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NORTHERN IRELAND: WHY JUSTICE IN

INDIVIDUAL CASES MATTERS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND 

COOPERATION IN EUROPE

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 16, 2011

Printed for the use of the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

[CSCE 112–1–2]

(

Available via http://www.csce.gov 

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

HOUSE SENATE

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,

Chairman 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,

New York 

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland,

Co-Chairman 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

ROBERT F. WICKER, Mississippi 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

MICHAEL H. POSNER, Department of State 

MICHAEL C. CAMUN ̃ EZ, Department of Commerce 

ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense 

(II) 

NORTHERN IRELAND: WHY JUSTICE IN 

INDIVIDUAL CASES MATTERS 

MARCH 16, 2011

COMMISSIONERS 

Page 

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe .............................................. 1

MEMBERS 

Hon. Donald M. Payne (D–10) a Member of Congress from 

the State of New Jersey .......................................................... 3

WITNESSES 

John Finucane, son of Patrick Finucane, human rights lawyer murdered by Loyalist paramilitaries ............................... 5

John Teggart, son of Daniel Teggart, victim of the 1971 

Ballymurphy Massacre ........................................................... 7

Ciara ́n McAirt, grandson of John and Kitty Irvine, McGurk’s 

Bar bombing victim ................................................................. 9

Jane Winter, Director, British Irish Rights Watch .................. 11

APPENDICES 

Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe . 21

Prepared statement of John Finucane ...................................... 22

Prepared statement of Ciara ́n McAirt ....................................... 24

Prepared statement of Jane Winter .......................................... 31

Written material submitted for the record by Raymond 

McCord, Sr., father of Raymond McCord, Jr., murdered 

by Loyalist paramilitaries ....................................................... 40

(III) 

(1)

NORTHERN IRELAND: WHY JUSTICE IN 

INDIVIDUAL CASES MATTERS 

March 16, 2011

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC

The hearing was held at 2 p.m. in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding. 

Commissioner present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Member present: Hon. Donald M. Payne (D–10) a Member of Congress from the State of New Jersey. 

Witnesses present: John Finucane, son of Patrick Finucane; John 

Teggart, son of Danny Teggart; Ciara ́n McAirt, grandson of John 

and Kitty Irvine; and Jane Winter, Director, British Irish Rights 

Watch. 

HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. SMITH. The Commission will come to order. 

And before I begin, I’d like to welcome my good friend and colleague, Don Payne from New Jersey, who—he and I have served 

on the Human Rights Committee on the Foreign Affairs Committee 

for several decades. It’s good to welcome my fellow New Jersian 

and good friend to the Commission, and I thank him for joining us 

today. 

And I would like to welcome everyone for joining us this afternoon, and in particular to many old friends who are testifying 

today, and to others who I see in the room. 

Today family members of people killed in Northern Ireland will 

tell us about their efforts to learn the truth about possible British 

Government collusion or complicity in their loved ones’ murder. I 

join my voice with theirs to say: enough obfuscation, enough 

stonewalling. 

We must continue to press for the truth wherever it leads, and 

continue to press until justice has been served and those responsible have been held to accountable. There is no statute of limitations on assassinations or on murders. Several developments since 

the Commission’s last Northern Ireland hearings in 2004 must be 

mentioned before we turn to our witnesses. 

Most troubling was the adoption in the United Kingdom in 2005 

of a new Inquiries Act, superseding the 1921 Tribunals of Inquiry, 

2

or Evidence Act, and empowering the government to limit independent action by the judiciary and block scrutiny of state actions 

in inquiries held under its terms. 

I am deeply concerned that the intent behind the Inquiries Act 

of ’05 was to prevent exposure of state collusion with paramilitaries 

in the North of Ireland, particularly in view of the British Government’s continuing refusal to heed calls for independent public inquiry into police collusion, and to release the findings of its own inquiries into collusion. 

We must be clear that the British Government, as part of the 

Good Friday accords and the subsequent Weston Park agreement, 

freely assumed the obligation to full, independent, public judicial 

inquiries. Later, it changed its inquiry legislation, making the sort 

of inquiry intended by Good Friday and Weston Park impossible. 

Testifying before the U.S. Congress in 2005, before our Committee, Judge Cory said, ‘‘First, it must be remembered that when 

the Weston Park Accord was signed’’—in July 2001—‘‘the signatories would have had only one concept of a public inquiry. Namely, 

that it would be conducted pursuant to the 1921 Public Inquiry 

Act. To change the ground rules at this late date seems unfair,’’ he 

said. ‘‘Further,’’ he went on, ‘‘it seems to me that the proposed new 

act would make a meaningful inquiry impossible.’’

And today we can be even more sure than we were in 2004 that 

such inquiries are needed to establish the truth and give justice to 

the relatives of those slain. In January 2007, the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Nuala O’Loan, released a comprehensive 

report which identified many areas of police collusion with paramilitary organizations, including in murder, and stated that such 

collusion could not have occurred, quote, ‘‘without knowledge and 

support at the highest levels’’ of the police. 

Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives is on record as calling on the British Government to conduct an independent public 

judicial inquiry into the possibility of police collusion in the murder 

of Patrick Finucane, through the passage of several bills that I’ve 

authored, including H. Res. 128, which passed in the 106th Congress, H. Res. 2740, which passed in the 109th Congress, and a 

similar measure, again, H. Con. Res. 20, which passed during the 

110th Congress. 

It’s also important to note that in 1999, Congress passed my 

amendment that suspended U.S. support and exchanges with the 

British Police Force in Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, until standards were set to vet any RUC officers who engaged in human rights abuses. That legislation specifically sought 

to vet out any RUC members who may have committed or condoned violations of internationally recognized human rights violations, including any role in the murder of Patrick Finucane or 

Rosemary Nelson or others as well. 

I had hoped to meet with the British Secretary of State for 

Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, personally this week in Washington to discuss longstanding concerns in these and other cases, 

and am happy to be able to say that we are planning to sit down 

together later this week. His recent meeting with relatives in some 

of the cases, who will testify today, is a welcome gesture, though 

there have recently been mixed signals as to whether the British 

3

government is willing to undertake full, independent, public judicial inquiries into the crimes committed in these cases. 

Equivocating on the issue of truth and justice for past crimes will 

only embolden those elements responsible for them from the resulting impunity. The time has come to focus truth’s light on the 

murky relationships and collusion that existed between the security forces and paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland and 

hold those responsible to account. 

Finally, once again, we are all grateful to family members and 

others who have traveled from Ireland to be with us this afternoon. 

Their commitment to justice is moving and is a key factor building 

a brighter future for all of the people of Northern Ireland. The 

other factor, which we are here to work on, will be the British Government’s willingness to deal more openly with the past. 

I would like to now yield to my friend and colleague, Mr. Payne. 

HON. DONALD M. PAYNE (D–10) A MEMBER OF CONGRESS 

FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I will be very brief. I want 

to thank my colleague for allowing me to sit in on this very important hearing of the Helsinki Commission. 

Let me congratulate him for his ascension to the Chair of this 

Commission. As you know, his record has been very clear as it relates to the issue of Northern Ireland, that he has had many, many 

hearings, as he’s indicated. And there has to be—without justice 

it’s difficult to have true peace. We used to say, no justice, no 

peace. And so we have to really search for peace in order to have 

true justice in the cases here, the Finucane, McCord, Teggart, 

McAirt, and the Winter cases are very important. 

Let me just conclude by saying, here in the United States we had 

a number of civil rights problems in the late ’40s and in the ’50s 

and in the ’60s. There were murders; there were many heinous 

acts. And, don’t you know, our justice system in the United States 

continued to probe these issues, and people were brought to justice 

50 years later. 

Just 3 years ago, Matill case and other cases of people killed in 

the ’50s were finally brought to justice. So, I don’t think, as it’s already been mentioned by the Chairman, that time stands in the 

way. The loss of a life is for eternity, and therefore I think that we 

must keep the lines open so that we can get to the bottom of the 

case. 

And let me just say finally, in conclusion, that though it has 

nothing to do directly, we have to continue to keep the process 

moving forward in Northern Ireland. We’ve seen tremendous accomplishments during the past decade. Things have happened that 

we never thought would occur. 

And I would hope that we—at another forum—and I’ll talk to the 

Chairman of the Helsinki Commission—that the IFI fund for Ireland, which now is on the chopping board as we are tightening the 

strings on everything in our country, but I think that we need to 

continue to support what’s happened in the past so that the International Fund for Ireland can continue to do the great work that 

its done. That’s not the subject of this hearing, but I think it’s—

4

it works in together. It’s all together. And I will talk to the proper 

authorities to see if we can deal with that. 

So, once again, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much to my colleague for his statement and for underscoring the need for the International Fund for 

Ireland to be retained. We had a discussion this morning with Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson regarding the necessity of that 

fund and how it has synergistically worked with other monies that 

are donated by the British and the Irish government and the tremendous good it has accomplished in bringing the communities together. So the point is extremely well taken. 

I’d like to now introduce our witnesses today and thank them 

again for being here, beginning first with John Finucane, whose 

mother, Geraldine, is present as well with us this afternoon. Geraldine, thank you. 

John was a child of 8 when loyalist gunmen forced their way into 

the family’s home and murdered his father, Patrick Finucane, in 

cold blood, and wounding his mom, Geraldine. Of course, John 

Finucane—or Patrick Finucane, I should say, was a tremendous defense attorney that earned respect around the globe for his work 

for human rights, for insisting that all parties have a fair trial. 

And, for that, having been threatened several times, unfortunately assassins took his life. And he was there—John was there, 

and Geraldine, like I said, was wounded. John has pursued a legal 

career himself. He’s specializing in defense work. And, again, I 

thank him for being here. 

Then we’ll hear from John Teggart, who was born in Belfast, 

where he has lived all his life. When John was 11 years old, his 

father, Danny, was killed in Ballymurphy Massacre of 1971. For 12 

years, he and the Ballymurphy Massacre Committee have campaigned for justice for all the 11 victims killed in that massacre, 

and I thank him for being here as well. 

Then we’ll hear from Ciara ́n McAirt, who is grandson to John 

and Kitty. Kitty was killed in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre in early 

December 1971. His grandfather, John, was pulled, badly injured, 

from the rubble. Ciara ́n has campaigned with members of the families and others killed in the bombing in their search for truth about 

this heinous crime. He researches and manages a Web site as well. 

It’s called the McGurkMassacre.com. 

Also testifying will be an old friend of this Commission, as well 

as our Human Rights Committee—or panel on the Foreign Affairs 

Committee, Ms. Jane Winter, who has testified many times. She’s 

been monitoring and researching the human rights dimension of 

the conflict in Northern Ireland since 1990. 

Since 1995, she’s been the Director of British-Irish Rights Watch, 

an independent human rights non-governmental organization 

whose services are available free of charge to anyone who’s human 

rights have been violated because of a conflict, regardless of religious, political or community affiliations. In that capacity she has 

testified, as I indicated several times before, to the U.S. Congress. 

And the Commission had invited Raymond McCord, Sr. to testify 

at today’s hearing on the murder of his son, Raymond, Jr., by the 

loyalist paramilitary group in 1997. Unfortunately, his recovery 

from recent surgery prevented him from traveling. His written tesVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:23 Oct 03, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\031611.TXT KATIE
5

timony will be included in the hearing records. Most disturbing are 

his reports of ongoing threats against his life, as a result of his ongoing activism on his own case. 

And, finally, I would note that Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, a fellow Commissioner on this Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, with a long history of engagement 

on the issues and cases before us today, had hoped to participate 

but was required to travel in connection with the developments in 

North Africa. But he has personally sent his best to each of our 

witnesses. 

John, if you could begin. 

JOHN FINUCANE, SON OF PATRICK FINUCANE, HUMAN 

RIGHTS LAWYER MURDERED BY LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES 

Mr. FINUCANE. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Payne, thank you 

very much for the invitation to address this Commission again 

today on behalf of my family. We appreciate all the work that was 

done by this Committee in highlighting our cause. 

As has been outlined, my name is John Finucane. I am the 

youngest son of Patrick Finucane, a defense attorney who was murdered in 1989 as our family sat down to have Sunday dinner in 

Belfast. 

While the loss of a father in any circumstance is always very 

hard to come to terms with, as a child it was even more difficult 

by the fact that in the immediate aftermath of my father’s killing, 

we had questions that needed to be asked of the authorities, as he 

had been threatened for some time by the RUC, via his clans, and 

sometimes directly in the months and years leading up to his murder. 

This Commission, and many people in this room, will be fully 

aware as to what has come out in the intermittent years, but essentially from around 1989 to 2004, many strands of collusion were 

exposed through the work of our friends in America, groups here, 

nongovernmental organizations in England and in Ireland, and the 

work of government. 

Essentially we knew that the RUC and the British army had 

agents involved in the murder of my father. They were not only 

aware that the act was to take place but it appears that they 

helped conspire for that act to take place successfully and covered 

it up subsequently. 

And in 2004, as a result of peace talks between the British and 

Irish Governments, of which we had no input, a mechanism was 

announced by the British Government whereby a judge of international repute would look at the evidence in the case, and if he 

thought that an enquiry was merited, then the relevant government, the British Government, would initiate that inquiry. 

It sounds simple. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The judge very firmly 

recommended an inquiry, and that was Judge Cory, who has been 

on the record in front of this Commission and since that time in 

support of our stance. 

Essentially the government, the Labour government of the day, 

led by Tony Blair, said that, yes, there would be an inquiry, but 

it would have to be enacted under new legislation. That new legislation has already been referred to as the Inquiries Act. 

6

And whilst the majority of the legislation my family and I did not 

have a problem with, the main bone of contention was the provision within the legislation to allow a Minister to issue a restriction 

notice. Now, without getting bogged down in the legalities, very 

simply it allows a Minister to play a trump card whenever a decision is made that the government does not like. 

We felt this went to the very heart of the independence of any 

inquiry, and therefore we were not able to give it our approval. 

Since that time, we entered into a period of stalemate. It got to the 

stage whereby the Secretary of State refused to even speak with 

us. As they said in their correspondence, what’s the point? We 

knew your position. Unless you change your position, we are not 

changing ours. 

That’s where things are. We had seen a draft restriction notice 

that they were going to use, and it was as draconian as one would 

have feared. However, last year saw arrival of a new British Government, a coalition government, and the shadow Secretary of 

State, Owen Patterson, then followed on and became the Secretary 

of State. 

We were pleasantly surprised when he requested a meeting with 

us, as it was perhaps the first Secretary of State to ever ask to 

meet us to listen to us. And myself and my mother met with him 

towards the end of last year. 

Following that meeting, in which we told him our position and 

we let him know what exactly it was we wanted and we expected, 

he announced a consultation period whereby he invited representatives from the family and any interested party to decide whether 

a public inquiry was still in the public interest. 

Now, my initial frustration and—well, I was insulted as well at 

the language that was used initially, but following that announcement we entered into conversation with the Secretary of State’s 

legal team whereby what they, what the Secretary of State thought 

was explained to us in a little bit more detail. And once that was 

done, it certainly diluted our frustrations. 

And essentially, what we understand the British Government’s 

position at this stage is that the consultation period has closed as 

of March the 11th. The Secretary will then take a number of weeks 

to decide whether it’s in the public interest, and he will tell us 

prior to that decision privately before he makes that decision public. 

It was made very clear to us that the Minister has an open mind, 

that there is no firm conviction that a restriction notice will be 

used, and any inquiry into my father’s murder, if one is decided to 

be held. And examples of other controversial inquiries under the 

Inquiries Act whereby written protocols had been agreed between 

that inquiry on the British Government for the Minister not to invoke this part, to leave matters to the panel itself, they were presented to us, and certainly we find that encouraging. 

So the position where we are at this minute is that we have had 

22 years of hurdles and disappointments, so we will not be taking 

anything for granted until, firstly, the Minister announces that a 

public inquiry is very much in the public interest. And we would 

urge all our friends and supporters to remind the Minister—remind 

the Minister of that importance at every opportunity. 

7

If and when the Minister makes the decision that is in the public 

interest, we will hopefully be getting down to talking about what 

type of inquiry can be settled that will finally put this matter to 

bed, that will finally have the ability to achieve the truth, which 

is something we have always campaigned for. And we have highlighted three main principles which we would want that inquiry to 

have. 

We think, first, it needs to have a strong, independent panel that 

would have the ability and the experience to deal with the complex 

issues. Second, it would need to have the support of an equally experienced and strong legal team to facilitate the truth. And, third, 

we would need a guarantee from the British government that they 

will not invoke the power of the restriction notice to trump any inquiry and to make predetermined outcomes and to prevent an inquiry from being truly independent. 

And I would always echo the comments of Judge Cory, who describes such as ‘‘Alice in Wonderland,’’ and I think that critique remains as damning and as pertinent today as it did whenever he 

gave that testimony to that Committee. 

So, in conclusion, I think the benefits of an inquiry will be felt, 

not just by our family—and, to be fair, not just in society in Ireland, but I think it will be felt around the world. This is a case and 

it’s an issue, the issue of collusion between killers on our streets 

and the government of the day. I think that issue being dealt with 

in a transparent fashion will be felt all around the world and will 

cement a peace process. 

I heard today that peace is not the absence of violence; it is the 

cementing of justice, and I think that is an excellent way of phrasing it. And until we have a truly transparent and independent examination of this issue, I think instability will always be in our society. And, unfortunately, we’re all aware that there are those in 

our society who seek to capitalize upon that instability, and I think 

that that needs to be fully removed. 

Will it be easy? No. The right thing is very rarely easy. But is 

it something that is necessary? Yes, and I think it always remains 

necessary. Prime Minister Cameron deservedly received international credit for the humble and modest way in which he dealt 

with the publication of the Bloody Sunday report. But if his government is truly committed to securing a peace in my country, in my 

city, then I think this is something that needs to be dealt with. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Finucane, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Teggart. 

JOHN TEGGART, SON OF DANNY TEGGART, VICTIM OF THE 

1971 BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE 

Mr. TEGGART. Chairman Smith, Congressman Payne, I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful for the opportunity to appear 

before this Commission. 

I am a member of the Ballymurphy Massacre Committee, the 

Committee that seeks justice about the British Army massacre of 

11 of our loved ones in Ballymurphy, Belfast, on August 9, 10, and 

11, 1971. 

8

One of the persons murdered was my father, Danny Teggart, age 

44. He was shot 14 times as he lay defenseless on the ground. He 

left behind 13 children. Next day at the barracks where my sister, 

Alice, went looking for our missing father, the parachute soldiers 

jeered and mocked her, cruelly singing a popular song at the time, 

‘‘Where’s Your Papa Gone?’’ Other bereaved families were shown 

similar disrespect by the soldiers and the judicial authorities. 

My mother, Bella, has since died. Her only wish was justice for 

her husband. She would be so pleased that this hearing is taking 

place today. 

Another of the victims was Joan Connolly, age 45, a mother of 

eight children. Mrs. Connolly was shot and initially blinded as she 

went to the aid of a wounded teenager, Noel Philips. She was then 

repeatedly shot and left to bleed out where she fell. Her daughter 

Briege Foyle is with me today. A local parish priest, Friar Hugh 

Mullan, was also gunned down while waving a white handkerchief, 

going to administer the Last Rights to a wounded man. 

The massacre left a total of 57 children with the loss of a parent. 

I record with honor and respect the names of all the other victims 

in my written testimony, which also provides more evidence of the 

justice of our cause. 

Nobody has ever been held accountable for this massacre. And it 

is most important to stress here that no British soldier was killed 

or wounded in the area where our families were slaughtered during 

these three terrible days. There has never been a proper investigation into the circumstances of the Ballymurphy Massacre. The police and the British army covered up and lied. 

There was an agreement at the time between the police and the 

army that legally constituted police were not allowed to interview 

soldiers who murdered our loved ones. The investigation was instead carried out by the Royal Military Police. 

The inquests into the death of our loved ones were also flawed. 

The British army denied the coroner was denied access to evidential material that would have enabled him to conduct an effective 

inquest. No eyewitness testimonies were taken. No military witnesses were interrogated. Their evidence was merely passed to the 

judge in a brown envelope. 

And to make the situation even worse, the Parachute Regiment 

that committed the massacre went on to commit the Bloody Sunday in Derry on the 30th of January, 1972. Had the Parachute 

Regiment been called to account for murdering 11 people in 

Ballymurphy, then that regiment may have been stopped from 

murdering 14 people in Derry. 

Today, as part of a long tradition, I turn to the U.S. Congress 

and to this Commission for support and help. I respectfully request 

my oral testimony to be submitted and documents read into the 

record. 

Time and time again in Ireland’s long struggle for justice, Irish 

people have turned to America for support because they knew the 

British establishment would never willingly grant justice. The 

Finucane family, Ray McCord, and the late Rosemary Nelson have 

all previously come before this Commission in the pursuit of justice. 

9

Indeed, without the support of the United States, there would 

not be a peace process in Ireland today. So it is with gratitude and 

hope that I appear before you today, because the truth about what 

happened in Ballymurphy has yet to be set free. 

The Ballymurphy Massacre families demand from the British 

government an international independent investigation into the 

deaths of our loved ones; an investigation that is properly 

resourced, independent of the Police Service of Northern Ireland or 

the British army; has the power of compelling documents, soldiers 

and witnesses; has access to RUC and military intelligence; providing findings and recommendations. Please refer to our document, ‘‘What is an International Independent Investigation’’ for 

more details. 

I respectfully ask the U.S. Congress to put pressure on the British government to grant our reasonable demands. We will not accept a desktop review from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s 

PSNI Historical Enquiries Team. 

Again, Mr. Chairman and members of this Commission, Congressman Payne, thank you for your concern, and I am profoundly 

grateful. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony and for 

traveling here. I would like to now ask Ciara ́n McAirt if you would 

present your testimony. 

CIARA ́ N McAIRT, GRANDSON OF JOHN AND KITTY IRVINE, 

McGURK’S BAR BOMBING VICTIM 

Mr. MCAIRT. Mr. Chairman, esteemed members, our families are 

grateful to this honorable Commission for allowing us to offer testimony to its hearing on ‘‘Northern Ireland: Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters.’’ We humbly request that our longer testimony be written into the record. 

My name is Ciara ́n McAirt. I am a grandson of John and Kitty 

Irvine. Kitty was one of 15 civilians—women, men and children—

who were slain in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 4th of December, 

1971. Over a dozen injured were lucky to escape with their lives. 

It was a bomb attack carried out by loyalist terrorists but blamed 

by the authorities on a republican bomb in transit. Therefore, the 

innocent victims were despoiled of life and their good name. 

Successive administrations have veiled the full truth from us for 

two generations. Our families therefore have had to campaign inexorably, constitutionally and with great dignity now for nearly four 

decades to clear the names of our loved ones. 

My grandparents were enjoying a quiet drink with old friends in 

a family-run public house called McGurk’s Bar in North Belfast. 

That night, as the regular customers chatted and laughed amongst 

themselves, upstairs the McGurk boys and a young 13-year-old 

friend, James Cromie, were playing raucously, as only children can 

do. 

Mrs. McGurk arrived home with the McGurk’s only daughter, 14-

year-old Maria. They were returning home from confession in nearby St. Patrick’s Church. A bomb ripped through this scene, bringing walls and roof down upon everyone. Those who were not 

crushed or slowly asphyxiated by masonry were horrifically burned 

when shattered gas mains burst into flames beneath the rubble. 

10

The lifeless bodies of 15 innocent men, women, and children were 

dragged from the ruins. Such was the carnage of the McGurk’s Bar 

Massacre. I record our families’ names with great respect in my 

written testimony. 

A young boy saw the bomb being planted in the outside hallway 

and the fuse lit by a terrorist, who then got into the car with two 

other men before skipping into the night. This young lad was able 

to give the police a vivid description of the car and the masked 

stranger. He warned a passerby that there was a bomb, and this 

man escaped with seconds to spare, testifying to the police of the 

day, the RUC, that this boy had saved his life. 

Nevertheless, these witness statements and those of the survivors, and an admission by the loyalists themselves, and a whole 

gamut of evidence, was ignored by the RUC. Instead, without substance, without substantiation, the police placed on file that this 

was a bomb in transit. Our family members were not innocent; 

they were guilty by association, if not complicit in acts of terrorism. 

Swiftly, the disinformation within this RUC duty officer’s brief 

was then fed into the intelligence stream. It even became the basis 

for government briefings and speeches. It was leaked to the press 

and was fed into the public consciousness. It became a lie, therefore, that allowed the true culprits to go free. 

I have provided written reference for all these archived finds 

made not by the authorities but by myself, the Pat Finucane Centre and the British Irish Rights Watch. This includes the minutes 

of a Joint Security Committee meeting when a chief constable, commander of the RUC at the time, and his head of Special Branch 

told the Northern Ireland Prime Minister and the general officer 

commanding the British army in the North that two of the victims 

were known IRA terrorists. Other archived evidence, though, has 

been redacted or withheld from us after targeted requests for information. 

Against this backdrop, could we ever expect a fair investigation? 

A recently published report by the police ombudsman censures the 

RUC investigators for what it calls ‘‘investigative bias.’’ Nevertheless, the present chief constable of the reformed Police Service of 

Northern Ireland denies such bias. He has disputed the central 

finding of the statutory body set up to investigate the police complaints. 

Yet again, the massacre of our loved ones has been politicized by 

a chief constable at a time when our community should have faith 

in a reformed police force’s ability to recognize and learn from the 

failings of the past. 

This is why, in Northern Ireland, justice in individual cases matters. It is not simply about closure for fellow human beings. This 

is about historical and moral rectitude. History informs the 

present, and from it we learn our mores as a society. 

That is why I humbly beseech you to use whatever influence you 

may have to ensure that Britain, your great partner, releases all 

the other information that was kept from us regarding the massacre of our loved ones in the McGurk’s Bar on 4th of December, 

1971. Otherwise, I fear the present authorities may prove that they 

too are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Committee members. 

11

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. McAirt. Ms. Winter? 

JANE WINTER, DIRECTOR, BRITISH IRISH RIGHTS WATCH 

Ms. WINTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

British Irish Rights Watch and our sister organization, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, on whose behalf I’m speaking as well today, are independent, award-winning, nongovernmental organizations with between us over 50 years’ experience of 

human rights in Northern Ireland. 

We are very grateful to this honorable Commission, and especially to Chairman Smith and to Representative Payne, both of 

whom have staunchly shown their concern and support over many, 

many years for human rights in Northern Ireland, for allowing us 

to submit evidence to its hearing on ‘‘Northern Ireland: Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters,’’ and we request that our longer 

testimony be written into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Winter, without objection, yours and longer 

statements and submissions by all of our witnesses will be made 

a part of the record. 

Ms. WINTER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

The past in Northern Ireland cannot be ignored, and continues 

to shape the present and to determine the future. One of the reasons for this is that although there have been many victims on all 

sides of the community, many people do not know why their loved 

ones died or why they themselves were injured. 

Many lies have been told, particularly about state collusion in 

killings. There is a great thirst for the truth, particularly as people 

who are beginning to emerge from the shadow of the conflict feel 

confident enough to ask questions about what happened and why 

no one has been held accountable in so many cases. 

There have been many genuine attempts to reform Northern Ireland’s institutions since 1998, but whilst outstanding cases remain 

unresolved, there is a danger that those reforms will be undermined. We have heard today about three of the tragic cases—and 

we also have heard of Raymond McCord, who is not able to be with 

us today—which span four decades and both sides of the community divide. 

The relatives of the 11 victims killed by the British Army in 

Ballymurphy in August 1971 have not to this day received the effective investigation they are campaigning for and deserve. My organization has investigated two of those killings and is certain that 

those two victims were wholly innocent and unprovoked, and we 

are sure that the same will be found in the other 13 cases. Sorry, 

I beg your pardon—nine cases. 

The families of the 15 victims who died in the McGurk’s Bar 

bombing in December 1971, as we’ve just heard, were branded as 

IRA sympathizers harboring a bomb which exploded prematurely, 

when in fact they were the victims of loyalist violence. 

In the face of clear evidence that the rumor was the bomb—

sorry—that the rumor that the bomb was an IRA ‘‘own goal’’ originated with the RUC, the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland 

was forced to withdraw an earlier report exonerating the RUC, and 

he has now found that there was investigative bias in the police 

investigation into the bombing. Astonishingly, almost 40 years 

12

later, the chief constable of the reformed Police Service of Northern 

Ireland seems to be unable to accept that finding. 

John Finucane and his family have been campaigning for 22 

years for an independent inquiry into the murder in 1989 of Belfast 

lawyer Patrick Finucane. Despite compelling evidence that the police, the army, and the intelligence service were all implicated in 

his murder by loyalists, an inquiry has yet to be held. And, as we 

have heard, there are still talks going on about the modalities for 

such an inquiry. 

Raymond McCord has fought an almost-singlehanded campaign 

to uncover the truth about the murder of his son Raymond McCord 

Jr. in 1997, which has resulted in the unmasking of wholesale collusion over many years between RUC Special Branch and the loyalist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force. A report by the former police ombudsman has led to the largest police investigation ever 

known in Northern Ireland. 

However, the PSNI are now in charge of this investigation again. 

And that means that they will not be investigating the issue of collusion, which would have to be considered by the police ombudsman. However, if the police are not looking for collusion, who will 

find it? 

These are four landmark cases, all of which are crying out for 

justice. But they are four among many. What emerges very clearly 

from consideration of just four cases is that Northern Ireland is 

still experiencing great difficulty in dealing with its past and that 

the past must be addressed if Northern Ireland is to be able to 

shake off the shackles of the conflict and move into a safe and secure future. 

In our longer written testimony, we consider mechanisms that 

exist today for dealing with the past: the historical enquiries team, 

a unit of the police service, the police ombudsman, inquests, and 

inquiries. All have their problems and limitations. The previous 

U.K. administration failed to implement the recommendations of 

the consultative group on the past, which included a legacy Commission to deal with all cases arising from the conflict. 

The present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made 

some rather strange proposals for dealing with the past. For example, he has suggested that, quote, ‘‘historians rather than lawyers,’’ 

unquote, should deal with the past and that a historical memory 

documentary center, such as has been established in Salamanca, 

Spain, in the post-Franco era, might be a way forward. Similarly, 

he has suggested that the historical enquiries team’s files could be 

consigned to an archive like that compiled on the Stasi in Germany. Not only are these comparisons with the aftermath of totalitarian states rather surprising coming from a Minister in the U.K. 

Government but they clearly indicate that he regards the past as 

something that is over and can be filed away, which is far from 

being the case. 

As the four cases today considered demonstrate so graphically 

and tragically, the past remains very much part of the present in 

Northern Ireland today. Unless an effective human rights compliance mechanism is found for dealing with all the unresolved individual cases arising from the conflict, that conflict will continue to 

cast its long shadow across Northern Ireland’s future and make it 

13

more difficult to achieve the peace and stability that Northern Ireland so badly needs and so greatly wants. We respectfully ask this 

honorable Commission to seek an assurance from the U.K. government that it will establish such a mechanism without further delay 

and in consultation with victims, human rights experts and others. 

We thank this honorable Commission for your interest in Northern Ireland. Long may it continue. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Winter, thank you very much for your testimony 

and for the very wise counsel you have provided both to the British 

Government, the Irish Government in Northern Ireland and to this 

Commission and Congress over these many years laying out in a 

very coherent way a way forward, which unfortunately has not 

been grasped in the years to date. 

Let me ask just a couple of questions to start off. First, Mr. 

Finucane, you mentioned that there was initial optimism but it 

was diluted when Owen Patterson announced a consultation process to decide whether it remained in the public interest to have an 

inquiry at all. I would remind the British Government—and I will 

be meeting with the Secretary of State tomorrow afternoon—that 

this obligation is—you know, the U.K. Government, the British 

Government is a rule of law government. And when you sign a 

treaty, when you have specific responsibilities to which you freely 

enter into, that needs to be honored if your word is to be honored 

in any other area as well. 

So I would hope that the—as you indicated in your final statement, Ms. Winter—this isn’t a matter that ought to be subjected 

to debate. It ought to be implemented. And it ought to be implemented with a very competent—in a very competent way. So I am 

concerned when you hear—is it in the public interest? That’s a nobrainer. It’s a matter of rule of law. It’s a matter of justice. 

And frankly, knowing that there could well be some and probably 

many people—you know, how is that Christopher Patten called 

them, the bad apples—that could be somewhere in law enforcement 

still or in retirement. The sense of impunity that this gives them 

and others who look at that and say, past is prologue. If individuals who committed acts of collusion are not held to account, you 

can almost guarantee at some point, when there is some strain in 

the society, acts of collusion will be held—committed again, because it was who—as even Hitler said, when he talked about the 

Armenians—and I actually held a hearing on the Armenian genocide. And it was one of the most contentious hearings I’ve ever 

held. But even Hitler said, who remembers the Armenians? I mean, 

if there is no accountability, whether it be a limited number or a 

massive number of fatalities or killings, the seed of that passes on 

to the next generation who then commit acts of impunity. 

So I also think it ought to be underscored that these are not 

what—as euphemistically sometimes called—cold cases; these are 

concealed cases. There is an archive. There is information available 

that simply has not been made public and/or law enforcement has 

not acted upon to hold those who have committed atrocities accountable. So I hope, you know—I do have a concern. And perhaps 

all of you might want to address the archiving of this information. 

How concerned are you that information has been deleted, shredded—memories of eyewitnesses may have faded. Hopefully they 

14

have not. Or individuals have died, passed on who might have provided very useful insights for law enforcement and for a public inquiry. If you could answer that, I would appreciate that. 

Let me also ask all of you—and John, you might want to start 

with this—the implication if the British Government invokes their 

ability to conceal, pursuant to the Enquiries Act. When that legislation was going through the House of Commons, my colleagues 

and I wrote letters. We went through line by line and pointed out 

what a farce it was because we knew why that legislation was in 

the process of being enacted—to preclude information to all of you. 

If you could just speak to that so it’s on the record very, very concisely but very comprehensively as well. What that would do if they 

were to invoke at some point in the process—now we have to invoke the Enquiries Act of 2005. 

And finally, I understand that Rosemary Nelson’s case will be delayed until after the May elections—your assessment of that development. As we all remember Rosemary Nelson came before this 

Commission and told us that she had been threatened, that her life 

had been threatened by the RUC. And less then—approximately a 

half year later, an infamous act was committed against her and she 

was killed by a car bomb. So if you could speak to that issue as 

well—why the delay and what you expect to come out of that. 

Mr. FINUCANE. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll deal with your 

second question first. The possibility that the Enquiries Act will be 

repealed and new legislation will come in—we understand that 

there is zero chance of that happening. That was—that position 

has followed on with the new government. The only departure—

and it is a very significant departure—is that the Tony Blair administration who were so insistent, one, that there would be the restriction notice; that power would be used. And then second, they 

went as far as to issue a draft restriction notice and they let us see 

that. And as I said in my testimony, it was as draconian as one 

could possibly have imagined it. It was the farce that Judge Corey 

described it. 

Am I optimistic? I have to take it on the face of it what they’re 

saying to us at this stage. If they are saying that once they get over 

the ‘‘whether’’ question, as they call it—whether it’s in the public 

interest—if we get over that and it’s in the positive, I don’t see how 

they could come to a negative decision on that. 

Mr. SMITH. But if you could yield on that—it is in their interest—for those of us here and I’m sure in Ireland and elsewhere are 

looking at the British Government’s ability to keep its word. So it’s 

certainly—I believe—in your interest and the interest of all the 

loved ones who have been left behind. But it’s in the British Government’s interest to finally come clean and cease its obfuscation 

of these various inquiries. 

Mr. FINUCANE. Well, it’s not just a moral obligation; I mean, 

there’s a legal obligation as well. The promise to us to have an inquiry arose out of an intergovernmental peace agreement. And as 

you have rightly highlighted, their integrity on the international 

stage has always been on the line with this case. But if they renege 

on an agreement made with the Irish Government, I think that 

would certainly portray them in a bad light, to say the least. 

15

We will have to wait and see whether they decide to go down the 

route of issuing a restriction notice. We have always said that we 

are up for an inquiry. We want to get into an inquiry. You’ve 

talked about witnesses and documents going missing. As a family, 

we’re not getting any younger. And certainly, we want to get in and 

get involved with this as quickly as possible so the matter can be 

dealt with. And we hope that they come to the right decision. 

The obligation is already there. And I echo your sentiments that 

it is correct. It’s not a cold case. It is a concealed case. And certainly we hope that in the next few months, we can get in negotiations with regards to the makeup of an inquiry. We have always 

said, we don’t expect every decision in an inquiry to go our way. 

But we want the decisions to be taken by a panel with integrity 

and with independence. And we don’t see why the British government should shy away from that. 

Mr. PAYNE. Yes, I just had a quick question where Mr. Teggart, 

you mentioned that you would not accept a desktop review by the 

police service of Northern Ireland’s historic enquiry team, that the 

families of the massacre deserve better. Could you elaborate on 

that for a second? And the—I think you mentioned five points you 

thought were important for an inquiry to be substantial. And that’s 

all—I did have—well, I’ll just leave it at that. I appreciate the 

Chairman yielding. 

Mr. TEGGART. OK, thanks Congressman. I’d be happy. The historical enquiries team was set up by the British Government. It 

was set up by the actual combatants that murdered the 13—the 11 

in Ballymurphy. The historic enquiries team are also answerable to 

the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the PSNI. When I say about 

a desktop job, a desktop operation, that’s exactly what it is. 

And this here report, which is into the death of Father Mullan, 

that is a final report into the death of the priest. It says there’s 

no possible chance of any more information. They don’t conclude 

about the army bullet that was lodged in the head of Frank Quinn 

that was also shot just yards from Father Mullan. They don’t conclude 150 witnesses that the families themselves, I would like investigated. We walked to the doors and asked, and we got 150 firsthand witnesses into the occurrence of what happened at 

Ballymurphy. That’s what we mean by a desktop investigation, a 

desktop investigation with totally the absence—don’t source any 

witnesses. 

And the other points where it says about the independence—it 

needs to be headed by an international figure. No former combatants, RUC or British Army personnel should be involved in the investigation. No chain of command to the PSNI, Police Service of 

Northern Ireland, or the HET. And that’s basically what—just 

some of the principles of an independent investigation. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I agree, certainly agree with 

the Chairman mentioning what Hitler mentioned about the Armenians. And if we had confronted the genocide in 1915, perhaps the 

Holocaust would not have occurred and genocide in Rwanda and on 

and on. And as you indicated, had we investigated the paratroopers 

early on, then perhaps Bloody Sunday would not have occurred. 

And so we can learn a lot from history. 

16

I also have to—as it’s been mentioned about Rosemary Nelson—

I was at those hearings when she testified. And I was given the 

honor of presenting to her husband an honorary doctorate degree 

from my alma mater, Seton Hall University posthumously to her 

husband on behalf of the work that she had done. At Seton Hall 

in the early ’50s, I learned about the problems of the north of Ireland and that’s what made me committed then to take an interest 

and visit Drumcree and stay on Garvaghy Road and be in West 

Belfast a number of years during the marching season. So we’ve 

seen a lot of progress. But it’s not over and we have to keep the 

pressure on. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TEGGART. Could I just comment on some of the things that 

Congressman Smith has brought up? And when you brought up 

Cameron, I’d apologize for some bad apples of—and Bloody Sunday. 

Bloody Sunday happened within 20 minutes. And Ballymurphy 

was over 3 days. And the bad apples in Ballymurphy turned out 

to be a whole orchard. Just some of the stuff that archive evidence. 

The families themselves have archived most of our evidence. It’s 

only the lies and the mistrust of British Government would prevent 

us an investigation. 

And I think that’s it, Congressman Smith, yes. 

Mr. MCAIRT. If I could go back to the Good Friday Agreement, 

I think part of the reason why we have come over here is that we 

see that the full agreement of the Good Friday Agreement hasn’t 

been implemented. And yet, we see the Good Friday Agreement as 

an international agreement, not only between Ireland and Britain 

and Northern Ireland but also with partners in America. 

And it’s ominous, though, that we have had to travel over here 

to engage with the great and good upper echelons of the political 

elite in America to try and find justice for our families back home. 

That’s the sort of impasse that we have reached even after two 

generations—and John’s one generation. 

Sometimes I wonder whether there is a political wealth in Great 

Britain to face up not only to—how to deal with the past but, in 

effect, how to deal with the truth. The mechanisms that we have 

in Northern Ireland at this moment in time are far from good, far 

from perfect. In fact, they’re underresourced. But they’re 

underresourced by a political power that was—has a lot of questions to answer to as well. 

You also mentioned, Mr. Chairman, about our concern for the 

loss of evidence. And again, that is one of the main reasons why 

I, myself, have come over here. Because not only do I see our campaign as a struggle of memory against forgetting but there’s also 

a limitation on the amount of time that we can actually access this 

information. Not only am I faced with the mortality of our own elderly campaigners but, as the years go on, we have less and less 

powers to access that information. 

And as you know far well, the powers under the Freedom of Information Act can stop us from getting that information at any 

time. Ours is an ongoing battle, then, to access information, so 

from our request for information, I can tell you personally that it’s 

an uphill battle. And as the years go on, it gets harder and harder. 

17

Ms. WINTER. Mr. Chairman, both you and Representative Payne 

stressed the fact that there is no statute of limitations on murder 

and that a murder is, in a sense, eternal, and requires justice for 

eternity. And that is absolutely true but it is also true that time 

is not on the side of many of the cases that we have been talking 

about today and other cases as well. 

We certainly have concern about the loss of documents, the loss 

of memory, the death of key witnesses. Many of the elderly members of the Bloody Sunday campaign died without seeing the outcome of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. In the Finucane case, many 

key witnesses are already dead. And Ballymurphy and McGurk’s—

we’re both talking about the 1970s. People have already passed on 

and others, you know, are living in uncertainty as to whether they 

will ever learn the truth about what happened. 

In terms of records, it is interesting that the United Kingdom, 

being a democracy, does keep records for a considerable period of 

time. That being said, some very key documents in the Bloody Sunday inquiry were missing without trace. And other documents have 

been very difficult to find in these other cases, although sometimes, 

with diligence—and certainly, Ciara ́n McAirt has shown huge diligence in obtaining documents in relation to McGurk’s Bar bombing. 

And other NGOs such as the Pat Finucane Center have spent 

days in our public record office, seeking out documents on all sorts 

of cases. And many of them are there to be found but what is worrying is that the police ombudsman and the historical inquiries 

team have very often not found those documents for themselves. It 

has been family members and NGOs who have done the research. 

And that’s a worrying thought—that even though the documents 

are there, perhaps people are not looking for them as diligently as 

they should. 

On the inquiries act, we very much share the concerns that you 

voiced at the outset of this hearing. It is not right that a Secretary 

of State whose department may have been complicit in a death 

should have control over what happens as an inquiry; over what 

witnesses are called, over what evidence is heard, over what documents are seen. 

We would be pleased to see an inquiry in the Finucane case after 

all these years and we would hope that any assurance that there 

will be no ministerial interference would be a good promise which 

would be kept, but it would probably be a first, so we’re in unknown territory here. And even if such an inquiry is held under 

those terms, very close scrutiny will be required. 

But having said that, the prior question, as John Finucane has 

pointed out, is that—and really, it’s an insult to the intelligence—

whether it still remains in the public interest to hold such an inquiry. Self-evidently, it does, and we hope that everybody we’ve 

met here on the Hill will be making that point to the Secretary of 

State in no uncertain terms. 

I think also something that the Secretary of State has really not 

thought about—and this refers not just to the Finucane case but 

to Ballymurphy, to McGurk’s and many other cases, I don’t think 

that he has seriously considered the consequences of not holding 

inquiries in these cases. 

18

The McGurk’s case, in particular, has really dented public confidence in the police ombudsman, who first did a report that did 

not support their case, and then after pressure and new evidence 

was put to him, changed his mind and produced a better report. 

And then the chief constable who has really no baggage in relation 

to the PSNI and the RUC—he’s only been in post for 2 years—he 

doesn’t go back to the 1970s, and yet, he defended the indefensible 

on the part of the RUC. 

So there are real concerns there about the consequences of not 

acting and not speaking the truth after all of these years. It really 

does resonate in the present and do damage when that happens. 

So I think it’s important that the Secretary of State is made to understand that there are consequences to not doing the right thing. 

You asked about Rosemary Nelson. I don’t think that the delay 

in the publication of her report is sinister. I think it is—all of the 

inquiries that have been held in Northern Ireland and to the Robert Hamill case, the Billy Wright case and the Rosemary Nelson 

have all taken a very long time. It’s taken a long time to write the 

reports. 

Unfortunately, the government insists on vetting the reports, 

even though they have been produced by very, very capable, independent legal panels and teams to ensure that they do not infringe 

national security or endanger the right to life. And that adds to the 

delay. But I think, in Rosemary Nelson’s case, it’s simply a matter, 

really, of timing, in that with the elections coming up in May, if 

the report would be published in the runup to that, it would sink 

without trace, whereas at least it will get some proper attention if 

it’s published after the election. I don’t think that there’s any political pressure involved there. I think it is actually some compassion 

towards the families—the family, that they do get the attention 

that they deserve. 

Having said that, we are not sure what to expect from the Rosemary Nelson report. Just as the Bloody Sunday report, which was 

very, very welcome in exonerating the victims fell short of holding 

those responsible for Bloody Sunday to account, we are worried 

that the report on Rosemary Nelson’s death may not get to the bottom of what really happened. 

The inquiry itself has already said that it will abandon some 

lines of inquiry that it had identified at the outset, including the 

very important one of whether or not she was threatened by police 

officers before she died. We know that she was threatened; we’ve 

seen the evidence. But they felt that there was too much conflicting 

evidence for them to really come to a conclusion about that, and so 

that is a real concern for us. And we very much hope that her family is not left with a report which leaves them with feelings of regret. We can only wait and hope that the report will vindicate her, 

as it should. 

Mr. SMITH. Just finally, Raymond McCord, in his written submission, indicated that there were some threats to him. Could you 

maybe perhaps comment on that? 

Ms. WINTER. Yes, I mean, that is a very worrying situation because Raymond is a very brave man who has, as I say, almost singlehandedly brought attention to his case and brought about an 

enormous police investigation because what the former police omVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:23 Oct 03, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\031611.TXT KATIE
19

budsman, and now Baroness Nuala O’Loan uncovered was a catalog of collusion between special branch and the UVF, going over a 

period of at least 12 years and involving at least 20 murders, possibly many more, and many attempted murders. It was a really appalling situation. 

And for one man to have been responsible for exposing such huge 

corruption and collusion obviously puts him at risk and makes him 

very, very unpopular. And I think we should pay tribute to his 

courage in continuing to campaign despite the fact that he continues to receive threats, and has, indeed, throughout his campaign 

been threatened. 

Raymond tends to kind of treat it as part of—you know, coming 

with the job. But those of us who are watching are fearful and concerned for his safety. 

Mr. SMITH. Tomorrow, when I meet with Secretary of State 

Paterson, I will give him each of your testimonies, tell him that 

both the Foreign Affairs Human Rights Committee, which I Chair, 

and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe is 

going to accelerate its focus. We’ve done it in the past. There was 

somewhat of a hiatus, which I won’t get into as to why, but back 

as Chairman now, I can assure you that we’re going to use every 

resource we have to keep this issue front and center with our 

friends in the British Government to let them know that the 

grandfathering of injustice, of impunity, of collusion is not—is intolerable. 

And, you know, I’m one of those who believes that if you, as the 

pope has said so well, if you want peace, work for justice. And 

there needs to be justice in each of your cases and people held to 

account, and information made public as quickly as possible for all 

the reasons that have been so eloquently cited by each of our very 

distinguished witnesses. 

So I would ask you, you know, in addition to your testimonies, 

is there anything you would like to add? 

And finally, as we all know, you know, the peace—the sustainability of peace does rest on a sense of justice. And we know that 

problems that continue to flair—of course it was a genocide—between the Armenians and the Turks, in part, continues because of 

a—the inability, particularly of Ankara, to recognize what—for all 

of us who have painstakingly studied the occurrences, or, the 

events that happened then, and they just say it didn’t happen. 

They’re deniers. And we wouldn’t want the British government to 

continue to live in denial of these terrible acts of collusion that led 

to murders and assassination. 

So it’s—anything you would like to add before we conclude the 

hearing? 

Mr. TEGGART. I’d like to add, when you’re speaking to Secretary 

of State Owen Paterson, just that he’s fully aware that the 

Ballymurphy families at no time, even for 40 years, was there any 

police involvement and any investigation at all. He has to understand that. He has to—and for him to act on that there. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. TEGGART. Thank you. 

Mr. FINUCANE. I think I would just like to, again, thank you personally, Mr. Chairman, for your continued involvement and help. 

20

Unfortunately, it shouldn’t be the case, but it is the case, that we 

have to travel this far to get significant movement on our case, and 

we appreciate both of your help and the help of all your colleagues 

here. 

I think this hearing speaks for itself. You described it as a ‘‘nobrainer.’’ The past is still very much relevant. And unfortunately, 

it has the ability if not dealt with correctly to really destabilize our 

present society. 

Mr. MCAIRT. I was just going to reiterate what John was saying, 

that if you could emphasize to Mr. Paterson that this Commission 

supports our views, that echoes of the past resonate in the present, 

and our communities that—as can be seen from the recent dissident balance, can be on a knife edge if these matters aren’t dealt 

with. 

Ms. WINTER. I would just like to thank you very much, Mr. 

Chairman, for your declaration of accelerated and continued support because American assistance has always helped to focus the 

mind of the U.K. government when it comes to these human rights 

issues, and to request that you consider having further hearings on 

Northern Ireland whether in this forum or under the auspices of 

the Foreign Affairs Committee because it is this kind of hearing 

which does bring home to our government that the world is watching them and that there are still things that need fixing in Northern Ireland. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me be very clear: There will be follow-up hearings and we await a decision by Secretary of State Paterson with 

regards to all of your inquiries. And so I thank you for saying that 

but I want to assure you this is the first in a series of hearings. 

Ms. WINTER. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, and the hearing is adjourned. And thank 

you all. 

[Whereupon, at 3 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

21

APPENDICES

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, COCHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION 

IN EUROPE 

A fundamental tenet of the Helsinki Process is that ‘‘no one will 

be above the law,’’ a principle that serves as the bedrock of democratic society. The leaders of all OSCE participating States, including the United Kingdom, affirmed this in the 1990 Charter of 

Paris, stressing the importance of accountability along with ‘‘the 

obligation of public authorities to comply with the law and justice 

administered impartially.’’ These concerns go to the very heart of 

cases under consideration at today’s hearing. While some predate 

the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, this does not exonerate those in authority today from pursuing the truth wherever it may lead. The 

rule of law requires nothing less. 

I appreciate the willingness of family members to share their stories with us, painful yet necessary if truth and justice are to prevail. Your presence helps keep these murder cases in the spotlight 

to the chagrin of those who would have them swept under the carpet. Reckoning with past human rights violations must be an integral part of any process aimed at promoting genuine and lasting 

peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

22

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN FINUCANE, SON OF PATRICK FINUCANE, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER MURDERED BY 

LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES 

Mr. Chairman, honorable members of Congress, I am once again 

grateful and privileged to be invited to address the US Helsinki 

Commission concerning the murder of my father, Belfast human 

rights lawyer Patrick Finucane. 

I was 8 years old when loyalist gunmen broke into my home as 

my family and I enjoyed Sunday dinner together, and killed my father and wounded my mother. The brutality of the incident will 

never be forgotten, but what followed in the months and years 

thereafter elevated the act onto an international stage. 

For over 22 years my family and our supporters have campaigned for the truth. We have asked questions of the British government’s role in my father’s killing, and as more evidence 

emerged, more questions were necessary. 

This Commission will be fully aware that anyone who has concerned themselves with human rights in the north of Ireland has 

looked suspiciously at the government’s role in the case of my father. I do not wish to rehearse what we have learned over the past 

22 years, suffice to say that a credible and transparent examination of the case remains as important today as it ever has. 

Whilst we were pleased with Tony Blair’s administration announcing in 2004 that an inquiry needed to be held and would be, 

we despaired at the draconian legislation that we were told must 

be invoked to deal with it. The Inquiries Act 2005, under which 

any statutory based inquiry would have to be held, permits a government minister to ’trump’ the wishes of the Inquiry upon such 

issues as disclosure. In a letter to this commission, retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Cory described the legislation as an 

’Alice in Wonderland’’ situation. His articulate and damning critique of this particular aspect of the law remains pertinent and appropriate. 

In the stalemate that followed with the Labour government we 

were not hopeful of ever getting a meaningful inquiry. They confirmed the controversial Restriction Notice would be used and the 

draft version of this was as restrictive and farcical as we had 

feared. Given our opposition, there was no further engagement 

with us and all work building for an inquiry was halted. 

However, in 2010, with the arrival of a new Secretary of State 

Owen Patterson, we were pleasantly surprised that he requested a 

meeting with us to hear for himself our concerns and current position. At this meeting he listened carefully and stressed that he 

wanted to move this issue forward in a way that would allow an 

inquiry to proceed with the family’s involvement. 

This initial optimism was diluted somewhat when he announced 

a consultation process to decide whether it remained in the public 

interest to have an inquiry at all. Whilst we initially found this 

bordering on insulting, we have met with the NIO’s legal team on 

two occasions and sent our submissions to them. I have entered a 

copy of these for the official record today. We now await the Minister’s announcement. 

As the Commission will be fully aware, a public inquiry is a 

mechanism of last resort designed to reassure the public when 

23

something has gone badly wrong with a government agency. I can 

think of nothing graver than accusing a government’s police, army, 

intelligence services and political hierarchy of conspiring, executing 

and covering up the murder of my father and countless others. 22 

years later and the issue remains as controversial as ever and 

rightfully attracts international attention. 

There exists in Ireland today, those who seek to encourage and 

capitalise upon instability. Whilst the Good Friday Agreement has 

brought about tremendous change to the city and country I live in, 

the past always finds a way of dominating our present lives. The 

case of Patrick Finucane represents the worst of our past. Failing 

to deal with this case not only undermines public faith in the agencies of the state, but prevents our society from truly making a 

break from the past. 

Prime Minister Cameron rightfully earned praise for the manner 

in which he dealt with the publication of the Bloody Sunday report. 

If he wants to show the world his administration is serious in securing peace then it must set up a fully independent and credible 

public inquiry without delay. 

Thank you once again.

24

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CIARA ́ N McAIRT, GRANDSON OF 

JOHN AND KITTY IRVINE, McGURK’S BAR BOMBING VICTIM 

ON BEHALF OF THOSE WHO WERE KILLED OR INJURED IN THE

MCGURK’S BAR MASSACRE 4TH DECEMBER 1971

The families are grateful to this honourable Commission for allowing us to submit written evidence to its hearing on ‘‘Northern Ireland: Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters’’. We humbly request that this longer testimony be written into the record. 

My name is Ciara ́n MacAirt and I am the grandson of John and 

Kathleen Irvine. 

On the 4th December 1971, my grandparents were enjoying a 

quiet drink with old friends, Edward and Sarah Keenan, in a snug 

of a family-run bar in north Belfast. The chat was lively as Edward 

had just received his retirement money after lifelong work in the 

docks. Christmas was just three weeks away and the old couple 

had big surprises planned for their family. 

McGurk’s Bar was a cosy establishment, passed from father to 

son, which was frequented by those members of the north Belfast 

community who were more interested in a punt or a pint rather 

than the sectarian politics of the day. Indeed, Patrick and 

Philomena McGurk, the owners of the pub, were renowned for their 

intolerance of bigotry and prejudice. The clientele naturally reflected this. As the family home was in the rooms upstairs, Mr. 

And Mrs. McGurk had created an environment that was not only 

fitting for a well-run pub, but also one that was appropriate for the 

raising of their children. 

Looking across the bar and into the main lounge, Kathleen, or 

Kitty as her family and friends called her, recognised every single 

one of the customers who sat around talking or reading a paper. 

She smiled and nodded acknowledgement to anyone whose eyes she 

happened to meet. Thomas Kane, Robert Spotswood and James 

Smyth had taken up their usual seats along the bar. Further along, 

Thomas McLaughlin, his uncle and two of their friends were too 

busy chatting and laughing to notice. Behind them, Philip Garry, 

who even at 73 still kept himself busy as a school-crossing patrolman, was having a quiet pint. Near to him Francis Bradley and 

David Milligan relaxed after labouring week-long in the docks. In 

the corner she could not see, Edward Kane was entertaining his 

friend, Roderick McCorley, and 80 year-old Mr. Griffin with lively 

chat over a quick drink before heading home to his young family. 

Upstairs, at that time, the McGurk boys and their friends, including 13 year-old James Cromie, were having a raucous game of 

table football as their uncle, John Colton, got ready to help his 

brother-in-law in the bar below. 

Time was rushing headlong towards the single moment that each 

one of those who were left behind would play over and over when 

they locked themselves away in their minds. Upstairs Mr. 

McGurk’s wife, Philomena, and only daughter, Maria, unbeknownst 

to everybody below, were just coming home from confession at St. 

Patrick’s church. Mr. McGurk was pouring a pint of Guinness for 

another customer. In the snug, Johnny took a sup of his stout as 

he listened with glee to the animated chat just as Kitty, his wife, 

the mother of his children, happened to catch his eye and smile 

25

1From the witness statement of Joseph McClory. 

2We know from the witness statement of the one jailed bomber that they had noticed this 

young paper boy crossing the road near to them. 

THE BOMB ATTACK

An eight year old boy, Joseph McClory, had been walking up 

Great George’s Street towards North Queen Street on his way 

home from a paper round. He noticed a car, with three men skulking within, parked nearby McGurk’s Bar. Suspicious, he glanced 

over and recorded that the vehicle had a ‘‘wee Union Jack stuck in 

the back window’’,1 so observant was he. As he was crossing at the 

junction with North Queen Street, towards the pub, a man had gotten out of the car carrying a box.2 This was the shadowy figure, 

clad in a dark overcoat and wearing a mask, whom Joseph saw 

leave down a ‘‘parcel’’ and light a fuse before running back to the 

waiting car. The young lad even saved the life of a passerby who 

was about to walk past the bar. He shouted to him that there was 

a bomb and the man ran away with only seconds to spare. The 

bombers bore as little concern for this young child they passed on 

the pavement as they would have a dog on the street. 

The 30–50 lbs of gelignite ripped through the small pub and family home, bringing its walls and roof down upon everyone. Those 

who were not crushed or slowly asphyxiated by masonry were 

horrifically burned when shattered gas mains burst into flames beneath the rubble. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, disregarding their own safety, the families in the area emptied onto 

the road and began clawing at the debris with their bare hands, 

desperately struggling to save some of their neighbours. Only for 

their feverish toil that night and the labours of the emergency services another dozen at least would have perished. Eventually, 

though, the lifeless bodies of fifteen innocent men, women and children were dragged from the ruins. 

Such was the carnage of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. 

THE VICTIMS

James Francis Cromie (13 years old)—INNOCENT 

Maria McGurk (14 years old)—INNOCENT 

Edward Laurence Kane (29 years old)—INNOCENT 

Robert Charles Spotswood (38 years old)—INNOCENT 

Elizabeth Philomena McGurk (46 years old)—INNOCENT 

Thomas Kane (48 years old)—INNOCENT 

John Colton (49 years old)—INNOCENT 

David Milligan (53 years old)—INNOCENT 

Kathleen Irvine (53 years old)—INNOCENT 

Thomas McLaughlin (55 years old)—INNOCENT 

Sarah Keenan (58 years old)—INNOCENT 

James Patrick Smyth (58 years old)—INNOCENT 

Francis Bradley (63 years old)—INNOCENT 

Edward Keenan (69 years old)—INNOCENT 

Phillip Garry (73 years old)—INNOCENT 

All those who were injured uˆ INNOCENT 

The victims’ only crime was their faith. 

26

3Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland in his report into the RUC’s investigation, published 

21st February 2011 4 Uncovered by the British Irish Rights Watch in 2009

5Sic: the address was 81–83 North Queen Street 

THE BOMBERS

Loyalist terrorists, members of the Ulster Volunteer Force 

(U.V.F.), had planted the no-warning bomb on the doorstep of the 

family-run pub. Allowed to escape unmolested into the night and 

into the murky history of ‘‘the Troubles’’, they left in their wake a 

massacre that was then the single greatest loss of civilian life since 

World War II. Nevertheless, those people who perished that night 

in McGurk’s were to become the forgotten victims of a very dirty 

war. 

THE ‘‘OWN-GOAL’’, ‘‘BOMB-IN-TRANSIT’’ DISINFORMATION

Extemplo magnas it Fama per urbes 

Fama malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum

Vergil’s Aeneid, Liber IV, lines 173–4

Forthwith Rumour races through the great cities . . . 

Rumour—nothing is swifter than this evil.

An ‘‘investigative bias’’,3 a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC, the 

police force at the time) predisposition to believe that the bomb was 

in-transit to another target, allowed the true perpetrators to go free 

until one confessed of his own volition many years later. Without 

substance or evidential substantiation, against witness testimony 

and an admission from the Loyalist terrorists themselves, this tenuous own-goal theory, in effect, criminalized the innocent victims 

of the massacre. It inferred that they were guilty by association, if 

not complicit in acts of terrorism. 

From where, though, did such disinformation emanate? 

We have proved that the first instance of the lie is found, without 

evidence, in an RUC Duty Officers’ Brief written a few hours after 

the atrocity and before all of our loved ones had been identified. It 

was dated the following day, 5th December 1971, at 8 a.m., less 

than 12 hours after the atrocity and was able to name only eleven 

of the fifteen dead. Lodged in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the 

bomb-in-transit theory, the IRA own-goal, is recorded: 

RUC DUTY OFFICERS’ REPORT: 4 8 A.M. 5TH DECEMBER 1971

• At 8.45 p.m. on Saturday, 4th December, 1971, an explosion occurred at McGurk’s Licensed Premises, 83 Great George’s Street.5

The charge was estimated at 50 lbs completely demolished the two 

storey building. Just before the explosion a man entered the licensed premises and left down a suitcase, presumably to be picked 

up by a known member of the Provisional I.R.A. The bomb was intended for use on other premises. Before the ‘pick-up’ was made the 

bomb exploded. 

This is at odds with the expert testimony of a British Army Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO), who happened upon the scene a few 

minutes after the explosion, in a secret briefing to the General Officer Commanding, Lt. General Sir Harry Tuzo. It too was dated the 

following day, 5th December 1971. 

27

6 Uncovered by the author in 2009

7 Uncovered by the Pat Finucane Centre in 2010

8Sic—the same address as in RUC Duty Officers’ Report above 

BRITISH ARMY: DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS BRIEF: 6 5TH DECEMBER 1971

• A bomb believed to have been planted outside the bar was estimated by the A.T.O. to be 30/50lb of HE 

Nevertheless, the baseless lie was issued to the press. Amongst 

many heinous reports from the days following the attack, two are 

recorded below. 

MEDIA: THE TIMES’ JOHN CHARTRES, 5TH DECEMBER 1971

• Police and Army Intelligence Officers believe that an explosion 

in a Belfast bar last night was caused by an IRA plan that went 

wrong 

[The] Army believe bomb was in transit 

MEDIA: NEWSLETTER 6TH DECEMBER 1971

• The RUC is of the opinion that the bomb was brought into the 

bar earlier in the night and that a Provisional IRA man was to 

have set it off somewhere in the city later 

The RUC last night rejected reports put about by Republican 

sources that the bomb was left outside the bar by the ‘‘UVF’’

The Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner, flew to 

London to meet with the British Home Secretary, Reginald 

Maudling on 6th December 1971, in what would have been crunch 

talks on the security situation. Not only do these secret minutes 7

show that the RUC had briefed government directly, they also depict how the disinformation wound its way to Whitehall. Indeed, 

with blatant disregard for political intervention in a police investigation, Mr. Faulkner admits he had asked the RUC to dig-thedirt on those who were killed or injured. • Mr Faulkner said that Mr. McGurk, the proprietor of the pub 

which was blown up at the weekend, had been interviewed by police in hospital and had said that there were no strangers in the 

bar on the night of the explosion. The army also discovered that 

the bomb went off on the ground floor. Both point strongly to the 

likelihood that the bomb was carried by the IRA rather than 

Protestant extremists. Mr. Faulkner had asked the RUC to find out 

whether anything was known about the associations of the people 

who were killed or injured. 

Proof again that the RUC had briefed government can be found in 

the text of a speech made by John Taylor, Minister of State for 

Home Affairs, in Stormont on the 7th December 1971. 

• The premises are at 83 Great George’s Street 8 The plain fact 

is that the evidence of the forensic experts supports the theory that 

the explosion took place within the confines of the walls of the 

building 

Mr. Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, did not, nevertheless, make himself amenable to questioning by the Office of the Police Ombudsman nor the Historical Enquiries Team in their latter day investigations, even though he is supposed to be a public servant. In 

fact, he has never even apologized to the families for making such 

hurtful comments whilst in Government. 

28

9The witness statement of the Director of Intelligence (‘‘David’’) to the Saville Inquiry, dated 

17th February 2000 10 Uncovered by the author in 2010 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal 12 Uncovered by the Pat Finucane Centre 13 Uncovered by the author in 2010

Even though the evidence pointed directly to a Loyalist attack on 

innocent civilians, the own-goal disinformation then found its way 

into the British Intelligence stream. A Headquarters Northern Ireland Intelligence Summary (HQNI INTSUM) was disseminated 

throughout the British Army and RUC in Northern Ireland. A Director of Intelligence and his team managed this information 

stream before directing it towards Whitehall within its wider distribution list. By his own admission 9 to Lord Saville’s Inquiry into 

Bloody Sunday, the Director of Intelligence was an MI5 operative 

who led a department other Security Service agents and Military 

Intelligence Officers. 

BRITISH ARMY/MI5: HEADQUARTERS NORTHERN IRELAND

INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY (HQNI INTSUM): 10 9TH DECEMBER 1971

• Forensic and EOD 11 reports tend to indicate that the explosion 

was caused accidentally inside the public house by premature detonation amongst a group which contained an identified IRA victim 

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) then encouraged the Minister of State for Defence to publicize this lie in the British Parliament: 

BRITISH MOD: CURRENT SITUATION REPORT,12 14TH DECEMBER 1971

• The forensic evidence now available shows quite clearly that 

five of the victims were killed by blast—indicating that the explosion must have been inside the bar and raising the very strong presumption that it was caused by the accidental detonation of a bomb 

being carried by one of the customers—as has seemed likely all 

along. The Minister of State for Defence is being invited to consider 

whether to make this point public in a written answer In the view 

of Headquarters Northern Ireland it is important to put this point 

on record, in order to discourage continuing speculation about who 

was responsible for the explosion. 

Once more, this disinformation was drip-fed through the Intelligence system, this time within Brigade Intelligence Summaries. 

‘‘Confirmation’’ was given that it was indeed a bomb-in-transit. 

Again, the innocent victims were criminalized without any evidentiary fact whatsoever. Who were the authorities trying to 

blame? Young Maria McGurk (14 years of age) who had just returned home from confession? Old Philip Garry (73 years of age) 

who was enjoying a quiet drink? My grandmother, Kitty? The lies 

were insidious and smeared all of the victims: 

BRITISH ARMY (WITH RUC SUPPLEMENTARY INTELLIGENCE REDACTED): 

BRIGADE INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES:13 8TH—15TH DECEMBER 1971

• Following the McGurk’s Bar incident, it has been confirmed 

that it was a bomb that was destined for another target, but exploded prematurely 

29

14 Interview with the Police Ombudsman, BBC Spotlight, aired on 8th March 2011 15Made available to the author by local historian, Joe Baker, and accessible on our campaign 

website 

The intransigence of the authorities is best exemplified in their 

withholding of archive evidence which has recently proved critical 

to our campaign. Research in the Public Records Office Northern 

Ireland (PRONI) allowed the author to target documents recording 

the minutes of a Joint security Committee meeting held on the 

16th December 1971. The archives had never been accessed before 

and had to be collated and numbered before being made public. 

Nevertheless, before I was allowed access to them, a National Security bar (Section 24) under the Freedom of Information Act was 

placed on them. Thankfully, due to the humanity and industry of 

the staff, I was alerted to the fact that a particular document included information that was vital to our research. As I was disallowed from accessing the information, I had to direct the Police 

Ombudsman to the archive which he himself admitted was ‘‘critical’’ 14 evidence for his investigation. It proved beyond doubt that 

the RUC had briefed the Northern Ireland Government that the 

McGurk’s Bar Massacre was the result of an IRA own-goal. Indeed, 

as is recorded in the Police Ombudsman’s report, a Chief Constable, the commander of the whole RUC police force, and his head 

of Special Branch told the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Brian 

Faulkner, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, John Taylor, and 

the General Officer Commanding of the British Army in the North, 

Lt. General Sir Harry Tuzo, that two of the dead were terrorists: 

RUC SPECIAL BRANCH REPORT TO CABINET AND BRITISH ARMY: JOINT

SECURITY COMMITTEE MINUTES, 16TH DECEMBER 1971

• Circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature 

detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members, at 

least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities. Intelligence indicates that the bomb was destined for use elsewhere 

in the city 

Below is how the disinformation was managed by the local British Army regiment in the run-up to Christmas. Foot patrols posted 

a propaganda leaflet in through the letterboxes of houses in the vicinity of the atrocity, including the homes of many of the victims. 

BRITISH ARMY PROPAGANDA LEAFLET 15 DROP FROM THE COMMANDING

OFFICER OF 2ND BATTALION ROYAL REGIMENT FUSILIERS, LT. COL. 

JEREMY REILLY, 23RD DECEMBER 1971

• We can look forward To a period in which you will not lose your 

friends in a repetition of the ‘Provos’ accident in the McGurk’s Bar 

Again, the lie found its way into the national press: 

MEDIA: THE GUARDIAN, 24TH DECEMBER 1971

• The security men are now convinced that the bar was a transfer 

point in the IRA chain between the makers and the planters of the 

bomb 

By the time that MO4, the department of the MoD responsible for 

military operations in Northern Ireland, had written its report for 

30

16 Uncovered by the author in 2011

the month of December 1971, the branch was ‘‘fairly certain’’ that 

the atrocity was the result of an IRA own-goal: 

BRITISH ARMY: MO4 MONTHLY REPORT 16 FOR DECEMBER 1971, DATED

10TH JANUARY 1972

• On 4 December McGurk’s Bar in the Glenravel area was destroyed by an explosion in which 15 people died and 13 were injured . . . IRA propaganda tried to blame the SAS and Empire 

Loyalists. It is fairly certain that the bomb was being handed over 

by the ‘‘makers’’ to the ‘‘planters’’. 

This is how an unsubstantiated RUC Duty Officers’ Report was fed 

into the intelligence stream, the media and the public consciousness at a time when we were burying and mourning the loss of our 

loved ones. This is how their good name and their innocence were 

despoiled. 

Against such a backdrop, including the conclusive briefing of the 

Chief Constable and the head of Special Branch to Government 

and the General Officer Commanding, can we imagine there was 

no ‘‘investigative bias’’? The present Chief Constable of the reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) believes there 

was no such police predisposition to believe the falsehood that the 

bomb was an own-goal even though the full weight of evidence indicated that it was a Loyalist terrorist attack on innocent civilians. 

After campaigning constitutionally and with great dignity for nearly four decades, we should have celebrated the vindication of our 

loved ones with the publication of the Police Ombudsman’s report. 

Nevertheless, with its release, Chief Constable Matt Baggott disputed the central finding of the statutory body set up to investigate 

police complaints. Yet again, the massacre of our loved ones was 

politicized by a Chief Constable at a time when our communities 

should have faith in a reformed police force’s ability to recognize 

and learn from the failings of the past. 

This is why in Northern Ireland justice in individual cases matters. It is not simply about closure for fellow human beings. This 

is about historical and moral rectitude. History informs the present 

and from it we learn our mores as a society. That is why I ask you 

to use whatever influence you may have to ensure that Britain, 

your NATO partner, releases all the information it has kept from 

us regarding the massacre of our loved ones in McGurk’s Bar on 

4th December 1971. Otherwise, the present authorities may prove 

that they are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Ciara ́n MacAirt, grandson of John and Kitty Irvine—12th March 

2011

31

JANE WINTER, DIRECTOR, BRITISH IRISH RIGHTS WATCH 

INTRODUCTION

British Irish RIGHTS WATCH (BIRW) is an independent nongovernmental organisation that has been monitoring the human 

rights dimension of the conflict, and the peace process, in Northern 

Ireland since 1990. Our vision is of a Northern Ireland in which 

respect for human rights is integral to all its institutions and experienced by all who live there. Our mission is to secure respect for 

human rights in Northern Ireland and to disseminate the human 

rights lessons learned from the Northern Ireland conflict in order 

to promote peace, reconciliation and the prevention of conflict. 

BIRW’s services are available, free of charge, to anyone whose 

human rights have been violated because of the conflict, regardless 

of religious, political or community affiliations. BIRW take no position on the eventual constitutional outcome of the conflict. In 2007 

BIRW won the Beacon Award for Northern Ireland. In 2008 we 

were awarded the Irish World Damien Gaffney Award, and in 2009 

we became the first-ever recipients of the new Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Prize. 

We make this submission on our own behalf and that of our sister organisation, the Committee on the Administration of Justice 

(CAJ). CAJ was established in 1981 and is an independent nongovernmental organisation affiliated to the International Federation of Human Rights. CAJ takes no position on the constitutional 

status of Northern Ireland and is firmly opposed to the use of violence for political ends. Its membership is drawn from across the 

community. CAJ seeks to ensure the highest standards in the administration of justice in Northern Ireland by ensuring that the 

Government complies with its responsibilities in international 

human rights law. In 1992 CAJ won the Reebok Human Rights 

Award, and in 1998 they were awarded the Council of Europe 

Human Rights Prize. 

We are grateful to this honourable Commission for allowing us 

to submit written evidence to its hearing on ‘‘Northern Ireland: 

Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters’’. 

WHY DEALING WITH THE PAST MATTERS IN INDIVIDUAL CASES IN

NORTHERN IRELAND

The conflict in Northern Ireland, which began in 1969 and officially ended with the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998, is 

still creating after shocks as Northern Ireland makes the painful 

transition from conflict to peace. The past is not a foreign country 

for Northern Ireland. It cannot be ignored and continues to shape 

the present and to determine the future. One of the reasons for this 

is that, although there have been many victims on all sides of the 

community, many people do not know why their loved one died or 

they themselves were injured. Many lies have been told, particularly about state collusion in killings. There is a great thirst for the 

truth, particularly as people begin to emerge from the shadow of 

the conflict and feel confident enough to ask questions about what 

happened and why no-one has been held accountable in so many 

cases. 

32

1 Report of the Consultative Group on the Past, Belfast, 2009

While there are some in Northern Ireland who believe that a line 

can be drawn under the past and that people should just move on, 

no-one who has studied the issue—especially the Consultative 

Group on the Past,1 set up by the government specifically to examine how Northern Ireland should deal with the past—believes that 

the past can be swept under the carpet. To do so would be to fail 

to learn the lessons from the past and to fail to build institutions 

and create a culture in which any repetition of past violence would 

become impossible. 

There have been many genuine attempts to reform Northern Ireland’s institutions since 1998, but while outstanding cases remain 

unresolved then there is a danger that those reforms will be undermined. 

We have heard today about four of those cases, which span four 

decades and both sides of the sectarian divide. 

The relatives of the eleven victims killed by the British army in 

Ballymurphy in August 1971 have not to this day received the effective investigation they are campaigning for and deserve. BIRW 

has investigated two of those killings and is certain that those two 

victims were wholly innocent and unprovoked, and we are sure 

that the same will be found in the other 13 cases. 

The families of the fifteen victims who died in the McGurk’s Bar 

bombing in December 1971 were branded as IRA sympathisers harbouring a bomb which exploded prematurely, when in fact they 

were the victims of loyalist violence. In the face of clear evidence 

that the rumour that the bomb was an IRA ‘‘own goal’’ originated 

in the RUC, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland was 

forced to withdraw an earlier report exonerating the RUC, and he 

has now found that there was investigative bias in the police investigation into the bombing. Astonishingly, almost 40 years later, the 

Chief Constable of the reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland, 

seems to be unable to accept that finding. 

John Finucane and his family have been campaigning for 22 

years for an independent inquiry into the murder in 1989 of Belfast 

lawyer Patrick Finucane. Despite compelling evidence that the police, the army, and the intelligence service were all implicated in 

his murder by loyalists, an inquiry has yet to be held. 

Raymond McCord has fought an almost-single handed campaign 

to uncover the truth about the murder of his son, Raymond McCord 

Jnr, in 1997, which has resulted in the unmasking of wholesale collusion over many years between RUC Special Branch and the loyalist group the Ulster Volunteer Force. A report by the former Police Ombudsman has led to the largest police investigation ever 

known in Northern Ireland. However, the PSNI are now in charge 

of this investigation again, and that means that they will not be 

investigating the issue of collusion, which would have to be considered by the Police Ombudsman. However, if the police are not looking for collusion, who will find it? 

These are four landmark cases, all of which are crying out for 

justice, but they are four among many. What emerges very clearly 

from consideration of just four cases is that Northern Ireland is 

still experiencing great difficulty in dealing with its past, and that 

33

2 65 of these arrests related to Operation Stafford (Raymond McCord’s case) 

3Statistics as at 8th March 2011, supplied by the HET. A further 50 cases are nearing completion 

the past must be addressed if Northern Ireland is to be able to 

shake off the shackles of the conflict and move into a safe and secure future. 

EXISTING MECHANISMS FOR DEALING WITH THE PAST

There are currently four mechanisms for dealing with the past 

in Northern Ireland: the Historical Enquiries Team, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, inquests, and public inquiries. Each 

operate under different rules and have their limitations. 

THE HISTORICAL ENQUIRIES TEAM (HET)

The HET was created by the then Chief Constable of the Police 

Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Sir Hugh Orde, in September 

2005 and officially commenced work in January 2006. Its purpose 

is to re-examine every conflict related death from 1968 to 1998 

(when the Good Friday peace accord was signed). The HET contains both seconded officers from England and former PSNI and 

RUC officers, all of whom are retired; the unit reports directly to 

the Chief Constable. The approach taken was to examine each case 

in chronological order. However, where cases were linked, or on humanitarian grounds such as the ill-health of the next-of-kin, cases 

could be taken out of sequence. 

The HET is examining a total of 2,557 deaths, involving 3,257 

victims. It is currently less than half way through its task, with 

1,031 cases investigated and 1,526 yet to be investigated. Seventy 

two people have been arrested 2 on foot of HET investigations in 8 

cases.3 Some people in Northern Ireland, have refused to engage 

with the HET due to the perceived lack of independence of the unit 

since it reports to the Chief Constable, and concerns about the police investigating the police. A fairly recent but worrying development has been that, if the HET turns up any new evidential opportunities, the case is handed back to the C2 (Serious and Organised 

Crimes) division of the PSNI for investigation. This change has further undermined confidence in the HET’s independence. Another 

concern has been the use of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which is being heavily relied upon in Operation Stafford (Raymond McCord’s case). Under that Act a system has been 

devised to legalise and sanitise the use of ‘‘supergrasses’’ to give 

evidence against multiple defendants. The use of supergrasses in 

the past in Northern Ireland led to the collapse of many trials and 

brought the courts into disrepute. 

The HET has come under criticism for a number of reasons. The 

HET’s officers often misunderstand the Northern Ireland context or 

fail to communicate appropriately with families. Research by the 

University of Ulster highlighted the ‘‘gate-keeping’’ of intelligence 

by former RUC officers which led to concerns that the truth was 

being inhibited. The time taken to carry out investigations is often 

much longer than anticipated, leading to disappointment and disengagement from families. This has also been our experience in the 

cases and families we have supported. Finally, the HET has faced 

34

4Police Ombudsman Public Statement on Matters arising from the Omagh bombing Police 

Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, 2001 5Statement by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Raymond McCord Junior and related matters, January 

20076Public statement by the Police Ombudsman under Section 62 of the Police (Northern Ireland) 

Act 1998, Relating to the RUC investigation of the alleged involvement of the late Father James 

Chesney in the bombing of Claudy on 31 July 1972, PONI, August 2010 7Whose inquiries led to the setting up of the Wright, Hamill and Nelson Inquiries 

8Who conducted investigations into collusion in Northern Ireland and into the Finucane case 

9Public statement by the Police Ombudsman under Section 62 of the Police (Northern Ireland) 

Act 1998, Relating to the complaint by the relatives of the victims of the bombing of McGurk’s 

Bar, Belfast, on 4 December, 1971, PONI, February 2011

patchy and uncertain funding which has required re-structuring, 

staffing cuts and uncertainty about the future. We also do not consider the HET to be human rights compliant due to its lack of independence. However it is at present the only real opportunity for 

families to discover what happened to their loved one. 

THE POLICE OMBUDSMAN

The Office of the Police Ombudsman (PONI) was created by the 

Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998. The Police Ombudsman is accountable to the Northern Ireland Assembly, through the Minister 

for Justice . PONI was established to provide an independent and 

impartial complaints service open to all in Northern Ireland seeking to complain about the Police Service of Northern Ireland 

(PSNI) and its predecessor the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). 

This mechanism has been used by families who lost loved ones in 

the conflict to investigate their deaths as the PONI can look at 

both contemporary and historical complaints. Unfortunately, the 

PONI can only examine the aspects of the death insofar as they relate to the conduct of police officers. However, considering the nature of the conflict, issues such as whether the police were aware 

of a threat against an individual, the use of informers by police and 

the paucity of police investigations often mean that families find 

out a great deal about a death. 

There have been two particularly significant investigations by 

the PONI. The first was into allegations into the 1998 Omagh 

bomb 4 and the second into the role of a police informant who was 

involved in over ten murders and numerous other criminal acts.5

Although both these cases were controversial the PONI was seen, 

for the most part, to be acting in an impartial and independent 

manner over contentious issues. 

Recently, PONI has created some confusion by dealing inconsistently with the definition of collusion. In his report into the IRA 

bombings of Claudy in 1972,6 he adopted a definition which was 

previously employed by Judge Cory 7 and by Lord Stevens,8 and 

which have commanded wide acceptance. However, in his report 

into the McGurk’s bar bombing 9 he adopted a narrower definition, 

creating the unfortunate impression that there is one definition of 

collusion for IRA victims and another for victims of the UVF. 

The PONI has been criticised for the length of time its investigations take to be completed, its failure to communicate with families 

and the diversion of resources away from historical cases. The 

PONI has highlighted the strain these historical cases place on the 

office and cuts in PONI’s budget do not suggest that this situation 

will improve. The current Police Ombudsman, Al Hutchinson, has 

35

10Financial assistance paid for by the state 

said that he can only afford to investigate two historical cases a 

year. With a caseload of over 70 such cases, this will take decades. 

INQUESTS

An inquest is quite unlike other civil or criminal proceedings; it 

is not a trial. The Coroner cannot determine criminal or civil liability or apportion guilt or blame. He or she can only determine the 

identity of the deceased and how, when, where, and in what circumstances he or she died. In many cases, these are matters already known to the family of their loved one, but sometimes significant new information can emerge at an inquest, despite its limited 

remit. For many years the term ‘‘in what circumstances’’ was interpreted as meaning literally ‘‘by what means’’ a person died (for example, from gunshot wounds). Following successful legal challenges, the term is now interpreted as meaning ‘‘in what broad circumstances’’. Technically, the broader definition only applies to 

deaths that occurred after the Human Rights Act 1998 came into 

force in October 2000, but in practice Northern Ireland coroners 

are tending to apply the wider definition to historical cases as well. 

Coroners themselves decide who will be called to give evidence 

as witnesses and they examine the witnesses themselves, although 

‘‘properly interested people’’ or their legal representatives are also 

permitted to put questions to witnesses within the limited scope of 

the inquest’s remit described above. Persons with a ‘‘proper interest’’ include: relatives of the deceased; solicitors acting for the next 

of kin; anyone who may, in some way, be responsible for the death; 

others at some special risk or appearing to the Coroner to have a 

proper interest. 

Coroners usually sit with a jury in contentious cases, but they 

are not permitted to come to verdicts, they can only make findings 

about who the deceased was and how, when, where and in what 

circumstances they met their death. 

Legal aid 10 is not normally available for inquests, although the 

Attorney General for Northern Ireland has discretion to make such 

financial assistance available in exceptional cases. The lack of legal 

aid means that families often find themselves without any legal 

representation, while all other parties have lawyers. Human rights 

groups argue that, if inquests are to stand any chance of gaining 

public confidence, ‘‘interested parties’’ must be able to take part in 

an informed and open way on an equal footing with everyone else. 

Obviously, this can only be achieved if all potentially relevant material is fully disclosed. While these rights are not guaranteed in 

law, Coroners now generally agree that effective participation by 

families requires wide disclosure. 

Nevertheless, past experience shows that material may be redacted, particularly if it may later be the subject of a Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate. Such a certificate is made on the application of an interested person (usually the police) by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The application is head by a 

court, and, if granted, it permits the applicant not to disclose evidence where this is considered contrary to the public interest. Such 

certificates reduce transparency and create the suspicion that the 

36

11Formerly the House of Lords 

interests of the state, rather than those of the public, are being 

protected. We believe that PII certificates can seriously undermine 

the ability of inquests to make meaningful enquiries. 

It is clearly important that all witnesses with any significant evidence should appear at inquests. While there have been some welcome changes in compelling such witnesses to appear, they may 

still refuse to answer questions, even if they directly relate to the 

circumstances surrounding the death, on the ground that they have 

the right to remain silent. Witnesses are also allowed to refuse to 

answer questions if, by doing so, they would incriminate themselves. 

Many inquests, however, have been opened and left uncompleted. 

Some inquests into conflict-related deaths have yet to be resolved 

many years after the death occurred, and have led to lengthy legal 

proceedings, including judicial reviews, and referrals to the Supreme Court 11 and the European Court of Human Rights. In some 

cases, an inquest is never held. For example, there has never been 

an inquest in Rosemary Nelson’s case. 

Recently, the Attorney General has exercised a discretion that allows him to order a new inquest, even if there was already one 

completed, although there must be new evidence before he will consider doing this. 

Inquests are no panacea for anyone seeking the truth about the 

death of a loved one. They may leave families with even more questions and so fail to address their trauma and distress, but at their 

best they do provide a forum for establishing the facts. 

INQUIRIES

There are many cases in Northern Ireland that deserve an inquiry, but very few people are fortunate enough to get one, and the 

UK’s coalition government has sent very strong signals that there 

will be no more lengthy and costly inquiries. 

It should be borne in mind that Inquiries are a remedy of last 

resort—they only happen when the system has failed. This inevitably circumscribes what an inquiry can achieve by way of a remedy. 

It is often said that inquiries are inquisitorial, rather than adopting the adversarial approach of a court. However, in reality, they 

all start from the same premise, which is that something has gone 

badly wrong that needs examination. Any person or institution who 

is likely to be responsible for things having gone wrong is entitled 

to be represented and to defend themselves, which in practice 

means that they will seek to blame someone else and/or will attack 

anyone who criticises them, which immediately creates an adversarial atmosphere. Although victims may be represented by more 

than one lawyer, generally speaking they have only one voice, 

which can easily get drowned out by all the other interested parties. 

The lesson from the four recent inquiries in Northern Ireland 

(Bloody Sunday, Billy Wright, Rosemary Nelson and Robert 

Hamill) is that no two inquiries are the same. 

37

So far, the two inquiries that have reported have been disappointing. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry exonerated the victims, 

which elicited a public and handsome apology from the Prime Minister, David Cameron, but failed to call the senior army officers or 

the politicians to account. The Billy Wright Inquiry narrowed the 

definition of collusion and then found that there had been none, despite finding no less than fifteen acts or omissions on the part of 

civil servants which facilitated or assisted the murder. At least the 

Billy Wright Inquiry made a positive recommendation, which is 

that there should be a complete overhaul of the Northern Ireland 

prison service. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry made no recommendations at all! 

CAJ and BIRW have had a joint observation project at the 

Hamill, Nelson and Wright Inquiries. What that has taught us is 

how idiosyncratic inquiries are; there is no read-across or learning 

from one another. The Billy Wright Inquiry has been the least 

transparent and the least aware that one of the key functions of 

an inquiry is to allay public fears and suspicions. The Rosemary 

Nelson Inquiry adopted an unusual procedure of channelling all 

questions to witnesses through Counsel to the Inquiry, who played 

‘‘good cop, bad cop’’ throughout. This approach was most disconcerting for witnesses and far from transparent. The Robert 

Hamill Inquiry was the most transparent and granted ‘‘observer 

status’’ to CAJ and BIRW, who were invited to make closing submissions to the Inquiry even though we were not a party to the Inquiry. 

All three inquiries were different from each other, and different 

again from the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. The reason for this is that 

the person who has most influence over an inquiry is the person 

appointed to be Counsel to the Inquiry, and he (none of them was 

a woman) makes numerous macro and micro decisions which affect 

the conduct of the inquiry. The Chair also stamps his (there were 

no female chairs, either) personality on an inquiry, and can influence its direction by interpreting the terms of reference widely or 

narrowly. 

We are still waiting for the reports in the Nelson and Hamill Inquiries, but we are not altogether optimistic that they are going to 

satisfy all the families’ or the NGOs’ concerns. The Robert Hamill 

Inquiry did not seem receptive to our joint closing submissions, 

which emphasised those elements of the case which suggested collusion. The Rosemary Nelson Inquiry has said that it will not be 

looking at whether RUC officers threatened her before her death 

because there is so much conflicting evidence on the issue. 

The Hamill and Wright Inquiries converted from the Police and 

Prison Acts to the Inquiries Act 2005. Their principle reason for 

doing so was that the Inquiries Act gave them greater powers to 

compel disclosure and the attendance of witnesses. BIRW and CAJ 

are opposed to the Inquiries Act because it removes powers from 

an independent Chair and gives them to the relevant Secretary of 

State. Where that Secretary of State or his or her department is 

a party to the inquiry, the independence of the inquiry can be seriously damaged, because the Secretary of State has the power to decide, among other things, what evidence is disclosed and whether 

hearings are held in public, and even has the power to shut an inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:23 Oct 03, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\WORK\031611.TXT KATIE
38

12 Report of the Consultative Group on the Past, 2009

quiry down altogether. In practice, these issues did not arise in the 

Hamill and Wright inquiries, but they would certainly create enormous problems in any inquiry into, for example, Pat Finucane’s 

murder 

Ultimately inquiries are only as good as their reports. So far, the 

evidence suggests that, judged by their reports, inquiries are hitand-miss affairs. One of the problems with inquiries is that they 

only happen after everything that can go wrong has gone wrong, 

so it is a huge task to put things right at that stage. 

It has long been our view that what is required is a human 

rights-compliant mechanism which can establish the facts, hold 

those responsible to account, and protect the valid public interest, 

as opposed to politicians’ interest, in covering up incompetence and 

wrong-doing. 

THE GOVERNMENT’S STANCE ON DEALING WITH THE PAST

In 2007 the government established the Consultative Group on 

the Past. They were inundated with submissions and requests for 

meetings; there was clearly an appetite on all sides of the community for scrutinising Northern Ireland’s painful past, coming to 

terms with it, and moving on. The Group produced a thoughtful 

and thought-provoking report in 2009.12 They rejected the notion 

that there can be a hierarchy of victimhood (that some victims are 

more deserving of sympathy than others), pointing out that it is 

survivors who deserve our equal support, because the loss of a 

loved one is equally painful whatever the circumstances. In that 

spirit, they recommended a one-off recognition payment of £12,000 

to the family of everyone who had lost someone in the conflict. This 

recommendation sparked immediate controversy on all sides of the 

community. Many confused the proposal with compensation, and 

regarded the amount of £12,000 as derisory. Others could not 

equate the suffering of the widow of, for example, a soldier with 

that of the widow of a paramilitary killed by the army. Others still 

welcomed the payment, seeing it as being of practical benefit in, for 

instance, sending a child to university. Many, including the NGOs, 

wondered why the payment was limited to the families of those 

who had died, and did not include the wounded, many of whom 

have long-term unmet needs. 

So controversial was the recognition payment idea that unionist 

political parties rejected the restof the report, thus doing their constituents a great disservice by throwing the baby out with the 

bathwater. We know from our contact with members of the Protestant/unionist/loyalist community that, whatever their opinion of the 

recognition payment proposal, many of them would like to see some 

mechanism for dealing with the past, as would their Catholic/nationalist/republican counterparts (many of whom also rejected the 

recognition payment idea). 

Chief among the Group’s recommendations was a Legacy Commission, which would seek to ascertain the truth about every death 

brought about by the conflict and to help to achieve reconciliation. 

We do not agree with all the details of these proposals, but it was 

39

13 Historians may be best at dealing with Troubles: Owen Paterson, Belfast Telegraph, 17 November 2010 14 Northern Ireland cold case files ‘‘could form Stasi-like archive’’, Belfast Telegraph, 14 February 2011

an idea that could and should be developed into something workable and human rights compliant 

The previous government allowed the recommendations of the 

Consultative Group on the Past to run into the sand, simply publishing a compilation of responses to its tardy consultation on the 

Group’s report. The present coalition government has failed to take 

up the reins, merely promising a further round of consultations 

with those who have already voiced their views. 

The present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made 

some rather strange proposals for dealing with the past. For example, he has suggested that ‘‘historians rather than lawyers’’ should 

deal with the past, and that a Historical Memory Documentary 

Centre such as that established in Salamanca, Spain, in the postFranco era, might be a way forward.13 Similarly, he has suggested 

that the HET’s files could be consigned to an archive like that compiled on the Stasi in Germany.14 Not only are these comparisons 

with the aftermath of totalitarian states rather surprising coming 

from a minister in the UK government, but they clearly indicate 

that he regards the past as something that is over and can be filed 

away, which is far from being the case. 

CONCLUSION

As the four cases considered today so graphically and tragically 

illustrate, the past remains very much part of the present in 

Northern Ireland today. Unless an effective, human rights-compliant mechanism is found for dealing with all the unresolved individual cases arising from the conflict, that conflict will continue to 

cast its long shadow across Northern Ireland’s future and make it 

more difficult to achieve the peace and stability that Northern Ireland so badly needs and so greatly wants. 

We respectfully request this honourable Commission to seek an 

assurance from the UK government that it will establish such a 

mechanism without further delay and in consultation with victims, 

human rights experts and others. 

We thank this honourable Commission for your interest in 

Northern Ireland; long may it continue.

40

WRITTEN MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY RAYMOND McCORD, SR., FATHER OF RAYMOND McCORD, JR., 

MURDERED BY LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES 

My son Raymond Christopher McCord aged 22 years was brutally murdered on 9th November 1997. (See Timeline, Appendix 1). 

The killers were members of a Protestant paramilitary group, the 

Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). 

Mark Haddock, a senior UVF man gave the order for Raymond 

Junior’s murder. Haddock was the leader of Mount Vernon UVF 

and was later to be exposed as a long-time police Special Branch 

informant, who had been paid at least £80,000 ($120,000) while involved in up to 20 murders. 

This killer was part of the British Security Force’s intelligence 

services for at least 12 years. During that time, we are asked to 

believe his police handlers did not know that he was involved in 

many murders. Nuala O’Loan, the then Police Ombudsman for 

Northern Ireland, in her report of the police ‘‘investigation’’ into my 

son’s murder revealed that Haddock: 

1. Was a senior member of the UVF in North Belfast; 

2. Progressed through the ranks of the UVF while committing 

murders 

3. Was never a registered CID informant (CID is the Criminal 

Investigation Department); 

4. Was recruited through his ‘‘long standing friendship’’ with a 

police officer; 

5. Provided intelligence to Detective Constable McIlwrath and 

Detective Sergeant Brown, prior to his formal registration as an informant; 

6. Became an informant in 1991 for Special Branch; 

7. Was the subject in excess of 500 pieces of intelligence provided 

by others over 12 years; 

8. Was allegedly, involved in 10 individual murders; 

9. Was allegedly, involved in the attempted murder of 10 individuals; 

10. Was allegedly, involved in other serious crime including: 

a. targeting an individual for murder in 1994; 

b. a bomb attack in Monaghan (Republic of Ireland) in 1997; 

c. punishment attacks, drug dealings and attempting to pervert the course of justice; and directing terrorism 

11. Was never given participating ‘‘informant status’’ by the 

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) / Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). 

This is a very small part of the report but it gives an indication 

of how Haddock behaved and also how the Special Branch gave 

him a license to kill or whatever he felt like doing. 

Nor was Haddock the only senior UVF man working for the Security Forces of Great Britain: the Supreme Commander, John 

‘‘Bunter’’ Graham has been an agent of the State for years. He is 

the man who controls, and has run, the UVF for years.This is the 

man who has ordered the murder of many many victims, both 

Protestant and Catholic. He is the boss of all the bosses in the 

UVF. 

The list goes on. Many of the leading UVF men were in fact Special Branch informants, who were also involved in murders, drug 

41

dealing, beatings and extortions. How many innocent lives have 

been sacrificed so as not to expose these informers? Civilians, policemen, and soldiers: all sacrificed for what the Special Branch 

called ‘‘the bigger picture’’. These officers and their superiors were 

in collusion with all the paramilitary groups. Police are supposed 

to protect life and serve the people. In Northern Ireland we had policemen who did the opposite! What government or police force 

would take no action on officers, up to the rank of Assistant Chief 

Constable, who refuse to cooperate in investigations into murders, 

attempted murders, drug dealing, extortion, etc? 

Police officers made statements to Nuala O’Loan’s office revealing that during interviews with Mark Haddock, they were to make 

sure that he didn’t admit to murder or other serious crimes. In addition, there are instances where they were told not to take notes 

and to ‘‘baby sit’’ him through interviews. 

Recently Haddock was charged with the murder of Mr. English. 

Yet, after the murder in 2000, Haddock was found to have in his 

possession the address and car registration of Mr. English. He was 

charged with having information likely to be of use to terrorists. 

But Haddock’s senior handler, Detective Sergeant Phil Scott, prepared a confidential document that was forwarded to the Director 

of Public Prosecution. This provided a favorable account of Haddock’s history as an informant and stated, ‘‘The recent arrest was 

due to unavoidable and unfortunate circumstances which were not 

under his control. There were no sinister motives behind the possession of the vehicle registration number. I am of the opinion that 

the informant will be of great value in the future, and that he is 

aware that it was unavoidable circumstances which have resulted 

in his present circumstances.’’ Detective Sergeant Scott does not 

mention that Haddock had been arrested because he was a suspect 

in the murder of Mr Tommy English. He fails to state that Haddock was the prime organiser and mover in the murder. 

The O’Loan Report shockingly reveals that Detective Sergeant 

Scott admitted, handing over a bomb to Haddock that was used in 

Monaghan to attack Sinn Fein offices. How often this happened—

only Special Branch knows! They even increased Haddock’s wages 

from £100 a month to £160, weeks after his first murder of Sharon 

McKenna: a murder to which he admitted to his handlers. A payraise of 60% for committing a murder! On top of that, his handlers 

gave Haddock money to go on holiday shortly after the murder, 

until the ‘‘heat died down’’. 

In the case of my own son Raymond’s murder, the RUC received 

information relating to who ordered it (i.e. Haddock), yet waited 14 

weeks before they questioned Haddock. Two days after the murder, 

Willie Young, who had been out on a weekend parole, was named 

as one of the killers by an informant. Yet police did not interview 

him until another 8 days (19th November 1997) even though he 

had returned to prison and was easily accessible. Two days previously, the police went to the Maze Prison to question him and according to the police they were refused by the Prison authorities to 

interview Young—an allegation that the Prison Service denies. 

Who made the decision that Young was not to be questioned? 

These questions must be asked: 

42

1. Why did the RUC wait 8 days after receiving this information 

before they interviewed Young? 

2. Why did they wait 14 weeks before they interviewed Haddock? 

3. Also, why did they spend only one day questioning Haddock, 

bearing in mind that they had received more information that Haddock had ordered the murder; and that Willie Young, John Bond 

and Stephen Logue had carried it out? 

In 1998 RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, met with my 

MP (Member of Parliament) Nigel Dodds and me. Flanagan stated,‘‘Murderers do not work for the RUC’’. However, we have seen 

and heard through Nuala O’Loan’s office that Haddock is suspected 

of a number of murders. It is irrelevant whether or not Haddock 

carried out the murders himself because he was the boss of the 

unit carrying them out. Moreover, the police kept him as an agent 

for 12 years. Let us not forget that he admitted to his handlers, the 

murder of Sharon McKenna and wasn t charged. 

Did Ronnie Flanagan, as a former head of Special Branch and at 

that time the Chief Constable, not know that Haddock was an informer, a senior UVF man, a terrorist, a killer, a drug dealer and 

someone on whom other informants were providing information in 

regard to his crimes? Informants provided Five hundred pieces of 

information alone on him. Did he not know that Haddock was a 

major suspect in many murders? Why did he continue to allow Special Branch to keep him on as a paid Special branch informer? How 

many more ‘‘Mark Haddocks’’ were there working for the police? 

How can Ronnie Flanagan wash his hands of all this and pretend 

he did not know? In 2000 I sent a letter on my son’s case to the 

Stevens team (the British Government team appointed to investigate collusion between the security forces and Protestant 

paramilitaries). They explained they could not deal with it under 

the terms of reference of their brief. So they passed the letter on, 

hand-delivered it to the RUC—giving it personally to Ronnie 

Flanagan’s ‘‘Command Secretariat’’. 

Flanagan denied ever receiving the letter. However, nine years 

later the Stevens Team gave me a copy of the letter of receipt, 

which Chief Superintendent Sillery had signed, thereby proving 

they had received my letter. On the signed receipt it states the letter would be given to Assistant Chief Constable White, who was in 

charge of the Special Branch, for ‘‘ appropriate action’’. No action 

was taken. And no reason has ever been given except Sir Ronnie 

stating that he was not aware of the letter. I have made an official 

complaint to the Police Ombudsman regarding Ronnie Flanagan, 

but again he has refused to cooperate and 2 years down the line 

he will not make himself available for interview. 

As a result of The O’Loan Report, Operation Ballast, the British 

Government has made changes to the way that informants are 

handled. But they have yet to publicly admit collusion. I believe 

one of the most important aspects of this case is for the British 

Government to hold up their hands, come clean, and tell the truth. 

They did collude with terrorist organizations and should now apologize and compensate the victim’s families. They are no different 

than Muammar Gaddafi’s government blowing up a jet with nearly 

300 people on it. Gaddafi’s was one revolting act of terrorism: the 

43

terrorists in NI committed thousands of acts of terrorism—many 

committed by police agents. 

For almost 13 years, I have fought to get justice for Raymond Jr. 

I have been falsely arrested, hounded and intimidated by certain 

sections of the RUC/PSNI. I must add, not all policemen were bad. 

The UVF has made many attempts to kill me including a planned 

car bomb attack. All because I was telling the truth about what 

had happened to Raymond Jr; who had carried it out; who ordered 

it; and the Special Branch connection to it all. I live under the 

threat of death every day. 

My son’s headstone was smashed on 3 occasions, and even 

though I gave the names of the UVF men who had caused the damage to the police, no one was ever arrested or questioned. Yet, 

when UVF men or their friends made a complaint about me, the 

police did not hesitate to arrest me. In fact, on one occasion when 

Raymond’s headstone was smashed, the RUC/PSNI arrested me for 

no reason and locked me up in a cell after I made a complaint. On 

another occasion I was in a graveyard, and a special unit of the 

PSNI arrested me and locked me up from Monday to Wednesday 

in an interrogation center. No charges were brought against me. I 

believe that they were using scare tactics and wanted to shut me 

up: but they didn’t work. Sir Ronnie Flanagan was Chief Constable 

at that time. I’ve had to live behind bulletproof windows and move 

home several times due to threats on my life. Until recently, when 

Haddock and his mob were arrested and charged with murder and 

other serious crimes, the PSNI were regular visitors to my home 

to warn me that the UVF were planning another attempt to kill 

me. 

A new police unit, known as the ‘‘Historical Enquiry Team’’ 

(HET), has been set up with no intervention allowed by the Special 

Branch; and, hopefully, now people will have a chance of justice. 

The HET have accomplished more in the past 18 months against 

Haddock’s old mob than the RUC/PSNI did over many years. They 

have demonstrated that progress can be achieved. About 14 UVF 

men have been charged with murder, attempted murder and membership in the UVF. 

Nuala O’Loan’s report vindicated me and my allegations. Still 

Unionist politicians like Jeffrey Donaldson, Ian Paisley Jr and Lord 

McGuinness dismissed the Report as lacking in proof. My son brutally murdered and not one unionist politician sent a sympathy 

card or attended the funeral. Had the IRA murdered Raymond 

these same politicians would have been lining up to carry his coffin. However, people like Gerry Adams, Mark Durkan, Lady Silvia 

Herman, Bernie Ahern and Pat Rabbite TD have given me their 

support. I am deeply grateful for the absolutely essential reporting 

of the Sunday World and in particular to John Cassidy, Richard 

Sullivan and Jim McDowell in not allowing Raymond’s case and 

the scandal of collusion to be covered up. 

There are many decent people such as Nuala O’Loan; Geraldine 

Finnucane; Jane Winters; Lord Stevens; Dave Cox, (HET Commander); Paul McIlwaine; and Catherine McCartney, to name but 

a few, who can clearly see the hidden hand of the State in the sordid business we call collusion. I hope the Committee recognizes the 

44

efforts of Father Sean McManus, and the help that he has given 

to me in Raymond Junior’s case. 

When I was on Capitol Hill in May, the Northern Ireland Bureau 

in Washington arranged for me to visit the British Embassy to 

speak with Nic Hailey, the spokesman for justice and policing in 

Northern Ireland. 

Mr. Hailey never answered one question, never offered any explanation, and never uttered the slightest hope that I might get 

justice for my son. 

Why is there such a conspiracy of silence surrounding Raymond’s 

murder? My son was an innocent 22-year-old, a loving son and 

brother, who was not a threat to any person or any State. Why has 

Mark Haddock had so much influence? How can he so shamefully 

blackmail the British Government and their security forces? What 

and who gives this murderer so much power? The answer is collusion: it effectively gives killers the power to control their government. Haddock’s first murder was in1993, which he admitted to 

two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detectives the day after the 

murder. But instead of being arrested he was given money to go 

on a foreign holiday and continued to work as an agent and a killer 

for another 10 years or more. 

Here are the questions which are central to my son’s case and 

which the British Embassy refused to answer: 

1.Why has no one been charged with Raymond’s murder? 

2. Why was Haddock allowed to kill for so long and get paid for 

it? 

3. Why no action against present or former RUC/PSNI officers 

who refused to be interviewed or to cooperate with the Ombudsman’s investigation. 

4. Why were police officers allowed to get away with admitting 

to ‘‘coaching and baby sitting’’ suspects in sham interviews to ensure the suspects would not admit to murder? (Please see Appendix 

3 for a record of my lobbying efforts with Fr. Mc Manus). 

In sharp contrast to the British Embassy, Members of Congress 

and Irish-Americans gave me a warm and wonderful welcome on 

my May visit. And my family and I were absolutely thrilled and 

uplifted to receive a most gracious letter from Secretary of State, 

Hillary Clinton. 

I hope that your Committee will put pressure on the British Government in a way that only representatives of the American government can. I am confident that my appeals to America will not 

be in vain. And I make my appeals not just on behalf of my son, 

Raymond Jr.but also on behalf of the many voiceless victims of 

State collusion. 

I have stayed within the law in my quest for truth and justice. 

This Testimony is for Raymond Jr; his brothers, my other sons, 

Gareth and Glenn; and Raymond’s mum, Vivienne. 

Once again, I am deeply grateful to Chairman Smith and this 

Committee for the opportunity to testify. 

Thank you from the bottom of my Belfast heart. 

RAYMOND MCCORD

45

APPENDIX 1. THE MURDER OF RAYMOND MC CORD JR. 

A TIMELINE By His Father, Raymond Mc Cord Sr. Issued on 

Capitol Hill—Visit, May 11, 2009

November 9. 1997. Raymond Jr. murdered by the UVF (Ulster 

Volunteer Force) on the orders of Mark Haddock—a long time paid 

government agent and police informer. Raymond’s face was so 

badly beaten that we could not have an open casket viewing at his 

wake. 

1998

My local MP accompanied me at a meeting with Ronnie Flanagan, Chief Constable of the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) and 

former head of the Special Branch. He told me, ‘‘Murderers do not 

work for the RUC’’. A patently false statement. 

AUGUST 1999

I received constant harassment and arrests. I was once arrested 

in a cemetery on a Monday and held to Wednesday. Three months 

previously I had made a complaint to the police about Mark Haddock’s threat to kill me. Haddock was arrested and charged but released. The charges were dropped on the orders of the Public Prosecution Service even though the Public Prosecution Service had not 

received the police file. 

Throughout my campaign for the truth, I received no real support from Unionist politicians, with the exception of Lady Sylvia 

Hermon, MP, of the Ulster Unionist Party. Gerry Adams, president 

of Sinn Fein and Mark Durkan, SDLP leader were the only two political leaders who helped. 

The Unionist politicians were in denial, refusing to admit collusion, and they simply wanted me to go away. 

2000

Sent letter on my son’s case to the Stevens team (the British 

Government team appointed to investigate collusion between the 

security forces and Protestant paramilitaries). They explained they 

could not deal with it under the terms of reference of their brief. 

they passed the letter on, hand-delivered it to the RUC—giving it 

personally to Ronnie Flanagan’s ‘‘ Command Secretariat’’. Flanagan 

denied ever receiving the letter. However, nine years later the Stevens Team gave me a copy of the letter of receipt, which Chief Superintendent Sillery had signed, thereby proving they had received 

my letter. 

On the signed receipt it states the letter would be given to Assistant Chief Constable White, who was in charge of the Special 

Branch, for ‘‘ appropriate action’’. No action was taken Four weeks 

after my letter had been submitted, Haddock’s murderteam killed 

two more Protestants. Again, Assistant Chief Constable White—a 

fact the Stevens Team will confirm, took no action against him. 

White later would refuse to cooperate with the O’Loan investigation. 

46

1 OF 2

To summarize Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s role: While Flanagan was 

Head of the Special Branch and Chief Constable of the RUC, he 

employed Haddock as a paid agent and informer who was free to 

kill at will, and did so many times. 

Even under Flanagan’s successor, the current Chief constable, 

Sir Hugh Orde, Haddock was retained as paid police agent for over 

a year. 

2002

I went to the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, to register a 

complaint against the negligence and collusion of the RUC/PSNI. 

January 2007. 

The O’Loan Report, Operation Ballast, vindicates and proves my 

accusations of negligence and collusion. 

The Report states ‘‘Informant1 [Mark Haddock] was a ‘‘protected 

species’’, despite being implicated in 16 murders, 10 attempted 

murders, 23 paramilitary-style shootings and beatings, drug-dealing, extortion, arson and intimidation. 

The Ombudsman declared there was a ‘‘pattern of work by certain officers within the Special Branch designed to ensure that 

[Haddock] and his associates were protected from the law’’. 

The Report also states that the police conducted ‘‘ sham interviews’’, the better to protect the killers. The Report found that junior police officers were ordered by their superiors not to take notes 

during interviews with Haddock. (Indeed, prior to the Report, one 

police officer confided to me that he was too scared to conduct a 

proper investigation lest his career should suffer). 

Prime Minister Tony Blair accepted the Report, but refused to 

meet with me. Even the brave Nuala O’ Loan could not take my 

son’s case any further so I was forced to turn to America for help. 

I met Fr. Mc Manus, president of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, in 2007 in Washington and asked him to take on my 

son’s case. I met him again in 2008 in Northern Ireland when he 

was home on vacation in Fermanagh. He agreed to sponsor a special lobbying effort and to bring me to Capitol Hill. 

TOO LONG

It took a while to organize, a variety of things having happened, 

not the least of which was the Presidential campaign and election. 

Finally I had the chance to come to Capitol Hill for two-weeks to 

make my case for a Congressional Hearing on my son’s case. 

While on Capitol Hill someone asked, ‘‘But why now? Why so 

late?’’ Well that is unfortunately the way it is for Northern Ireland 

victims—it has always taken too long to get one’s voice heard because those in power seek to silence us and marginalize us. 

Hopefully, the US Congress will hear my voice and take up my 

cause. 

My heart is gladdened by the Congressional empathy and support I have received and I am heartened by the fact my cause has 

been embraced by all Irish-American organizations. I am especially 

grateful to the Irish National Caucus and Fr. Mc Manus . 

47

2010

The investigation is taken off the HET and handed back to the 

PSNI ,the ones who colluded with Haddock and the UVF,on the orders of Chief Constable Baggott. Who has also refused to meet me. 

2 OF 2

2. Paper trail. 

3. Record of Lobby Efforts. 

Priest and victims’ campaigner to lobby US politicians By Barry 

McCaffrey 

Irish News. Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Irishnews.com 

A lifelong loyalist and a nationalist priest have formed an alliance to lobby senior politicians in the US. 

Victims’ campaigner Raymond McCord has accepted an invitation from Irish National Caucus president Fr Sean McManus to 

visit the US next month. Mr McCord, whose son Raymond jnr was 

beaten to death by the Mount Vernon UVF in 1997, will meet senior Democrat and Republican politicians in New York and Washington. 

‘‘There was a time when it would have been impossible for Raymond McCord snr to have believed that a campaigner for the rights 

of mistreated Catholics in Northern Ireland on Capitol Hill would 

become his best ally in seeking justice for his own murdered 

Protestant son,’’ Fr McManus said. 

‘‘I have been touched by Raymond’s profound love for his son and 

deeply impressed by his bravery and fearless integrity.’’

Mr McCord said he also saw the irony in the new partnership. 

‘‘All my life I have been a staunch loyalist Protestant who believes 

in the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ‘‘I used 

to dismiss claims of Catholic mistreatment as mere republican 

propaganda. ‘‘I could not believe that my British government and 

my police could be guilty of political assassinations, brutality and 

deadly cover-ups until it all happened to my own beloved son. 

‘‘I can only turn for justice to Fr McManus and his many friends 

in Congress. ‘‘He has assured me that the US Congress will fight 

for my rights as hard as they have fought for the rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland.’’

RAYMOND MC CORD SR. PROTESTANT LOYALIST BETRAYED BY BRITISH

STATE BEFRIENDED BY IRISH PRIEST ON CAPITOL HILL

CAPITOL HILL. MAY 5, 2009—There was a time it would have 

been impossible for Raymond Mc Cord Sr. to have believed it: that 

a veteran campaigner on Capitol Hill for the rights of mistreated 

Catholics in Northern Ireland would become his best ally in seeking justice for his own murdered Protestant son. 

But from May 4 to May 14, 2009 Fr. Sean Mc Manus, president 

of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, and Raymond Mc 

Cord Sr. of Belfast will be pounding the halls of Congress and singing from the same hymn-sheet—a human rights sheet that is neither Protestant nor Catholic. ‘‘Despite the tragic divisions in Northern Ireland, there is still a strong Ulster bond, which asserts itself 

when the Protestant and the Catholic each experiences British injustice’’, explains Fr. Mc Manus. ‘‘Raymond’s son, Raymond Jr., 

48

was brutally murdered by a Loyalist Protestant paramilitary group 

in 1997 (the first betrayal) and the leader of the gang was protected in a sinister cover-up because he was a British Government 

agent and police informer (the second betrayal)’’. 

Raymond, Sr. adds: ‘‘ All my life I have been a staunch Loyalist 

Protestant who believes in the Union between Great Britain and 

Northern Ireland. I used to dismiss claims of Catholic mistreatment as mere Republican propaganda. I could not believe that MY 

British Government and MY police could be guilty of political assassinations, brutality and deadly cover-ups. Until it all happened 

to my own beloved son. Since Raymond Jr. was murdered, I have 

encountered stonewalling and obstruction from the British Government and Northern Ireland police. I can only turn for justice to Fr. 

Mc Manus and his many friends in Congress. He has assured me 

that the US Congress will fight for my rights as hard as they have 

fought for the rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland’’. Fr. Mc 

Manus added: ‘‘ I have been touched by Raymond’s profound love 

for his son and deeply impressed by his bravery and fearless integrity. I can pay him no higher respect when I call him, ‘‘ The Protestant Pat Finucane of Northern Ireland’’. END. 

MCCORD GETS WARM WELCOME DURING WASHINGTON VISIT

BY JIM DEE BELFAST TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 2009

AFTER a day of lobbying top Washington politicians over his 

campaign for an independent inquiry into his son’s 1997 murder by 

the UVF, Raymond McCord has spoken of how he was struck ‘‘by 

the depth of encouragement and support he’s found on Capital 

Hill’’. 

‘‘Coming from Belfast, and the unionist community, no Protestant could have been made more welcome on Capital Hill than I 

was today,’’ Mr McCord told the BelfastTelegraph. 

‘‘They were so eager to hear about Raymond’s case,’’ added Mr 

McCord, who is making his second trip in as many years to drum 

up support for an independent inquiry into his son’s murder 

‘‘And the good thing about it is that they’re going to treat Raymond’s case the same way that they treated the Pat Finucane 

case,’’ he added. ‘‘What they were saying to me was that people 

from the unionist community should be afforded the same treatment. 

‘‘Mr McCord yesterday met with Congressman Richard Neal, a 

Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Friends of Ireland grouping in Congress, as well as New York Congressman Gary Ackerman. 

‘‘Fr Sean McManus, a Fermanagh-born priests who leads the 

Irish National Caucus lobbying group in Washington, told the Telegraph that McCord was ‘‘one of the most successful lobbyists I’ve 

ever seen in action. This hardy man from Belfast was very effective.’’

‘‘Congressman Neal has long been viewed as sympathetic to Irish 

nationalism, and Sinn Fein in particular. But Mr McCord said that 

the Massachusetts lawmaker was more sympathetic to his case 

than many unionist politicians back home. 

49

‘‘If Ritchie Neal or Fr Sean were from the unionist community, 

they couldn’t have treated me any better,’’ said Mr McCord. ‘‘And 

the unionist politicians back home should hang their heads in 

shame that I have to come to America again to pursue justice.’’

During the next ten days, in addition to travelling to New York 

city to meet with insurance industry billionaire and peace-processbacker Bill Flynn, Mr McCord will hold meetings with leading 

Irish-Americans. 

PRIEST, PROTESTANT CAPTIVATE CAPITOL HILL CONGRESS COMPELLED

BY NARRATIVE

CAPITOL HILL. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2009—For almost 40 

years Members of Congress have listened to Fr. Sean Mc Manus, 

president of the Capitol Hillbased Irish National Caucus, detail the 

mistreatment of Northern Ireland Catholics by the British Army 

and police. They were listening to him again this week as he raised 

the case of the young 22- year-old Belfastman who was murdered 

in 1997. But this time Fr. Mc Manus was speaking about a murdered Protestant, Raymond Mc Cord, Jr. and he had flown in from 

Belfast his own expert witness : the father of the murdered man—

the formidable and compelling Raymond Mc Cord, Sr. 

Mr. Mc Cord Sr. is on a two-week lobbying campaign of Capitol 

Hill, sponsored by the Irish National Caucus. Mr. Mc Cord said ‘‘ 

For 12 years I have struggled to bring to justice the man who ordered my son’s murder. That man, Mark Haddock, has been protected because he was a government agent and a police informer 

and the British Government has covered-up the crime and has 

stonewalled and obstructed me every step of the way. I have turned 

to Fr. Mc Manus and his many friends in Congress for help to put 

pressure on the British Government’’. 

And Members of Congress are listening. The sight of a veteran 

campaigner like Fr. Mc Manus escorting a Protestant Loyalist 

around Congress is powerful stuff. 

Mr. Mc Cord explained what he hoped to accomplish: ‘‘ I am asking Members of Congress for three things : 1. To co-sign a ‘‘ Dear 

Colleague Letter’’ to British Prime Minister urging him to personally meet with Raymond Mc Cord Sr. 2. To encourage a Congressional Hearing before the House Human Rights Subcommittee, 

Chaired by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA). 3. To encourage a Congressional Resolution calling on the British Government to hold an 

Independent Public Inquiry into the murder of Raymond Mc Cord 

Jr. and subsequent cover-up’’. 

CONGRESSMAN BILL DELAHUNT

After a very successful week of lobbying, Mr. Mc Cord met with 

Congressman Delahunt on Thursday, May 7 at 10:00 AM. ‘‘ I was 

deeply touched by the Congressman’s warmth and friendliness, and 

by his complete empathy for my son’s case. He is a lovely man and 

I am very hopeful he will hold a Hearing on my son’s case’’. 

In reference to a possible Congressional Hearing, Mr. Mc Cord 

added: ‘‘ It is my hope that former RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan , would cooperate with the Congressional Hearing, if 

scheduled, because he was in charge of the police when the man 

who ordered the murder of my son was a long-time police agent’’. 

50

MC CORD AT BRITISH EMBASSY DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT

CAPITOL HILL. THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2009—After two weeks 

of an incredibly successful lobbying blitz of Capitol Hill, Raymond 

Mc Cord was handed his only disappointment. Whereas Congressional office listened to him with openness, empathy and solidarity, 

the British Embassy listened to him in virtual silence. Because justice and policing have not been devolved (handed back to the 

Northern Ireland government) the Northern Ireland Bureau which 

treated Mr. Mc Cord very nicely—had to refer Mc Cord to the British Embassy to Nic Hailey who deals with those issues for The Embassy. Accordingly, Mr. Mc Cord, by himself, met Mr. Healey at 

2:15 PM on Wednesday, May 13 at The Embassy. 

‘‘Because I was meeting with the duly authorized person—and 

not with some public relations person—I was hopeful I would get 

some real answers on justice and policing as it relates to my son’s 

murder’’, he said. ‘‘I was low-keyed and respectful but Mr. Hailey 

never answered one question. He never even tried, maintaining almost virtual silence throughout the hour meeting. And when he did 

speak it was to ask: whom are you meeting on Capitol Hill, do you 

think you are having any impact, and when are you going home?’’

Mc Cord, clearly expressing his dissatisfaction, explained: ‘‘See 

here, I am an Ulsterman, a British citizen. The British Government and the Northern Ireland police collude in the brutal murder 

of my son, Raymond Jr. I am given a fantastic reception on Capitol 

Hill. Then I go to my own Embassy in Washington, and I get nothing, absolutely nothing. It is so disappointing to this proud 

Ulsterman. Hailey’s treatment of me is exactly what I get from his 

colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office in Belfast’’. 

But then, with the rugged tenacity for which he is famous, Mc 

Cord said: ‘‘ My treatment at the British Embassy illustrates and 

vindicates the need for my visit to Capitol Hill. It confirms my conviction that Congressional pressure in my son’s case is my only 

hope 

END 

MORE CHRISTIAN CHARITY ON CAPITOL HILL THAN IN NORTHERN

IRELAND CHURCHES—MC CORD DECLARES

CAPITOL HILL. MAY 13, 2009—‘‘In 12 minutes on Capitol Hill 

I received more true Christian charity than I did in 12 years from 

the churches in Northern Ireland’’. 

That was the striking declaration of the man who has fought for 

12 years for justice for his murdered son, Raymond Mc Cord Jr. all 

the time being ignored by church leaders, ministers and priests in 

Northern Ireland. Raymond Mc Cord Sr. was speaking from the offices of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, which sponsored his two-week lobbying -blitz of the U.S. Congress. 

Mr. Mc Cord Sr. was deeply moved by the empathy he received 

from the Congress for the case of his 22-year-old son who was murdered near Belfast in 1997. Because the man who ordered the murder was a government agent and police informer he has been protected from the law and his crime covered up. 

‘‘Why didn’t religious leaders, especially in my own Protestant 

Loyalist community, show me the same empathy and compassion 

51

I received from Jewish, Protestant and Catholic Members of Congress and their staff? Why did I have to go 3,000 miles to seek justice, mercy and kindness, which the Bible says is the hallmark of 

true religion?’’, he asked. 

Anyone who knows Mr. Mc Cord knows he’s no softie. He is one 

of the hardest of hard men, considered by some to be one of the 

best bare-knuckle fighter in Belfast for many years 

He has waged an extraordinary one-man battle to get justice for 

his son in the face of constant threats and danger to his life. Nothing has deterred this man’s devotion to his murdered son. Yet he 

was clearly touched by his visit to Capitol Hill. 

He explained: ‘‘No church minister ever showed solidarity with 

my family—they were scared of the Protestant paramilitaries, the 

police and the British Government. They did not want to take on 

the establishment. Had it not been for the brave Nuala O’ Loan, 

former Police Ombudsman, my son’s case would have perished. But 

even she could only take the case so far. That is why I had to turn 

to America and to Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Irish National Caucus, and his many friends in the US Congress’’. The US 

Congress needs to keep the pressure on the British government in 

regards for justice for young Raymond.The Chief Constable should 

never have taken the case off the HET.Is he afraid the HET would 

uncover evidence against the corrupt police officers? Another wall 

has been built to stop justice. 

I am delighted of Congressman Smiths involvement as in the 

past he clearly showed his support for in our quest for truth and 

justice .,and thank all those decent people for their support. There 

is no such thing as a nationalist victim or a unionist victim, we 

don’t need labels as we are all equal as victims.

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