No public enquiry in Pat Finucane Murder

end of the road

downcow wrote: »

My goodness that’s a year ago. How time flys. I must have been squeaky clean since. You’ll have to show me sometime how to find old historic stuff like that.

I want to be honest with you. The reality is at mid 50s I am far to old to get violent.
If in a United ireland scenario, ni was not given massive autonomy then I do think all hell would break lose. If you think you are going to have 1 million loyalists doing a jig and tipping their hat to your partisan and still catholic state, well it is just no happening.
I do think there would be serious trouble for you guys to manage. But hey that would be your problem because we would be without a state and wanting equality and recognition. Everything on its head. We would be the small minority demanding rights and demanding autonomy for a small bit of this island

you will get to keep your equal rights, recognition and traditions where they don't conflict with the law, as part of a UI.
that's the beauty about it, we won't be able to take away your rights like militant unionism was able to do, and quite right that this should be the case.
you might get some autonomy as part of a transition period but i can't imagine you will have autonomy long term as part of a UI as it won't be deliverable.
ireland hasn't really been a catholic state for a couple of decades now thankfully, and we will be able to manage any small bit of trouble caused by a tiny minority who won't have the support of the british government this time.

Junkyard Tom

downcow wrote: »

We would be the small minority demanding rights and demanding autonomy for a small bit of this island

What part would you be demanding autonomy for? Belfast and Derry are minority unionist cities, four of the six counties are minority Unionist.

Where do you think would make a viable unionist autonomous region?

FrancieBrady

downcow wrote: »

My goodness that’s a year ago. How time flys. I must have been squeaky clean since. You’ll have to show me sometime how to find old historic stuff like that.

I want to be honest with you. The reality is at mid 50s I am far to old to get violent.
If in a United ireland scenario, ni was not given massive autonomy then I do think all hell would break lose. If you think you are going to have 1 million loyalists doing a jig and tipping their hat to your partisan and still catholic state, well it is just no happening.
I do think there would be serious trouble for you guys to manage. But hey that would be your problem because we would be without a state and wanting equality and recognition. Everything on its head. We would be the small minority demanding rights and demanding autonomy for a small bit of this island

I'll be honest too. You had your chance at automnity and even though you picked 6 counties, you blew it. It failed.
And then to make matters infinitely worse you forced 2 parties in Dublin to listen to SF and insist that the UK respect the GFA and sunder NI from the UK. 2 parties that were not that interested in a UI because they are afraid of SF.

So autonomy in any shape would be like giving a child matches to play with to be honest.

Necro

Mod:

Can we stay on topic please folks, I've had to delete a number of posts about the Angelus - what that has to do with Pat Finucane's murder is beyond me.

downcow

Necro wrote: »

Mod:

Can we stay on topic please folks, I've had to delete a number of posts about the Angelus - what that has to do with Pat Finucane's murder is beyond me.

Here’s my bottom line. I genuinely feel sorry for the finucane family. I do feel though that if john finucane wants to be an MP then he should have found a form of words to condemn the killing of Solictor Edgar Graham.
I also tbh I was very pleased when finucanes did not get the public inquiry. It just feels so one sided.
I guess it is where you are looking from. I will always feel more sad about the enniskillen bomb than Bloody Sunday and I accept nationalists probably feel the opposite.
I think nationalists need to try to get into our shoes.
If your gripe is with the british establishment - well that’s not us.
If your gripe is with soldiers etc running agents or being a bit trigger happy - well I don’t blame them and I completely understand that they needed to operate outside the strict law. They were resisting terrorists. I am glad they stepped outside the law. If they hadn’t then many more would have been killed and they would never have defeated the ira.
They ran agents on both sides and I do believe they were doing their best in very difficult circumstances.
Is there anybody on here that thinks security services should not have agents and informers?

Fionn1952

downcow wrote: »

Here’s my bottom line. I genuinely feel sorry for the finucane family. I do feel though that if john finucane wants to be an MP then he should have found a form of words to condemn the killing of Solictor Edgar Graham.
I also tbh I was very pleased when finucanes did not get the public inquiry. It just feels so one sided.
I guess it is where you are looking from. I will always feel more sad about the enniskillen bomb than Bloody Sunday and I accept nationalists probably feel the opposite.
I think nationalists need to try to get into our shoes.
If your gripe is with the british establishment - well that’s not us.
If your gripe is with soldiers etc running agents or being a bit trigger happy - well I don’t blame them and I completely understand that they needed to operate outside the strict law. They were resisting terrorists. I am glad they stepped outside the law. If they hadn’t then many more would have been killed and they would never have defeated the ira.
They ran agents on both sides and I do believe they were doing their best in very difficult circumstances.
Is there anybody on here that thinks security services should not have agents and informers?

Theres a whole bunch of steps between having agents and informers and being complicit in the murder of a solicitor, Downcow.

lawred2

Going around in circles lads.. apologists for state sanctioned murder are not going to come around after reading a few well intentioned posts... Waste of time.

downcow

lawred2 wrote: »

Going around in circles lads.. apologists for state sanctioned murder are not going to come around after reading a few well intentioned posts... Waste of time.

Lawred. I have accepted looking back that the killing was wrong, though completely understandable.
I would not be opposed to a time and finance limited inquiry providing we could have similar time and money spent on an inquiry into eg our current finance ministers activities. He is running the country now, so surely we need to know what he was up to and what he knows about the killing of Protestants in south Armagh.
I can’t get my head around the demands for finucane inquiry as a stand alone as if some of the people who are currently administering British rule on this island have not been involved in murder

Can you see where my community is on this? And why we are relieved that there is no inquiry into finucane?

You you paint this guy as some holier than thou solicitor. We all know there is a bigger story

FrancieBrady

downcow wrote: »

Lawred. I have accepted looking back that the killing was wrong, though completely understandable.
I would not be opposed to a time and finance limited inquiry providing we could have similar time and money spent on an inquiry into eg our current finance ministers activities. He is running the country now, so surely we need to know what he was up to and what he knows about the killing of Protestants in south Armagh.
I can’t get my head around the demands for finucane inquiry as a stand alone as if some of the people who are currently administering British rule on this island have not been involved in murder

Can you see where my community is on this? And why we are relieved that there is no inquiry into finucane?

You you paint this guy as some holier than thou solicitor. We all know there is a bigger story

There is a very easy cheap way to find out the truth here.

Drop the objection to a Truth Commission within Unionism/Loyalism and pressure the British to drop theirs too.

Otherwise what you need to do is the same as the Finucane's have done, or the Bloody Sunday families have done, campaign until the truth cannot be avoided anymore.

downcow

FrancieBrady wrote: »

There is a very easy cheap way to find out the truth here.

Drop the objection to a Truth Commission within Unionism/Loyalism and pressure the British to drop theirs too.

Otherwise what you need to do is the same as the Finucane's have done, or the Bloody Sunday families have done, campaign until the truth cannot be avoided anymore.

Truth commission is a total nonsense and well you know it. The military will have 1,000s of records and the uvf and ira will have none.
Unless of course you mean a truth commission where no records are looked at and we just believe everyone is telling us the truth - a waste of time.
Gerry statement would start “I was never in the ira but.....). Do you think one of our current executive members is going to admit to pulling the finger nails out of a part-time policeman who was abducted doing farm deliveries in Newry, prior to murdering him? Or what detail would you expect this to go into?

FrancieBrady

downcow wrote: »

Truth commission is a total nonsense and well you know it. The military will have 1,000s of records and the uvf and ira will have none.
Unless of course you mean a truth commission where no records are looked at and we just believe everyone is telling us the truth - a waste of time.
Gerry statement would start “I was never in the ira but.....). Do you think one of our current executive members is going to admit to pulling the finger nails out of a part-time policeman who was abducted doing farm deliveries in Newry, prior to murdering him? Or what detail would you expect this to go into?

So then you will have to evidence what these people did.

There isn't any other way. Loyalists and the British are not going to come forward with the truth nor are republicans without a transparent process where everyone tells the truth.

The IRA have complied with the only voluntary truth process we know about, the one run looking for the Disappeared by the ICLVR.

What suggestions do you have? Do you want truth/justice or recrimination? Seems to me Loyalism/Unionism has settled for being able to insinuate stuff without presenting any evidence. Time is running out on that tactic as those involved in the conflict/war retire and pass on.

downcow

FrancieBrady wrote: »

So then you will have to evidence what these people did.

There isn't any other way. Loyalists and the British are not going to come forward with the truth nor are republicans without a transparent process where everyone tells the truth.

The IRA have complied with the only voluntary truth process we know about, the one run looking for the Disappeared by the ICLVR.

What suggestions do you have? Do you want truth/justice or recrimination? Seems to me Loyalism/Unionism has settled for being able to insinuate stuff without presenting any evidence. Time is running out on that tactic as those involved in the conflict/war retire and pass on.

I’ll tell you what I would like.
Any T&R into individual crimes is never going to work. 3,700 people died and the process that would be required would be impossible. If a few families like finucane were to get a process then that just adds more hurt to those that don’t.

An admission by the main players would be much more effective.
It would be transformative to me and I believe most in my community of the IRA admitted what they done. Not some insincere apology. We don’t need an apology. We need recognition of what they done.
A clear admission to the sectarian murder campaign in rural areas, admission that young men were taken away and tortured for 3 days. That they had their fingernails pulled out, their teeth pulled out, their genitals cut off and pushed in their mouths, etc, etc. Admission that they targeted mainly Protestant owned shops, etc.

The loyalists and the crown forces should also have to admit what they done.

There should be some panel that could dig a little deeper to give an honest extent of the scale of the misdemeanours on each group.

That would help me. No need for apology, could be done in a year. No need to identify perpetrators or send anyone to prison.

It would also help young people avoid repeating it.

Anyone think there is in merit in something like this?

And actually this panel should have access to security documents. Again not to comment on specifics but to comment generally on the level of state involvement in killings. But also they would see the autopsies and be able to tell us all whether the horrible tortures committed by loyalists and republicans are exaggerated or even urban myth.

c.p.w.g.w

https://www.thejournal.ie/arlene-foster-letter-micheal-martin-irish-government-ira-collusion-5290278-Dec2020/?amp=1

I think mehole needs to refuse to entertain a meeting until Finucane matter is being looked at properly

Spanish Eyes

With due respect and condolences to the Finucane family, really times move on.

Opening up this is not going to help anyone. Many including myself have lost parents and other loved ones. Grief is a process, and is not helped b y blame, although sometimes that is what we want. Because anger is part of the grieving process.

Time to leave it be.

maccored

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

With due respect and condolences to the Finucane family, really times move on.

Opening up this is not going to help anyone. Many including myself have lost parents and other loved ones. Grief is a process, and is not helped b y blame, although sometimes that is what we want. Because anger is part of the grieving process.

Time to leave it be.

it'll help the family. plus it will help society understand what a government does to its citizens so we can make sure it doesnt happen again. Time to cop on.

Spanish Eyes

maccored wrote: »

it'll help the family. plus it will help society understand what a government does to its citizens so we can make sure it doesnt happen again. Time to cop on.

Not in my view at this remove. I totally understand the family's distress, but from what I know the man represented both sides of the divide.

We need to move on now and not reopen old wounds.

end of the road

reopening old wounds and getting to the heart of the facts is us moving on as a nation.
holding enquiries as to what happened is us moving on as a nation.
we are being prevented from moving on via britain's refusal to deal with reality.
sweaping everything under the carpet and either pretending it didn't happen or just burying heads in the sand is not moving on and is preventing us from moving on as a nation.

lawred2

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Not in my view at this remove. I totally understand the family's distress, but from what I know the man represented both sides of the divide.

We need to move on now and not reopen old wounds.

The wounds are open. They've never closed.

blanch152

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

What part would you be demanding autonomy for? Belfast and Derry are minority unionist cities, four of the six counties are minority Unionist.

Where do you think would make a viable unionist autonomous region?

Don’t know where you get your figures from. The election results show clearly that the nationalist vote in the North is in decline.

Quickpip

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

Because of legal repercussions for senior politicians beaucrats and senior intelligence and military officers from that time who signed off on the activities of the SAS, 14th Intelligence Company, the FRU and other groups in the security forces who worked hand and glove with loyalist groups. The majority of the people involved whether they were giving orders running operations or pulling triggers are long since retired and comfortably retired.
We are talking about household names at cabinet level decorated veterans and at least one or two best selling novelists and prominent media personalities.

Nobody will be convicted of the Bloody Sunday killings for the same reason. Michael Jackson who later was the British top general was a junior officer in Derry that day. F had a long career finishing up as senior noncom in the Paras. Several of the men were involved in plainclothes assassinations as well as patrolling in uniform in their official roles and a few served in the SAS and top secret undercover work.
To keep that hush hush they were protected.

That's it in a nutshell. As well as the protection of those individuals,

Having an enquiry that demonstrated that high ranking members of the British Parliment ' the
birthplace of parliamentary democracy '
Were somehow implicated in the murder of a solicitor within the United Kingdom would be an international scandal.

maccored

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Not in my view at this remove. I totally understand the family's distress, but from what I know the man represented both sides of the divide.

We need to move on now and not reopen old wounds.

more of a reason to get to the bottom of it then

weldoninhio

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

In a war anyone who is an enemy or collaborates with the enemy has to expect death.
It didn't matter if a soldier is in uniform on armed patrol on the Falls Road or having pints in a pub in Birmingham.
It didn't matter if a republican was sitting at home watching TV with his kids or armed with a gun attacking an RUC station.
Pat Finucane was getting republicans off scot free who were going back to war as soon as they came out of prison.
Too bad

Wasn't it the British Justice system getting them off "scot free" due to the need for, y'know, evidence etc? Did Finucane have some special power that allowed him circumvent British law in British courtrooms??

weldoninhio

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

This innocent man just tried to run a business

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/08/21/IRA-claims-responsibility-for-contractors-murder/2625493444800/



These innocent men were working to feed their families

https://apnews.com/article/f2de876145c0ea1144a800da4e623d2b



This 6 month old baby never even got to have a life

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/baby-killed-by-ira-remembered-30-years-on-38631631.html



Or how about a chef who was kidnapped and forced to drive a bomb to a checkpoint and was blown up by the IRA?

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/10/24/news/-barbaric-and-cowardly-coshquin-human-bombing-remembered-30-years-on-2108550/



I'm not saying Pat Finnucane deserved to die just because of the work he did, his murder was a terrible thing, but to see the usual.IRA supporters in here wringing their hands over his death when their own heroes killed innocent people just because of the work they did is hypocrisy to say the least.

Were the Irish government involved in the planning, or execution of any of the above?? If not, they have nothing to do with what this thread is about.

weldoninhio

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Pat Finnucane killed because he did a job

Patsy Gillespie killed because he did a job

Yeah, the same. Two men dead because of the work they did.

What state, Ireland, Britain, or none was involved in the murder of Patsy Gillespie??

FrancieBrady

weldoninhio wrote: »

What state, Ireland, Britain, or none was involved in the murder of Patsy Gillespie??

According to downcow...the British State.

nacho libre

weldoninhio wrote: »

Wasn't it the British Justice system getting them off "scot free" due to the need for, y'know, evidence etc? Did Finucane have some special power that allowed him circumvent British law in British courtrooms??

It maybe that in some cases the interests of the British Establishment intersected with Finucane's, this is why some cases were mysterly dropped with people getting off scot free.
Obviously at some point their interests diverged, and it was deemed he was a liability/ a thorn in their side to their long term aims.

Ireland2020

blanch152 wrote: »

Don’t know where you get your figures from. The election results show clearly that the nationalist vote in the North is in decline.

The vote in the Republic is getting bigger though. FF got a boost in election and ruined it by jumping into bed with FG. FG worst election results in near a century.

downcow

""Originally Posted by Timberrrrrrrr View Post
This innocent man just tried to run a business

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/08...2625493444800/



These innocent men were working to feed their families

https://apnews.com/article/f2de87614...a800da4e623d2b



This 6 month old baby never even got to have a life

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.b...-38631631.html



Or how about a chef who was kidnapped and forced to drive a bomb to a checkpoint and was blown up by the IRA?

https://www.irishnews.com/news/north...rs-on-2108550/



I'm not saying Pat Finnucane deserved to die just because of the work he did, his murder was a terrible thing, but to see the usual.IRA supporters in here wringing their hands over his death when their own heroes killed innocent people just because of the work they did is hypocrisy to say the least.""

weldoninhio wrote: »

Were the Irish government involved in the planning, or execution of any of the above?? If not, they have nothing to do with what this thread is about.

Will the theory here so far seems to be, that we will never know unless we hold an enquiry.
Going by some of the news today seems that there was significant Irish government involvement in the planning and execution of lots of illegal activity up here.

....and of course the last atrocity listed above was organised by the 'fishermen', so the British authorities by their connection with him, you could argue had their fingers on it

weldoninhio

downcow wrote: »

""Originally Posted by Timberrrrrrrr View Post
This innocent man just tried to run a business

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/08...2625493444800/



These innocent men were working to feed their families

https://apnews.com/article/f2de87614...a800da4e623d2b



This 6 month old baby never even got to have a life

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.b...-38631631.html



Or how about a chef who was kidnapped and forced to drive a bomb to a checkpoint and was blown up by the IRA?

https://www.irishnews.com/news/north...rs-on-2108550/



I'm not saying Pat Finnucane deserved to die just because of the work he did, his murder was a terrible thing, but to see the usual.IRA supporters in here wringing their hands over his death when their own heroes killed innocent people just because of the work they did is hypocrisy to say the least.""





Will the theory here so far seems to be, that we will never know unless we hold an enquiry.
Going by some of the news today seems that there was significant Irish government involvement in the planning and execution of lots of illegal activity up here.

....and of course the last atrocity listed above was organised by the 'fishermen', so the British authorities by their connection with him, you could argue had their fingers on it

So zero evidence. Just pie in the sky from you.

political analyst

Quickpip wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell. As well as the protection of those individuals,

Having an enquiry that demonstrated that high ranking members of the British Parliment ' the
birthplace of parliamentary democracy '
Were somehow implicated in the murder of a solicitor within the United Kingdom would be an international scandal.

Douglas Hogg made that statement on the advice of senior RUC officers. It's not his fault that he was given bad information.