SAOIRSE32

By Mary Nelis
Sunday Journal
**Via Newshound
27 July 2008

You wonder what they are thinking, the police officers imported from England to work with The Historical Enquiries Team, who are tasked with reinvestigating some three thousand unsolved killings in the North over the past forty years. They have been at the job for almost three years and they don’t seem to be making any more progress than those whose shoddy investigative work, they are trying to address.

Initially it took them nine months to admit that over 1,000 RUC files, if such existed, were missing. You would imagine that they would already have been familiar with the saga of files going missing in the 6 Counties and turning up in the hands of Unionist paramilitaries or found in Orange Halls. Perhaps that’s why there has been such a turnover of personnel, with forty percent packing up and leaving in the first year, and another third, the following year. Did they leave out of frustration or anger at such unprofessional conduct by fellow members of a force that claimed to be a law and order agency the same as that ‘in the mainland’? Perhaps they felt that the RUC was not in the mould of the traditional British Bobby. Whatever, a lot of the British police officers seconded to the HET couldn’t stay the pace and left, maybe for no other reason in that they were just here in the first instance to make a fast buck.

It is clear that the process of investigating the unsolved killings is going to cost more and take longer than the six year £ 34 million budget, set up by Peter Hain, especially if they continue to have staffing problems. The HET has reached the halfway mark in terms of time but are only at 1974, in terms of the examination of cases.

That said, the HET team which includes key individual officers from the Stephens enquiries, must surely wonder why there are so many ‘unsolved killings’, almost three thousand, and how the RUC, the most highly paid police force in the entire UK, got away with turning the proverbial blind eye to deaths that were going on around them. Everyone knows including the HET that the RUC had almost unlimited resources to do the job.

In 1969, the RUC had some 3,500 members with a further 8,000 in the B-Specials, mostly part time. By 1973 that number had tripled to some 23,000, including the newly formed Ulster Defence regiment. That remained the situation for the next thirty years, which meant that there was one member of the armed services for every 69 people in the North.

Many will argue that the reason the RUC failed to do the job they were paid to do was because there was a war raging on the streets although neither the RUC or the British Government or Unionism, have acknowledged that the conflict of the past forty years was a war, guerrilla or otherwise.

The ‘problem’ was law and order. That being the case, one wonders that with a garrison which rarely dropped below 23,000, at their disposal, the RUC recruited mainly from the Unionist community, the RUC failed to properly investigate the deaths of combatants and civilians alike.

Not only did they fail as suggested by the eminent lawyer Paddy Hillyard in the book, Justice Under Fire,’ to police crime’ , their primary objective as police was focused on harassing the entire Catholic population whom they regarded as ’suspect’ and disloyal .

Some 24,000 people were detained during arrest and search operations, in the years 1972 -1977, years that recorded the highest number of fatalities in the conflict.

The total number of arrests over a fifteen year period up to 1986, was a staggering 75, 000, the majority of whom were from the Catholic community.

House searches over the same period numbered 170,000 a statistic which revealed that every Catholic house in the North was searched at least twice.

With such harassment of the Catholic population occupying the energies of the RUC, it was highly probable that they would not be too bothered when non combatants were murdered in the streets. Nor would they have been preoccupied with arresting those involved.

In retrospect it is clear that the RUC and the British intelligence services, many of whom were involved directly or indirectly in the sectarian murders of Catholics, were working to British political agenda of defeating the IRA no matter what the cost in terms of lives lost and secure in the knowledge that there would be no questions asked or no investigations carried out.

The legacy of silence around almost three thousand deaths, has been broken by the relatives of the bereaved and by the work of organisations such as The Relatives for Justice, the Pat Finnucane Centre, Healing Through Remembrance, Cunamh, and ordinary people who want answers from those who deliberately sabotaged investigations, destroyed evidence and told lies and who walked into the sunset of retirement with a golden handshake from Patton.

The HET need to assure relatives that those who were responsible for missing files, those who destroyed evidence, those who failed to do the job that they were paid to do, will be made amenable to the law. That another British Government enquiry has had to search police stations for missing files is of concern to all who recall the attempts to destroy evidence in the Stephens enquiry.

That the work of the HET is being impeded by lack of co-operation not only from past members of the RUC but also by many of the Special Branch promoted to top jobs within the PSNI .

It is essential if this enquiry is to have any credibility that such personnel are questioned on the issue of the destruction of evidence crucial to the investigations of the cover up of the murder of citizens by the State.

It would be nice to think that the British Government in setting up the HET is responding to the demands of relatives for the truth of what happened to their loved ones, and why they had never been given any information on the circumstances surrounding their deaths or why there was no proper investigation by those being paid handsomely for that service.

It would be nice to know how many of the cases under investigation involved killings by the RUC or the intelligence services or how many died as the result of State agencies protecting informers.

No matter the motives for the current politically engineered Historic Enquiry, it will lack any credibility while the British continue to suppress the Stephens reports and while those who added to the pain and suffering of the bereaved, are not held to account.

Not only did they fail as suggested by the eminent lawyer Paddy Hillyard in the book, Justice Under Fire,’ to police crime’ , their primary objective as police was focused on harassing the entire Catholic population whom they regarded as ‘suspect’ and disloyal .

Some 24,000 people were detained during arrest and search operations, in the years 1972 -1977, years that recorded the highest number of fatalities in the conflict. The total number of arrests over a fifteen year period up to 1986, was a staggering 75, 000, the majority of whom were from the Catholic community. House searches over the same period numbered 170,000 a statistic which revealed that every Catholic house in the North was searched at least twice. With such harassment of the Catholic population occupying the energies of the RUC, it was highly probable that they would not be too bothered when non combatants were murdered in the streets. Nor would they have been preoccupied with arresting those involved.

In retrospect it is clear that the RUC and the British intelligence services, many of whom were involved directly or indirectly in the sectarian murders of Catholics, were working to British political agenda of defeating the IRA no matter what the cost in terms of lives lost and secure in the knowledge that there would be no questions asked or no investigations carried out.

The legacy of silence around almost three thousand deaths, has been broken by the relatives of the bereaved and by the work of organisations such as The Relatives for Justice, the Pat Finnucane Centre, Healing Through Remembrance, Cunamh, and ordinary people who want answers from those who deliberately sabotaged investigations, destroyed evidence and told lies and who walked into the sunset of retirement with a golden handshake from Patton.

The HET need to assure relatives that those who were responsible for missing files, those who destroyed evidence, those who failed to do the job that they were paid to do, will be made amenable to the law. That another British Government enquiry has had to search police stations for missing files is of concern to all who recall the attempts to destroy evidence in the Stephens enquiry. That the work of the HET is being impeded by lack of co-operation not only from past members of the RUC but also by many of the Special Branch promoted to top jobs within the PSNI . It is essential if this enquiry is to have any credibility that such personnel are questioned on the issue of the destruction of evidence crucial to the investigations of the cover up of the murder of citizens by the State.

It would be nice to think that the British Government in setting up the HET is responding to the demands of relatives for the truth of what happened to their loved ones, and why they had never been given any information on the circumstances surrounding their deaths or why there was no proper investigation by those being paid handsomely for that service.

It would be nice to know how many of the cases under investigation involved killings by the RUC or the intelligence services or how many died as the result of State agencies protecting informers. No matter the motives for the current politically engineered Historic Enquiry, it will lack any credibility while the British continue to suppress the Stephens reports and while those who added to the pain and suffering of the bereaved, are not held to account.

The political history of the past few years has shown that deadlines rarely work.

By Vincent Kearney
BBC

Many have been set by the government, with declarations by prime ministers and secretaries of state that they were set in stone.

Then, almost inevitably, they have been extended, with the government insisting that progress had been made and that it had not been forced to climb down.

Now another deadline has been set.

The UDA and UVF have both been put on notice that they have six months to convince the government that they are serious about decommissioning their weapons.

If they do not, the secretary of state, Shaun Woodward, will not renew the legislation that allows the international decommissioning body headed by General John de Chastelain to operate.

The loyalist groups have been told that they would then be treated simply as criminal gangs, and not as paramilitary organisations.

As it stands, weapons that are decommissioned are not forensically tested for evidence that could be used to prosecute those who used them.

If the government carries out its threat to decommission the general and his team, any weapons found after that date would be tested and the results could be used in future court cases.

That message has been delivered publicly a number of times by Shaun Woodward in recent weeks, and was reinforced during secret talks between the government and the UDA leadership at Stormont on Monday night.

When asked about the meeting, the NIO chose its words very carefully, stating that the minister had private talks with the political representatives of the UDA and “other leading loyalists”.

But the fact is that the security minister Paul Goggins and Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde sat down with the leadership of the UDA.

The majority of the UDA’s ruling inner council were there.

General de Chastelain and his two fellow commission members, Tauno Nieminen and Andrew Sens, started work in September 1997.

The commission has cost almost £9m, shared by the British and Irish governments.

That was considered money well spent when the IRA decommissioned its vast arsenal of weapons three years ago, but since then, the commission has had little to show for its efforts.

The UVF last year said its weapons had been “put beyond reach”, meaning the organisation has retained control of the weapons and it shows no signs of giving them up.

The same is true of the UDA. Jackie McDonald, the man regarded as the organisation’s leader, last year said decommissioning “wasn’t even on the radar screen”.

Now we’re told that the organisation is now discussing the issue.

It has met the commission a number of times, with the most recent encounter earlier this month and there are plans for further talks.

The government hopes that signals a change and that the UDA will soon act on decommissioning rather than simply talk about it.

It is taking a huge gamble by publicly signalling a commitment to decommission the international commission if that does not happen.

It will be very difficult for the government to fudge the issue if the UDA doesn’t, at the very least, give a firm commitment to decommission weapons, and agree the modalities for doing so.

Anything less than that will be viewed as failure.

And what must Margaret Ritchie, the social development minister, make of it all?

Many within the Northern Ireland Office were unhappy when she withdrew funding for a UDA-linked project in loyalist areas earlier this year because the UDA had failed to meet her deadline for decommissioning.

Publicly, NIO ministers did not criticise her. But privately, many civil servants and policy advisors criticised her and said the imposition of a deadline wouldn’t work.

Now the government itself is setting a deadline for progress.

The UDA is hinting that some progress can be made, but it is far from straightforward.

The organisation says the majority of its members and supporters are opposed to any move on weapons and will have to be “persuaded” that it is the right thing to do.

“We don’t care what politicians say, if they want to know how our supporters feel about this they should into working class loyalist areas and ask them,” says one senior UDA member.

“I can tell you that they are absolutely opposed to decommissioning weapons and it will take a lot to convince them that we should.”

The government says that is simply an excuse.

The UDA believes the process of persuasion should include investment in its heartlands, and some form of role for the organisation.

Having spent longer than 30 years involved in terrorism and crime, it now craves approval and acceptance by government, politicians and even the business community.

It wants to be “brought in from the cold”.

That is something the government may not be able to deliver, and if it does not, it is highly unlikely that the UDA will give up its guns.

General de Chastelain may yet have his term of employment extended, just like the latest deadline.

BBC

Prominent republican Thomas “Slab” Murphy is to get a High Court hearing in Dublin in a bid to prevent his trial for alleged revenue offences.

Thomas “Slab” Murphy has won a judicial review

Mr Murphy, 58, from County Louth, is being prosecuted after an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The charges allege he failed to furnish a return of his income, profits or gains for the years 1996/97 to 2004.

A prosecution solicitor said the court would hear judicial review proceedings brought by Mr Murphy on 18 November.

He was returned for trial to the Special Criminal Court last January from Dundalk District Court.

The court had remanded Mr Murphy on continuing bail until the end of December to allow the judicial review to proceed.

He was in court for the brief hearing.

The Special Criminal Court normally deals with terrorist-related offences.

However, the Director of Public Prosecutions has the discretion in any case to certify that ordinary courts are inadequate to deal with it and to send it for trial to the three-judge non-jury court.

BBC

The reputed leader of the Real IRA Michael McKevitt has lost an appeal in Dublin against his conviction for directing terrorism.

Michael McKevitt was jailed for 20 years

McKevitt, 54, from Blackrock County Louth, is serving 20 years.

He lost his action at the Supreme Court in which he claimed his trial was unfair.

McKevitt claimed he did not get a fair trial because his team had not been supplied with all information relating to key witness, FBI agent David Rupert.

However, five Supreme Court judges ruled the conviction was safe and dismissed the appeal.

McKevitt was jailed by the Special Criminal Court in August 2003 for organising terrorist activities for the Real IRA.

The Court of Criminal Appeal upheld his conviction and McKevitt went to the Supreme Court.

His lawyers argued the Irish judiciary failed to have an appropriate system in place to disclose documents relating to prosecution witness David Rupert.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court found the prosecution depended to an overwhelming extent on the evidence of Mr Rupert.

Mr Rupert had been employed by both the FBI and the British security services.

The court heard that he had a somewhat “shady reputation”, but Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan said “the fact that Mr Rupert may or may not have had a shady background and the fact that as a paid agent he might be suspect as a witness, at any rate are neither here nor there”.

However, it was found that the prosecution’s obligations of disclosure had been fulfilled because all reasonable efforts had been made in good faith to secure documentation.

It also found that the Special Criminal Court believed David Rupert, and that finding could not be interfered with.

Summing up his 41-page judgement Mr Justice Geoghegan added: “I believe the conviction to be safe and I would dismiss the appeal.”

McKevitt is also one of five men being sued by the relatives of the Omagh bomb victims.

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
Irish Times
**Via Newshound
30 July 2008

SIX MEN were arrested yesterday in separate “targeted” operations by the Garda and PSNI in connection with last October’s murder of Paul Quinn from Cullyhanna in south Armagh.

Three of the men were being questioned last night in Monaghan and Carrickmacross Garda stations while the three men arrested in the Cullyhanna area by the PSNI were being questioned at Antrim station.

Well-placed local sources said one of the men arrested by the PSNI was a senior IRA figure in south Armagh, who had served time for IRA offences. They said one of the other men was viewed as a “minor to mid-ranking” republican who had “connections to both Sinn Féin and the IRA”.

Sinn Féin has consistently denied that republicans linked to the IRA or Sinn Féin were involved in the murder. So far no one has been charged with Mr Quinn’s murder.

Members of the Quinn Support Group in south Armagh welcomed the arrests. Stephen Quinn, father of the murdered Paul Quinn, hoped that future developments in the investigation would lead to convictions of those who had killed his 21-year-old son last October.

The operations were carried out early yesterday morning in the Cullyhanna and Crossmaglen areas of south Armagh and, it is understood, in the general Monaghan area. Gardaí arrested three men aged in their 20s and 30s and detained them under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. A number of local people observed the arrests in south Armagh of two men in their 50s and one man in his 20s.

The PSNI said it was operating in support of the Garda murder investigation. As well as arresting the men the PSNI said it also seized a number of items.

“The aim is to carry out the operation with the minimum amount of disruption to local communities,” said a PSNI spokeswoman.

Mr Quinn was beaten to death in a barn in Co Monaghan by a gang of up to 15 people last October after he reportedly fell foul of republicans in south Armagh.

The Quinn family and support group have consistently claimed that members of the IRA were involved, an allegation rejected by Sinn Féin.

Stephen Quinn said the development would provide the family with a “boost” as it indicated that the Garda and PSNI were progressing with their investigation. “We hope that eventually people will be convicted for the murder of Paul. In the meantime we will continue our campaign to get justice,” he added.

Jim McAllister of the Quinn Support Group also hoped the arrests marked progress in the investigation. “We don’t in any way see this as the end of the game. We see this as the opening of another avenue of the investigation,” he said.

In April the Independent Monitoring Commission found that the IRA organisation did not kill Paul Quinn although “local members or former members” of the republican group were involved in his murder.

The IMC said it was not attributing the “killing to PIRA” (Provisional IRA) for a number of reasons, including the “local and personal nature of the roots” of the murder, the absence of any indication of any organisational sanction for the murder, and because the killing was contrary to the peace process policy the IRA was following for the previous two years.

“The killing was clearly contrary to the instructions and strategy of the leadership of PIRA. It was also contrary to the interests of PIRA and to those of Sinn Féin.”

Belfast telegraph
Tuesday, 29 July 2008

**O RLY?

The PSNI has intelligence to lead them to loyalist paramilitary arms dumps once the decommissioning period has ended, a top officer claimed today.

Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan also said once the timeframe of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) has closed any weaponry seized will result in the prosecution of those linked to the arms.

When asked if the PSNI can locate the sites he said: “Well, the short answer to that is yes — and then if the opportunity to arrest and prosecute is there, we will.” Mr Sheridan, the chief of Special Branch, said they will DNA weapons and fingerprint them in order to get forensic evidence.

However he added that he did not know if loyalist decommissioning was “inevitable”.

“Policing here is still very much enshrined in politics. No other police service has an IMC (Independent Monitoring Commission). No other police service has an IICD.”

Northern Ireland’s most senior Catholic police officer, who retires this September, told the Irish News that he also welcomed comments by Secretary of State Shaun Woodward in relation to loyalist weapons.

“The Secretary of State has pointed out clearly to all the terrorist groupings that it is going to come to the stage that we are not going to have an IICD,” he said.

“And when that time comes, if police find weapons that belong to whatever terrorist organisation then they will be dealt with through the criminal law.

“There is a window of opportunity that exists before then for those holding weapons.”

Mr Sheridan, who is set to become chief executive of the cross-border charity Cooperation Ireland, said he is concerned weapons would be used in further criminal activity by dissidents leading to “fall-outs among thieves”.

“The concern I have it that they will start to use those weapons against each other-should that be around drugs, smuggling or money laundering,” he said.

“They do have an opportunity to deal with them (weapons) but that opportunity is fast closing down so they should do us all a favour and get rid of them.”

Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

The British Government is believed to have given the UDA six months to decommission its weapons or face a police crackdown.

British officials are understood to have told UDA leaders at a secret meeting on Monday they must move by February or face the consequences.

Last November, the loyalist paramilitary group said it believed the war was over and at Northern Ireland was on the way to permanent political stability.

However, Jackie McDonald, regarded as the group’s de facto leader, also said 90% of loyalists don’t want decommissioning.

By Chris Thornton
Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

The Criminal Justice Minister last night declined to call on police to seize loyalist weapons after a senior PSNI officer indicated police know how to find arms dumps.

While local politicians said the PSNI should grab any guns they know about, NIO Minister Paul Goggins called on loyalists to hand them in.

Outgoing Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan, who is in charge of intelligence, said police have intelligence in place to locate loyalist weapons.

“The short answer to that is yes,” he told the Irish News. “And then if the opportunity to arrest and prosecute is there, we will.”

Mr Sheridan, who retires in September, also said he is concerned that loyalists will begin to use the guns against each other. One year ago the weapons were turned on police during unrest in Carrickfergus and the Kilcooley estate in Bangor.

Sinn Fein Policing Board member Alex Maskey said he was angered by the revelation.

The only political pressure on the police is to do their job and that means bringing people to justice

The government is currently trying to pressure loyalists into handing over weapons before decommissioning legislation expires.

Asked yesterday if police should be seizing any weapons they know about, Mr Goggins said: “I think the point is this — loyalists should decommission. They should do it as soon as possible.

“There is in place, of course, legislation that provides an amnesty at the moment, but that legislation is fast running out. It’s very important as we become a more normal society that they hand those weapons in and start leading law-abiding lives in the community.”

The Minister said there is no political pressure on police to prevent any seizures.

“The only political pressure on the police is to do their job and that means bringing people to justice and that’s what people expect,” he said.

Asked if people who hold illegal arms also be brought to justice, Mr Goggins replied: “People who hold illegal arms should hand those weapons in and there’s a means for them to do that.”

He said he would not comment on police intelligence. “I think the onus here is on loyalists and indeed any people in Northern Ireland society who have access to and ownership of illegal weapons, their responsibility is to hand those in,” he said.

Mr Maskey said the PSNI’s attitude is “unacceptable and quite shocking”.

“Many will be angered by the comments made by Mr Sheridan and the position adopted by the PSNI,” he said. “To most people it is very simple — if you know where these weapons are — then go and get them.”

He said decommissioning legislation “is no barrier to the PSNI recovering loyalist weaponry”.

“Indeed it is the function of the PSNI to recover these guns,” the South Belfast MLA added. “The purpose of these weapons is to attack Catholics and protect organised crime rackets. Indeed, last year in Carrickfergus these very weapons were used to attack the PSNI.”

Alliance deputy leader Naomi Long said police should not be waiting for loyalists to decommission.

“If they know where any weapons are then they should act on that information and recover them,” she said.

“It would be good if loyalists decommissioned their own weapons but the police should not be sitting on their hands waiting for them to do so.

“There may be forensic evidence on these weapons on crimes carried out that they were used in that may be lost if they are handed over to be decommissioned.”
Search Query: Go

Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy has been killed by Israeli gunfire during a confrontation between troops and stone-throwing youths in a West Bank village, according to medics and witnesses.

The boy, Ahmed Moussa, was killed in Naalin, the site of frequent demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier, which threatens to swallow up hundreds of acres of Naalin’s olive groves.

(more…)

News Letter
30 July 2008

THE UDA is now prepared to talk about decommissioning after secret talks with the Government and the Chief Constable.

A top UDA figure told the News Letter that actual disarmament is not on its immediate agenda and getting rid of its armoury would have to be “part of a process” involving dealing with the concerns of loyalist communities.

Last year, during a confrontation with Stormont Minister Margaret Ritchie over funding for a loyalist community scheme, the largest paramilitary group had said disarmament was “not on our radar”.

The senior UDA figure said: “We said it was not on the radar. That position has moved on and we are at a point where people (the UDA) are talking about talking about it, but that is as far as it goes at the moment.”

Security Minister Paul Goggins and Sir Hugh Orde met members of the terrorist organisation’s ruling inner council in Belfast on Monday night.

The Northern Ireland Office and PSNI both confirmed the private discussions between members of the Ulster Political Research Group – the UDA’s political wing – and “other leading loyalists”.

These other loyalists included UDA “brigadiers” such as Jackie McDonald.

The meeting follows Secretary of State Shaun Woodward’s recent warning that if arms are not dealt with by loyalists before the decommissioning scheme ends in around 18 months, the authorities will pursue the terrorists and put them behind bars.

The UDA leader said: “What the Secretary of State said has had no impact and our position.

“This has to be a process – not ‘the IRA disarmed so you must disarm’.

“The folks on the hill (at Stormont) keep talking about normal society and moving on but none of that normality and no benefit has filtered down to loyalist communities. They feel as if the world is moving on without them.

“What has the Good Friday Agreement or St Andrews delivered? Ask the man in Sandy Row or on the Shankill or up in north Antrim.”

The reason for Sir Hugh Orde’s attendance at what most would view as a political dialogue remains unclear.

A PSNI spokesman said the meeting would have no impact on “the Police Service’s record on dealing with loyalist paramilitaries and those involved in criminality is very clear – it will not be tolerated”.

The meeting became public on the same day that the PSNI’s commitment to pursuing loyalist paramilitary arms came into question, after Assistant Chief Constable and Special Branch head Peter Sheridan was quoted as saying the police knew where the paramilitary weapons were.

Asked if police had intelligence to tell them where loyalists’ arms dumps are, he was reported as responding “In a word, yes”.

This prompted questions about why the PSNI was not seizing the armoury.

The News Letter put Mr Sheridan’s remark and this question to the police.

A PSNI spokesman did not deal directly with the query and instead said: “Police would never ignore intelligence which could help protect life and property.

“The PSNI’s record of combating loyalist criminality and paramilitary activity in recent years is a positive one.

News Letter
30 July 2008

A MAN who lost three generations of his family in the Omagh bombing has written a book dedicated to their memory to be published near the 10th anniversary of the bomb and what would have been his wife’s 75th birthday.
Beragh farmer Mick Grimes lost his wife Mary, granddaughter Maura and daughter Avril, who was pregnant with twins in the blast, devastating his entire family.

Even more heartrending was the fact that they had set off on their shopping trip into the town to celebrate his wife’s 65th birthday.

They never came home and his wife was never to see the flowers waiting on the kitchen table bought by her husband of more than 40 years, or any of the birthday cards from her 11 children, and life was never the same again in the homely farmhouse in the small Co Tyrone village.

Mr Grimes said he decided to write the book and dedicate it to his wife’s memory.

He said: “On different occasions over the years Mary sometimes hinted that I should try to write a book, but I knew in my heart that it was beyond my capability.

“Then in the years after the Omagh atrocity in 1998, the fact that I had made no effort to comply with my wife’s request sometimes caused me concern.

“About 18 months ago I decided to make an attempt.

“No doubt some readers will frown at my endeavour, but I like to think that somewhere beyond the great divide there is one who smiles.”

Mick, who’s now retired from farming, has dedicated his book Till We Meet Again to his wife, his daughter Avril Monaghan, her daughter Maura and Avril’s unborn twins, and to all those who lost their lives in the tragedy on August 15, 1998.

Till We Meet Again is described as “an insightful, charming and touching personal account of life ‘as it used to be’ in rural Northern Ireland”.

Mr Grimes gives a first-hand account of farming and family life lived in his close knit community in Beragh.

The narrative is punctuated with stories, humorous anecdotes, poems and observations, as he takes the reader from the ‘Hungry Thirties’ through wartime Ireland to present day.

Mr Grimes also gives a poignant account of the horrendous loss suffered by his family in the Omagh tragedy and his tender poetry offers a glimpse into the great love for the lost members of his family that still burns strong 10 years after the atrocity took them away.

The book will be launched at 8pm on Monday at Omagh library.

Till We Meet Again costs £10 or e12.50, and will be available at selected Easons bookshops and newsagents nationwide from Monday.

The book can also be purchased via the website http://tillwemeetagain.synthasite.com.