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Showing posts with label Brendan Hughes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brendan Hughes. Show all posts
Dixie Elliot ✍ I recently became aware of a video which was posted on YouTube during the week by Sinn Fein titled, ‘Hunger Striker Sean McKenna remembered by his comrade Danny Morrison.’ 


Danny Morrison, Sinn Fein’s Director of Revisionism, walked among the graves of the Republican dead in Milltown Cemetery and once again lied in regards to the ending of the first hunger strike back in December 1980, laying the blame for it’s failure on Brendan Hughes.

If that was sickening enough, seeing him using the name of the late Sean McKenna to sell this lie added to my anger. The grave robbers Burke and Hare had more respect for the dead.

According to Morrison:

. . . The following night the British government were due, through an emissary, to deliver a document to the hunger strikers. Before the document arrived, the hunger strike was called off by Brendan Hughes. The document arrived and Bobby Sands was sent for. All the promises of a progressive prison liberal regime were now, that the British government knew that the hunger strike was over and all those people who said they would intervene and support the prisoners and would support reforms, they all disappeared . . . 

The thing about the truth is that you cannot get caught out telling it, something Morrison can’t seem to get his head around as he’s a habitual liar and the above statement is full of holes, big holes.

I stated many times, given my huge respect for Brendan Hughes, a leader who always led from the front, that any attempt to smear his name regarding how that hunger strike came to an end would be met with the truth and the only ones to blame for this are the liars like Morrison.

However, the one very important person who exposes Morrison’s lie regarding how that hunger strike ended was Bobby Sands himself. I will get to that soon.

Take for example Morrison’s claim, ‘the document arrived and Bobby Sands was sent for…’

No thought whatsoever has gone into that particular lie. Father Meagher received the document at Belfast airport from ‘The Mountain Climber.’  He then took it to Adams and others who were waiting in Clonard Monastery. As they were looking over it Tom Hartley entered the room and told them that the hunger strike was over.

The document contained nothing, it merely indicated that prisoners could wear ‘civilian-type’ clothing during the working week. That was another form of prison uniform.

Bobby had been sent for when the hunger strike ended and he had no document because it was still in the hands of Gerry Adams in Clonard Monastery. The source for this is Adams himself in his book, A Farther Shore.

Why would Bobby return to our wing that night and tell desperate men in Irish that, “ní fhuaireamar feic.” (we got nothing) if there was even the slightest of chances that some British offer gave us some hope of ending the blanket protest? Why did Bobby then sit down on his mattress and start writing a comm to Gerry Adams informing him that he would be leading another hunger strike which would begin on January 1st instead of waiting to see if the Brits kept to their promises? Because they had made none. That hunger strike ended because, as Sean McKenna was nearing death, some men told Brendan they were coming of it, leaving The Dark with no other choice but to end it before Sean died needlessly.

In fact, Bobby told Adams exactly that in the comm he was writing to him. (see screenshots taken from page 305, Chapter 21; Nothing But An Unfinished Song, below).

. . . I don’t believe we can achieve our our aims or recoup our losses in the light of what has occurred. Sooner, rather than later, our defeat will be exposed. When I say, in the light of what has occurred, I mean not only the boys breaking but perhaps our desperate attempts to salvage something . . . 

Adams, Morrison and the others knew how it ended from the time they read that comm from Bobby, yet they persist in the lie that Brendan Hughes had ended it and was therefore responsible for the second hunger strike which claimed the lives of ten brave men. They do this because The Dark died with his principles intact and he never betrayed his dead comrades for political or financial gain and he didn’t hold back, while he lived, in telling the truth.

Given that he also knew the truth, yet was only too willing to promote this lie at his master’s behest, I have no problem in naming Raymond McCartney as being one of those men who told Brendan they were coming off that hunger strike.

Near the end of the video Morrison tells anyone foolish enough to believe him that Bobby’s election victory paved the way for Sinn Féin’s move towards electoral politics. He would have you believe that the hunger strikes were part of a long term strategy to bring Sinn Féin into government in the Stormont it was determined to ‘smash’ back then, and to take their seats with the Free Staters, who had sided with the British against their own people in the North.

According to Morrison:

…The election of Bobby Sands, on the 9th April 1981, provided the springboard for Sinn Féin to adopt it’s electoral strategy, the fruits of which we see today… 

Bobby only stood in that election in the hope that victory would mean that Thatcher couldn’t possibly let a sitting MP die on hunger strike. This of course proved not to be the case, as she was a vindicative evil bitch.

However, even while the hunger strike was still ongoing, Adams and his inner-circle, which of course included Morrison, began to furtively lay the path which would take an unwitting Republican Movement onto the road of electoral politics. Three days after the death of Michael Devine, on the same day that Owen Carron won the bye-election for Bobby’s vacant seat in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, Sinn Féin announced that in future it would contest all ‘Northern Ireland’ elections. 

The hunger strike was still ongoing and this decision had not been to put to the Movement as a whole because that year’s Ard Fheis would not be until late October. Michael Devine had barely been lowered into his grave as they ‘seized the opportunity’ to set their ‘electoral strategy’ in motion. It comes as no surprise that it was Morrison who would ask the delegates at that Ard Fheis if anyone there would object if they took power in Ireland with a ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other.

We all know what eventually happened to the Armalite. They decommissioned it, as did they the right to call themselves Republicans by attending the coronation of the British king, Charles.

Thanks to the family of Bobby Sands, who had only recently found out themselves by uncovering one of his prison comms in the National Archives, we now know he had requested that he be buried in Ballina beside Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, because he didn’t like Milltown Cemetery. Bobby also requested that he ‘wanted wrapped in a blanket cause I don’t want humiliated in a stinkin’ suit or shroud.’

Danny Morrison tried to claim that Bobby had later changed his mind about Ballina by coming up with a few lines which he claimed were contained in a comm from Bobby, but the comm he referred to did not in fact include those lines in both the books it was included in, Ten Men Dead and Nothing But An Unfinished Song.

What he could not lie about was that Bobby’s simple request, that he be wrapped in a blanket because he didn’t want humiliated in a stinkin’ suit or shroud, was denied him. Bobby Sands was highly intelligent and he would have fully realised that the screws would not have handed over a prison blanket for him to be laid to rest in. He was obviously referring to a similar type of blanket which would be symbolic of the protest which took up the final years of his life.

Bobby Sands was buried in a shroud and his family weren’t made aware of his final request.

Excerpt from Bury Me In My Blanket by Bobby Sands:

I've thought about that too,” I said, “and it's hard to say to oneself that one is prepared to go to such an extreme, but then we are special prisoners and we are struggling for a special cause, so if I should die here, tell “Mr Mason” to bury me in my blanket . . . ” 

 

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

More Lies Morrison

Seamus Kearney ✍ recalls visiting Brendan Hughes In Divis Tower twenty years ago. 

The Dark

After my brother Michael was cleared from any suspicion that he was a paid informer, on 28th January 2003, the IRA Leadership not only cleared him but continued to meet me in a series of clandestine meetings until September of that year.

I had been informed by the IRA Leadership that Freddie Scappaticci had been involved in the court martial and subsequent execution of my brother, but had not played a central role, which I accepted. However, in May 2003 a journalist, Greg Harkin, appeared at the front door of Freddie Scappaticci 's house, in the Riverdale area of West Belfast, and accused him of being a British agent with a codename, 'Stakeknife'.

I was still meeting the IRA Leadership at the time, so raised my concerns with them at our next meeting, underlining that if true, then Michael had been interrogated by the British more so than the IRA. My concerns were dismissed and I was told by the two IRA staff officers that Scappaticci was "innocent until proven guilty".

Before the IRA investigation commenced in October 2001, I had deliberately organised and set up a secret strategic 'think tank' of 5 former IRA soldiers, which included myself, with a 6th man in place designed to be a ' spearhead'. The role of this 6th man was to coordinate and impress upon the IRA Leadership the need to commence an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the execution of Volunteer Michael Kearney, on the 12th July 1979. He succeeded in carrying out that task and hence the unprecedented IRA investigation came about as a result.
 
After meeting the IRA Leadership in May 2003, I then reported back to my own group and discussed the current situation. To confuse matters further, all shades of the Republican Movement were informing their base that Freddie Scapppaticci had been the victim of a gutter press with a sinister British Intelligence motive to undermine the Peace Process. Incredibly, people who I had earlier thought were intelligent and free thinkers, were accusing me of being a 'dissident', which I was not, and for attempting to 'smear a hard working Republican from Riverdale, the victim of an anti Republican media campaign'.

A member of my own group then suggested that I settle the matter and arrange a meeting with Brendan Hughes (The Dark), who had particular knowledge on the IRA 's Internal Security Unit (ISU), as he was in charge of GHQ Intelligence, which overseen the workings of the Internal Security Unit. I was informed that Brendan took on this role after his release from prison in November 1986.

Consequently, a few weeks later, in June 2003, after climbing the stairs of Divis Tower, I appeared outside the small flat, at the top of the tower, and rapped the front door, eager with anticipation.
When the door opened I met my old comrade with a smile on his face and we embraced. When I entered his living room he motioned me toward his sofa, with the words: "be careful what you say in here, because a bug was discovered recently under that sofa". I automatically asked, "was it RUC Special Branch?" But he replied, "no, Sinn Fein!". With a puzzled look upon my face we moved on with the matter in hand.

I told him that my brother Michael had been cleared by the IRA Leadership and he became emotional, a common trait of his, hugging me and wiping a tear from his eye. He said, "that is fantastic news and well done to you for staying the course and showing such loyalty to your dead brother". I informed him that the publicity would come later in the year, as I was still meeting the Army Leadership with a view to agreeing a text for a public statement - and the official statement had to be agreed by the IRA Army Council. The IRA had wanted to release their own statement, but I disagreed and had come up with a novel idea of a joint 'Army/Family Statement', which seemed to have caught their interest and attention.

He enquired about my mother and I was happy to tell him that she was still alive, which brought a sigh of relief from him, as we both understood how poignant and important that was in the scheme of things.

We then discussed the current media speculation concerning Scappaticci and the confusion from all sides. When I informed him that my brother Michael had been interrogated by Scappaticci, he replied:

Seamus, your brother was interrogated by a British Military Officer, not a member of the IRA. Standing over your brother was an enemy officer, the only thing missing was the fact that Scappaticci wasn't wearing his British Army uniform, complete with his riding crop.

At that moment it was my turn to become emotional and I began to weep uncontrollably. Brendan then got up out of his chair and sat beside me on the sofa, with his loving arms wrapped around me, with him repeatedly saying, "I know, I know, what a horrible war. So much pain, too much pain".

After sitting together for what seemed like ages, he returned to his seat opposite mine and began to explain: 

I believe that whole unit was infiltrated. When I took charge of GHQ Intelligence I realised that the Internal Security Unit had been compromised and voiced my concerns to the Leadership, but they dismissed them, accusing me of being in jail too long and being paranoid. After the Joe Fenton case, when I specifically ordered Freddie Scappaticci and that other enemy agent in the Special Boat Service, to bring Fenton to me across the border, they failed to do that. They both had Fenton executed in February 1989, rather than bring him to me for in depth interrogation. When I asked Scap why he shot Fenton out of hand, rather than bring him to me, he came off with some feeble excuse about the need to execute Fenton because of Brit activity in the area. I never believed that for one second. But I finally realised that that whole unit was rotten and full of enemy agents. I got scared and resigned from the Army after that. I had nothing more to do with them from February 1989.

When I asked Brendan the names of those involved in the Internal Security Unit he got up and opened a drawer, taking out a sheet of paper and a pen. I watched as he wrote the names of the British agents down on paper, and then handed the paper to me. I studied the names, five names in total, and then asked about the mechanics of the Internal Security Unit and its role in the war.

He explained to me that the plan to execute my brother, as in other subsequent cases, would have been hatched in Castlereagh by RUC Special Branch and the military. The decision to release my brother Michael, instead of charging him, would have triggered a chain of events from Castlereagh to the streets of West Belfast, to Dundalk and finally to a lonely border road. Freddie Scapatticci could not have operated on his own, that was impossible, so he needed others in the ISU to cooperate or at least acquiesce in his endeavours to satisfy his British masters.

The personnel inside the Internal Security Unit should have been rotated, as is standard procedure in any army, but the enemy agents were allowed to remain in situ, as was the case with Scap and his Special Boat Service superior, who both remained in position from Autumn 1978 to at least 1990. That was simply incredible, Brendan explained.
 
At exactly 2pm that day Brendan Hughes suddenly stood up and told me he had to leave. When I asked him the reason why the Republican Movement were muddying the waters and confusing the issue with regards Scappaticci, the Dark replied:

Damage Limitation. Seamus, Freddie Scappaticci shot his bolt in January 1990 after the Brits hit the house in Lenadoon and rescued Sandy Lynch. They were too eager to capture the 'Lord Chief Justice', than rescue Sandy Lynch. They weren't interested in saving Sandy Lynch, too eager to capture their main prize, and as a result compromised all three British agents in that house, including Scap, his big mate from the SBS and that other agent who brought Lynch to the house in the first place. Your focus should be on the honour of the IRA and the oath you gave when you joined Oglaigh na hEireann. For those who compromised or were British agents, whether with RUC Special Branch or Military Intelligence, you should give them no quarter, whether certain people want to cover for them or not. Your loyalty should be to the Army, not the British Army .

Brendan and I then shook hands and I gave him a final hug, thanking him for his honesty and time. I returned to my own group and informed them of developments, whereupon we came to the conclusion that Michael and his story would not be straight forward and our journey toward truth and justice would be a long one.
Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Stakeknife ✏ A Meeting Of Minds

Seamus Kearney ✍ remembers the leader of the Blanketmen on the 15th anniversary of his death.

It was approaching Christmas 2007, when I suggested to my son, Thomas, that he accompany me on a visit to meet Brendan Hughes, ( The Dark), and he jumped at the chance.


I immediately phoned Brendan and asked would it be okay if I brought my young son to visit him, as he was interested in the Irish struggle and studying it at GCSE level at school. But to my surprise Brendan said :" I don't think that's a good idea, and anyway you can tell your son our story". 

When I pressed him further and told him that it would be better if my son heard the story from a hero like himself, he replied " Seamus, I am finished and won't be around for much longer. I've had two heart attacks, and I'm sitting here wearing sunglasses due to cataracts". When I interjected and told him I thought he wore sunglasses for 'show', he laughed and explained that his eyes had been irreparably damaged due to the first hunger strike in 1980.

He went on, "I am in poor health and have now got a ' home-help', so I'm on my last legs".

When he mentioned the 'home-help', I was shocked and told him that my mother didn't need a 'home-help' and she was 20 years his senior. I then realised the gravity of the situation and enquired about him leaving behind a testimony for posterity. He replied that he had completed a taped interview, which would be released after his death.

I then changed the tone of the conversation and said:" Dark, did you ever notice that when people reach this point, things need to be said before departure, but are left unsaid?" He concurred and commented that that situation often happens in life, where people are left with the guilt of words left unspoken, once the person has departed this life.

I then said:

Well, rather than wait for that moment, I want you to know that I love you, and the Blanketmen love you. For those who never met you or never had the privilege of getting to know you, they are immaterial and their words mean nothing.

Brendan remained silent on the other end of the phone, and then uttered the words "that means everything to me."

A short time later, in mid February 2008, I was informed that the Dark had taken a turn for the worst and was in a secure unit at the City Hospital in Belfast. After getting through security, I was admitted to the secure unit, by bluffing my way in as a relative. When I saw him in the hospital bed, with a breathing mask covering his face, I broke down and cried like a baby. I was inconsolable as I held his hand and watched as the life drained from him.

On a second visit, hours away from death, my comrade Pat Lavery accompanied me into the secure unit and was visibly shaken when he witnessed the spectre before him. We both were trembling with emotion as Pat held his limp hand and I gently placed the palm of my hand on his forehead.

Pat then said, in a broken voice:

This is so sad and heart breaking. If the Dark had have fought for the other side, he would not be lying like this. He would have been afforded a much more dignified death.

I then turned to the duty nurse and asked was it possible that the Dark could hear us, and she replied, "he can hear you, even though he is heavily sedated - he is dying but the hearing is the last to go".

After hearing this, I leaned over him and whispered into his ear:

Dark, it's Seamus Kearney and Pat Lavery here with you. The Blanketmen are with you, so don't be afraid. We are going to hold the fort down here, until we meet you again in the afterlife. Tell the rest of the lads that we send our love and will meet them in good time. Dark, go to them now and join them. Slan Abhaile.

A few hours later, it wasn't really that long, Brendan Hughes, The Dark, released his last breath and left this world. He was aged 59 and it was February 16th, 2008. The winter was losing its power and the first sign of Spring was in the air. When I left the hospital people were getting on with their lives, oblivious as to what had just happened. But a part of me went with him and I knew that life was never going to be quite the same anymore.

🖎 Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

The Final Farewell

Dixie Elliot with one of his inimitable stories from life on the blanket protest in the H Blocks of Long Kesh.

I posted a memory of Brendan The Dark Hughes which included a verse from a poem by Ethna Carbery.

Here is a story about The Dark, Bobby Sands and Ethna Carbery.

While we were in H6 in 1979 Bobby got a collection of poems smuggled in which had been written by a nationalist poet from near Ballymena called Ethna Carbery.

Bobby instantly fell in love with her poetry which later inspired many of his own poems.

However, after his first reading of her poetry he sat down and wrote her a letter. Later that night he called The Dark up to his cell door and told him that he had written a letter to Ethna Carbery to let her know how brilliant her poetry was.

The Dark shouted back to him, "You need to get an Ouija board out Bobby, she died 70 years ago."

The whole wing erupted with howls of laugher.

Two legends. 

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie


Brendan, Bobby & Ethna

Anthony McIntyre recalls the joyous birth of his daughter on this day in 2001.


Today marks the first day in the journey of my daughter into her twenties, her teenage years now behind her. It is a landmark. 

I vividly recall her birth on a cool Friday morning, the 23rd of February, 2001. When she emerged from my wife's aching and exhausted body after a long slow labour, her piercing eyes looked into mine. They say at that point, children cannot focus and therefore do not see the face in front of them. I much prefer the comforting narrative that I was the first person she set eyes on. We were, it seemed, locked in one of time's eternal moments, always to exist within my memory. She of course remembers it as well as she does me being born.

If there is a moment to equal the birth of a child, I am yet to discover what it is. The previous day, my wife lay in labour. It was her first child and the territory was completely new to her. As she lay on her bed, she read an attack launched against her in the Andersonstown News. She had offended it by winning a poetry prize. That's how it was back then. She was more than capable when it came to dealing with her detractors, giving it back in spades.

I had left her side at the hospital around seven hours earlier to return home for a shower and shave. I was standing at the mirror, razor in hand when the call came through. A nurse told me my wife was going into the delivery suite. It was almost two in the morning. I rang a taxi. The best they could do was an hour. No good. I ran from our home in Springhill through Westrock and the Whiterock, down the Donegal Road and into the Royal Maternity. After a further grueling four hours, during which my wife declined any serious pain relief, the zenith of our journey was reached. A star was born.

I raced to town to pick up the biggest bunch of flowers I could lay my hands on. I was extra cautious crossing the West Link at the Grosvenor Road. I had a new daughter and wanted to see her again so none of my usual nonchalant jaywalking, which had so traumatised my mother when I first got out of prison. Back to the hospital to deliver the flowers and then home to Springhill to inform those stalwarts of neighbours - who had not succumbed to the pressure to ostracise us - of the news.

That evening I headed out for celebratory drinks in the Grosvenor's Oasis Bar with Brendan Hughes and Tommy McReynolds, two of my closest friends. Brandy was on the go and The Dark was roaring for someone to come up with a cigar. Then we celebrated her arrival with booze. Tonight, she and I celebrate twenty years on, brandy for me, spiced rum for her. 


Our hardy little bear has made the journey from Belfast's Royal Maternity to Dublin's Trinity College where she is now a second year undergraduate. She set out on that trek at three minutes past seven in the morning. Sentimental and schmaltzy, for sure, given the day that is in it - for me, on that morning in the Republic of Springhill, a Queen brought forth a Princess. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Twenty Years Ago

Dr Mark Hayes with a piece on the late IRA volunteer Brendan Hughes that initially featured on the Tal Fanzine website on 11 November 2013.  Mark Hayes defends the reputation of this exemplary volunteer in the face of disingenious criticisms from former republicans who have now become incorporated into the administrative apparatus of the British state.
Brendan Hughes
A short time ago I was asked by TAL editor if I would consider writing a short piece about Brendan Hughes. As readers of TAL will doubtless be aware Brendan Hughes figures prominently in the narrative of modern Irish Republicanism, and much has already been said and written about him. What else, I pondered, might usefully be added to the wealth of material that already exists? Moreover, there is a sense in which the effort to recollect causes much more pain than pleasure. Why inflict more discomfort by revisiting the past?

"Darkie" and the Gombeens: In the Shadow of a Gunman

Former Hunger Striker Gerard Hodgins, writing on behalf of the Family and Friends of Brendan Hughes, responds to comments made by Gerry Adams on Darragh MacIntyre’s documentary on The Dissappeared

Brendan Hughes was an honest and decent human being. His life was spent in the service of his people.

Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams

Five years ago today, a Saturday, our old friend Brendan Hughes died in a Belfast hospital after a short illness. For over a week this redoubtable leader of the H-Block blanket protest had lain beyond the reach of any human help other than the palliative. Sometimes he rallied. The previous Saturday in the company of another former prisoner I made my way to the hospital in fear of the worst.  Upon arriving we were relieved to learn the moment had passed and for a while Brendan seemed to pick up. But it was a temporary respite. 

Gethsemane

Last Saturday, 30 April, at Conway Mill in Belfast, The Family and Friends of Brendan Hughes hosted the first annual Brendan Hughes debate and discussion. Myself and Brendan's brother, Terry Hughes, were speakers. This is the text of my talk.


Terry Hughes, Tommy Gorman and Anthony McIntyre

Introduction

I doubt somehow if Brendan Hughes would appreciate a crowd of us gathering in his name. He was often the subject of attention but not its seeker. And he was suspicious of many aspects of commemoration culture, thinking that it was the past being manipulated for the purpose of plagiarising authenticity for the present.

These days we see much of commemoration culture. We might genuinely be forgiven for thinking that people are being invited to reflect on the republican past for the purpose of numbing them to the bleak and desolate republican future. No matter how we might spin it comrades Mervyn and Wesley of the PSNI are just hard to swallow. A republican peeler sounds just about as right as a black Ku Klux Klan member. After leaving a bad taste in the mouth, the term republican peeler sort of sticks in the republican gullet.

But that is what is passed of as success these days. It was a success that looked too much like defeat for Brendan Hughes. The political structure that delivered that defeat, the Good Friday Agreement, was abbreviated to its acronym GFA. For Brendan this stood for Got Fuck All. For his ability to see behind the waffle he too got fuck all but abuse from key figures in the movement resentful of his willingness to forthrightly state his position.

Commemorations have always been a feature of republican culture. And they are sometimes the source of dispute. We need merely reflect on recent comments by Phil McCullough in relation to the series of events in March 1971 that culminated in the death of IRA volunteer Charlie Hughes, a first cousin of the man in whose honour tonight’s event is staged. McCullough’s account of the time was challenged by someone from the Official IRA. It is not for me to decide who is right or wrong; the Official IRA member or Phil McCullough. 40 years after the event exactitude may be beyond the memory skills of most people. But in defence of both parties to the dispute, if I understand them correctly, it can be said that they were arguing over events of the past rather than interpreting those events so that they might fit into a different era altogether.

There is no reason not to continue with commemorations even if the circumstances in which activists died remain disputed. Arguments about this or that based on what is remembered from the staccato of gunfire or the thunder of explosions are par for the course and do not in themselves detract from the integrity of those who died. But the republican dead should be remembered in terms of what they fought and died for. They should not be weaved into a current project which they knew nothing about, and at the time of their death would not have recognised as bearing the slightest resemblance to republicanism. Can any one name a single republican volunteer who died during the war thinking that Stormont was a good idea never mind serving in the British micro government there? Many people who were republican activists have since come to the conclusion that being part of the Stormont coalition is a good idea. But the point being made here is not whether Stormont is bad or good per se, simply that it did not figure in the considerations of republican volunteers who felt it better to send a car bomb into the building rather than a politician.

It is the weaving of the republican dead into a narrative that they neither knew nor anticipated that devalues commemorations. The dead are not being remembered but used.

Another aspect of commemoration culture, by no means restricted to Ireland, is that the eulogies to the person being remembered depict them in such a light that they resemble less and less what they actually were. In death they have become something else. It is the equal and opposite of what the propaganda of those we term ‘the other side’ does. The dead are deified by their one side and denigrated by the other. The average punter is left to wonder if two separate people are in fact being honoured.

In all of this we can’t be responsible for what the other side does. We are responsible for what we do. So to portray Brendan as something he was not would be a disservice to a man who while a larger than life republican walked the road with absolutely no air and graces. He certainly didn’t feel he was larger than the people he met on the street, in the pub or at the various events he attended.

Brendan Hughes: A Life In Themes


The monument was quite a significant piece. It was made of solid granite and would have taken considerable force to do that type of damage. Whoever did this must have come armed with a sledge hammer or something similar. So it appears to have been a very deliberate premeditated act – Terry Hughes.

I have long thought that those who attack graves or other memorials seem to spend their time in a bleak cultural milieu where pathological hatred or mindless moronity govern their actions. Whether it is the anti-Semitic destruction of Jewish graves in a Hungarian cemetery, or the violation of the resting places of the late members of Lynyrd Skynyrd there is always something morbidly disquieting about it. Others might say revolting and we would be hard pressed to disagree.

When a granite bench in honour of the late IRA volunteer Brendan Hughes was destroyed early last week barely days after it had been put in place by family, friends and comrades in the Cooley Mountains, it at first suggested a visceral hatred on the part of those responsible for the destruction. On later reflection I considered that it might have been the calling card of local thugs whose minds are so tiny that there would simply not be enough room to squeeze hatred or any other emotion in. I still don’t know what lay behind the attack. Mindless vandalism might, I suppose, be less riling than the hatred that accompanies wilful and thought out desecration.

The past history of Brendan Hughes might not be to the liking of a majority of people in Ireland. He was a long serving member of the Provisional IRA, an organisation that represented a minority viewpoint and which had more than a fair share of opponents and critics. Many in that category were less than tempered in their often blistering critiques. That Brendan remained uncompromising in defence of the IRA’s armed struggle hardly endeared him towards them. Yet few of them would make it their mission to charge though the Cooley Mountains intent on destroying a memorial bench in his honour simply engraved with little more than his name and the dates of his birth and death. They have moved on like most others. The destruction was either the handiwork of a mindless vandal who did it because it could be done or a mind so warped by perennial hatred and for which there is no palliative, that it could find no outlet other than an explosion of destructive rage.

Were the families of the 18 British soldiers killed in an IRA attack not far from the Cooleys to erect something in memory of those lost, it would never strike me that honouring loved ones was something so offensive that it would give rise to an overpowering urge to desecrate and destroy their monument. Yet there is nothing new in this type of desecration. The republican plot at Milltown has been subject to attack and destruction, the perps widely suspected of being thugs with a long standing grievance against republicanism. The grave of the IRA volunteer Joe O’Connor in the City Cemetery has also attracted the attention of morbid marauders.

The war is over and people should be free to remember or even forget as they wish. Leaving a monument alone does not imply acceptance of the perspective, views or actions of those being remembered. It merely means an acknowledgment that those who died left behind family and friends who loved them and grieve them to this day. Those who don’t share their grief should at least leave them alone to handle it in their own way.

Brendan Hughes carried out many actions in his day that led to the loss of life and property. But those who knew him understand very well that he was neither mindless or hate filled. He is remembered as much for his compassion as his military actions. The idea of anyone creeping around in the dead of night wrecking graves or destroying monuments no matter to whom they were dedicated, would have appalled him.

Not able to lace his boots they could always wreck his bench. Hardly the benchmark of meaningful lives.

Grave Desecration


Today The Pensive Quill carries an article by guest writer, blanketman Thomas 'Dixie' Elliott on the Dark's recent commemoration

As we pulled into the centre of Omeath, my wife, my son and myself, a sense of disappointment gripped me. I saw Hodgkies and one or two others sitting in the sunshine waiting and my first reaction was, I thought more would've turned up.

I needn't have worried because we were early and before long they came and gathered outside the local pub. Mackers, Big Ricky O'Rawe and of course Hodgkies himself. Others mostly with Belfast and Dublin accents soon gathered, waffling away as we waited. Mackers had brought his son and daughter, Ricky's daughter had come along and I had brought my son who is twelve. Those of us who had the honour of knowing the Dark as a leader and a comrade who inspired all who knew him, were bringing our children in the hope they too would be inspired by our memories of this small man who had the strength of a giant. How fitting that his ashes are strewn on the very mountains where the profile of Slieve Foy is said to resemble the sleeping giant, Finn MacCumhaill.

We got into our cars and a bus and in convoy made our way upwards into the Cooleys. On the way up I spotted a wooden house that should have been built in the Swiss Alps and not the mountains above Carlingford Lough. I thought who ever built it should have had the good manners to be standing outside yodelling for passing travellers.

Soon the leading cars came to a halt at a place where the only thing I could see was a very high mountain ridge towering above us with a track leading up in that direction. Jeeze I said I hope the Dark didn't get his ashes scattered away up there. Those who knew otherwise laughed and we followed them on foot up the leafy track. I would say there was about 100 of us who had made the journey and the conversation was about one person An Dorcha, I'm sure he was there somewhere listening as we passed, but I only saw curious sheep.

Just as I was beginning to believe that the old devil had indeed had his ashes scattered on top off that mountain those in front began climbing up a rickety set of steps and over a stone wall. The crumbling walls of an old cottage long ago abandoned by Dark's ancestors stood defiant against nature's advances, sheltered from the winds that swept down the Cooley mountains by ancient trees.

A small area, strangely enough the size of a prison cell, was cleared in the tall grasses that must at one time have been the garden of that crumbling cottage. Here stands a monument that was obviously built by the love of a family for a departed father. It hasn't the grandeur of those in Glasnevin nor Bodenstown but never-the-less it is a monument to a common man who doesn't need his unbreakable spirit or selfless courage engraved in granite, it is engraved in the memories of those of us fortunate enough to have known him.

The Dark's brother, his comrade from D Company, Hodgkies and a comrade from Australia stepped forward to speak and while I listened I looked out over the fields and off into the distant coast line of County Louth and the Irish Sea that faded into the haze of the sunshine. As they told us that Brendan The Dark Hughes was foremost a Socialist and then a Republican I couldn't help but think that someday thousands will gather round this crumbling cottage to be inspired by a man who shines as bright as the sun did today and whose memory will never fade in the hearts and minds of future generations.

It is places like this that will keep the fire of Republicanism burning brightly and not Stormont, Leinster House or Downing Street. I heard Dark's family say those coming each year were growing in numbers and I hope that in years to come others will follow us up that mountain road to remember on the Dark's birthday a man who gave everything for the cause and took nothing in return.

Remembering The Dark in the Cooley Mountains

For the second June in succession we journeyed deep into the Cooley Mountains to assemble at the final resting place of Brendan Hughes. I brought my daughter with me. Along with Tommy McReynolds and myself, Brendan drank the night away on the day she was born in his favourite haunt, the Oasis, in Distillery Street. Friends picked us up a few miles from the mountains and we made our first stop at a pub where I sampled the cider and met others who were there for the same reason – Brendan’s memory, not the cider.

Once everyone arrived we winded our way to the spot where his ashes were scattered a year and a half ago, bringing to an end a tumultuous journey for one of the troubled souls of republicanism. A man who was denied peace of mind during much of his life finally rested at peace in an area he would often escape to for the tranquillity it offered.

It was heartening to immediately note that the crowd in attendance this year was even bigger than it had been when we last stood where Brendan lay. We made our way up a country lane and then over a low stone wall which was not just as easy to navigate as it appeared. Helping hands are always available to assist and guide the less agile – of which there are quite a few – across to the plot of land that held what was left of Brendan’s earthly remains.

Terry Hughes, a brother, opened proceedings. The crowd seemed to keep one eye on him and another on the sky and its clouds, heavily pregnant with the moisture they seemed ready to give birth to. His speech was short, merely pointing out that as time moved on it as becoming clear that his brother’s misgivings about the strategy of the movement that had claimed so much of his life was proving correct. Paddy Joe Rice of the famous IRA ‘Dogs’ and Ivor Bell a former chief of staff of the organisation were equally as brief in their comments, focussing on the integrity of the man we had come to remember and his ability to rapidly discern that things were not always what they were served up as.

When the speakers had finished flowers were laid and old friends pulled together in front of the memorial stone to be photographed together. It was brief event so in keeping with the Dark’s own disdain for formality and standing on ceremony.

Having done what we set out to do we retired to a local hotel where food and refreshments had been laid on and where I continued with the cider sampling practice started earlier in the day. As people relaxed the conversation turned to where the republican struggle had ended up, the disappointment with the outcome, the growing head of steam gathering behind the probe to find out just what did happen during the 1981 hunger strike, and speculation about the possibility and type of alternatives that might emerge as more people were beginning to accept that republicanism had been seriously short changed by the peace process. There was also discussion about another solid republican who had died in the period that had elapsed since our last venture into the Cooleys. John ‘big Duice’ McMullan did not have the public profile of his fellow D Company volunteer, the Dark, but his commitment to the republican cause and his staying power was every bit as formidable.

Later as I travelled home half listening to my daughter chatter about the things in life that interest her - republicanism and its icons do not figure highly there, Horrid Henry books and Nintendo DS games do – I reflected that had the Dark managed to extract a few more years from life he would have experienced a sense of satisfaction long denied him as alternative discourses mushroom and dovetail with the perspective he had for long offered. He would have derived a certain joy from the fact that the strangulation of republican sentiment had not been an unmitigated success for the Sinn Fein leadership; those ‘murmuring lips of dissent’ continued to undulate despite all attempts to hermetically seal them.

From the silence of the Cooley Mountains a little murmuring can still be heard.



Murmurs of Dissent

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