77 year old man arrested in connection with mcconville murder

As mentioned, they are clearly not going to get a conviction over 40 years later, even if they do have the right person (realistically, they probably don't). I'd be sceptical of "new information" coming to light 42 years after the event.
The timing is also very suspicious, what with the pressure Peter Robinson is coming under from the "on-the-run" thing.
Clearly they just want to send out a message that they are still chasing up things from decades ago, particularly on the republican side of things.
The McConville killing/disappearance is high-profile enough that if they announce an arrest, it will be reported widely in the media.

In reality, if there is no hope of a conviction, it's just a waste of PSNI resources for political reasons. Especially when there is real and current crime taking place every day that they could be focusing on.
Must be demoralising for the police officers - "forget making the comunity safer today, lets use you to follow up a 42-year old investigation that nothing will ever come from. Find somebody, arrest them for questioning, release statement to media to show we are busy, then release him"

Folks, stop with the petty swipes, the "I hate the brits, so I'm going to bitch about them instead" mentality, the "I hate the RA, so I'm going to bitch about them" mentality and the trolling.

anncoates wrote: »

Do you think the retrospective Finnucane or Bloody Sunday inquiries should have been scrapped for the same reason?

Or is it just embarrassing Provo murders that everybody is supposed to "get over"?

I'm not telling anybody to "get over" anything. Not sure why you put those in quotation marks, is it a quote from somewhere?

I do think they were different as they were inquiries, not police investigations.
Inquiries are legal people questioning everybody and trying to get to the root of what happened, or give an opinion on what happened in probability. Being found guilty or probably guilty by an inquiry is not a criminal conviction.
If anything emerges that could implicate somebody and lead to a conviction, then this should be passed to the police.

I think an inquiry into the McConville killing may be a good idea, if the politicians agree to it.
(Though in my opinion, setting up a truth commission would be better, as it may throw up information on all killings.
Most likely verdict of a McConville inquiry would be "We believe the IRA did it, we're not sure who exasctly or where the body is, maybe somewhere along the border")

The issue now is the police investigating the McConville incident, a criminal investigation, and making what I assume is a token arrest, 42 years later.

If they actually catch the people behind it and get convictions, then I will stand corrected, and commend them for their perseverence in enforcing justice.

mrsbyrne wrote: »

First of all Mrs O'Loan says she was not a tout.
http://www.policeombudsman.org/modules/investigation_reports/index.cfm/reportId/164
And if you don't mind, I'll take her word over that of the cowardly brain dead scumbags who abducted her. Almost 20 thugs men and women,a drunken lynch mob, frothing at the mouth.
What were they afraid of ? That the 6 year old twins would kick them in the shins?
Mrs McConville committed the ultimate crime of being a blow in, and a Protestant blow in at that in the cesspit of gossip and idle chit chat that was Divis Flats.
I hope she has haunted them all, in the dead of night, especially as they grow old and vulnerable, and that they close their eyes at night and see her miserable hungry frightened children's faces as they hauled their mother down the stairs.
I hope that they and their supporters rot in hell.

She was not a blow in, at least one of her kids was in the IRA and was in Long Kesh when she was killed.

mrsbyrne wrote: »

She was originally a Protestant fom East Belfast, brought to live in Divis Flats.
if thats not a blow-in then tell me what is?
Oh! one of her kids was in Long kesh, oh well, perfect justification for what happened her then:pac:
She wasnt killed, she was abducted and murdered by the IRA.
Cats are "killed" by cars.

Not at all.

If you know anything about Divis flats or communities like that you'd realize that the parents and relations of what were termed "POWs" were well respected and certainly were not ostracized from the community. In fact the community she was ostracized from was the one she grew up in in East Belfast, after she got married and converted to catholicism the family were intimidated out of there so they moved to Divis.

Over the years there have been various reasons given why she was murdered, from patently false claims that she was seen aiding a dying British soldier (no British soldier was killed or even injured in the Divis area in the timeframe) to the one you are giving, which basically says that it was a sectarian murder.

I don't find your reasoning in any way plausible given that at least one of her children were in the IRA and one was in Long Kesh at the time.

The most plausible explanation is that she was reported stuff to the British army/RUC or at least was suspected of doing so with good reason. The IRA were not in the habit of killing the mothers of IRA prisoners for no reason. I find it curious that this suggestion infuriates people who loath the IRA, surely it makes her more of a hero in their eyes?

Many of these people are also adamant that Gerry Adams was involved, yet the basis for these claims is what people like Brendan Hughes and Dolores Price said - but they were even more adamant that she was an "informer". You can't have it both ways.

In any case it was a horrible event and the IRA shouldnt have done it, it just seems to me that people are intent on scoring political points off the back of this tragedy by embellishing the story and ommiting facts which take away from their desired narrative.

Given your emotional posting it seems you have no interest in a discussion about the tragedy - I posted mainly for the benefit of onlookers

J Cheever Loophole wrote: »

This.

There appears to be growing concern up here in some quarters about growing unrest in what is known euphemistacilly as the 'PUL Community' (Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist). Within the last week I listened to an interview on Radio Ulster with a former leader of the PUP who was claiming growing PUL disenchantment with the political process here and when asked, sited the imbalance of arrests between Republicans and Loyalists by the Historical Enquiries Team as one cause of anger.

The 'McConville arrest' may just be a coincidence, but in my experience of the Northern Ireland peace process, a coincidence is a very rare thing.

The PUP would find something to complain about if it was 100 republicans arrested for every 1 loyalist. The main concerns with the HET is that it gives state forces far more leeway and much more benefit of the doubt http://www.thejournal.ie/historical-enquires-team-criticised-977209-Jul2013/