The Borefast Agreement

The great bores of Ireland have been at it again in the North this past week or two. Not that I spend a lot of time following it. It reminds me of one of those movies my kids watch so often that they know the lines verbatim, being able to speak in sync with the characters word for word. For me, the ability to maintain interest in anything served up ad infinitum, food, films or fools, demands either an iron will or no imagination. I am neither gifted nor cursed with either.

Political commentators must feel the same; they know it’s all action replay from beginning to end. Whatever angle it is viewed from it remains the same. They could as easily run some old news reel from years ago and the public would hardly notice the difference. While Blair and Ahern have moved on, the idea that old faces should not be thrown at old problems seems not to have registered up in Borefast, the North’s political capital. That probably goes some way to explaining the seeming intractability and longevity of the contentious bone. The issue is less a problem than its supposed solvers. Same old, same old, desperate to remain in power all these decades later; operating on the simple basis that ‘with no new faces to zoom in on, the cameras will have to look at us peeking out at them like peeping Toms from behind doors or whatever, still clinging to the notion of being indispensable.’ A few years ago the Irish Times described one of the North’s chief negotiators as someone who goes rigid with excitement the moment a camera is in the vicinity. There are other products on the market that should do that for him without involving a long suffering public.

On Friday I took a call from a Northern journalist inviting me to do some radio commentary on ‘developments’. Another deal had apparently been struck and agreement had at last been reached on policing and justice, none of which will improve the lives of anybody one iota. I declined. I could have gone in cold and did it, easily drawing on experience of what has flowed under the same bridge from the same sources since long before the two children here were born. I saw no point. I had little interest in it and had no inclination to make any serious effort to find out. It will make no difference to the lives of my children, and the North will be just as British this week as it was last. I sensed the journalist I was speaking with had the same feeling. But it is her job to keep people alert. How to keep them awake I felt was the real challenge. I did not envy her having to scavenge through the political rubbish tip in the hope of finding some caffeine like substance rather than sleeping tablets. I felt like telling her that a public health warning should be broadcast in advance of any news items coming out of Stormont: something like ‘do not drive or handle machinery after watching the following: it is liable to make you drowsy.’ But we knew that anyway as both of us reached for our caffeine laced coffees the minute we stopped talking about it. That's how I imagined our response - we were divided by the partition line so I couldn't actualy see her.

Sunday, evening, two days after the new agreement, I have little idea what it is. Haven’t listened to the news, bought a paper, not even the Sunday Tribune, or browsed the net. I have hardly missed anything. A Belfast journalist sent me a few texts. He seemed to have as much interest as I had.

The ancient Chinese wish for their enemies came in the form of a curse that they should live in interesting times. Nobody in the North of Ireland has ever upset China.

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Donegal Bag Man

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Ms Cahill’s Appeal

Which philosopher made the comment that what does not kill us makes us stronger, is not as important as the sagacity it embodies. It is a wisdom very much on display in the resilient human spirit of Ms Cahill, the young Belfast woman, who stepped into the breach and virtually sacrificed her anonymity to ensure her rapist did not maintain his. She has emerged from her experience very much alive and stronger and despite strong resistance to her efforts is fast blazing a trail deep into the conspiracy of silence that for so long has allowed abusers to go unidentified and unaccountable.

In taking the very public stance that she did it is hoped that she has become a source of great inspiration to those many bearers of the effects of double torture; first tortured by what happened to them and tortured for a second time by the silence they have been forced to undergo.

In her appeal to the wider republican community to dismantle the protective wall of silence that rapists and paedophiles have sheltered behind she has again stepped into the breach. Forcing the issue into the open makes it harder for any conspiratorial cabal to deal with to its own advantage and to the disadvantage of those who have been attacked by sexual predators.

Ms Cahill’s appeal, carried in a number of web outlets, is a very strong entreaty to people to do the right thing. In pointing out that ‘no one is blaming the republican movement for members of that movement who inflicted sexual abuse on others’ she is properly measured. As she states, the crux is ‘how the republican movement dealt with the issue’. What confronts the Provisional movement is not its involvement in systemic sexual abuse but its systemic cover up of sexual abuse. At the same time it cannot be denied that the systemic culture which gave rise to such cover ups was maintained from the top down by people who thought the poser of an awkward question was more of a threat than a molester.

The republicans I knew over the years and worked with struck me as despising rapists and paedophiles. But it seems that many of them were more ready to believe that one of their comrades might be an informer than to accept that he may have been a rapist. Ms Cahill’s attacker was hardly subject to the ‘South Armagh treatment’ - as a tough and often prolonged interrogation procedure was colloquially known within the Provisional movement. There was no sense of urgency to deal with the problem.

Like most other institutions, most notably the Catholic Church, the Provisional movement proved chronically incapable of properly investigating its own. This seems abundantly clear from the case of Ms Cahill and others who have recently emerged as having being attacked by abusers. The Louth TD, Arthur Morgan, alone seems to be the one party figure who despite a very shaky and inauspicious start has publicly stated that his party’s behaviour, and that of its leader, in respect of the Liam Adams case was somewhat less than glorious. Everyone else in the party, the leader included, seems to believe that both he and the party he presides over have done no wrong.

Almost certainly, Ms Cahill is right in suggesting that that there has been a lot more abuse inflicted by Provisional movement members either not properly addressed at the time or covered up since. Her call for this to be justly dealt with is one deserving of all backing.

However there has to be some concern about moving forward on the strength of ‘suspicion’ or what meanders through the ‘grapevine.’

The vagaries of suspicion for which the grapevine is fertile ground are not something that can be readily measured or easily categorised. Those of us who have had grounds to be suspicious of whoever for whatever reason over the years, only to find that our suspicions later proved as groundless as the grapevine was barren are mindful of a suspicion-based approach to anything. In today's climate members of Sinn Fein might just make an easy target. But where would it lead? A witch hunt of Sinn Fein members would be not only be wrong but also counter productive.

While there is nothing in Ms Cahill's appeal that would in itself necessarily serve as a catalyst for a witch hunt there remains a need when talking about a suspicion based approach to specify clearly what constitute grounds for suspicion. The bar must be raised very high. Too often suspicion has been indivisible from dislike.

No person who was ever abused should sit silent. Theirs is an evidence based claim, the evidence being their own experience at the hands of their attacker. They deserve justice. But justice is only secured when the case against those accused of abuse is justly made.

Ms Cahill is proving her emotional resolve and stamina by providing real leadership in the battle against systemic cover up of wide ranging sexual abuse. She has the determination to excise this malignancy from republican culture. If she is successful she will give a fresh impetus to the laughter of our children and scourge those who laughed at them.

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An Open Appeal to All Republicans

Today The Pensive Quill carries an article by guest writer Ms Cahill

An Open Appeal to All Republicans
Ms Cahill

Over the last number of weeks, there have been several allegations circulating – alleged to have been perpetrated by members of the Republican Movement.

There has been mixed reaction to this within the Republican Community, but particularly those within the Provisional republican movement, and those within Sinn Fein Circles. This reaction ranges from outright disgust, horror, condemnation, to the very damaging “turn a blind eye and say nothing” approach. There are obviously people understandably angry as a result – not least the victims. There is a lot of hurt within this community also, hurt which has been compounded by recent contradictions, mistruths, outright denials and certain media spin, which has the potential to deflect away from the real issue – the alleged cover up of paedophilia within certain quarters. Whatever that hurt, there are also families hurting too, people who are trying to come to terms with their lives right across this island, and trying to deal with the fact that members of these families were abused.

There are also parents, rightly angry and worried about their children. People are now backtracking through the years, wondering if their children have come into contact with perpetrators - and they are also rightly questioning if they trust the people they know now. This is a massive issue, and it is a disgrace that alleged child abusers have had free reign to have access to other children. Collectively, we now know more about the issue of sex offenders and reoffending rates. It is likely that perpetrators do not rehabilitate by just simply moving on somewhere else. We know as republicans of a number of cases being discussed at present – is this just the tip of the iceberg? How many more children have been put at risk as a result of mishandling, and in some cases planned facilitation of moving people around the country?

I also want to make it clear, paedophilia is not restricted to members of the Republican Movement. Unfortunately, paedophiles ingratiate themselves in all walks of life. In some instances they are our relatives, friends, priests, professionals, community and youth workers, lawyers, teachers, doctors – the list is endless. No one is blaming the republican movement for members of that movement who inflicted sexual abuse on others.

The blame, however is rightly centred around how the republican movement dealt with the issue, in several cases. It is clear from these cases that not once did the people involved either in so called investigating or in listening, directly report to any of the authorities. They also retraumatised victims of sexual abuse by either their chosen action, or inaction. It is also abundantly clear, for anyone who wishes to take the blinkers off, that paedophiles have been able to move around the country and further afield. In some cases they continued to masquerade as republicans, which in turn afforded them protection, or at the very least a degree of trust, which then also in turn made it easier for them to do what they did, unchecked. That is disgraceful, and brings a deep sense of shame on anyone who continues to support the republican ideology. The fault for this lies squarely with those in positions of power who espoused themselves as the epitome of republicanism, individuals who were looked up to by some, and who now feel tarnished by that association.

There are people out there now who have knowledge in different parts of Ireland on similar allegations of sexual abuse. Are you one of them? There are also people who have heard things on the grapevine about similar alleged cover-ups. Again, does this apply to you?

By not speaking out, you allow yourself to become complicit in the same alleged collective cover-up. I am appealing directly to all republicans from all persuasions to tell what you know. No perpetrator should be allowed to continue to abuse. No movement should give them succour by shielding them. And no republican should sit on the fence on this issue, waiting on other victims to come forward in the hope that the full story should start to emerge.

Be proactive. Do not continue with the legacy of silence. Out all the cases of child and adult sexual abuse. Highlight any suspicion, or knowledge of cover ups. Do this through whatever channel is comfortable for you. An email has been set up, by myself to deal with this issue. If this is an avenue you feel comfortable with using, use it.

I also want to directly appeal to those still within Sinn Fein. I am aware that some of you refuse to believe that this happened at all. People will make up their own minds on the issue. However, as a human, there has to be a shadow of doubt in your mind. Ask the hard questions, and demand an answer. If you are not happy, demand again. No one can afford to put politics over the safety of children. As a human being, you cannot afford to stay silent on this issue. Do the right thing.

Email: exposethetruth2010@hotmail.com

Is mise le meas

Ms Cahill

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Short Straw

It is not certain why the short straw ends up in the hands of Mary Lou McDonald on the issue of Sinn Fein’s handling of sex abuse cases carried out by party members or those with inextricable links to the party.

On the three occasions that she has faced Suzanne Breen of the Sunday Tribune, the paper's Northern editor has mauled her. Were McDonald playing professional soccer her performances would see her on a free transfer to a team well down the lower divisions by now. In these public exchanges she is emulating her track record in elections – losing.

On a number of points throughout last week’s Breen-McDonald mismatch on RTE’s Pat Kenny radio show McDonald displayed considerable weakness and showed signs of not having been adequately briefed as to what Suzanne Breen might say. She stumbled when Breen informed her that Killian Forde who had only defected from Sinn Fein to Labour had his profile removed from the party website but that the councillor against whom the allegations of abuse in Ardoyne still featured on it. When she criticised Breen for not having first gone to Sinn Fein about complaints of rape Breen pointed out that one of the the victims, Ms Cahill, had expressly asked that Sinn Fein not be told in case the party cranked up the intimidation machine. The reading out on air of Mairtin Og Meehan’s e mail to Breen confirming that Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams had been informed about the abuse of his sister left her reeling.

A former IRA leader with no love for journalists rang me immediately after the exchange on Kenny. He said it was like listening to Albert Einstein debating with the village idiot. McDonald’s performance was not as bad as that but it certainly was not good.

Mary Lou McDonald is an intelligent woman. She is capable of much better than her performances would suggest. But she has been dealt a very weak hand by her party leader and she is instructed to play with it to the bitter end in the ethical Stalingrad to which she has been sent in the middle of January without any winter clothing. In that pitiless theatre any party spokesperson thrown to the front without the proper apparel is immediately taken out with clinical accuracy.

When Mary Lou McDonald pontificates that the Sunday Tribune and its Northern editor are engaging in evasions and mistruths any gravitas she might have laid claim to prior to opening her mouth evaporates. There are few if any other papers in the country willing to week after week - including elevating the status of the allegations to the editorial - label the leader of one of the countries political parties an unmitigated liar in the absolute certainty that the leader accused of brazenly lying lacks the fortitude to have his day in court. That the paper is utterly confident in the making of such assertions is down to one very simple matter: the party of which Mary Lou McDonald is vice president has no standing when it comes to matters of political honesty.

She is further handicapped by having previously publicly expressed a belief in the one lie Sinn Fein without fail continues to tell about Gerry Adams – that he was never a member of the IRA.

Mary Lou McDonald can only play with the hand she has been given. Why it should be so underhand and ineffective is something she should seriously consider putting to the dealer. Failing that she can claim as many free tickets as she wants for her ride into irreversible negative political equity.

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Disappeared

I didn’t go out to get this morning’s Sunday Tribune. My wife bought it in Belfast before it was scooped up by either the censors or the interested. So I will read it tonight when she returns or alternatively get it online. In parts of West Belfast it seems to have been going quickly enough. A journalist friend sent me a text message around 9am saying ‘Trib sold out.’ A friend in Louth also sent me a text saying Gerry Adams will be like Houdini if he manages to escape this time. The two texts combined suggest today’s story is another strong one. Probably why the paper is sold out in some places and read before the first coffee of the day is out of the pot.

I suppose it being sold out rather than blacked out is something to be welcomed. People can access it and then make their minds up rather than being told by the censors that they alone read it and have deemed it unfit for human consumption. Whether the Shinners have actually been grabbing it hot from the printing press or are victims of a wind up I don’t know. Neither would surprise me. With the party’s fondness for thought control it is so easy for the mind’s eye to visualise its members running around newsagents in the fashion that they come out with their paint brushes to daub over graffiti they don’t like. At the same time their incessant mendacity is a comedian’s wet dream so it is easy to caricature them.

While sitting in a relaxed state of amusement courtesy of the image of censors running through West Belfast grabbing papers by the armful, a comment came through to The Pensive Quill from yet another female former republican prisoner claiming that:

there is more than an element of truth in what the ex-prisoner told you about Sinn Fein censoring the Sunday Tribune. For the third week in a row we have been unable to purchase a copy of this paper anywhere on the Falls Road.

There is reason to be grateful that the paper rather than the journalist is all that has been disappeared. Same place, different time, things might just have turned out very different.

Whatever the reason for the disappearing paper the quality of its journalism is forging its way to all corners of the island leaving the mark of authenticity faster than any censor can blot it out. A spotlight is being thrust into the midst of some of the most sustained but shallow dissembling in any political party in the county. Its unremitting probing is now causing Sinn Fein no small measure of grief, casting it as the Billy Liar of Irish politics. The blunders Sinn Fein has made along its journey away from republicanism would never have acquired the same significance were it not for the manner in which its leaders have explained away those blunders in terms which nobody really believes.

With each new explanation sounder dafter than the last, it is becoming evident that the party of war is incapable of becoming the party of peace. Peaceful politics requires an acumen best not acquired on the battlefield. The strategic lies of war make an ill fit in conditions of peace. The Man of War can take his party no further. He needs to make way for the leader of peace.

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Beadle’s About

Suzanne Breen and the Sunday Tribune are to be complimented for the sterling investigative journalism they are conducting. Tonight, as every Saturday night, is filled with a sense of expectation that tomorrow’s paper will be awash with new revelations. Belfast readers will have to be up earlier than usual. A former republican prisoner laughed as she told me Sinn Fein members were spotted buying the paper in bulk so that nobody else would get a chance to read them. If true, they must envy the Chinese for internet censorship. She read hers on-line.

Good investigative journalism always stimulates the mind. The sillier the responses of those being investigated the greater the whetting of the appetite for even more insights. Hiding the papers is as bad as having concealed the abuse issue to begin with.

Now if people were waiting on their curiosity to be assuaged by the BBC they will wait a long time. It seems to think the less society knows about contentious issues the better for it. Having hidden out in Haiti for almost a week, BBC television yielded to public interest and finally noticed the elephant charging through the news room. Even then the instinct was to feed the beast rather than corner it. The beast in question was not the Sinn Fein President per se but the issue of cover up and denial that growing numbers of people now suspect he was involved in. A queue of abuse victims is beginning to form outside his door demanding the justice they feel he has long denied them in his desire to place party before people and his own extended career before everything else. As James McErlean was fond of saying in the jail. ‘Lord pity me and screw the rest.’

Not that the BBC did a particularly good job in its handing of the matter. Rendered anaemic by the plague of the peace process which has suffocated all its vital signs it now flounders in the same news league as the doddering old Irish Times. The once proud paper of record just about manages to shuffle along in an advanced state of senility and timidity seemingly terrified of dropping any clangers about the peace process. Clumped together, BBC Northern Ireland and the Old Lady of D'Olier Street make a rare pair. Debilitated by investigative Alzheimer’s each forgets what it came for when they arrive on the door to ask the probing question. It is like watching a car being pushed with a rope.

During his televised interview Adams looked rattled as he was gently put through allegations of inertia in response to separate acts of serial rape and torture against a teenage girl and a ten year old child committed by his colleagues in the Provisional movement. Rather than give a plausible account of his role, whatever it was, he fell back on the hoary old defence that the paper tearing shreds from his credibility, the Sunday Tribune, was engaged in a campaign of untruths against him and the party he leads.

Whatever the strength of Sinn Fein’s case when it resorts to allegations of untruths and evasions its leaders invariably fail to get their well burst credibility ball over the line of believability. They are stopped short every single time. People just think they are being winded up when listening to Sinn Fein. They half expect the late Jeremy Beadle to jump out at the end of each Sinn Fein interview.

In a country of 5 million people, it is easy to find six million who don’t believe a word Sinn Fein says.

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Hannibal Lechter Cumann

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Ardoyne Assault & Battery

Throughout the course of the Northern conflict Ardoyne was a reluctant host community to serious acts of political violence. It was so rich in source material that one of the outstanding early academic works providing serious insight into the mindset of the IRA and the relationship between it and the community centred on ‘the district’ as its inhabitants fondly term it. Frank Burton for some now incomprehensible reason called Ardoyne ‘Anro’ in his book The Politics of Legitimacy.

The political violence that afflicted Ardoyne, and which is often documented on the ‘Ardoyne Republican’ blog, was a violence of the streets. People with a fair measure of justification often claimed that some violent act happened right on their front door.

But behind some of those front doors a different type of violence occurred; a violence that was at the same time terrifying and concealed. Occasionally the twitch of a curtain or a muffled scream revealed its existence but more often than not it was conducted out of both sight and earshot of the public.

These days it is hard enough to get the Sunday Tribune. Shop after shop informs its customers ‘all gone’. One friend told us they tried three newsagents only to be told the same thing in each. The early bird gets the worm. Last Sunday I wormed my way out of bed just early enough to get a copy, having learned my lesson from the week before where the usual outlet had run out of copies. I am not quite sure I am happy about my successful acquisition. It is not possible for me to read what Martin Og Meehan has called the ‘great investigative journalism from Suzanne Breen ...’ and put the paper down satisfied at a good read. Breen’s story on the horrific abuse of an Ardoyne child is anything but a good read; it is simply horrifying.

The article is well written; in fact too well written. It places the reader in the position where they can almost smell the fear of a tortured child and sense its terror as the abuser returns for another round. Suzanne Breen’s brilliance as a journalist is that she does not bring the story to you but brings you to it; mentally places you at the scene of the crime; leaves you feeling that you want to shower after visiting the chamber of horrors so that you can be cleansed of the terrible knowledge that has seeped into the pores of your mind. For me the horror is accentuated due to the long standing friendship and comradeship I shared with the survivor’s father, one of the true republican greats, the late Martin Meehan. The only sense of relief I could draw from it all was that Martin died before he ever found out, rather than dying much earlier from finding out. How could he have survived the following account of what his daughter was forced to endure at the hands of her abuser who she referred to as X?

I was so scared that I wet the bed. X wouldn't let me change the sheets. I had to sleep in the ones soaked with my own urine. The mattress became infested with maggots. The smell from the bucket, and the bed, was overpowering. It made me throw up ... When I cried or screamed to get out of that room, X clasped my mouth shut. Then, X beat me with their hand and a belt [and] made me drink my own urine. This happened many times ... If I didn't finish my dinner, X left it there for days and I wasn't allowed to eat anything until I ate that food. Once, X filled the bath and held my head under the water until I passed out. Another time X cut off all my hair with a razor blade ... Sometimes, I cried so hard during a beating that I could hardly breathe. X monitored my every move. When X sent me to the shops, X timed me. If I was back one minute late, X beat me. X made me come into the living room at night when everyone else was in bed. X lay on the sofa naked and drunk. I was forced to touch X sexually. "X threatened to kill me if I didn't. X said if I was killed nobody would miss me because nobody cared about me. When I refused to touch X sexually, I was beaten until I did. X sexually violated me, using wine bottles ... I didn't tell anyone X was responsible for my injuries because I was terrified of X. I was a child of 10 living in total fear.

And on it goes. A story of sordid sadism inflicted on a ten year old girl.

There is too much independent evidence supporting the claims of abuse to allow any other interpretation of what this child went through. She was tormented and tortured, bullied and battered, neglected and humiliated, denied love and told no one would care because no one loved her.

There should be a special type of offence created for certain crimes against children. It should not be used for every wrong that happens to a child. That would devalue its purpose and give it a mundane feel that would fail to allow it to register in our minds when we hear of it. Too liberally applied it would not stop us in our tracks and jolt us out of our complacency. It should be used only against a particular type of person, which would not include the standard but loathsome paedophile, the school or playground bully, the parent or sibling who lashes out in anger. Crimes against Children should resonate in the public mind and create the same sense of revulsion as Crimes against Humanity. It would apply to those who tortured and murdered Baby Peter in London; it should also be used against the monster who made this Ardoyne child’s life a hell on earth, the only place there is a hell – and like heaven, all man made.

Crimes against Children – no forgiveness, no forgetfulness. Chase those culpable to the ends of the earth.

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Ballymurphy Rape

the man who raped me, was nearly 40 and a prominent west Belfast IRA member ... I was frightened because of his position in the IRA and I didn't want to cause pain to my family. When I didn't speak out the first time, it set a pattern which I now deeply regret, but I was only 16 then – Ms Cahill.

It made for harrowing reading. A young woman from West Belfast narrated to the Sunday Tribune her account of the persistent sexual violence she was subjected to by a serial rapist who was also a member of the Provisional IRA and a former republican prisoner in West Belfast’s Ballymurphy. While his membership of the IRA did not prompt him to rape, it did, however, effectively allow him to get away with it.

For long enough I thought I was the republican facing the most problems in Ballymurphy for having the temerity to suggest that Sinn Fein would end up just about where they are now. On my side I had the benefit of experience and was prepared to mix it with my detractors in public. I could always draw public attention to my situation. Here was a teenage girl whose torment went on in the shadows; who because of the anonymous pressure of the group coupled with a sense of loyalty to the movement which her family had given so much to, was forced to undergo much more than I ever had to put up with. Unlike me she felt unable to speak out. A teenager being repeatedly raped by a prominent local IRA member and she had to suffer in silence, alone, in order to maintain the pretence demanded by ‘the Movement’ that it was without blemish. There was nothing in my experience that comes close to the pain and misery that this young woman was put through. Her attacker would later go on to sexually assault two relatives of the raped woman, one aged 17 the other 14. Like fellow rapist, Liam Adams, he was shunted off to Donegal.

What makes this crime all the worse is that the rapist was a member of Community Restorative Justice. Although it can’t be held culpable for his behaviour, people were encouraged to go to that body rather than the RUC. Yet here we had one of its key officials showing that he could inflict more harm and injustice on this young republican than the RUC ever would. The raped woman’s great uncle, Joe Cahill, who served as the second Provisional IRA chief of staff, recognised this much when he asserted she should have gone to the RUC about her experience.

Ms Cahill is all we can refer to her as out of respect for her wishes not to have her first name put out in the public sphere. She was a member of Ogra Sinn Fein at the time she underwent these horrendous acts of sexual violence. Despite her experience she remained in Sinn Fein and carried out a number of party functions. That took tremendous courage for which she deserves admiration. This young woman, on occasion reduced to tears by the nonchalant response of members of ‘the Movement’ to her plight, faced greater challenges in her bid to remain a member than they ever did. Carrying on against British state repression may be one thing but to carry on when those supposed to be your comrades and colleagues were the oppressors took some doing.

It also took equal amounts of real courage - not the ‘imaginative’ phoney courage we often hear mentioned in association with the endless summersaults of the peace process – to emerge into the public spotlight and tell her story. It is no easy task to stand in the national press speaking to the best investigative journalist in the country, Suzanne Breen, and bare it all. It took her five hours because of the emotional trauma involved.

The attacks on Ms Cahill are not the only allegation of rape to have been made against a member of the Ballymurphy IRA in which the survivor claimed there was a cover up or a fobbing off. Others have complained of having been violently sexually assaulted only to be given the run around when they raised their complaint to Sinn Fein.

It is brave talented people like Ms Cahill that a once principled movement has lost because ‘a few powerful individuals put the preservation of the movement and their own position above the safety of children’.

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Pantomime Politics

Keeping the best wine to the last was not what Peter Robinson had in mind as the Christmas season drew to a close and the best political pantomime in years took to the stage, a little late but no less funny despite its lack of seasonality. Sinn Fein, in pursuit of parity of esteem, has not been willing to allow the DUP to have the silly season all to itself. It sent Mary Lou McDonald out to stumble and stagger along the airwaves so that it too could for once make a genuine claim that it is a co-equal in the ministry of something. The Ministry of Clowns might not have been agreed as part of either the Good Friday or St Andrew’s Agreement but sure it’s the peace process and most don’t seem to mind if things inside the package don’t always match up to the label.

Can Peter Robinson survive? Most people I talk to profess to think not. There is said to be huge dissatisfaction smouldering within the DUP over its leader who while once a major strategic asset is now sailing close to the wind of electoral liability. But things are not so sure. Although the DUP has considerably more talent in reserve than Sinn Fein, Robinson would still be hard to replace. The party pulled a master stroke in bringing in Arleen Foster to manage the first ministry. Robinson was able to step aside rather than step down. The party, buffeted and battered, has created space in which to regroup and consider its options. Robinson put in a solid performance in his interview in today’s Sunday Times with Liam Clarke and if nothing further emerges about irregularities of one sort or another he might well survive.

BBC Spotlight nailed Iris Robinson, easily depicting her as a crook. It laboured, however to get Peter into the dock. BBC Panorama did no better. Establishing a prima facie case means little other than ‘at first glance’ something isn’t right. The financial irregularities allegations against Peter Robinson looked weak when compared to the much more serious case made against his fellow party leader in Sinn Fein who stands accused of having covered for and promoted within the party a man he believed to be a child rapist. In fact the equality agenda meant that once the press pack snapped and bit at Robinson, it had little choice but to remove the muzzle and turn its attention towards Gerry Adams otherwise face charges of undiluted bias.

What Robinson now needs to overcome is the ridicule that his wife’s shenanigans have served up to him in US size portions. While the DUP has cleverly moved to insulate itself from ridicule ingress by creating the quarantine for Robinson to deal with it himself, the outcome is by no mean assured. Were this a serious thriller Robinson could easily weather the storm and steady the ship. But this has more of the circus than the thriller to it. A figure of controversy can continue to lead even if walking precariously and perilously if he manages to keep his balance. But a figure of ridicule who slips on every banana skin or takes every cream pie right up the face is going to have his work cut out. Forcing Iris to walk the plank by no means assures him that calm seas lie ahead once the storm is weathered. But for now the political weathervane must be blowing his way.

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