New York Attorney-At-Law, Martin Galvin last month had a letter in the Irish News challenging the view of Trevor Ringland. 

Re: Trevor Ringland -No excuse for preventing pension payments to Troubles' victims August 2, 2017


A chara,

                                            Trevor Ringland's modest proposal for pensioning injured Troubles' victims, is too slanted even for a Tory-DUP regime. Let the crown pay pensions to all injured victims, says he, except Republicans who must look after themselves. Pay loyalists from separate accounts, (perhaps as British agents, informers, former UDR etc).

Mr. Ringland cannot expect us to take his scheme seriously. It seems merely another chance to drumbeat his refrain that the (1969-98)struggle for freedom from British rule was not "justified and necessary".

His message is badly timed. Events like the recent Glennane judgment and this week's Internment and Ballymurphy protests raise inescapable questions.

Why did men and women come to believe it morally "justified and necessary" to join the IRA's fight to end British rule in numbers sufficient to carry that fight almost three decades? What moved them, including some future Stormont Ministers, to risk death or imprisonment against overwhelming British forces?

Events provide obvious answers. British officials granted Brian Faulkner's wish for Internment. British forces on August 9,1971 terrorized families across the north, jailed hundreds without charge, and began a catastrophic policy they continued for four years.

They handpicked innocent men held without charge, to be hooded and tortured.

Over three days British Paras shot ten people dead, including a Catholic priest, guilty of nothing except living in Ballymurphy. Another died from a mock execution. The crown rubberstamped and whitewashed these murders. They stonewall inquests today.

Has Mr. Ringland no idea why second class citizens of a carved out sectarian state, might see it "justified and necessary" to fight the regime which imprisoned without charge, massacred and tortured? Should they have kept to peaceful protests after Bloody Sunday?

Did the British also arm, pay and otherwise collude with loyalist criminals in carrying out murders? Families and friends of many of more than 100 Glennane gang victims always believed so. They won promises of an investigation into the "nature, scope, and extent of any collusion on the part of state actors in this series of atrocities." Many believe these promises were broken only because the crown knew a true investigation would prove pervasive British state collusion.

James Connolly, the 1916 patriot said of British troopers who would execute him, he would “pray for brave men who do their duty according to their own lights”. Mr. Ringland scorns anyone who sees the struggle in Republican lights. They are all something "our society cannot accept". It is the same scornful arrogance at the heart of the collapse of Stormont.

Slan,

Martin Galvin

Questions For Mr Ringland

New York Attorney-At-Law, Martin Galvin last month had a letter in the Irish News challenging the view of Trevor Ringland. 

Re: Trevor Ringland -No excuse for preventing pension payments to Troubles' victims August 2, 2017


A chara,

                                            Trevor Ringland's modest proposal for pensioning injured Troubles' victims, is too slanted even for a Tory-DUP regime. Let the crown pay pensions to all injured victims, says he, except Republicans who must look after themselves. Pay loyalists from separate accounts, (perhaps as British agents, informers, former UDR etc).

Mr. Ringland cannot expect us to take his scheme seriously. It seems merely another chance to drumbeat his refrain that the (1969-98)struggle for freedom from British rule was not "justified and necessary".

His message is badly timed. Events like the recent Glennane judgment and this week's Internment and Ballymurphy protests raise inescapable questions.

Why did men and women come to believe it morally "justified and necessary" to join the IRA's fight to end British rule in numbers sufficient to carry that fight almost three decades? What moved them, including some future Stormont Ministers, to risk death or imprisonment against overwhelming British forces?

Events provide obvious answers. British officials granted Brian Faulkner's wish for Internment. British forces on August 9,1971 terrorized families across the north, jailed hundreds without charge, and began a catastrophic policy they continued for four years.

They handpicked innocent men held without charge, to be hooded and tortured.

Over three days British Paras shot ten people dead, including a Catholic priest, guilty of nothing except living in Ballymurphy. Another died from a mock execution. The crown rubberstamped and whitewashed these murders. They stonewall inquests today.

Has Mr. Ringland no idea why second class citizens of a carved out sectarian state, might see it "justified and necessary" to fight the regime which imprisoned without charge, massacred and tortured? Should they have kept to peaceful protests after Bloody Sunday?

Did the British also arm, pay and otherwise collude with loyalist criminals in carrying out murders? Families and friends of many of more than 100 Glennane gang victims always believed so. They won promises of an investigation into the "nature, scope, and extent of any collusion on the part of state actors in this series of atrocities." Many believe these promises were broken only because the crown knew a true investigation would prove pervasive British state collusion.

James Connolly, the 1916 patriot said of British troopers who would execute him, he would “pray for brave men who do their duty according to their own lights”. Mr. Ringland scorns anyone who sees the struggle in Republican lights. They are all something "our society cannot accept". It is the same scornful arrogance at the heart of the collapse of Stormont.

Slan,

Martin Galvin

1 comment:

  1. I would like to read his views on American imperialism in the middle east and Vietnam. Compensation for the victims of napalm and cluster bombs?Irish americans never criticise their wonderful military. Afraid

    ReplyDelete