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Showing posts with label Bobby Storey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bobby Storey. Show all posts
Alex McCrory ✒ The large turnout at Bobby Storey's funeral was predictable. No one expected it would be otherwise, and that includes unionists and the cops.


The political fallout was also predictable because of the concerns around Covid-19. The whole affair was a storm waiting to happen.

Bobby Storey's reputation in Republican circles was as big as the man himself. From almost the beginning, he was on the frontline risking life and liberty. He proved himself a highly capable and effective IRA volunteer over the decades. Indeed, he was believed to have been instrumental in many of the biggest IRA operations of his era. Hardly surprising then that when he died so many wanted to pay their respects.

Big Bob, as he was known, inspired confidence and loyalty within the ranks of the IRA. Young men looked up to him as a role model. In fact, many wanted to be like him, or simply to gain his seal of approval. His impressive organisational skills and natural intelligence were well known to friend and to foe alike.

For these reasons the British were keen to remove him from the equation at every opportunity. The big man was a thorn in their side on the streets, and so, a prison cell was thought the best place for him. Out of sight, out of mind's eye. How wrong they proved to be on that score.
 
Bobby spent many years in British jails. Always one to lead, he was not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in. In IRA parlance, the big man was an operator. As a result of his willingness to engage the enemy in combat, he went to prison on more than one occasion. Each time he was released, he reported straight back to active duty.
 
It was in the H-Blocks, shortly after the hunger strikes, where I met him. An old school friend of mine had been captured along with him and another volunteer after a shooting attack on British soldiers. A car chase ensued that resulted in three men being arrested and charged with the serious offences. They eventually received lengthy prison sentences.
 
Some of the most battle hardened men in the jail described Storey's capture as a blow to the IRA in Belfast. And it occurred not long before the phenomenon of the Supergrass that almost destroyed both the IRA and INLA across the north. However, in the midst of all that depression, Bobby scored a massive success from his jail cell. The Brits would soon discover they had failed to take him out of the equation, and that his name would resurface in spectacular fashion.

When I first set eyes on him, I remember thinking that he would have had great difficulty hiding under a bed or behind a wardrobe. He was a big man with a personality to match. His demeanour was pleasant and friendly which made him easy to get along with in cramped conditions. Big Bob was deservedly popular with his peers.
 
As the Storey unfolded (forgive the pun) he became a bigger headache for the Brits in jail than he was outside it. For only a few years after he arrived in the H-blocks, he played a central role in planning and executing the biggest escape in British penal history. The success of the ingenious plan made the British State look incompetent in the eyes of the world.
 
Unfortunately, Storey along with several comrades were caught in hiding in a river close to the jail. They were badly beaten by enraged and embarrassed screws and put into isolation. All those recaptured received additional time for their trouble (Larry Marley, the acknowledged brain behind the escape was later murdered by loyalists.)

I got to know Bobby well enough over the years. We were more friendly than friends. Our relationship became problematic with the advent of the peace process. We disagreed on almost every development along the way. I felt that his massive influence was used to sell the leadership strategy to the rank and file. For many, it was a case of, if it was good enough for Big Bob, it was good enough for them too. But all that is history now.

Bobby Storey's headstone testifies to a life lived in struggle for a higher ideal. Who am I to deny him that claim?

Alec McCrory 
is a former blanketman.

Big Bob

Anthony McIntyre looks at yet another round of huffing and puffing in the Northern political Amphitheatre.  

Almost a year after his death, the ashes of Bobby Storey continue to smoulder from his burial place in Milltown Cemetery, with no shortage of politicians eager to fan them in the hope of igniting a political crisis. 

Storey’s funeral was always going to draw a large crowd, Covid or not. His republican detractors might not like it but he was a hugely popular and much revered figure within the Provisional Movement. Add to that the opportunity to stage-manage a big symbolic event, milk publicity and stamp the imprimatur of an IRA figure as senior as Storey onto Sinn Fein’s political project even though –  arguably because – it does not vaguely resemble anything for which Storey spent 20 years in jail.

The funeral was well organised from a Provisional perspective but not so from a public health one. It seemed to breach the government guidelines which Sinn Fein had helped promulgate: “at the time, regulations only permitted up to 30 people in a cortege and at a funeral service.” It was inevitable that a cacophony of voices would ensue, some authentic, others opportunistic, calling for action against the party.

The PSNI investigated 24 Sinn Fein members over their attendance at the event. The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said it would not be prosecuting anyone and then switched track, promising  to review its decision. Although not too much should be read into that. It is unlikely to be the volte face many unionists hope for. 

Arlene Foster immediately called for Chief Constable Simon Byrne to resign, claiming his position had become untenable as he had lost the confidence of the unionist community. He told her politely but firmly to go fuck herself. As he should. 

Byrne defended both himself and his force's actions around the funeral by contending that the PSNI put Sinn Fein on notice that they would be in breach of Covid regulations if the funeral plan was to proceed as was. He further insisted that "nobody in the PSNI did a deal or looked the other way," Although the PPS rather than Byrne took the decision not to prosecute - he claimed to be surprised by it -  Foster’s beef with him is that the decision of the PPS not to pursue charges was in large part shaped by the PSNI having facilitated lawbreaking through its pre-funeral discussions with Sinn Fein.

The DUP is concerned at police facilitating lawbreaking when it comes to the management of funerals  but not when it is to assist homicide of the type perpetrated by the agent Stakeknife and numerous others. Carry on erasing the state tracks that lead to the deaths of many nationalists and the DUP will not say a word. Facilitate cortege, uproar. Facilitate cover-up, silence. 

Not to be dissuaded from her Herculean hypocrisy Foster threatened that "If Simon Byrne believes that he can dig in and stay, then we will have to look at other ways to deal with these issues." As Belfast has demonstrated in recent nights, the Children of Ulster have found other ways. Gerry Kelly, while certainly politicking, is not merely talking out his jacksie when making the observation that the violence is:

an out-working of the DUP's rhetoric ... By their words and actions they have sent a very dangerous message to young people in loyalist areas.
 
If Byrne does dig in, he will only be taking a page out of Foster's copybook from when she dug in and refused to resign over the much more scandalous matter of RHI. Byrne’s transgressions are juvenile by comparison. Why "it cannot continue as normal" for Byrne yet it did quite easily for her is something the DUP is seriously stretched to plausibly explain.

There is a certain message being emitted for those who want to hear it. When Byrne faces down Foster with her claims that unionism has no confidence in him, he is effectively telling her that it is not the confidence of unionism that the PSNI is prioritisng, but that of nationalism. The political tide is flowing, slowly albeit, in a particular direction and it is not towards London. The need to avoid upsetting Sinn Fein is underscored by the institutional response to the Bobby Storey funeral and how it differed to that in respect of the Francie McNally funeral two months earlier, in relation to which the PPS has decided to prosecute two republicans – Frankie Quinn and Brian Arthurs. Both men, if not critics of Sinn Fein, are certainly not on board with the party’s strategy.

The 1916 Societies ask a very pertinent question:

We note with particular interest the Director of public prosecutions Stephen Herron announcement that no charges will result from a much larger funeral in Belfast attended by many politicians. We state unequivocally that we do not believe anyone should be charged or prosecuted for burying their dead with respect and dignity, however the double standards applied cannot go unchallenged, the questions must be asked.
Why was this funeral and these two Republicans in particular selected for prosecutions?
Is the motivation behind these prosecutions political or in the interest of public health?

Short answer: political health.  

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Still Not The End Of The Storey

Belfast Telegraph ✒ Sinn Fein emailed thousands of party members and supporters the full details of the late Bobby Storey's funeral arrangements and told them that the wake for the senior republican would be open to the public.

Hugh O'Connell

The funeral of the former senior IRA figure on June 30 last now is the subject of a Police Service of Northern Ireland investigation into alleged breaches of Covid-19 regulations that were in place in the North at the time.

The funeral was attended by Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, her predecessor Gerry Adams, her deputy Michelle O'Neill, finance spokesman Pearse Doherty and several other senior Sinn Fein figures.

An email seen by the Sunday Independent that was sent to thousands of party members and supporters on the evening of June 25 makes no reference to the Covid-19 pandemic, the public health restrictions that limited outdoor gatherings to a maximum of 30 people at the time or any requirement to wear masks or keep socially distanced.

In the email, the party's general secretary Ken O'Connell wrote that the remains "of our late friend and comrade..." 

Continue reading @ Belfast Telegraph.

Sinn Fein Email Told Thousands ➖ 'Storey Wake Is Open To Public'

From It's Still Only Thursday ➤ A Loyalist take on the funeral of Bobby Storey. 
 
The republican circus

Much has been said and written about the funeral of Bobby Storey in the last few days. Commentators and politicians have, quite rightly, asked searching questions about the conduct of senior Provisional Sinn Fein members who attended. However, few people have asked why the Provisional republican movement felt it necessary to turn a man’s funeral into a paramilitary circus?

Nor have they asked why, if Sinn Fein is a ‘normal’ and fully democratic political party, members of that party played such an important and integral role in what was, essentially, a PIRA funeral/’show of strength’.

We’ve said it before and we will keep saying it; the funeral of Bobby Storey was designed to be a republican circus, a morbid and bizarre piece of political theatre.

Irish republicanism is founded upon the ghoulish ideal of the “blood sacrifice”. The uncomfortable truth for republicans is that Storey was exploited in death, just as he and other PIRA/Sinn Fein godfathers had exploited hundreds of people from their own community in life.

Continue reading @ It's Still Only Thursday.

Bloody Mythos ➤ The Truth Behind The Storey

Anthony McIntyre picks his way through the noise and dust thrown up by the Bobby Storey funeral. 

Three weeks dead and not a day of it in peace. For Bobby Storey, his name continues to bobble at the top of the daily news feed, courtesy of the fall out from the manner in which Sinn Fein managed his funeral. Some not happy that he has already been cremated seem to want him burned all over again, this time in their make believe Hell, as the symbolism of their bright orange 11th night bonfires has so searingly reminded us. Regrettably, there are still those who find hate a comfort zone.

Sinn Fein's critics have been circling the prey while the party rather than head this one off at the pass has instead circled the wagons. Michelle O’Neill continues to insist she acted responsibly in the manner she observed social distancing guidelines at the funeral of Bobby Storey when seemingly more than just the usual detractors see her as having failed, albeit to varying degrees.

Believing her to have been at fault does not translate directly to a demand for her resignation. Despite the posturing and faux outrage, it suits neither Sinn Fein nor the DUP to see the executive brought down again. Citizenry, North and South, would probably settle for a mild rebuke were some sort of, even mumbled, acknowledgement of a breach on O'Neill's part forthcoming. They are more likely to echo the thought of Taoiseach Micheal Martin that it is important not to be "overly judgmental" than to seek the Free P moonshine of sackcloth and ashes. The party that burned enough ash to fill a motorway of cloth sacks lacks the moral authority to credibly make that call.

For O'Neill, it would be a political apology rather than a personal one as she probably feels her personal errancy was at the milder end of the scale. Politically is where her transgression lies, and which makes her an easy target for lampers eager to emblazon her as someone making the rules for others to observe while failing to observe the rules she makes. As Sam McBride concisely put it:

When a government minister openly and unashamedly disregards advice which she has told the public was crucial to save lives, there are inevitable political repercussions.

There is no reason to disagree with O'Neill's insistence that she did not mean to give offence by attending the funeral. However, her dogged determination to insist that there was no fault, is itself coming to be appear as the bigger fault, ultimately causing even greater offence. Nor is it those who rise before dawn every morning to ensure they catch the first offence of the day ahead of everybody else, who are genuinely offended. A lot of people have been unable to attend funerals of ones held dear because of the type of restrictions Michelle O'Neill has rightly insisted on being observed during the global pandemic.

Belfast City Council's seemingly inexplicable decision to deny eight grieving families the ability to attend the the cremation of their loved ones has not helped Sinn Fein, even if if the party did nothing to sway the council's decision. When a daughter claims 'Mummy had to be cremated alone ... we were told this was the rule', it is not hard to imagine the sense of  public concern and sympathy generated. Ironically, there is no need to buy into the misty-eyed drivel of Bobby Storey the "gentle giant" to appreciate that it was not in the Storey character to hog "special treatment" in these type of matters, particularly when it had such a huge impact on other grieving families. But these are the things that tend to get lost in the heat of the moment.

Sinn Fein is feeling the heat, so much so that Sam McBride who was widely praised for his determined work on the Cash For Ash scandal has suddenly been turned into a villain by the Bot Brigade, ever eager to engage the enemy in the pretence that name calling and bullying is somehow active service. His crime was to do exactly what he did when RHI wanted its own funeral pyre to be quickly extinguished: he persisted in asking the burning question.



In a place that is home to unlimited exaggeration and the worst crisis ever the DUP''s Christopher Stalford must have spent a month choking the chicken to have pulled off what can only be described as wanker's wisdom. In a fine example of wish being father to the thought he claims Sinn Fein is behaving in a “fashion that would shame the Trump administration". While it is a given that Sinn Fein has been encouraged since the days of Gerry Adams to have an aversion to truth, and also useful to learn that Stalford believes the Trump cabal has behaved in a manner that is indeed shameful, there is no one, Sinn Fein, the DUP, or anyone that could shame the Don and his mob. As an alternative, Stalford should try rubbing the genie's lamp rather than his own.

To paraphrase a poet, eventually it will pass, the noise will fade and the dust shall settle. But for now the Bot Brigade and the Bonfire Bigots will vie with each other in the race to the bottom, as many others are reminded of dreary steeples while hoping it is not a truism that people deserve the government they get.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Bot Brigade & Bonfire Bigots

Anthony McIntyre looks back on the funeral of Bobby Storey.

When Bobby Storey was arrested in August 1981 the RUC were delighted, their interrogators trying to wind him up in Castlereagh holding center by rubbing their hands with glee and loudly telling him that "it is the end of the Storey." Almost forty years later and two weeks after his death Bobby Storey is still the story. 

As he continues to make waves from beyond the grave, not for the first time is Sinn Fein taking flak for its symbiotic association with the dead IRA leader. Often, when alive, he was accused of inadvertently causing problems for the party with some of his more audacious post-ceasefire and post-Good Friday Agreement operations. Now, in permanent repose, it is his funeral that has pushed its way to the front of the news agenda and put Sinn Fein on the back foot. While the volley of shots was absent from the honours administered as part of the funerary rites for dead IRA activists, a different type of volley is being fired at the party of which he was a member. 

Sinn Fein stands accused by its political opponents and others of having shown scant regard for public safety by breaching rules that limit attendances at funerals in the midst of a global pandemic. Doug Beattie has asked a question that is in all likelihood flashing across the minds of more than just unionists.

why – in the midst of a global pandemic – did they feel the need to call hundreds of people onto the streets of West Belfast if the plan all along was to hold a cremation ceremony several miles away in the east of the city? … what was the point in taking a coffin to a graveyard only to then transport it to a crematorium?

Sinn Fein has not managed its response particularly well, opting to return the serve, rather than concede the point, with no real panache, while the new BB - the Bot Brigade - has taken to social media to bully those raising concerns. Michelle O’Neill, the party’s Northern leader, has no need to apologise for attending the funeral of one of her friends and colleagues. Where she is on much softer ground is her reluctance to admit that the organisation of the funeral was, like that for Garda Colm Horkan, insufficiently firewalled against Covid-19. 

With less hubris, the party could have said the emotion of the occasion swamped its judgement and it erred in breaching – to whatever extent it did - social distancing guidelines. It is currently in one of those situations where if you are explaining you are losing. 

Doug Beattie, chimed with many republican critics of  Sinn Fein in asking:

were people’s lives really put at risk from Covid-19 just so Gerry Adams could perform a speaking engagement in Milltown cemetery?

There are no shortage of republican critics who view Adams as a coffin surfer, not lifting coffins as much as having coffins lift him. They will read events at Milltown as an opportunity for Adams to grandstand rather than honour Storey. Some of them spot an incongruity in a politician who has always denied membership of the IRA, delivering the oration for a man who in the eyes of his admirers, came to personify the IRA.

Doug Beattie might not understand the symbolism of the republican plot at Milltown or the raw emotion evoked by so many who fought alongside Bobby Storey resting there. Moreover, it is facile to reduce the choreography of the funeral to the scheming of Gerry Adams. As a former republican prisoner commented to me:

All that may be true about Gerry Adams, but the funeral was not simply about him. It was more about the need to create another hero of the peace process. The funeral was an exercise in group reinforcement and myth making.

In that context it is tempting to see the whole event as a carefully crafted act of political street theatre designed to place a new Bobby on the Sinn Fein masthead. Try as the party might the old Bobby, Sands, held too many positions at variance with the current Sinn Fein. He did not support an armed British police force, a judiciary using Diplock courts, the partitionist principle of consent, power splitting executives, a Worker’s Party type reformist strategy, participation in Stormont, decommissioning of IRA weapons, and the effective standing down of the IRA.

Had he been alive he might have come to support those positions but at the time of his death he most definitely did not. It requires a lot of work with a metaphorical jemmy bar to force the image of Bobby Sands into the Sinn Fein picture frame, and then a lot of buffing to smooth out the awkward joints. Too many others can lay a claim to the legacy of Sands. 

Not so with Storey. He supported all the measures Bobby Sands opposed. Themselves Alone can safely lay claim to his legacy. 

It is unlikely that one Bobby will completely displace the other, but we can expect to see murals and imagery of both men, with the new Bobby to the fore:  Bobby of the Armed Struggle gently fading into the background to make way for Bobby of the Peace Process. 

We might yet come to look back on the Milltown Cemetery pageantry as the changing of the guard, where at the funeral of Bobby Storey, Bobby Sands was buried. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Changing Of The Guard

Sean Mallory shares his thoughts on Dame Vera Lynn and Bobby Storey, both of whom died earlier this month. 

It was with great relief and joy that Boris and the lads in Downing Street welcomed the demise of England’s favourite flower, no not Phillip Schofield – the English rose, Dame Vera Lynn. A much needed fillip to distract from their dismal, incompetent and malfeasant leadership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was also with great relief and joy that Andrew Bailey in Threadneedle Street welcomed the news of the demise of one Irish Republican, Bobby Storey.

Vera, having sang her way through the war years brought comfort to many down in the air raid shelters during the Nazi blitz. Fondly remembered by ‘the Nation’, that is, those still alive which constitutes only Captain Tom, really, Vera passed away to join her fans and bring forth her prophesy of meeting them again - much to their delight I’m sure!

Bobby, having spent most of his war years incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure, brought little comfort to many during the IRA’s blitz on Belfast and London. Grimly remembered by Vera’s nation, that is, those still alive, which constitutes the whole Nation actually, including Captain Tom, Bobby passed away not on the field of battle but ignominiously on a British NHS operating table.

Vera, whose portrait once adorned a postage stamp, while Bobby, whose portrait once adorned a post office wall, will both be lovingly laid to rest by their remaining friends and family.

Vera’s funeral service will be conducted with decorum, civility, and stately etiquette becoming of one so much admired and respected. Her final resting place may very well be that her ashes are decorously scattered over those White Cliffs of Dover, she lovingly once sang about, with Spitties doing a flyover.

While Bobby, will be buried with a final pretentious show of defiance against the Brits but not too ostentatious as to upset his new friends in the PSNI and who most likely will pay their own respects to the Big Man on the day by taking control of traffic duties.

As the cortege makes it way slowly towards Milltown cemetery, decorum, civility and stately etiquette will be replaced by a jostling of egos for positioning in the public eye. Laid to rest in the Republican plot in said cemetery, Bobby can explain to his pre-deceased comrades how in his later days he came to support Britain’s occupation of Ireland.

Both iconic in their own worlds:

Vera’s legacy of icon of the free and once reaching out to a whole Island nation but never further afield to the colonies, has long since been swallowed up by the affirmation of Britain’s tyrannical past.

While Bobby’s legacy of iconic freedom fighter - and once reaching out from the Park Centre to Kennedy Way - will be swallowed up in the internal turmoil to fill his much sought after post he held in his not so rebellious but more acquiescent later days.

And so it is with a mixture of both fond farewell and good riddance we take our leave of Vera Lynn and Bobby Storey. Both combatants in different wars. One who sang while the other bombed and shot, for hope and glory and yet both died on the same side of different freedoms!
 
Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

White Cliffs And White Mountain

Anthony McIntyre shares his thoughts on Bobby Storey who died last week. The piece first featured in the Belfast Telegraph. 

RIP Bobby. It was one of the first things I posted online shortly after former blanketmen from Derry and Belfast contacted me within minutes of each other on Sunday with the news that the senior IRA volunteer, Bobby Storey, had died. Rest In Peace, in spite of my many differences with him, was a simple but direct disavowal of the gloating that would surely emerge from some republican quarters following his death.

People are free to remember him in whatever way they wish. Already there are enough bidding him devil-speed to the fires of some non-existent Hell. That reveals more about their corporeal selves than his figurative eternal soul. I do not intend to add my voice to the caustic cacophony.

His final breath was the catalyst for the hybrid outpouring of invective and veneration from those who at some point in their political lives accompanied him on his military odyssey. He was a polarising figure who was considered either awesome or awful. Those who knew him least will in all likelihood seek to describe him most.

Prior to his death earlier this week in a UK hospital, he had been ill for a number of years. It is said that initially he suspected he had been poisoned. While there would be no shortage of treacherous colleagues willing to assume the role of Livia Drusilla and offer the poisoned figs for their own ends, it seems more likely that a family history of COPD brought him down.

Those of us who knew him from his teenage years and spent time under his leadership both in and out of prison share both bad and good memories of him. He could be a great cell mate but a harsh jailer.

Bobby Storey was an immensely courageous and determined IRA volunteer who invariably led from the front. But he did that in all circumstances: first, when the IRA was at war with the British and subsequently when the IRA was at war with the republicanism it had abandoned. Just as he sought to make life difficult for the members of the British state security services, he also sought to make it difficult for many republicans who had served alongside him because they refused to sign up to a project that only ever made sense in terms of expanding and extending the political career of Gerry Adams.

Bobby Storey was an IRA volunteer before all else. But this meant that being in the IRA was always of more importance to him than where the IRA might be going. Whether it went to the right or the left, London or Dublin, revolution or reform, these were things that played no part in his thinking. The many dimensions that make up political and strategic nous failed to compute in the one-dimensional mind of Bobby Storey who had an unshakable belief in the indefectibility of the IRA and the infallibility of its leadership.

A man of immense practical intelligence coupled with a tactical verve and administrative ability, he was remarkably bereft of all political and strategic acumen. No matter what volte face was required, he would make it to preserve the IRA and his place within it. Not that he was a careerist like so many others, just that the IRA was the Alpha and Omega of his existence.

It is not that Bobby Storey abandoned everything he ever believed in. Politically, there was extraordinarily little that he did believe in other than the IRA. Mary Lou McDonald might well claim that at the time of his death he believed in a united Ireland. If he did it was a belief in a united Ireland on nothing but British terms – only by consent; terms which he had spent his entire warrior days trying to coerce into oblivion. His politics were those of armed resistance to the British state. When that ceased, he was left with no politics. No longer a military migraine for the British security establishment, he became an IRA enforcer for the Adams political career project.

Because of his role as director of IRA intelligence some have drawn comparisons with Michael Collins. A more accurate antecedent rests in the figure of Richard Mulcahy, an IRB and subsequent IRA leader who became a key player in the violent enforcement of the Treaty against those who maintained fidelity to a republican project.

We who knew him, revering him for many things and reviling him for many others, understand that he both led and misled us in equal measure. For that I neither gloat nor grieve.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Bobby Storey

  • They're butterflies because...well, he thought it was cool. They eat humans - Katsura Hoshino.
Bobby Storey at today’s press conference in Belfast with his IRA as a butterfly comment might well have created much merriment among a wider audience but he is unlikely to have persuaded it that PSNI chief constable George Hamilton called it wrong with his assertion that the IRA continues to exist.

Storey despite his ability to employ self-deprecating humour probably wants his statement to be afforded a certain gravitas.
Where I differ from the chief constable, is there is no role for the IRA, the IRA has finished, the IRA has gone. I think the chief constable and other perspectives out there see this in terms of the IRA being the caterpillar that's still there, where I think it's moved on, it's become a butterfly, it's flew away, it's gone, it's disappeared and they need to evolve to that as well.

Given the company at the top table, "disappeared" was an interesting choice of phrase, but the widespread societal scepticism is unlikely to suffer such a fate. The whole outing had an inescapable element of tongue in cheek to it, to be taken as seriously as Gerry Adams’ claim to have been bouncing around naked on a trampoline with his dog. The IRA turns up to say that the IRA has not turned up because the IRA does not exist. 

Storey would have enhanced his appeal by turning up without his party leader. It simply defies possibility to insert Gerry Adams into any setting and thereby hope to infuse it with the ambience of truth. Here’s the truth and Gerry can vouch for it. The one fitting retort, yeah right.

Today's words were little more than a discursive box ticking exercise in a by now well-rehearsed peace process routine in which everybody knows their lines by rote and nobody is meant to really believe what they hear. Sinn Fein’s organised serial lying is such a feature of the political landscape, that ten out of nine people don't believe the party's denials.

Conversely, Storey is in all probability telling the truth that the PSNI arrested him on the basis of nothing.

There was no basis for arresting me. At no time during my detention did the police present anything which, in my opinion or in the opinion of my solicitor, warranted my arrest.

It would not be beyond a force that never had the promised manners put on it. For that reason I am not one of those people shaken by his seeming arbitrary arrest. Yet he persists in a strange parodying of Voltaire: I disapprove of your arrest of me but will fight to the death in defence of your right to arrest me.

While Storey claims to have been livid at his detention, he seems not to be as livid as he was at the arrest of his party leader last year. Then, unlike today, they had not gone away you know. Which opens up the suspicion that the IRA truly is a presidential guard, there to protect the interests of the president, but no other.

And then he tried to Stick this one on the media.
The people who carried out these killings are criminals; they are enemies of the republican peace strategy and the Peace Process overall. They should face due process. The only way to deal with these killings is through the criminal justice system. I repeat calls already made by my party colleagues that anyone with any information should come forward and give it to the PSNI.

Like much else about the Provisionals' acquisitions the template for this subterfuge has been plundered from the vaults of the Workers Party. Group B was officially disowned and its activities dismissed as criminal and contrary to the peaceful actions of the party. 

Even when offering sympathy to the family of Kevin McGuigan, any claim Storey might have to being genuine is tugged in the opposite direction by memories of the IRA offering sympathy to the family of Joe O’Connor ... after it had murdered him and denied responsibility for it.

Ultimately, with these things there is always the denial of the reality of the peace process as a process that is not always peaceful.

I totally reject scurrilous allegations around my arrest and the suggestion that I would do anything to damage the Sinn Féin peace project or the Peace Process that we have worked so long and hard to build and advance.

The same sort of things that were spewed out about the Northern Bank robbery. The thing about the peace process is that acts of violence have often given it oomph. It acts much like a protection racket. Those offering it have to demonstrate the need for it, whether protection or peace.

Listening to Bobby Storey today, the thought occurred that he was trying to make real the George Carlin observation that the caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.

Monsieur Butterfly


Bobby Storey has given an interview to the Andersonstown News in which he faithfully parroted the party line about the rise of Sinn Fein while lashing out at the dastardly plotting of just about everybody else supposedly involved in a giant conspiracy to stymie the ascent. He also had a go at myself.

Haw Haw & Hee Haw

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