Gerry Adams second home

'Economical with the truth? Well only a wee bit.'

Newton Emerson keeps a careful watch on Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and he had another interesting insight in the Irish News column A look back at the week (16  February):

Gerry Adams must have complicated personal finances.  Questioned by RTE over how he affords his several homes on the average industrial wage, Mr Adams said: 'I am currently in negotiation with the bank over the house in Donegal because we're in deep trouble.'

When he was asked a similar question about the Donegal house on RTE in 2007, Mr Adams said: 'Sure the bank owns it.'

However it was quickly established that the property was mortgage free.  Might Adams have suffered the same confusion again?

Now we are all aware that Gerry Adams has a memory problem.  For example, he can't remember being in the Provisional IRA.   Now it is clear that he is suffering from both short-term memory loss as well as long-term memory loss!  It seems that he can't remember that he owns his own house 'mortgage free'.

 

Sinn Fein make much of the fact that their politicians are all on the 'average industrial wage'.  Yet in 2007 RTE established that Gerry Adams' second house was 'mortgage free'.  I wonder how many people on the 'average industrial wage', other than Sinn Fein politicians, have a mortgage-free second home?

 

Moreover Gerry is certainly not the only Sinn Fein politician on an 'average industrial wage' to own more than one home.

Jim McDowell and the Sunday World

Sunday World editor, Jim McDowell

The Sunday World has printed another 'story' about my blog and in particular recent posts about the influence that the Workers' Party had at one time within the newspaper.  The earlier articles were by Richard sullivan but this time it was Jim McDowell who took up the cudgels.

The article by Jim McDowell features on page 1 and then again on pages 4 and 5.  It is certainly big on space, spread over three pages, but like many Sunday World articles, there is really no substance to it.

Much of the front page is filled with the headline and that is simply a bit of corner-boy abuse.  The rest of the article isn't much better!

Such articles are rather self-defeating because they actually increase the number of pageviews I get for the blog.  Moreover this article is also self-defeating because it fails to answer the core point that I made and that failure is very obvious to anyone who has read the blog.

The fact is that I simply quoted a short section from the standard history of the Workers' Party and the Official IRA.  The Lost Revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party was written by Brian Hanley and Scott Millar and has won an award for the quality of its research and analysis.  Here is what it said about the SundayWorld:

The Sunday World remained an outlet for WP [Workers' Party] publicity and its populist analysis of the political situation was often in line with the party's positions. The paper steered clear of any reference to the actvities of Group B [Official IRA], but its exposes of criminal activity by other loyalist and republican paramilitaries was not without its costs: its Northern editor, Jim Campbell, was badly wounded in a UVF shooting in May 1984.

Those are not my words.  They were written by the authors of an award-winning book, one of whom is an academic in Liverpool University and the other a journalist.

The Sunday World even calls for me to resign ... because they don't like what I wrote, or rather what I quoted from a the standard history of the Official republican movement.  So just because Sunday World journalists don't like something in an award-winning book, they think I should resign.  What planet are they on?

If Jim McDowell and Richard Sullivan are getting so uptight about it, then let them take action against the authors of the book.  Let them try to prove that what the authors said was untrue.  But of course they don't and they can't!

Jim McDowell also accuses me of 'demonising the deceased Martin O'Hagan and the people who still work for this newspaper.'  I had merely reported that Martin came from a strongly republican background and had joined the Official IRA - FACT.  I also said that he had served a prison sentence for transporting guns - FACT.  I also reported that another member of the O'Hagan family had joined the Provisional IRA - FACT.

As regards the staff 'who still work for this newspaper', I did not mention them.  As stated above there was a period where the Workers' Party had strong influence in the Sunday World, as indeed it had a strong influence in some other sections of the media.

It seems that for Jim McDowell it is perfectly acceptable to scrutinise other areas of society but unacceptable to ask questions or report facts about the media.  That is a very dangerous line for any society to follow.  Moreover I am not aware of anyone else taking that line.  Down through the years I have read many articles about the influence of the Workers' Party in the media, both print and broadcast media.

The Sunday World specialises in writing about the activities of paramilitaries and has always done so but in the period where there was a strong WP influence in the paper it did ignore the criminal activities of the Official IRA, the paramilitary and fund-raising wing of the Workers' Party .. and that's a FACT.

Of course the murder of Martin O'Hagan was wrong and the perpetrators of every murder must be held to account but that does not mean that the Sunday World should be immune from scrutiny.

Climate change?

As sometimes happens my attention was taken by two short articles that I read recently in local newspapers, both about global warming and climate change.

David Attenborough

The first was in the Belfast Telegraph (12 February 2013) and concerned the BBC and the well-known broadcaster David Attenborough.  It reported that the BBC 'had re-edited an episode of Sir David Attenborough's Africa series to remove a disputed claim over climate change.  In the episode Attenborough told viewers, 'Some parts of the continent have become 3.5C hotter in the past 20 years' but the BBC later admitted that this figure is 'disputable'.  The line was then removed from the repeat episode and the re-edited version replaced the original version on the iPlayer.

A BBC spokesman said, 'There is widespread acknowledgement within the scientific community that the climate of Africa has been changing.'  However he admitted, 'We accept the detail is disputable and the commentary should have reflected that, therefore the line of commentary has been edited out.'

 

'The detail is disputable' and yet the original programme was prepared to present it as established scientific fact.

 

David Bellamy

The other article was in the News Letter (23 January 2013) and concerned botanist David Bellamy, who said the BBC had dropped him because he does not believe in global warming.  He said, 'When I was at the BBC, I could do whatever I wanted.  In those days you could say what you liked.  You can't now.  The world's gone bonkers.'

Bellamy was once a regular broadcaster on BBC and he was a very colourful character but in recent years has disappeared from their programmes.  I am sure the BBC will deny it but Bellamy is convinced this is the reason why.

In so much of the cultural establishment there is now a strict 'party line' and anyone who deviates from it is marginalised or mocked.  We hear a great deal about equality, diversity and inclusivity but obviously that does not include those who deviate from the cosy consensus.

Jude Collins and Sean Kelly

Jude Collins is a retired educationalist and a part-time journalist and commentator.  He is also one of the most sectarian journalists I have ever come across and that's saying something.  But in his latest post on his own blog he has really excelled himself.

 

Collins has posted about Sean Kelly, the man known as 'the Shankill bomber' and a man who was convicted of the murder of nine innocent Protestants.  Here is what Jude Collins said:

I have a question: why is Sean Kelly hated so much by unionists? “He murdered nine innocent people,you idiot!” might seem a reasonable reply. Except that my dictionary describes murder as “the unlawful premeditated murder of one person by another”. What Kelly did was unlawful - he helped carry a bomb into a crowded area of people - but the premeditated bit is slightly less clear. He was bent on killing people, but the people he killed weren’t those he had premeditated on killing. The reason behind the bomb was that it would catch a UDA meeting that was said to be happening above the fish shop in the Shankill. Those were the people that Kelly and his companion Thomas Begley were intent on killing, not the people in the fish shop. Then the bomb went off prematurely. The evidence for this is that they very nearly were both killed themselves in the blast. If that is the case - and it seems to me impossible to construct it any other way - then Kelly was not guilty of the premeditated killing of the ten people - including his companion - who died. He was guilty of the premeditated intention to kill the UDA people but failed. Only if you ignore that fact does the unique hatred he generates make sense.

Sean Kelly

By reason of some rather twisted and tortuous reasoning, Jude Collins argues that Sean Kelly was not in fact a murderer!  So what were the facts?

On 23 October 1993 two IRA terrorists from Ardoyne entered a fish shop on the Shankill Road.  They were Thomas Begley and Sean Kelly and they were planting a bomb.  It was a Saturday afternoon, the road was crowded with shoppers and families who were out for the afternoon, and the fish shop was packed with staff and customers.

 

Forensic evidence showed that Thomas Begley was holding the bomb at the counter of the shop when it exploded prematurely, killing Begley and nine innocent victims.  They included the owner of the shop Desmond Frizzell, his daughter Sharon McBride, George Williamson, Gillian Williamson, Leanne Murray, Wilma McKee and a family of three, Michael Morrison, his partner Evelyn Baird and her seven-year-old daughter Michelle Baird.  Meanwhile fifty-seven innocent people were injured, some of them seriously.  Begley's accomplice, Sean Kelly, was also injured.
 

The impact of the atrocity was profound and it caused a very deep hurt within the unionist community, a hurt that was exacerbated when Gerry Adams carried the coffin of Thomas Begley.
 

The only one of the victims I knew personally was Desmond Frizzell himself. He was a fine Christian and a gospel singer and he sang on several occasions in the church I attended.  However, although almost twenty years has passed since the atrocity, I can still remember that awful day and the days that followed.

Afterwards the Provisional IRA claimed that their intended target was some members of the UDA who had on occasions used a flat above the shop, as if that in some way minimised the gravity of their crime or explained it away.  However the plain truth is that the bomb was being placed downstairs, in a shop which was packed with customers.  Moreover even if the IRA bomb had killed members of the UDA, it would still have been murder.  No one has the right to take life and certainly not members of the Provisional IRA.

The IRA also claimed that there was an 11 second fuse on the bomb and that if it had not exploded prematurely those 11 seconds would have given the staff and customers time to get out of the shop.  However 11 seconds would almost certainly not have given the people in the shop time to get away.  I can well imagine the chaos and confusion as customers came to terms with what was happening around them and then tried to make their way out into the street.  No, that excuse doesn't hold.  Those more senior IRA men who planned the terrorist attack and those IRA volunteers who planted the bomb had no regard for human life.

 

In spite of all the twisted and tortuous reasoning of Jude Collins, this was murder, cold, callous murder.

 

At the trial of Sean Kelly, Lord Justice MacDermott said, 'This wanton slaughter of so many innocent people must rank as one of the most outrageous atrocities endured by the people of this province in the last quarter of a century.'  Lord MacDermott was certainly in no doubt as to what happened that day on the Shankill Road - this was one of the most outrageous atrocities of the Troubles.  That was why Kelly was convicted of murder, nine counts of murder, and why he was given nine life sentences.

Sean Kelly served seven years of his life sentence and was then released in July 2000 under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.  However he was returned to prison on 18 June 2005 by Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who said that he had directed the return to prison because of 'security information'.  He also said he was satisfied that Sean Kelly 'had become re-involved in terrorism'.  He was then re-released on 28 July, just six weeks after his arrest and the day before the IRA Army Council announced the end of its terrorist campaign.

 

Jude Collins' article is nasty and squalid and of course his article says much about its author.  Why on earth would anyone want to write an article arguing that the Shankill bombing was not murder? 

 

For many years Jude Collins was a lecturer in education at the University of Ulster.  It is sad to think that for so many years the minds of young trainee teachers were exposed to the views of such a warped individual.  Fortunately he is no longer a university lecturer. 

However from time to time he is invited on to BBC radio and television programmes as a contributor or commentator.  I sincerely hope, in the light of this appalling article, that such invitations will now come to an end and I for one will be writing to the Northern Ireland controller to draw Jude Collins' views to his attention.

The best man for Mid-Ulster

Mike Nesbitt (UUP), Nigel Lutton & Peter Robinson (DUP)

There is a desire within the pro-union community for greater co-operation between the unionist parties.  That is something I hear expressed by unionists time and time again.

 

The announcement that Nigel Lutton has been selected as an agreed Unionist candidate for the Mid-Ulster by-election on 7 March is therefore one that will receive a warm welcome.  He has the support of both the DUP and UUP as well as many other unionists.

 

It is therefore particularly disappointing that John McCallister MLA has chosen the selection of an agreed Unionist candidate as the issue over which he has resigned from the UUP.  On a night when the selection of an agreed candidate should be the main item on the news McCallister has thrown a tantrum and resigned.  However that is his choice and in due course the electorate with deal with John McCallister.

 

Nigel is an ideal candidate for the constituency and for an election in which he will face Sinn Fein's Francie Molloy MLA.  According to Lost Lives, his father, Frederick John Lutton, 'was shot by the IRA as he locked the gates of Argory House, a National Trust property near Moy, on 1 May 1979.  Two men wearing stocking masks pulled up in a car, jumped out and shot him at close range.  He was hit in the stomach and legs and died minutes after being taken to  South Tyrone hospital in Dungannon.'

 

Frederick Lutton was 40 years old and was married with three children.  He was a former member of the RUC Reserve and had resigned a few months before he was murdered.  He had worked at The Argory for fifteen years and stayed on when it was taken over by the National Trust.

 

In 2007 David Simpson MP, the DUP member for Upper Bann, used parliamentary privilege to name Francie Molloy, now the Sinn Fein candidate, as being suspected of involvement in the murder.

 

Nigel Lutton is therefore not only the standard-bearer for unionists but the standard-bearer for innocent victims of IRA terrorism.  He is the best man to go forward as the standard bearer for unionism in Mid-Ulster, the best man to confront Francie Molloy, and I wish him well.

Sir Henry Wilson MP - murdered by the IRA

Ulsterville Presbyterian Church

Recently I bought a history of Ulsterville Presbyterian Church in south Belfast and was surprised to read that before being named Ulsterville, it had been proposed that the congregation be named Wilson Memorial, in memory of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (1864-1922) who was elected as the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down on 21 February 1922 and was then murdered by the IRA four months later on 22 June 1922.  Two IRA gunman shot him dead outside his home in London as he returned from Liverpool Street Railway Station, where he had unveiled a war memorial.

The Ulsterville congregation was formed at the start of the 20th century 'under the wing' of Windsor Presbyterian Church and at first it was known as Lower Windsor. 

 

Back in 1894 a site for a new church and school had been purchased at the foot of Tate's Avenue and Donnybrook Street and Rev J C Ferris, the first minister at Windsor, held 'cottage meetings' in Great Northern Street.  In January 1901 a new schoolhouse was opened on the site at Donnybrook Street at a cost of £1,050.

 

Services started in the new building on 13 January 1901 and paved the way for the formation of what was called Lower Windsor Presbyterian Church.  'A meeting of those interested in Lower Windsor Presbyterian Church was held in the school in Donnybrook Street on Sabbath 7th April 1901' and an interim session met on 8 May 1902 to receive intending communicants.  The first communion service was conducted on 11 May 1902 at Donnybrook Street Hall and in June 1902 the General Assembly gave permission to form a congregation in the district of Lower Windsor.  In June 1903 the name was chaged to Ulsterville.

 

From 1903 to 1922 the congregation met in a church building in Edinburgh Street, which had previously belonged to the Congregationalists and to the Primitive Methodists.

 

A new church building was then erected on the Lisburn Road and the foundation stones were laid on 21 April 1923.  The previous year and shortly after his election to Westminster, Sir Henry Wilson had offered to lay a foundation stone for the new church but he was murdered shortly afterwards, on 22 June.  Immediately after his death the committee asked Lady Wilson to lay the foundation stone and agreed unanimously that the name of Wilson Memorial be submitted for her approval.  However there is no record of any response and no further reference to the proposal.

  

This led me to think of other memorial to Sir Henry Wilson and there is a fine memorial in Liverpool Street Station in London, adjacent to the war memorial that he had unveiled shortly before his death.  here is also a fine portrait of Sir Henry Wilson in Belfast City Hall.  But are there any other memorials to this Ulster Unionist MP who was murdered by the IRA?

Gary Spedding - Alliance Party activist

Yesterday (8 February) the Belfast Telegraph carried a letter headed 'Alliance party policy on flags dates from 2002'.  It was a defence of the Alliance Party's vote to restrict the number of days on which the Union flag flies from Belfast City Hall and it was written by Gary Spedding, who described himself as 'Campaigns Officer, Alliance Youth'.

The name rang a bell with me as I was sure I had seen some contributions from a Gary Spedding in relation to Israel and Palestine and so I resorted to google.

Gary Spedding is indeed a member of the South Belfast Alliance Association and campaigns officer of Alliance Youth.  He is also a zoology student at Queen's University and an active campaigner on several fronts.

Spedding founded the Queen's University Belfast Palestine Solidarity Society in 2010 and was president of the society but in November 2012 he was elected vice-president. 

The Palestine Solidarity Society takes a strong anti-Israel stance and on 23 February 2011 members of the society disrupted a lecture at the university by Solon Solomon, a former member of the Israeli Parliament's legal department.  According to a report by Ben Finch in The Gown (23 February 2011) Solomon had been invited by Sally Wheeler, head of the School of Law, to deliver an academic lecture on international law.  However the PSS members heckled the lecturer and after seven minutes the lecture was brought to a close.  Members of the panel were then removed by security staff for their own safety.  After disrupting the lecture members of the PSS gathered outside and tried to block the taxi taking Solon Solomon away.  Some students hit the car and tried to stop it but security staff were able to clear a route for the vehicle.

 

According to the report in The Gown, Gary Spedding said, 'I didn't sanction anyone to hit the taxi, I didn't sanction anyone to stop the taxi, my society doesn't condone violence.'  'He also said that he didn't necessarily disagree with it at the same time.'  Meanwhile Megan Fearon of Ogra Sinn Fein and now a Sinn Fein MLA said, 'It's a disgrace we invited a war criminal.'  It's a bit rich when a Sinn Fein MLA objects to war criminals!

Elsewhere Spedding is quoted as saying: 'I would agree with my friend Norman Finkelstein when he described Israel as a lunatic state.'
 

Spedding is also active as a campaigner for 'homosexual rights' and is campaign coordinator for Equal Marriage NI, which was launched at Queen's University on 5 July 2012 and which campaigns for 'homosexual marriage'.

 

Pink News (5 September 2012), Europe's largest gay news service', carried an article by 'LGBT campaigner Gary Spedding' in which he said:

As a community our first priority has mainly been inwardly focussed on our own rights. This has seriously effected how LGBT people and our allies go about our daily lives; we prefer to holiday in gay friendly countries, we are more likely to drink in gay or gay friendly bars and we typically show unwavering support to countries that are good on LGBT rights issues.

Interestingly Pink News also described Spedding as a 'freelance journalist covering the Israeli and Palestinian conflict'.

 

Spedding is representative of a young ultra-liberal section of the Alliance Party.  The growth of this faction within the party will be a source of trouble for them, both with more traditional Alliance members and with the electorate.