Cartoons by Brian Mór

Happy Halloween

John Murphy with a review of a book on Karl Marx. It initially featured on Bogtrotter on 7 September 2013

In 53 pages of actual text, this tiny booklet takes on an enormous topic. Terry Eagleton starts off and dives in without hesitation or background, for that matter. He expects the reader to be familiar with the basics of Marx's theory, and he divides these compressed chapters into philosophy, anthropology, history, and politics. Eagleton packs a hefty load of thought-provoking applications of a humanist Marx into this pocket-sized introduction, yet not that, more a small monograph, for Routledge's series "The Great Philosophies."

I'm unsure who may be the ideal reader for this ambitious condensation. I have some familiarity but far from in-depth expertise with the formidable Marx; Eagleton wisely selects early on enticing excerpts from primary texts to illustrate Marx's insistence that ideology based in material conditions must emerge from the ability of people to create a space in which to flourish which enables thought and reflection. This space cannot be gained until material advances occur. Therefore, radical change must happen, and Eagleton insists that such progress emerges more from a benign, "somewhat anarchistic" commonwealth of a cooperative band of "free associations," rather than the institutional tyranny many associate with the state socialism imposed and rejected since Marx himself.

Terry Eagleton's "Marx": Book Review

Sandy Boyer of Radio Free Eireann with an announcement about an upcoming event featuring Gerry Conlon who was wrongly convicted in the 1970s by the British state on bombing charges. 

Gerry Conlon will be at O'Lunney's Time Square Pub (45 St. Between 6 Ave & Broadway) Monday November 4 at 6:30 pm.

Movie and Conversation with Gerry Conlon

"The life of Joseph was as valuable as any other life.
The right to truth in this case is as fundamental as the right to truth in other cases such as the late Pat Finucane and our loved one Francisco Notaratonio.
We demand justice for all of them.
Does Sinn Fein really think that we would differentiate between our lost loved ones and demand the truth only about Francisco and not about Joseph?
So much for parity of esteem and equality."

All grieving families ‘have the right to truth’
Irish News, Andersonstown News,
9 November 2000
Statement from the Family of Joseph O Connor


On Sunday I learned that Danny Morrison had acknowledged that the ‘IRA did Claudy. Among the awful things my Movement did.’ He was hardly making any earth shattering revelation. Society already knew who did Claudy just as it has always known. Sean McStiofain’s inquiry into the 1972 bombing of the County Derry village which exonerated the IRA of responsibility was a whitewash on a par with Widgery. The Derry Brigade’s statement a few years back that it was not responsible, while most likely true, did not say what most others suspected: that the brigade did not have to be responsible in order for the IRA as a corporate body to be culpable. Some other brigade most likely wreaked the devastation.

Families Who Were Lied to

Beano Niblock with a review of the Pearse Elliot play Man In The Moon which initially featured in the Long Kesh Inside Out site on 3 October 2013.



Ticket to the Moon


Anti-Internment White Line Picket

This article is in response to an article by Irish News Editor Noel Doran that featured on Letters Blogatory.

It was pleasing, if hardly intellectually stimulating, to find Noel Doran at last do something other than use the threat of legal coercion to silence voices he takes umbrage at. However, it has hardly gone unnoticed that he concluded his piece with a call for a robust piece of writing to be suppressed. I will not wait to the end of this current piece to tell him that is not going to happen. The article by Paul Campbell stays in place, and if wasting time suits him, Noel Doran can have a censor lawyer use up a paper mill churning out threatening letters by the tonne.

The Goose, the Gander, and the Irish News: Response to Noel Doran

Guest writer Gerard Hodgins with a piece asking questions of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in relation to allegations of covering up rape. Mr Hodgins is a forner blanket man who took part in the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike.

The Bishop of Louth
Gerry Adams is man very much in the public eye; he leads a political party in Ireland and was once the leader of The Republican Movement. He is a consummate politician who can play the media to his tune while evading and reinventing events to his interpretation. And when the media scrutiny gets too close to the bone he invokes the prerogatives of “private family affair” and “disgruntled opponents of the peace process”.

Our revenge will be the laughter of our children....


GERRY CONLON




Live on Radio Free Eireann
Saturday October 26 1 pm
From Rocky Sullivan’s of Red Hook 34 Van Dyke St, Brooklyn


IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE BROADACST

A screening of
“In The Name of the Father”
Staring Daniel Day Lewis as Gerry Conlon


For Travel Directions Call Rocky Sullivan’s 718 246 8050

Gerry Conlon on Radio Free Eireann

... it's common knowledge that Osama bin Laden received all his funding and his arms and ammunition from America, when he was useful against the Russians, and Saddam was funded and armed when he was useful against Iran. You know, it's just short-term expediency breeding huger long-term problems is hardly unique to American foreign policy. It happened to Ancient Rome, too. It happened to Napoleon. All those parallels I make in the novel, it's really about power, and the paranoia within power that brings about its own eventual dissolution - Janet Turner Hospital

Not since the magnetising Moris Farhi novel The Last of Days, absorbed during my prison days, have I read a novel in this genre: much of the action takes place within the confines of a plane, adding to the claustrophobic effect. My misfortune a couple of years ago was to have picked up Due Preparations for the Plague shortly after takeoff from Dublin Airport en route to Majorca and its sweltering heat.  I was not prepared.

The juncture for publication is one of the strengths of this book. At the same time it worked against the original plot. Effectively written prior to 9/11, having been started in 1999, Janette Turner Hospital felt compelled to rework elements of her work prior to publication in 2003 rather than deal with the fall out she anticipated particularly in America. Self censorship? To some extent, it must be. The spine of the narrative was a plane hijacking with devastating consequences far beyond the ‘crash site.’ The plane of course in this novel did not crash but was blown up on an Iraq runway.

Due Preparations for the Plague


National Graves Association Fundraiser


TPQ
features the sixth and final piece in a series of a verbatim transcript of the cross examination of Gerry Adams at his brother Liam's first trial. Liam Adams was subsequently convicted of raping his daughter.


In this section of the cross examination Mr Adams is accused of being concerned primarily with saving his political skin. 

The Lying: Part 6


TPQ features the fifth in a series of a verbatim transcript of the cross examination of Gerry Adams at his brother Liam's first trial. Liam Adams was subsequently convicted of raping his daughter.

In this section of the cross examination Mr Adams has no recollection of having reported Aine's mother for head lice despite not having reported his brother for child rape. 

The Lying: Part 5

Lama



TPQ features the fourth in a series of a verbatim transcript of the cross examination of Gerry Adams at his brother Liam's first trial. Liam Adams was subsequently convicted of raping his daughter.

In this section of the cross examination Mr Adams responds to questioning about his knowledge of Liam Adams being shuffled about the heart of mr Adams' West Belfast constituency despite Gerry Adams knowing the abuse allegations against him. He also faces scrutiny in relation to not javing reported his knowledge to the RUC.


The Lying: Part 4

Guest writer Ricky O’Rawe with a review of Belfast playwright Pearse Elliot's latest production.




The Man in the Moon

TPQ features the third in a series of a verbatim transcript of the cross examination of Gerry Adams at his brother Liam's first trial. Liam Adams was subsequently convicted of raping his daughter.

In this section of the cross examination Mr Adams, under pressure from barrister Eilis McDermott, claims not to remember Liam having lived in his home for a six week period. He is also asked about his knowledge of Liam working with children after he had become aware that his brother had been sexually abusing his own daughter.


The Lying: Part 3

Today, on the 13th anniversary of IRA volunteer Joe O'Connor being gunned down by Stormont militia men, TPQ features this piece by guest writer Carrie Twomey. It was originally published to mark the 10th anniversary of his killing on Slugger O'Toole, under her pen-name, Rusty Nail, and is an article that bears repeating. It is hard to believe that Joe was not taken out on the orders of his MP, but all we have gotten on that was more lies.

Killing Joe O’Connor

TPQ runs the second in a series of articles which reproduce the verbatim cross examination of Gerry Adams during the first trial of his brother Liam earlier this year. Liam Adams was subsequently convicted of the rape of his daughter.

In tonight's feature Gerry Adams is persistently accused of lying by barrrister, Eilis McDermott. Mr Adams took exception to her accusations.

The Lying: Part 2

TPQ over the coming nights will feature the full court transcript of the cross examination of Gerry Adams during his brother Liam’s trial at Belfast Crown Court. Liam Adams was at a subsequent trial convicted of the raping his daughter. Since then Mr Adams has come under intense pressure to explain his behaviour in the wake of allegations from his niece that her own father had been seriously sexually abusing her. 

The Lying: Part 1

A night or two ago while browsing the web the following headline caught my attention: Senior PSNI figure at centre of financial allegations.

It was not because there was a senior PSNI member at the centre of something sordid. That has been standard fare for policing in the North. It is hard not to remember the claims by John Stalker that when the PSNI was officially called the RUC its chief constable tried intimidating him in a bid to dissuade him from probing too deeply into police killings in the North.

Covering up The Detail

Today Ed Moloney asks, Why Did The Provos Hide Liam Adams In America? It initially featured on The Broken Elbow on 8 October 2013.

Cartoon by John Kennedy which has never been seen before.
It deals with another key and perhaps related issue: Gerry Adams’ knowledge of the affair.
Thanks John.
I have been getting some queries about an intriguing piece I wrote back in early 2010 about what was then the emerging pedophile scandal embroiling Liam Adams and his much better known older brother Gerry. It concerned a mysterious trip to the United States by Liam in 1984, clearly under circumstances where he was effectively on the run and in hiding.

Why Did The Provos Hide Liam Adams In America?

Guest writer Antaine Mac Dhomhnaill writes of his experience of the systemic cover-up of sexual abuse within the Provisional Republican Movement.

I watched the initial exposure of child rapist Liam Adams some time ago in the company of a Belfast Republican and former POW who had served a sentence in Long Kesh. There was sadness in the room along with obvious horror and confusion. I do not know and I have never asked if my company that evening had known beforehand of this case, but it will always be, in my mind, the night when many worlds met.

A Trust Betrayed

Guest writer Dixie Elliot with a satirical piece on the new jobs initiative in Belfast.

1,000 new jobs for Belfast they say...

Stream Fiddle

Today The Pensive Quill carries correspondence between NUJ Member-for-life Ed Moloney and Irish News Editor Noel Doran that previously featured on The Broken Elbow.
Scroll down for updated (October 3) correspondence

Noel Doran Declines Right To Reply In Allison Morris Scandal
Ed Moloney

September 30, 2013

Noel Doran Declines Right To Reply In Allison Morris Scandal - with updated correspondence


One Ireland: One Vote Public Meeting


Eileen Doherty was killed 40 years ago today. She was 19 and had no political affiliation. Just a nationalist teenager who had spent the evening with her boyfriend in the Lower Ormeau Road as she often did. Shortly before her death she called at Atlas Taxis at the corner of Cooke Street and the Ormeau Road. Her intention was to catch a cab home to Slieveban Drive in Andersonstown.

She was already there by the time I hobbled into the same depot on crutches. If Ronnie or some of the other drivers was on call, and had a one-passenger fare, they would take one of the local youth with them for the spin and a yarn. I got to so many parts of Belfast I would never have ventured into on foot courtesy of Ronnie. He was a Protestant but we had no reason to fear him.  No matter where we happened to be he would pick us up if we called the depot and asked for him.

The night before, filled with cider, I had kicked a glass door in and damaged my Achilles tendon. For a year or two it continued to give me trouble. Unable to put my foot on the ground I had to get around with crutches. Eileen was not there alone. Two men, a few years older than myself, were seated seemingly waiting on a taxi. One at least appeared to be drunk, hunched over with face in his hands, only looking up occasionally. The other sat there but made no attempt to conceal his features. I assumed they had been on the drink in the local Sticky club and were, like Eileen, trying to make their way home on a Sunday evening. There were no taxis available and I spent about half an hour there talking with Eileen. She was of slim build and we would wind her up by calling her ‘Skin.’ We were about three years younger than she and would banter with her any time we met up. She was a frequent visitor to the road so we all knew her. I was a friend of her fiance.

I left before John Sherry arrived to pick up at the depot. He was the boss of the place and wasn’t as friendly towards the local youth as his drivers. It was just his way. I bade Eileen goodbye and thought no more of it. The following morning I lay on in bed, leg too damaged to allow me to go to my work as an apprentice terrazzo layer. When I got up my mother told me that a girl had been shot dead the night before. I didn’t immediately pick up on the name but as it dawned on me I recall hobbling out of the house which faced the depot.

As the day progressed we managed to piece the event together.  Driving along the Ormeau embankment, John Sherry was confronted by one of the passengers holding a gun. It is said he rammed a traffic isle and pushed Eileen out the passenger door while managing to get himself out the driver side. As they made their way on foot to safety they saw the hijacked taxi come back round. Both ran but Eileen tripped. Her killers were onto her within seconds, her life blotted out in a second of sectarian hatred.

Monday afternooon saw me standing at the junction of McClure Street and the Ormeau Road with friends in a state of gloom and anger. A man approached and showed his ID card telling me he was a detective. I think his name was Tommy Meake. He said he was investigating the killing and asked us had we heard anything or noticed anything suspicious while his colleague talked to others on the other side of McClure Street.  I and another teenager told them we had been in the depot with Eileen and the men who would shortly take her life. The cop seemed stunned, as if he had hit the bulls eye on his first throw. Within minutes we were in a police car and taken to Castlereagh and then onto Knock. We told them what we had seen and answered any questions they asked us. They seemed grateful.

I attended the wake for the coffin, which had been closed to viewing, leaving the house to make the short journey to St Agnes chapel.  We called to the White Fort just after it. It was my first time in it. 16 year olds could get into bars easily enough then. The following day I attended the funeral but due to the injury I was carrying I was unable to take a lift of the coffin. The sunshine of the day could not contain the darkness. 

Months before her first anniversary I found myself in jail. When released I would, with Eileen's friend Peggy, call on Sundays and see her parents and spend hours talking to her mother.  A bright light had gone out in that house.  I ended up jailed again and lost contact. By chance I met up with Eileen’s mother again in 2004 at a memorial mass for an 19 year old IRA volunteer who had been killed by the IRA for reasons known only to some of the more malign minds in the organisation.  Their whispering that he was an informer grew weaker over the years until the tipping point was reached and the IRA had to admit that he was no such thing. Eileen’s mother was there, having shared the same horrible experience of seeing 19 years of love and nurturing obliterated in a second of political violence.

This year Bobby Rodgers, a loyalist previously sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a man because he was a Catholic was convicted of the killing of Eileen Doherty. He again received a mandatory life sentence. He will serve two years courtesy of the Good Friday Agreement. Two years for taking the life of Eileen Doherty seems so gratuitously offensive. Her life was priceless and no amount of prison time could ever compensate for it being robbed from her.

When I first learned that a man had been charged with killing Eileen my body quivered with emotion.  Yet in spite of my strong memories of her death I don’t believe the conviction of Bobby Rodgers serves any real purpose. The trial judge said Rodgers did not pull the trigger which means all we really know is that at some point he was in the car. There are similarities here with the case of Brian Shivers who had his double murder conviction quashed as the appeal court held that if he was part of an operation after the fact but did not know what the operation entailed he could not be guilty of murder. 

Eileen’s family has taken some solace from the conviction. But it seems to me that what it has been given is a formal verdict in a Diplock court which has bypassed trial by jury.  Rodgers has denied the charge, and trust in the findings of a Diplock Court would not be reassuring. In real time the sentence, limited by political necessity, will not salve the family's grief. If ever Kipling's phrase East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet was applicable outside of the context in which he wrote it, it is to the gap between what is considered politically necessary and what is just.

We do not know why Eileen was targeted specifically nor what the decision making process was. Nobody has volunteered to tell us and it is unlikely that anybody ever will. We will not be told who stood over a terrified teenager and fired bullets into her head or why, what they thought they were doing as they travelled in the car with a 19 year old on a destination with death planned and ultimately implemented by them. We don’t know if the security forces played a hand. The UFF which claimed the killing said that Eileen was in the guard of honour at the funeral of IRA volunteer Jim Bryson who had died a week before her. It was untrue but did somebody feed that information to the UDA? Probably not, the killing seems to have been purely random, but we can never be sure. We will never know where the weapons came from.

The people who can most likely answer those questions with authenticity, and provide leads where they can’t provide answers for the family, are the men who were in that depot on that night and who took Eileen on the last journey of her short life. Prosecutions are never going to bring that knowledge forward. The very threat of them helps ensure that such knowledge remains hidden. This is probably why the threat is used. We know it is not in the slightest related to justice. The HET demonstrated that much. The British state security services need to ensure that they control the narrative of the past, what comes out and what stays hidden. They want to ensure that anybody thinking of revealing the dirty secrets of the state knows they will face prosecution.

A non-prosecutorial method of truth recovery is needed more than ever. It will be imperfect but nevertheless an improvement on the truth thwarting process of prosecution that currently serves to stifle rather than vent. Many secrets are buried away forever and time is running out for those that are accessible but soon too will sink beyond hope of retrieval.

Eileen Doherty