in this part of Ireland and who suffered a horrendous death - he was force fed - at the hands of the cohorts of William Melville,” says Leen.

“To come along 90 years later and to see Melville being commemorated here in the Thomas Ashe Hall, surely there’s a huge contradiction in this exhibition.”

It was in what must be one of Ireland’s most beautiful villages, Sneem, that Melville was born in 1850, before running away from home to become a London policeman.

He rose through the ranks, joining the new Special Irish Branch, forerunner of the Special Branch, where, along with other Irishmen, they targeted their countrymen in the Fenians who didn’t share their allegiance to the Crown.

Once the so-called Fenian “Dynamite War” ended in the late 1880s, he moved his attention to international radicals.

Britain had become a haven for revolutionaries and anarchists opposing monarchies throughout Europe, and Melville had plenty of work on his plate, targeting Russians and others, while still finding time to chase Jack the Ripper.

But little was known of the spymaster from Sneem until recently-opened British secret papers enabled a biography, says village historian, John V O’Sullivan, editor of the Sneem Parish News.

“Locals don’t have strong feelings about Melville,” he considers.

“I wouldn’t say that they’re proud of it, but they certainly acknowledge that he was a genius and the reason he emigrated was by necessity.

“I don’t think there’s very strong views held on him by people - whether they’d condemn him or praise him - but they just acknowledge that at the time, he turned out to be the top detective in Europe.

“That was genius as far as the people here would be concerned, but they certainly wouldn’t hold strong views on what way he operated later on.”

The exhibition includes a bomb loaned by West Midlands Police, used by Melville to frame anarchists in Walsall in 1892, which helped his promotion to head of the Special Branch, a year before he strangely retired at the peak of his career as one of Scotland Yard’s most famous policemen aged only 53.

He had in fact been secretly headhunted, to become the top field operative or spy - known by the alias ‘M’ - for the newly formed British intelligence service, in the new Directorate of Military Operations.

Its divisions MO2 and MO3 were the forerunners of MI5 and MI6.

He ran a network of agents, at home and afar, and worked as far as Persia where he was sent to help secure oil supplies for Britain.

As insurrection raged in Ireland in 1916, he is not known to have been involved in counter-insurgency work in his native land, being preoccupied instead in the war against Germany, before his death in 1918.

The Kerry County Museum rejects republicans’ criticism of the exhibition, saying Melville’s life is simply a remarkable story and for people to judge for themselves.

“I understand their point of view - I don’t necessarily agree with it and nor does the museum necessarily agree with it but I can see why some people would feel it would be not appropriate,” says Kerry County Museum curator Helen O’Carroll.

“But to examine the life of somebody like William Melville who took such an opposite path to Thomas Ashe, for a teacher such as Thomas Ashe, that would be something he would welcome.

“That we would examine these things, not pretend they didn’t happen or hide them away or say we’re not going to deal with that but actually to deal with it and look at it and see how we can integrate somebody like Melville into our conception of Irishness,” she adds.

But what of a permanent memorial to Sneem’s unlikely spymaster son?

The village green in Sneem has a monument to a famous wrestler, but considerable political wrestling in Kerry could be expected to follow any calls for a permanent monument to bring the legacy of the village’s spymaster in from the cold.

Irish Times
Jonathan Bardon
29 December 2007

During the autumn of 1976 Lord (Peter) Melchett took over from Roland Moyle as minister of state with responsibility for education. This flamboyant self-confessed punk rock enthusiast - known to civil servants as “Peter lend-me-a-tie” - arrived with a fiery determination that Northern Ireland should follow the rest of the United Kingdom in adopting comprehensive secondary education.

Furious howls of dismay from Ulster’s establishment followed. Leading unionists stepped forward to declare that academic excellence would be imperilled by the demise of the grammar schools. Amongst those backing Melchett was All Children Together (ACT), an organisation campaigning for integrated schools.

Catholic bishops lost no time in defending their church-run grammar and secondary schools. Civil servants had been stunned by the ferocity of the Catholic hierarchy’s opposition to ACT’s shared schools proposal.

They had met the “Armagh Three” - Cardinal William Conway of Armagh, Bishop William Philbin of Down and Connor and Bishop Edward Daly of Derry - in July 1976, and reported: “Cardinal Conway’s attitude was one of complete intransigence. He dismissed the idea as trivial, irrelevant and without popular support.”

A senior NI department of education official wrote a minute suggesting that Melchett meet Bishop Daly. A handwritten note, probably from the political adviser Roger Darlington, was attached: “Peter: This would be a v. good idea - Daly is far and away the most liberal of the ‘Armagh Three’ - it may be useful to get him away from Conway on shared schools.”

Any expectation that the Bishop of Derry would be flexible on the issue of comprehensive schools or differ from Cardinal Conway on shared schools was dashed on January 24th, 1977. On that occasion Melchett travelled to Derry to meet Bishop Daly and Msgr Coulter, headmaster of St Columb’s College.

According to the “note for the record”, the bishop said that Northern Ireland was a conservative society (”with a small ‘C’ if not a large one”) and that he felt both communities would resent major social innovation of this nature; the big grammar schools were justifiably famous and should not be changed. Msgr Coulter quoted Durkheim, saying that it would be wrong to impose an alien educational system on a society that was not structured for it.

Msgr Coulter proposed that the 11-plus qualifying examination be replaced by a system of “election”, by which parents chose which schools - grammar or secondary - their children attended. Lord Melchett commented that this was unrealistic, as more parents would opt for grammar schools than there were grammar school places. It was also socially retrogressive, since all middle-class parents would opt for grammar schools and most working-class parents for secondary schools.

Under the heading “Integrated Education”, the note for the record continued: “In a general discussion on integrated education Bishop Daly and Msgr Coulter said that there were so few parents who wished their children to be educated at an integrated school that it was hardly an issue worth worrying about. Certainly hardly any of their own community wanted children educated in other than Roman Catholic schools . . . it would be divisive to force integration on the community - the playground would become a battle ground.”

Lord Melchett said there was no intention of forcing integrated education on anyone, although he did point out that religion was the only field in which parents had this freedom of choice; they did not, for example, have any say whether their children attended a grammar or a secondary school.

At the end of the meeting Bishop Daly advised Lord Melchett to tell any supporters of secondary reorganisation whom he might meet to “come and have a word with me”.

On June 14th, 1977, Melchett announced that the 11-plus examination would be scrapped and that education would be reorganised on comprehensive lines. No provision was to be made for shared schools.

Now, 30 years later, comprehensive education has still had not been introduced. In December 2007 Caitríona Ruane, the Minister of Education - with the full support of Catholic bishops - announced the abolition of selection of any kind at 11-plus and the introduction of a comprehensive system.

There are now 62 integrated schools educating more than 18,000 children in Northern Ireland.

Sunday Life
By Brian Rowan
December 30, 2007

Dissident death threats will not change the republican decision to support the PSNI, a Sinn Fein member of one of the District Policing Partnerships has told Sunday Life.

Those partnerships allow the police to engage with local communities across Northern Ireland - and Sinn Fein has been taking up its places.

“The community wants the party to be in there and engaging,” one republican source told Sunday Life.

While the issue of the devolution of policing and justice is important at a high political level, the source said it was also crucial that the PSNI gets “the community link right”.

“It needs to look at its practice and how it engages with the community. We want to live in a stable and safe environment, and good policing is central to that.”

Death threats from dissidents would not change Sinn Fein’s policy, he added.

“In fact, in some senses it’s making us more resolute in the face of it (the threats).”

One senior police officer said both Sinn Fein and the force “will be judged not on the high-wire stuff, but on what happens on the streets of west Belfast”.

Said the senior officer: “Policing is so hugely complex. Sometimes it’s a lack of understanding of what policing can actually do.

“A lot of what we have been doing is peacemaking. What you now need to do is the peace building on the ground in terms of relationships.” The officer said recent dissident activity - including attacks on police officers and threats to republicans - would not damage the new relationship that is developing.

“People are sick of it (dissident violence). They don’t want that agenda.”

By Ciaran McGuigan
Sunday Life
30 December 2007

The coroner is set to hear how a Catholic drug dealer was gunned down by a loyalist gang after being lured to north Belfast with the promise of a cocaine deal.

The inquest is due next week of Frankie ‘Boogaloo’ Mulholland, who was blasted several times at close range as he sat in the driver seat of his Frontera 4X4 after setting up a drug deal with a gang of UFF and LVF killers.

The gang, with close ties to Ihab and Andre Shoukri, set up a £300 cocaine deal with Mulholland in December 2001.

But it’s believed that as one gang member chatted to the 6ft 6ins body-building drugs pusher, another man stepped out of the shadows and opened fire.

A short time later the murder was claimed by the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name used by both the LVF and UFF.

Heartless thugs then added to the Mulholland family’s grief by targeting the funeral service of the 34-year-old dad-of-two at St Patrick’s Church with a hoax bomb warning, also in the name of the RHD.

A pal of Mulholland’s, who was in the passenger seat of the car at the time of the horrific murder, survived unhurt but was treated in hospital for severe shock. He was the only known eyewitness to Mulholland’s murder and is expected to be called to the coroner’s court when the inquest gets under way next week.

At the time of the murder police said Mulholland had made many enemies among both loyalist and republican terror groups.

Sunday Life has previously revealed how he fell foul of ousted UFF commander Johnny Adair after he ripped off the Shankill gangster in a drugs deal.

Mulholland was also high on an hit list of Direct Action Against Drugs (DAAD), a cover name used by the IRA to crackdown on drug dealers.

Man killed acting ‘the peacemaker’ part of loyalist gang that kicked officer to death

By Stephen Breen
Sunday Life
December 30, 2007

The so-called ‘gentle giant’ who died after a fight outside a Co Antrim pub is today exposed as a cop-killing thug.

Heavyweight Darren ‘Fat Fred’ Murphy was dubbed a “peacemaker” in the wake of his death last week as he tried to break up a fight outside a bar in Armoy.

But Sunday Life can reveal he was a member of the blood-thirsty loyalist mob that kicked to death police constable Greg Taylor outside a pub in nearby Ballymoney 10 years earlier.

Dad-of-three Taylor (41) was savagely punched and kicked by a gang of more than a dozen men outside Kelly’s Bar in Church Street, Ballymoney, in June 1997.

Well-placed sources believe that 24-stone giant Murphy may have delivered the lethal blow by jumping on the police officer’s head as he was attacked by the mob.

He was left so badly beaten that he was barely recognisable.

The frenzied attack on the off-duty cop, who had been socialising with pals in the bar, is believed to have been triggered by remarks made in relation to a loyalist band parade that had been blocked by police in Dunloy a week earlier.

‘Fat Fred’ Murphy was among 15 people - including at least two women - arrested and quizzed by detectives investigating the savage murder of their colleague.

However, he was not one of the four men convicted of the killing.

Detectives believe Murphy was assisted in covering up his involvement in the murder by someone who helped wash the cop’s bloodstains from his clothes.

Said a former colleague of Constable Taylor: “It’s ironic that he got away with his role in the murder of Greg and then, 10 years later, died in not dissimilar circumstances.

“It’s sad for his family because, like Greg, he was a dad.

“It’s just a pity he didn’t choose to step in and act the peacemaker when it was Greg who was being attacked, and instead just joined in.

“Maybe it was a case of what goes around comes around.”

Murphy (32) was buried last Thursday in the same Ballymoney cemetery as Constable Taylor.

He died in the early hours of last Sunday after intervening in a disturbance outside McClafferty’s Bar on Main Street in Armoy.

It’s understood that motorcycling enthusiast Murphy - whose father Mel was a one-time mechanic for Joey Dunlop - died at the scene after his head knocked against a wall.

There is no link between the incident that led to Murphy’s death and that of Constable Taylor.

A police spokesman refused to comment on Murphy, saying: “We cannot comment on a matter that is currently before the courts.”

One of two men arrested following Murphy’s death, Raymond Paul Hamilton (36), of Travers Place in Dervock, appeared before Ballymena Magistrates Court last Wednesday accused of unlawful killing.

He was granted bail and is due in court again next month.

sbreen@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

By Ryle Dwyer
Irish Examiner
29 December 2007

ON ST Patrick’s Day 1977, four prominent Irish-American politicians issued a statement in Washington denouncing the violence in Northern Ireland.

The four — Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Daniel P Moynihan of New York, Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill and Governor Hugh Carey of New York — appealed to Americans “to renounce any action that promotes the current violence or provides support or encouragement for organisations engaged in violence”.

They encouraged the Carter administration to take a stand on Northern Ireland, which seemed hopelessly deadlocked at the time.

In June, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance scheduled a meeting with those Irish-American politicians, who were dubbed the “Four Horsemen”.

“The problem will have to be settled by the parties themselves,” said Senator Kennedy, “but there may be ways that we can provide initiatives in that direction.”

Ambassador John G Molloy and Michael Lillis, counsellor of the Irish Embassy, had talks at the State Department where they suggested President Carter could help by holding out the prospect of jobs in the event of peace as it was hoped this would encourage people on both sides of the sectarian divide to co-operate.

The Carter statement was timed to secure maximum publicity before Congress returned from its summer recess and after “the marching season” in the North. The Irish and British governments were consulted, and Edward Kennedy prepared the ground so that the initiative would have cross community appeal. He had the Library of Congress prepare a study of the Protestant Irish heritage in America.

It was well known that his brother, John F Kennedy, was the first Irish Catholic president of the US, but he noted few people realised that 13 previous presidents had an Irish Protestant heritage.

“It is important,” he said, “for Irish-Americans in the US to do what we can to reassure the Protestants in Northern Ireland that they have nothing to fear from the Irish-American community.”

Mr Carter issued his statement on August 30, 1977.

“The US wholeheartedly supports peaceful means for finding a just solution that involves both parts of the community of Northern Ireland,” said President Carter.

“Violence cannot resolve Northern Ireland’s problems: it only increases them, and solves nothing.”

He asked Americans to stop funding organisations supporting violence in the North. Prospects for investment would, he said, be enhanced by a peaceful settlement.

“In the event of such a settlement,” he said, “the US government would be prepared to join with others to see how additional job-creating investment could be encouraged, to the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland.”