Clifford Peeples is not exactly the sort of person who would be high up on most peoples’ list of possible dinner guests. There doesn’t seem to have been a brand of violent Loyalism that he has not been involved with, no outer limit of wacky, ultra-Protestant evangelism that he has not crossed. And then there were those pipe bomb attacks in the late 1990’s for which he was given a ten-year jail term.
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| Clifford Peeples, on the right, leaves Long Kesh with Pastor Kenny McClinton |
I would not have a problem entertaining him myself but others would. I have spent much of my professional life breaking bread or ingesting stronger substances with greater and more mendacious blackguards than he, and while I have never met Mr Peeples, he strikes me from a distance as an honest type. Loopy almost surely, but probably sincere. Others I have entertained did or ordered worse than he and happily admitted so in my presence but now pretend it never happened. So, who is worse, who is worthy of more respect?
Anyway, these days Peeples wears a different hat, or rather has another hat to wear alongside the others hanging in his wardrobe. I don’t know what he does politically or whether he still preaches in a tin hut somewhere in the desolate wastes of north or east Belfast but currently he also practises as a freelance photographer.
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Purists in my profession would cavil at the notion of a political activist doubling as a journalist but personally I don’t have a problem with it at all. Politics and journalism go together like fish and chips and while I do try to separate my own views from my reporting, I understand it in others – as long as they are upfront and straight about it. In practice I have found the reporters most po-faced on the issue to be the most hypocritical.
What I do mind however is when journalists allow their political differences, or personal animosities fueled by political differences, to spill out in public shows of malevolence and threats of violence, especially when the effect is to stop or obstruct a journalist doing his or her job.
According to Clifford Peeples this is what happened to him in the centre of Belfast last Friday night during Loyalist demonstrations in Royal Avenue against an anti-internment rally being staged by republican dissidents. Eye-witnesses apparently support his story.
Peeples was on assignment for a website called ‘Ulster News’ which seems to be relatively new addition to the internet, given that the only story running on it is about his experience last Friday evening. He was, he says, busy taking photographs of the developing riot when he was verbally assaulted by a fellow journalist and so violent was the onslaught that a policeman on riot duty had to leave the lines to intervene. I don’t know what the source of the anger towards Peeples was, but the chances are that it has its origins in his political activity.
This is how he described the attack:
Screaming that I was a “dirty fat bastard” and continuing with threats of “I’m going to fix you, you Fucking Fat, Fucking Cunt”. This continued as I tried to report on what was taking place. Police officers were being injured and a full riot was now about to engulf Royal Avenue…….I told him to stop screaming obscenities and if he wanted he could talk to me later round the corner. He continued on his obscenity fueled diatribe, making more threats of physical violence towards me. Something that was of concern to those standing around him. One woman was telling him to, “stop behaving like some mad man on drugs”. His disgraceful barrage became too much for one riot control officer, who broke away from keeping public order and publicly reprimanded him, telling him he would be arrested if he were to continue. The officer came to me and told me that he had warned him about his behaviour and that I should stay away from him. The officer then reengaged with the riot control team.
So who was the journalist allegedly attacking Peeples? Turns out, in the account of Peeples, it was Ciaran Barnes, Sunday Life reporter and the man whose oblique reporting of Dolours Price’s IRA career touched off the Boston College subpoenas and who, using a false name on the internet, urged me to hand over the interviews so confidential sources could be burned, the worst sin in journalism’s playbook.
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| Ciaran Barnes |
From Dixie
ReplyDeleteA dissident journalist?
Then again, that's a term reserved by the Deputy First for journalists who don't tow the peace processing line by telling the truth, exposing his lot and other dastardly things of a dissenting nature.
So is Ciaran Barnes a dissident journalist?
Nah! Just someone not too pleased that he sat on the tack he placed there for others to sit on.
The Hack with a tack!
Ouch!!
The fat user "Peeples" was born in 1970 , so he would have been 11 years old during the fateful hunger strikes. He was hated by his own people, classed as a user and a British Agent ("The Pastor"), He would jump on any bandwagon that gave him popularity. It is said that he persuaded King Rat (Billy Right) to Leave the UVF and form the LVF. Which he did. He was also Leader of the "Orange Volunteers". The RUC placed a bugging device in his car in 1999, he was recorded speaking to a prominent DUP mp. His church was searched and Grenades were found, But , "NO CHARGES were made! I honestly cant tell the difference between "People" and "Morrison" , Morrison stated, "with an Armalite in one hand and a Ballot paper in the other" , Peoples = "With Grenades and pipe Bombs in one hand and a BIBLE in the other. I keep asking myself, was he trying to climb to Big "Ian Paisley's" stature , and own several churches and become a millionaire.
ReplyDeleteItsjustmacker,
ReplyDeletewhatever the perspective on Peeples, I came to the conclusion many years ago that he was a very talented writer who could reach people if he continued to write in the vein that he did rather than go down the pastor/politico/paramilitary path. His Fortnight description of life in Maghaberry was (along with Sean Kearney's piece on his approaching death) one of the best pieces produced in the magazine that I had read. I contacted the then editor to comment on the piece and express surprise that somebody so seemingly rabid could write with such sensitivity and creativity.
Ironic that you should mention Morrison because his views on most things are anathema to me but I recall an article he once wrote for the Tribune (I think) on literature which was brilliantly put together and still stands out as one of the finest pieces I read in the paper.
I guess it reminds us not that our views on a person are not legitimate but rather that they may be one dimensional.
It is how we negotiate the relationship between the dimensions. Michael Stone was a talented artist but that creative dimension of his character failed to push aside the more sinister and destructive aspect.