Hypocrisy and Arms Deals – Quick Death, Fast Profits
Britain has a shameful track record of exporting arms, along with crowd control equipment, to torture regimes in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. These arms, equipment, counter insurgency techniques, are to be tested again in the laboratory of British Occupied Ireland, something that came to halt during the peace process. Britain cannot claim to be on the side of peace and democracy while their Tory PM, sponsored in the last election by Britain's industrial war complex, acts as a travelling salesman for the arms industry. Sponsored too it appears, are certain elements of Britain's secret services who are responsible for ending the peace process in Ireland.
British Death Dealing Markets
Britain has a shameful track record of exporting arms, along with crowd control equipment, to torture regimes in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. These arms, equipment, counter insurgency techniques, are to be tested again in the laboratory of British Occupied Ireland, something that came to halt during the peace process. Britain cannot claim to be on the side of peace and democracy while their Tory PM, sponsored in the last election by Britain's industrial war complex, acts as a travelling salesman for the arms industry. Sponsored too it appears, are certain elements of Britain's secret services who are responsible for ending the peace process in Ireland.
The troubled in Ireland and the use of British equipment and counter insurgency techniques, serves as a window to Britain's neo-colonies of their commonwealth, to involve themselves in the lucrative rackets and political corruption of armament sales, to their political stooges of neo-colonial commonwealth. With the shift in the political decision making process in Britain, now heavily weighted in the upper echelons of their secret service palace on the Thames, Cameron is merely a salesman for their war racket while political internees of secret courts and evidence, such as Marian Price, Peter Corey and Gerry McGeough simply pawns of provocation, to conclude the Peace Process in Ireland. While British Labour appeared to take the process seriously, the Tory leader in waiting, London Lord Mayor Boris Jonson probably expressed Tory sentiment best with his description of Sinn Fein activity as " Left wing crap."
There is no evidence since the Tories came to power, of any power sharing dividend of the peace process for Irish nationalists. Indeed Provisional Sinn Fein in the person of Adams and McGuinness, have been made to look increasing like boys whistling in the dark, by the sequence of Tory Vice royals, who in reality are ruling the orange statelet, with a distinctly arrogant bigoted London tone, rather than the usual provincial, orange, sectarian dictat. The Boston College debacle, the arrest in Belfast of former republican peacemakers, along with the return of internment are distinct breaches of the terms and spirit of the peace process.The Irish republican reaction of killing British operatives, is confirmation that the sponsored Tories and secret services, have achieved their target, of ending the process.
Recently the Guardian revealed that Britain lent Indonesia £630m to buy British arms for General Suharto when he was slaughtering protesterss. The weapons, included armoured cars, jet aircraft used against civilians in East Timor. £50m was lent to the Argentinian junta to buy British arms prior to the Falkland war. The British lent £12m taxpayers monies for Land Rovers to President Robert Mugabe. Amnesty International said vehicles were used to smash peaceful demonstrations. £100m in loans were provided to Egypt under Hosni Mubarak to buy British weapons. Unpaid loans were provided to Saddam Hussein in a war against Iran.
Tim Jones, policy officer at JDC told the Guardian; "For years the UK government has claimed it is not possible to find out where debts come from. The figures released show this was a lie. They reveal a history of horrendous loans to dictators such as General Mubarak, General Suharto and Saddam Hussein for military equipment. People in these countries should not have to pay these unjust debts."
A recent article by Colin Todhunter explains it further.
"British PM Cameron is often quite keen to stand in front of the TV cameras and lecture the public on the values of peace and democracy in an unstable world. With his public school accent and an air of authority and respectability afforded by the trappings of state, Cameron words may carry a good deal of weight to the casual observer. But what better way to evaluate his commitment to such high-minded principles by highlighting his actions.
Let’s cast our eyes towards the Arab world. Under Cameron, Britain is not only involved in stoking conflict in Syria right now, but also helped destroy Libya by supporting and taking part in an illegal NATO bombing campaign. Moreover, Britain not only exported weapons and crowd control equipment to Gaddafi months before attacking him, but also to dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and to the regime in Bahrain, a clique which last year carried out the fiercest of crackdowns on protesters.
And this week, David Cameron is accompanying representatives of British weapons manufacturers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE in an attempt to win further lucrative defence contracts for UK firms.
Referring to this trip, Britain’s Green Party MP Caroline Lucas says that while the economy needs a boost, Cameron should draw the line at “dirty money”. Lucas went on to say that Britain has a shameful track record of exporting arms and equipment to regimes in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Libya and said Britain can’t claim to be on the side of peace and democracy while the PM acts as a travelling salesman for the arms industry.
Henry McLaughlin, from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), added that despite everything that has happened in the last two years in the Arab world, the British government continues to bolster authoritarian regimes with weapons’ sales and to spend taxpayers’ money on promoting further deals.
The beneficiaries of the UK arms trade
While spokespersons from the British government are fond of telling the media that tens of thousands of British jobs depend on the defence industry and that huge arms deals are ‘good for the country’, it is well worth considering that defence companies are privately owned and that each worker employed in the UK by BAE Systems, the country’s largest defence contractor, is subsidised to the tune of around 13,000 pounds a head. It begs the question, media sound bites aside, who really benefits from the arms industry?
The arms sector’s contribution to the British economy is minimal, but the industry constitutes a very powerful and effective lobby and the links and revolving door between government and self-serving arms manufacturers have been noted (1). Little wonder then that in 2006, using a report from BASIC, the Oxford Research Group and Saferworld, and updated government figures, it was calculated that the arms trade received about 852 million pounds a year in subsidies. Much of this money goes to BAE, a company with a track record of bribery, espionage and arms deals with oppressive regimes, among other dodgy deeds.
Kaye Stearman from CAAT says that while BAE loves to talk about the supposed benefits it brings to the UK economy, the greatest benefits go to the arms company’s bosses. Top man at BAE Ian King pockets around a million pounds a year base salary, according to the 2010 BAE annual report and already has a pension pot of 11 million pounds. That’s not even taking into account his various share options.
David Cameron does a good job for the likes of King. In 2011, he was in Egypt mouthing platitudes about democracy and human rights as the Mubarak regime fell. Then he moved on with his arms dealers in tow to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia- those bastions of democracy and human rights, who were invited by the Cameron government to attend a London arms fair. And on the day that Cameron was in Libya celebrating another hollow victory for imperialism, many of his arms dealing cronies in London were reaping the rewards of his militaristic policies and salesmanship at the said fair, the Defence and Security Equipment International Exhibition.
As the London fair was in full flow, Cameron was in Libya wallowing in the limelight on the political platform of ‘protecting’ Libyans from Gadhafi. What sheer hypocrisy. Tens of thousands now lie dead in Libya, countless others were maimed and much of the country’s physical and social infrastructure is in ruins as a result of British-French military rockets and bombs.
Some 1,000 arms manufacturers displayed their wares in London, and over 40 countries were represented. The Economist Intelligence Unit (part of the Economist Group) stated that 14 of those countries were authoritarian regimes. Five countries, according to the British government itself, were countries with “the most serious human rights concerns.”
Quick death, fast profits
But who cares when there is a fast buck to be made? Certainly not the British government, which partly funded the event through its arms promotions organisation. Despite apparent concerns over repression and human rights abuses and despite soothing official statements about the stringent conditions for issuing sales licences for arms, Cameron has few qualms about selling to Algeria, Israel, Bahrain, Libya, Iraq, Saudi, Pakistan and the UAE, some of which constitute his government’s ‘arms export priority markets’.
While Cameron and British Foreign Secretary William Hague stand in front of TV cameras and make warm sounding speeches about humanitarianism and the precious nature of human life, they and their arms dealing buddies are all to willing to play fast and loose with the lives of millions of people through their militarism, the ratcheting up of regional tensions and the sanctioning of arms deals.
If the arms industry ever went into a mild panic when the Cold War finished, there was never any need. Despite the economic downturn and major defence cutbacks in the US and Europe, markets such as West Asia, Africa and India, the world’s largest arms importer, are on hand to keep the pot boiling. With politicians stuffed in back pocket and tensions being stoked in various locations across the globe, regional arms races seem likely to keep the arms trade in profit for a long time to come.
As far as India is concerned, according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, India is the world’s largest importer of arms and its imports have grown by around 240 per cent since 2000. In 2009/2010,New Delhi’s defence spending increased by 34 per cent in one year alone. Notwithstanding India’s concerns over China and its ongoing tensions with Pakistan, the Indian state is currently using 50,000 security personnel in an attempt to quell its Naxalite/tribal insurgency.
The insurgents are operating in some of the world’s most impoverished and politically disenfranchised geographic regions. It doesn’t take a cynic to ponder if such a situation merely represents a profitable opportunity for arms companies abroad to flog their wares to the Indian state in order for it to carry out repression on its poorest people who are resisting state-corporate land grabs.
In the meantime and back in Britain, people are continually fed the lie that eye-catching arms deals are good for “the country.” In this time of biting austerity, it’s the quality of life for us, the people, that really counts, not headline-hogging arms deals that ultimately fuel conflict to the detriment of the many and for the benefit of the few."
What a way to celebrate the 125th birthday of Rod Stewart!
Paul Doyle
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 November 2012 11.24 EST
It happened. It really happened. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images BHOY WONDERS
What a setting, what a scoreline, and what a way to celebrate the 125th birthday of Rod Stewart! More than a club? The Queen's Celtic are that, thanks partially to triumphs such as the one masterminded by Neil Lennon last night and executed by a band of players who will probably never grace the cover of a market-leading console game but showed Barcelona that if you can't do the basics then you've no business calling yourself the best team in history. The Catalan Art Project conceded one goal from a corner, another from a mighty punt upfield, could have had two players sent off for fundamental incompetence and failed to find any flaw in Lennon's ploy of allowing them to have the ball in wide areas as often as they liked. Therefore Tito Vilanova's glitterati deservedly lost to a side glued together for a cumulative cost of £3.50 and a crate of Tizer.
It was a Queen's Celtic display that prompted an intoxicating mass outpouring of emotion from their fans, an intoxicating mass intake of lager by their fans and numerous intriguing questions, such as: aren't Celtic's scouts canny? Why did Newcastle let Fraser Forster go? How long before Barcelona try to sucker them into swapping Alex Song for Victor Wanyama? Did Kenny Dalglish think he was signing Georgios Samaras when he forked out £35m for Andy Carroll? And are you watching, the Pope's O'Rangers?
"Good defensive tactics, an amazing performance by Fraser Forster in goal, a partisan crowd and a pinch of good luck," summed up Angel LD Maza in Marca after a match that proved that even 99.9% possession is only nine-tenths of the law. "With these ingredients, [the Queen's] Celtic cooked up a night on which Barcelona were unable to offer their best," continued the scribe before praising the atmosphere conjured by the locals. "There is perhaps no greater home pitch advantage in all of football than a match at Parkhead."
"It was an enthralling fight between two different schools of football, similar to what has happened in the last few Clasicos ," added AS's Alfredo Matilla, continuing: "Neither team's style of football is necessarily more dignified than the other's: one is direct, the other more elaborate, but both can lead you to victory." Vilanova and his players were similarly fair-minded in defeat, diluting their disappointment with tributes to the Queen's Celtic's valour and their fans' fervour.
Oscar Wilde, the Irish writer expressed this selfish Irish trait with his usual beautiful choice of words in the following way, “There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
Sometimes, it feels like a waste of time to discuss socialism or even spiritual abundance in Ireland. As James Carlin said, "If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders." The likes of Eamon Gilmore and the criminal Reilly coming close on the heels of a Fianna Fail Government, are the proof of it. As for the Labour, what is the point of an Irish Labour Party, they are a sick joke. With the Irish politician O'bama just elected in the States and rambling on about HOPE in his victory speech, it reminds me of Carlin's statement 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'
The particularly selfish characteristics of contemporary Irish people with a particularly, serious tendency to hold and hoard things to themselves, makes for a culture where it is difficult for many Irish people of today, to part with the simplest things, like even their time, never mind money. They hoard it all for themselves and will not share it with anyone, even if they themselves just waste it..
They hardly ever sacrifice anything and even if they do they would expect a lot back. Insecurity may be the main reason behind this characteristic that contemporary selfish Irish people display. They feel it their right to receive but never to return anything. Selfish Irish people f today, behave like this because they have forgotten how to balance giving with taking.
· Low self esteem is another characteristic displayed by selfish Irish people that gives them a negative outlook towards life and making them contemptuous of other people in general.
This negative trait makes the Irish bad team players as they always try to pull down others with their remarks, actions or suggestions. What chance socialism in such an environment.
They find it hard to motivate and inspire people because they themselves lack motivation and the drive to look ahead in life.
· A selfish Irish person is highly self centered and self obsessed.
This particularly modern trait makes them see or hear no one else. They make bad listeners and give little or no consideration to what others people have to say. They are very inconsiderate and have little or no room for compassion and have become heartless. They would cut off conversations and bring the focus on themselves.
It becomes their earnest desire to be seen and heard more than anyone else making them oblivious to the opinions, suggestions and advice of others. All their conversations relate back to themselves, particularly Irish women. I mean I love women but Irish women have gone to hell in this respect and are now often, just very selfish and self-centred particularly in bed. Looking at the traits and characteristics that selfish Irish people possess, one thing becomes clear, that selfish Irish people do not need our contempt. We certainly have to keep ourselves shielded from their often negative traits without having to run away from them.
Of course we are all selfish to some extent, but when this trait is shortsighted and heartless, when we cant see any farther than our nose with it, we become really stupid. Selfish Irish people used to be ridiculed and downcast by society in general but today it has become fashionable and cool.To understand such people and help them out of their selfishness and greed attitude by accepting them as they are with tolerance, is not easy. Of course its easy to to fall into their cagey attitude being around them but by not ignoring them and remaining unfazed and unaffected by their damaging, detrimental and calculating behavior we might help a selfish person understand the value of intelligent selfishness.
James Allen the philosopher, who wasn't Irish wrote, “The selfishness must be discovered and understood before it can be removed. It is powerless to remove itself, neither will it pass away of itself. Darkness ceases only when light is introduced; So ignorance can only be dispersed by Knowledge; Selfishness by Love.” really from my own experience it can only be managed in a more intelligent way, where it works not just for myself but the community I belong to.
Tue 03 Mar 2010Gabriel Byrne appointed cultural envoy
Gabriel Byrne has been appointed as Cultural Ambassador for Ireland, Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced in Washington this evening.
The Dublin-born actor will work closely with the Government and artistic bodies to develop "an artistic vision" that is inclusive of the Irish diaspora throughout the world.
Gabriel Byrne slams The Gathering
Gabriel Byrne says the bridge between Ireland and its diaspora is broken
Related
Gathering 2013 launched in US | 27/09/2012
Gabriel Byrne appointed cultural envoy | 16/03/2010
Gabriel Byrne named Ireland's first cultural ambassador | 17/03/2010
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The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne has dismissed the Gathering 2013 initiative as "a scam."
Byrne, who previously served as the cultural ambassador for Ireland in the US, said many who left Ireland for the US feel abandoned by the Government - and that the bridge between Ireland and its diaspora is broken.
He also said Irish-Americans are not receptive to being "shaken down" for money.
The Gathering is a tourism initiative to entice people with Irish connections to visit the country during 2013.
Speaking on The Last Word on Today FM today, which was broadcast from New York, Byrne said the Taoiseach’s speech launching The Gathering was "slightly offensive."
"People are sick to death of being asked to help out in what they regard as a scam," he said
"I wish The Gathering the very best of luck but they have to understand that the bridge between the diaspora and the people is broken and I tried to fix that for two years and it’s still broken.... Most people don’t give a shit about the diaspora [in Ireland] except to shake them down for a few quid."
"The diaspora has a very powerful spiritual connection to the island of Ireland. I remember when I was growing up in Dublin those buses would pull up and those people in Burberry coats would be laughed at because they’d say 'here come the Yanks looking for their roots.' Well, as far as I’m concerned one of the most sacred things you can do is look for your roots."
"The other day I was talking to a group of people. One of them was an illegal immigrant. His father died, he couldn’t get home. He feels abandoned by the Irish Government. He feels an alien. He can’t go back. Then I talked to two kids, a girl and a boy who were forced to emigrate because there are no jobs. And they blame the incompetence and the gangsterism of the Government for being forced to emigrate.‘
Byrne stepped down as Ireland’s cultural ambassador at the end of last year.
"It was a tremendous achievement what we did in two years. I was really disappointed the way all those contacts, all that hard work was just dropped and it really made me disillusioned and disappointed with this Government who go on about their love for culture for arts and actually really don’t give a toss about it."
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MediaBite
There are a lot of Irish people the government does not want to come home: Irish people who have not found work abroad can get no support from the state for two years if they come home.
6 Minutes AgoReplyShare
MártanÓConghaile
Byrne is completely correct. 'The Gathering' smacks of pathetic desperation on the part of a people that have a very ambivalent attitude to its massive diaspora. How many of you have made snide remarks concerning Irish Americans who came here in the past to reconnect with their roots? Very many, I would suspect. I would go further and suggest that Irish people have a profound disdain for Irish Americans. Why? I believe it is shame: that so many people (often from the poorer classes and frequently from the losing side of the Civil War) left this State that failed them and made to the US, Canada and Australia where they became successful and affluent. When these people (or their children) returned to Ireland, their obvious success could only have engendered massive jealousy and (unwarranted) resentment. Yes, we were perfectly happy to welcome them and their dollars but surely people quietly seethed. The political class that inherited the Irish Free State most have felt a profound sense of failure that the country was partitioned and very poor which necessitated going to big Irish American businessmen with the begging bowl to solicit funds and investment (American Irish Fund), often the sons of landless peasants. So the elite in this country made condescending disdain for the uncouth Irish American Yank (and often their Republican politics) a sort of culturally acceptable standard. Most of us have relatives abroad, if perhaps second cousins (or more distantly related), but do most of you have any meaningful contact? What would you say to entice them to visit Ireland? I wouldn't know where to start: our fabulous weather, the inexpensive accommodation? Personally, I would be embarrassed to have them over here, particularly with the rampant anti-Americanism.
14 Minutes AgoReplyShare
soundmigration
A decommissioned social commentator takes a wry look at #TheGathering https://t.co/Z5SDxEG9KevinBarrington likes this.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
KevinBarrington
The only thing that you need to listen to on the subject of the gathering.
It augments Mr Byrne's argument.
But in a slighly more vehement manner.
With touches of what the common man might deem poetry.
If anything will bring anyone to Ireland, it's wit like this.
Not the witless, dumbed down, sexist drivel that some idiot in Failte Ireland approved in a coked out fervour.
"Can we get a Chinese angle in on this?"
Sweet mother of divince act of fornication, how low have we stumbled?
How abject have we become?
Do you actually think anyone actually buys into the Enda drivel of being the 'best little country in the world' to come gather in.
All we need is John Waters dancing with hordes of kids in protective custody at the pyschic crossroads.
And then we have it.
Modern Ireland as seen by those it has long left behind.
We wept. Jesus wept.
God help us.
God graciously help us.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
SimonMaher
I worked at the Notre Dame American football pep rally, in the O2, and was completely embarrassed at the cynical nature of it. Thousands of fans, who had traveled across the world, attended the rally expecting to experience the world renowned Irish hospitality. Instead they were robbed. Food and drink prices were extortionate and the event it self was pathetic. The sound didn't work for the first minute of a pre-recorded address from Martin Sheen, which rendered the rest of it pointless. Enda Kenny made an appalling speech nearly begging the attendees for their charity and the acts were very average. The look on people's faces when it was over said that they knew they had been conned. I found it hard to look any of them in the eye. Danganbeg likes this.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
soundmigration
heres a wee video I made looking at the gathering "A decommissioned social commentator takes a wry look at #TheGathering" https://t.co/Z5SDxEG9
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
fyicmurphy
I agree with Gabriel Byrne, I am an expat (versus a pat I suppose), I have lived in Canada for 25 years. I come back to see the parents every year. I do not blame the people here in Ireland for the cynicism and disgruntlement, they were lead astray by the elitist and the powers that be. The taxi driver in Dublin told me his tale of woe and I genuinely felt sorry for him, at the end of his tale of woe he said "we don't say Cead Mile Failte here anymore (to the tourists), we say "give me your money and F*** off"". I was not upset with him, I was mad that a small bunch of people destroyed Ireland and sold the people into slavery.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
KenCurran
damn, there goes my plan for international tayto day (special shamrock edition cheese and onion only 100 quid a bag in NYC)Danganbeg likes this.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
Declan J. Foley
"It was a tremendous achievement what we did in two years. I was really disappointed the way all those contacts, all that hard work was just dropped and it really made me disillusioned and disappointed with this Government who go on about their love for culture for arts and actually really don’t give a toss about it."
Welcome to the club.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
normanwyse
Top level chugging for Ireland, I guess. If there's one thing worse than being robbed, it's being robbed at a professionally designed event engineered for just that purpose. But I guess we'd be stupid for not shaking that money tree...
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
MichaelHiggins
The cute hoor cynicisim of this 'event' only serves to remind me of one of the main reasons why I left in the first place.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
MichaelMurray
While agreeing with Gabriel Byrne, I want to suggest an answer to "Tom Tom's" question (praphrased for brevity): "what can any country do for those who have left?" GIVE THEM A VOTE IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. That's what the vast majority of other countries do. Hence, for example, in cities all around the world tonight and tomorrow night US ex-pats will be getting together to witness the results of the voting and electioneering in which they have a constitutional right to participate. What makes us the exception? We know the answer to that, deep down. Peadar O'Donnell said it decades ago: emigration is the safety valve when the social and political pressure for change builds up. "That toinn do rhainnigh chugainn." Yeah. But don't expect reciprocation. Riocard Ó Tiarnaigh and John Tangney like this.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
Declan J. Foley
"...all around the world tonight and tomorrow night US ex-pats will be getting together to witness the results of the voting and electioneering in which they have a constitutional right to participate" because they have paid US taxes. Would you pay tax to the Irish government in exchange for the right to vote?
Also these US citizens abroad are just that, US citizens, they do not have dual citizenship.Danganbeg likes this.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
John Tangney
Gabriel Byrne is right about the spiritual connection to Ireland that many expats and diasporic descendants feel. I'm more connected to Ireland than to any of the other places I've lived in the past 12 years, and as an Irish passport holder I should be able to pay tax and to vote there. I wouldn't be paying it to a particular government, but to the country, and it wouldn't be so much a commercial exchange, as it would be my obligation as a citizen. As things stand you cease to be a full citizen as soon as you go abroad.
1 Hour AgoShare
Danganbeg
Spot on Declan.
43 Minutes AgoShare
BrendanHegarty
We have had lots of gatherings and in fairness all have been remarkable successes. The GAlways races tent, paying people we didn't own money to with money we don't have, self-regulated legal cartels, Haughey, etc, etc. Now where's the bucket, pun not intended! If the cap fits, pun intended!
As an emigrant I once organised a few to contribute to a local cause, only to find out my local solicitor had been derobed for stealing grant money.
Let's see how it goes but emigrants don't have a lot of money either, many work in construction and this is always the worst sector in recessionary times everywhere.
Jazus when you thionk of it, we drove people out of the country and now we want to tap them. The real gathering should be if the vested interests gave back what they took. When we needed to be bailed out, they bailed out themselves, literally!Riocard Ó Tiarnaigh and HughTreacy like this.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
EamonnMurdock
Dam! that IS funny AND true.
Thanks be to God some people are beginning to see through the bs.
Without a doubt the most inspired and pertinent response to this substitution of posing for policy.Riocard Ó Tiarnaigh likes this.
2 Hours AgoReplyShare
John Tangney
.
2 Hours AgoShare
safabiltagi
This is so sad, i love my country (Ireland) after GOD, its the people that make it, living in ireland during the 70's and 80's was the ultimate time of greed with the Garret Fitzgerald and Charles Ha-ha-ee, and now in 2013 someone is standing up and saying something, thirty years later,omg, i want to give Gabriel Byrne a hug and say well done, i too live in america and know exactly where Gabriel Byrne is coming from, unless you walked in his shoes, no one will understand as expatriates how we feel about Ireland, its like looking in a window, but we are on the other side.Riocard Ó Tiarnaigh likes this.
3 Hours AgoReplyShare
KevinBarrington
The other side is called the modern world.
And if it wasn't for the greedy, the abject and the patronising, responsible for insult like the gathering, we might all be able to live in the same place.
1 Hour AgoReplyShare
JamesO'Sullivan
This term 'diaspora' is being bandied about in in an emotive manner and each will have their own perspective on the real meaning. I know no Irish, who are living or working in other countries, who feel abandoned or are not content with their lot. Very few feel the urgent desire or need to return home except for visits. They have generally gone by choice in search of adventure, fortune, better weather or simply out of a need for change. I have met many because I have traveled outside Ireland for four of the last five years. The Gathering sounds like a desperate begging bowl but at least it is something. Why condemn the county for doing nothing, on the one hand, and then condemn when some effort is being made?
Gabriel Byrne has made some sweeping statements and is very selective in his choice of examples. bassett_brendan likes this.
3 Hours AgoReplyShare
JohnO'Driscoll
When I was an emigrant fadó fadó was fond of going to Irish bars and alongside other emigrants both recent and much older would sing Ireland's praises to the rafters amongst much mawkish come-all-yizes and beer. Would never hear a bad word said against the place and anyone else was the same. Ireland had a magic then; it was a place we could believe in with some justification that was set apart from other places, that had an history of such suffering and grandeur and a people so storied in art and history and achievement (overseas for the most part admittedly) and set such high standards for Herself with Her moral laws and Constitutions and would surely never do to others what was done unto Her for so long, nor help others do to others what was done unto Her etc.
Why even Her National Anthem proclaimed that the air of Ireland was so free that no wo/man could breathe it and remain a slave. ''No-o-O MORE our ancient Si-i-reland sha-hall shell-turr the despot nor the slave.''
Round about March 2003 all of that started coming apart at the seams when we sold our national soul to the Devil down our Illegal-War-N-Torture-Ports. If you could nod and wink at that, doing that unto others which had been done so long to ourselves, then you could nod and wink at anything.
And as we see all about us, we did.
Reckon I'm not the only one feels this way. Yirrah sure we'll see.
3 Hours AgoReplyShare
irishineurope
This highlights some serious communication issues how the Irish Government, civil servants and some commercial interests need to respect ,relate better to and connect more with the different strands of the world wide Irish Diaspora from an position of mutual respect. Despite these negative comments, it is still best to encourage as many people of all nationalities to visit Ireland and support the many local communities on the ground who are making a genuine effort to welcome visitors and make their visit a most enjoyable one. Ultimately the more tourists that visit Ireland, it will help keep people in jobs and help pay their mortgages and reduce emigrationPostIreland likes this.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:- The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Random verse from Thomas Gray
BBC paedophilia/necrophilia who is who
Besides Jimmy Savile, those involved in the paedophilia/necrophilia cover up at the Bib are as follows:
Saviel Buddies:
Bib staff and execs as well as Crown appointed managers.
These extracts are taken from the publication: The British Media and Ireland Truth: the first casualty Edited and produced by The Campaign for Free Speech on Ireland (n.d; 1979?)
Paperback 55pp Out of Print
Originally published by
The Campaign for Free Speech on Ireland
1 North End Road
London W.14.
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"We have a responsibility ... to provide a rationally based and balanced service of news which will enable adult people to make basic judgements about public policy in their capacity as voting citizens of a democracy... We have to add to this basic supply of news a service of contextual comment which will give understanding as well as information... The morel responsibility of the broadcaster here is not simply to keep the ring open for all opinion, but to see that everybody has a chance to appear in it."
Sir Charles Curran, former BBC Director-General, in a speech to the Edinburgh broadcasting Conference, 1971.
" A journalist shall at all times defend the principle of the freedom of the press and other media in relation to the collection of information and the expression of comment and criticism. He/she shall strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship."
National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct, Clause 2.
‘WE’RE BEING REPRESSED’In the aftermath of the introduction of internment in 1971, official pressures on the media became so intense that 200 leading journalists and broadcasters decided to meet at the ICA in London to consider what to do. The Irish Times printed this report of the meeting:
‘It’s got to the stage where we’re being repressed,’ was how Jonathan Dimbleby of the BBC’s ‘World at One’ programme put it. Editors, he said, were now so worried about pressures from above that they tended to approach a story not with the aim of discovering the truth, but in a manner that would ensure that they didn’t get into trouble. Shooting incidents, for instance, were covered merely as events, and little attempt was made to uncover the reasons, if any, that lay behind them.
Following The Sunday Times disclosures about ‘ill-treatment’ of detainees, BBC men, Dimbleby said, had been given permission to interview internees, but they were not allowed to interview witnesses such as doctors or priests who might have had evidence which would have corroborated internees’ allegations. He also pointed out that the BBC’s editor of current affairs had to listen to every item on Northern Ireland before it was broadcast, on the specific instructions of the Director-General.
ITV communicators had their problems too. The Granada TV men, who had had their programme on the IRA banned without its even having been seen, pointed Out the significance of the recent attempts of Ulster Television to influence the ITA. UTV’s managing director, ‘Brum’ Henderson, was, they pointed out, the brother of Bill Henderson, a public relations officer to the Unionist party and managing director of the Newsletter and had, therefore, a ‘natural anxiety’ about allowing certain programmes to be shown on UTV. UTV had indeed, ‘opted out’ of several programmes on Northern Ireland which had been networked throughout the rest of Britain.
In a passionate speech Keith Kyle of the BBC’s ‘24 Hours’ was scathing about current BBC policy on Northern Ireland, which, he said, could be paraphrased as ‘Programmes as a whole must vindicate the BBC’s detestation of terrorism’. And to those who claimed that a policy of censorship should be imposed in ‘the national interest’, Kyle retorted that ‘there is no higher national interest than avoiding self-deception on Northern Ireland.’
Another important point about censorship, according to John O’Callaghan of the Guardian, was that if, as seemed quite possible, the Republican movement was defeated, then censorship would be seen by the Government as an important instrument in that defeat and, therefore, a powerful argument for an increase in its use in Britain.
The mood of the meeting was summed up in the ‘declaration of intent’ suggested by Roy Bull of theScotsman which read: ‘We deplore the intensification of censorship on TV, radio and the press coverage of events in Northern Ireland and pledge ourselves to oppose it.’
Irish Times 24.11.71
" Those who have access, anywhere, at any time, to our media, should be pressing to ensure that in those media Northern Ireland is put in context, the events are explained, the possible future analysed. Otherwise we will continue to deny the British public the kind of information it need on which to form a judgement about the most important political issue that any government has had to face. "
Jonathan Dimbleby, Thames Television reporter, speaking at the inaugural public meeting of the Campaign for Free Speech on Ireland, March13 1977.
THE BBC AND NORTHERN IRELANDBritish broadcasting has, in general, failed to give much more than a one-dimensional picture of the current conflict in Northern Ireland. The ‘story’ from the Province has been preeminently about violence, about terror, bombs, and death. In recent years even these staples of news coverage have failed to secure any sustained attention. Broadcast news, and most current affairs coverage, has lacked historical depth, and has failed to give an airing to the roots of the crisis there.
Such an approach is largely shared by the rest of the British media, and contributes to the dominant public view of Northern Ireland’s present troubles as largely incomprehensible and irrational.
How has this kind of approach to broadcast news come about? It is certainly not particularly helpful to look for overt acts of censorship by the State. Nor will conspiracy theories be of much assistance. In brief, the State, through its spokespeople has laid down the limits of the permissible, and the broadcasting organisations have responded preeminently through a tightening of their editorial controls.
It is especially worth considering what happened in 1971 and 1972 because those were crucial years which have had an enduring impact on the BBC’s approach.
In 1971, Christopher Chataway, then Minister accountable to Parliament for broadcasting, made a significant speech. He said that broadcasters were not required to strike an even balance between the IRA and the Stormont government, or between the army and the ‘terrorists’. He reminded broadcasters that they stood within the consensus ‘of the values and the objectives of the society they are there to serve’. This speech was, in effect, a warning to the BBC that the Corporation could not be impartial in reporting Northern Ireland.
Lord Hill, the BBC’s Chairman, replied by assuring Reginald Maudling, then Home Secretary, that ‘as between the British Army and the gunmen the BBC is not and cannot be impartial’.
By this time the BBC was already operating a system of special formal controls concerning Northern Ireland which are still in force today. All decisions were then being vetted through the ‘reference upwards’ system — as they are now. This system means that programme ideas cannot be put into effect by the reporters who think them up. Rather, they are scrutinised in turn by the programme editor, the departmental editor, the Controller Northern Ireland, the news and current affairs supremo, and even, on occasion by the BBC’s director-general himself.
The effect of these controls has been inhibiting, and continues to be so. It has resulted in a cautious ‘factual’ approach to coverage and a wholesale absence of investigative journalism because journalists are unwilling to pursue controversial topics, and tend to engage in self-censorship.
Early on, therefore, the BBC had accommodated itself to the demands of the state: the system of internal controls meant that the Corporation could be accused of editorial toughness, but not of outright censorship — an important difference.
However, it is important to realise that the Corporation is not in any sense just a transmission belt for government policy. It has its own institutional needs, preeminent among which is the maintenance of its credibility as an ‘independent’ national institution.
But in late 1971, the BBC’s legitimacy came under serious challenge when the government came perilously close to open censorship, backing away only at the last minute.
This occurred over a programme called The Question of Ulster in which the BBC wanted to present a range of relevant views on the Northern Ireland crisis. The framework of the programme was to be a quasi-judicial ‘hearing’ presided over by Lord Devlin. Maudling and Brian Faulkner tried to veto the programme by refusing to participate, and BBC executives have testified that a ministerial ban was quite narrowly avoided. The BBC persisted and the programme was transmitted.
For the BBC this refusal to knuckle under has had great symbolic importance. The Corporation has presented its resistance over The Question of Ulster as typical of its independence. In fact this view is misleading because it obscures the long-term effect of tighter internal controls — namely, anodyne coverage. It is true that the BBC has subsequently endured governmental displeasure over, for example, its insistence on reporting a particular case of police brutality in 1977. But such incidents are rare. They suffice to support the view that the BBC is actually fully independent, whereas it is actually very constrained. There is room for manoeuvre, and for occasional acts of defiance, but the Corporation has to tread carefully.
Over the years, the BBC has evolved what might be called a ‘public order’ broadcasting policy on Northern Ireland. This consists of three important elements. First, there is general support for the British Army and the RUC and their role in law-enforcement in the Province. Second, there is a negative evaluation of extremism and terrorism, and of the IRA in particular, which is presented as the principal enemy. Lastly, there is a view of the need for ‘responsible’ coverage of the Troubles, which requires especial sensitivity to criticisms of the supposedly inflammatory effects of broadcasting (a view continually pushed by Roy Mason).
‘Responsibility’ of this kind, with its awareness of the public image of the state and its in-built fear of criticism, is, when coupled with the dead hand of tighter editorial control, enough to ensure that the BBC stays within safe limits.
Yet the fact that British broadcasting is not censored by the State, and that broadcasting policy is developed by broadcasters themselves, does mean that tensions persist. This came out clearly in 1977 when Richard Francis, now the BBC’s Director, News and Current Affairs, caused some controversy by arguing that given the confusion in official viewpoints it was best for the BBC to try and function as a ‘fourth estate’. However, his argument for a greater autonomy still operated within Hill’s acceptance of non-impartiality.
A major difference between the BBC and commercial broadcasting is the way the Corporation’s unitary editorial system has allowed less obtrusive methods of control. The IBA’s federal structure, by contrast, has meant that the Authority has been seen to intervene decisively on several occasions, when programmes have been banned.
It has been easier to argue that this kind of intervention has constituted censorship, although it has generally been publicly sold quite successfully as ‘responsible’ action.
There is little reason, at present, to suppose that the BBC or the IBA will become more autonomous, or, alternatively, that the State will need to crack down harder on the broadcasters—provided that they stay within their present limits.
Philip Schlesinger is the author of ‘Putting "reality" together — BBC News’ (Constable 1978)
Paul Madden BANNED, CENSORED AND DELAYED
A chronology of some TV programmes dealing with Northern Ireland
1970
July PANORAMA BBCThe programme contained some ‘vox pop’ interviews with the relatives of six people killed in Belfast, including ‘a widow crying out for vengeance for her dead husband, shot by terrorists’ (according to Anthony Smith, in the article Television Coverage of Northern Ireland, Index, vol. 1 no. 2, 1972). Whilst it was transmitted to mainland Britain, BBC Northern Ireland ‘opted out’, on the grounds that the programme was inflammatory, and could lead to further bloodshed. This was the first such ‘opting out’. In the period when Hugh Carlton Greene was Director-General, it was decreed that as far as possible the content of the BBC’s programmes should be identical in Britain and Northern Ireland. Technically however the Controller of BBC Northern Ireland could insist on being told details of every programme project dealing with Ireland, North and South. The effect of the BBC’s policy to make its networked programmes on the ‘Troubles’ acceptable in Northern Ireland was inevitably to inhibit coverage.
1971
February 24 HOURS BBCA film about the Ulster Unionist Party’s increasing disenchantment with Major Chichester-Clark, Prime-Minister of Northern Ireland. Condemnation of Chichester-Clark, and the extent of sympathies with Ian Paisley were both shown to be widespread in party meetings which were filmed. The programme indicated the possibility of Chichester-Clark’s resignation. The BBC Northern Ireland Controller, Waldo Maguire, wanted ‘moderate’ opinion represented. The addition of an interview with a ‘moderate’ confirming the programme’s findings did not overcome objections. When the predicted resignation took place, the programme became superfluous, and was never shown.
September 24 HOURSBBCThe weekly meeting of the News and Current Affairs groups in the BBC was told that 24 HOURS wanted to do an ‘in-depth’ programme about the IRA. According to the minutes of the meeting, revealed in Private Eye (No. 258,5 Nov. 1971), the Managing Director, External broadcasting, thought as follows: ‘Even if such an interview (of an IRA man) was carried out by someone capable of correcting incorrect statements, he was doubtful about the extent to which the views represented by the interviewer could be expected to be as emotionally as well as intellectually penetrating as those of the interviewee.’ The Chief Assistant to the Director-General, John Crawley, agreed, ‘Such a programme setting out the roots of the IRA would not be acceptable.’
October (NOTITLE) BBCThe BBC filmed the proceedings of the Assembly of the Northern Irish People, which had been set up by the SDLP and the Nationalist Party as an alternative to the Stormont Parliament. The intention behind the assembly was to offer a non-violent forum on the issues of Northern Ireland. The SDLP refused to take seats at Stormont, because of the introduction of internment by the Unionist Government. The footage was never shown, possibly because it was deemed unbalanced’ (Sunday Times, 2 Jan. 1972), ‘yet the SDLP is the most important vehicle of non-violent Catholic opinion.’
November WORLD IN ACTION - SOUTH OF THE BORDER GranadaGranada wanted to do a programme to show how the ‘Troubles’ in the North were building up political pressures in Southern Ireland. Granada had already had some brushes with the ITA (which became the IBA when radio was added to its brief) on account of its investigative series WORLD IN ACTION. Additionally the ITA had been scrutinising both WORLD IN ACTION and THIS WEEK (Thames), in order to pass them fit for screening in Northern Ireland, since 1969. Only two earlier WORLD IN ACTIONs on Northern Ireland of a number made had been carried by the local station Ulster Television, despite the ITA’s own ruling that the series was mandatory, i.e. all ITV companies were obliged to screen it. ITA staff were therefore consulted, when Granada began filming for the programme. The starting point was provided by the October Sinn Fein Convention in Dublin, at which Sean MacStiofain (Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA) and Rory O’Brady (President of Provisional Sinn Fein) both spoke. To balance this footage space was to be given to interviews with Dublin politicians, who were hostile to the IRA: However the Authority (comprising lay members, and the body, set up by the Television Act, to regulate ITV) decided that the programme was unsuitable for transmission - although it was still in the form of rushes, and no member of the Authority viewed them, and despite the ITA’s own staff supporting the programme. Reportedly Brum Henderson, Managing Director of Ulster TV, had previously ‘informed the ITA that the showing of such a programme anywhere in the UK would be deplorable in that it would simply give publicity to IRA extremists’ (Anthony Smith, Index, ibidem). Lord Aylestone, Chairman of the ITA, apparently felt it was ‘aiding and abetting the enemy’. On its own initiative Granada went ahead and completed the programme. This time the ITA did see the programme, but confirmed the ban on transmission, deciding that it lacked balance. No members of the Dublin, London, or Belfast governments took part, but in any event the Dublin government refused to share programmes with the IRA. Criticism of the IRA was provided by Opposition members at Dublin, namely Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Garret Fitzgerald. There was some speculation that the real reason behind the ITA’s banning was not the IRA’s participation, but Garret Fitzgerald’s assertion within the film that the British Army’s tactics in Northern Ireland had contributed to the deterioration of the political situation, a trap planned by the Provisionals. A precedent was thus established for the ITA to interfere editorially in the content of programmes. Increasingly too, contrary to previous practice, the ITA were becoming cautious that ITV programmes about Northern Ireland should be passed fit for screening on the entire network, including Ulster TV (compare the BBC).
November 24 HOURS BBCThe BBC had filmed a number of statements by ex-internees about their treatment at the hands of the (British) Army during detention. Interviewees included Patrick Shivers (who later successfully claimed damages from the Northern Ireland Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defence), and Tony Rosato (a case mentioned by the Sunday Times, 17 Oct., the first English newspaper to carry allegations of torture, although the Irish press had printed reports since August, when internment commenced). Despite the mounting evidence in the press, the BBC delayed screening the films until after the publication of the report of the Committee of Inquiry headed by Sir Edmund Compton, the Northern Ireland Ombudsman (announced on 31 August). The films were balanced by a discussion between Conservative M.P. Antony Buck, and Roy Hattersley, the former Minister of Defence in the Labour Government that had sent British troops to Northern Ireland.
1972
January THE QUESTION OF ULSTER BBCIn November 1971 Conservative backbenchers had vociferously attacked TV coverage of events in Northern Ireland, particularly the BBC’s. Both Lord Hill, Chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors, and Lord Aylestone, Chairman of the ITA, had been summoned on separate occasions to meet with Reginald Maudling, Conservative Government Home Secretary (and technically responsible for broadcasting) to discuss complaints. It was in this climate that the news leaked out that the BBC were preparing a ‘tribunal’ (a deliberately pejorative term employed by the BBC’s critics) on the problems of Northern Ireland. Lord Hill and Charles Curran (BBC Director General) met Maudling on 13th December in order to persuade him of the programme’s value. The intention of the programme was to draw out the different views of the Northern Ireland situation ‘from a wide spectrum of Irish views’. The views of the Government and Opposition were to be pre-recorded, and other participants would give their views ‘live’. Maudling refused Government co-operation point-blank, on the grounds that seven of the eight Irish participants were known to be opposed to internment, and that the BBC should not set itself up as a Court of Inquiry. Brian Faulkner, Northern Ireland Prime-Minister, phoned Hill and Curran directly to ask the BBC to abandon the programme. It seemed as if the BBC would succumb to pressure and postpone the so-called ‘trial by television’ in order to re-think the format, since crucially no member of the Stormont Government would take part. As news of the postponement broke, an anonymous document circulated within the BBC claiming that programme-makers were ‘meeting increasing pressure to hold back or censor news and current affairs items from Northern Ireland.... Pressure comes from Heads of departments in BBC Northern Ireland and England, who now openly act as censors’. However the programme was saved by the willingness of Ulster Unionist MP at Westminster, Jack Maginnis, to appear, and the BBC pressed ahead with its intended transmission on 5th January. In an open letter to Lord Hill on the day of transmission Maudling wrote ‘I believe that this programme in the form in which it has been devised, can do no good, and could do serious harm’. Previously Robin Day had withdrawn because he considered the programme unbalanced, Ludovic Kennedy took his place as chairman. Lord Devlin, who appeared on condition that internment wasn’t discussed, headed the panel of inquiry, which included Lord Caradon and Sir John Foster. The Labour Opposition’s views were represented by a specially pre-recorded statement from Harold Wilson. In order to present Conservative Government and Unionist Government views, a pre-Christmas interview with Maudling, and an extract from a speech by Faulkner was used. ‘Live’ contributions came from Bernadette Devlin, Gerry Fitt, Jack Maginnis, and Ian Paisley amongst others. Lord Caradon summed up by saying ‘We may have been dull, but I don’t think we have been dangerous’, a view generally shared by the press the next day. Milton Schulman wrote (Evening Standard, 6 Jan. 1972) ‘The idea that Lord Hill and Charles Curran and the present set of BBC governors would deliberately be parties to any telly event that might inadvertently inflame or exacerbate the unrest in Ulster is as ludicrous as the prospect of the Archbishop of Canterbury insisting that Anglican services be held in strip-tease clubs. Under its present hierarchy, the BBC has relentlessly pursued a cautious, timorous neutered approach to politics and current affairs’. When subsequent talks between Maudling and the SDLP failed to take place, Maudling blamed the programme for having encouraged the SDLP to harden their attitudes.
February THIS WEEK - AFTERMATH OF BLOODY SUNDAY Thames(alsotitled BLOODY SUNDAY - TWO SIDES OF THE STORY)Thames had been preparing a programme to piece together the story of the shootings of 13 civilians by British paratroopers in Derry on 30th January, interviewing witnesses who had been on the streets, and soldiers, when a judicial inquiry was announced, headed by Lord Widgery. Technically anything which anticipated the tribunal’s findings could be in contempt, as the Press Office at 10 Downing Street were quick to warn both press and television, seeking a blanket ban on coverage. The IBA were consulted, and Thames’s lawyers, who felt the risk should not be taken, despite the fact that there was no precedent for prosecution. Indeed the lawyers apparently thought that the very selection of evidence presented by editing the filmed interviews could in itself be prejudicial. Thames eventually compromised by showing a complete unedited role (400ft. of 16mm) of a filmed interview with a ‘neutral’ eyewitness, a Welsh ex-warrant officer, who lived in the immediate area of the shootings. This was balanced by a complete roll of accounts by Scottish Paratrooper NCOs of the 1st Paratroop Battalion. Although the latter contradicted one another, more damaging material was left out in the 20 or so rolls shot by two crews that were not used, including interviews with Catholic Bogsiders. The programme was transmitted on 3rd February. Later a Paratroop Lieutenant admitted to the Widgery Tribunal that his statement in the televised programme that he had seen a gunman was a lie.
October CARSON COUNTRY (Play for Today)BBCThe BBC finally transmitted Dominic Behan’s play about ‘the origin of the Stormont state’ on 23rd October, having postponed it from May ‘to avoid provoking possible trouble during the marching season’(Evening Standard, 11 May 1972). David Attenborough, controller of TV programmes, and Waldo Maguire, BBC Controller, Northern Ireland had both viewed the play, and apparently, despite liking what they saw, decided ‘the wise course would be to wait for a less awkward time before screening it’.
October THE FOLK SINGER (ArmchairTheatre) ThamesThe IBA asked to view this play by Dominic Behan before its proposed transmission on 7th November. The plot concerned a folk-singer from Liverpool, who plays in Belfast, and shocked by what he finds, tries ineffectually to heal divisions. Thames chose to screen the play, even after permission had been granted, at 10.30pm, instead of Armchair Theatre’s usual 9 o’clock slot. Behan is reported to have said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get the subject aired - even through drama. Too many things are swept under the carpet.’(Daily Express, 6 October 1972).
November A SENSE OF LOSSThe extent of the BBC’s involvement in this Marcel Ophuls film is unclear, although it was probably limited to some financial assistance, in the wake of their screening of Ophul’s THE SORROW AND THE PITY which was subsequently much acclaimed. Shot over six weeks in December 1971, and January 1972, the film consisted of interviews with Protestants, Catholics, politicians, and some soldiers, combined with TV news clips of bombings and violence. The deaths of four individuals formed the central focus of the film, which Ophuls described as ‘an old, middle-aged, humanistic, social-democratic attempt to give people an idea that life after all is not that cheap’. The BBC refused to transmit the completed film on the grounds that it was ‘too pro-Irish’ (Sunday Times, 5 Nov. 1972). Undoubtedly the fact that the film gave expression to a wide range of opinion from the Catholic minority (excluding the IRA) influenced the BBC’s decision. Since the tightening of editorial control over the BBC’s current affairs programmes, interviews with Catholics had become rare, since they were automatically equated supporters of the IRA.
1973
February HANG OUT YOUR BRIGHTEST COLOURS: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MICHAEL COLLINS ATVATV commissioned Kenneth Griffith to make a historical film in the vivid story-telling style he had successfully adopted in his BBC film on Cecil Rhodes. He chose as his subject IRA leader Michael Collins, who was part of the Irish delegation which signed the Treaty with Britain, creating the Irish Free State and the partition of Ireland, and who was subsequently killed in the Irish Civil War in 1922. The film freely castigated Lloyd George, the British Prime-Minister, for the Partition of Ireland, Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Eamon de Valera, President of Sinn Fein. A three man committee of the IBA viewed the film, and called for a detailed script, but apparently made no further comment. Sir Lew Grade, ATV’s Managing Director, then began investigating the film, the first interest he’d shown, although a shooting script had been available since before location filming in Ireland in May 1972. Grade banned the documentary - ‘In view of the delicate political and military situation in Northern Ireland, I have decided that this is not the time for such a film to be shown in the UK, and accordingly this company is not offering it for transmission’. An IBA spokesman insisted, ‘At no point have we asked for its withdrawal. Sir Lew Grade made the decision on his own initiative’ (Sunday Times, 4 Feb. 1973), although the part played by the IBA in the decision was revealed later, when Griffith took out a legal action against Grade. ATV were reported as saying that ‘the film would be shown when the Ulster situation improved’ (Times, 5 February 1973). It has never been shown, and any viewing has to be authorised by the present Managing Director of ATV, Lord Windlesham (former Northern Ireland Minister of State in the Conservative Government).
1974
November NEWSPEAK Bristol Channel (Cable Television station)The Home Office through its Broadcasting Department had inherited the regulation of the five cable television experiments, e.g. outline programme schedules had to be submitted to the department at least two weeks in advance. Newspeak was a local news magazine programme. On 29 November the programme had started, when a ban came through from the Home Office on an interview with Adrian Gallagher, the South-West organiser of Clan na hEireann (the equivalent of Official Sinn Fein). Gallagher was to discuss the Birmingham bombings. In the House of Commons the Prevention of Terrorism Act was being passed, which made the IRA an illegal organisation, but not Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. Since the passing of the Act, Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary declared in the House of Commons that TV interviews with the IRA would be ‘wholly inappropriate’.
1975
May THIS WEEK - HANDS ACROSS THE SEA ThamesThames planned to transmit an investigation into the raising of funds for the IRA in America on 1st May to coincide with the elections for the Northern Ireland Convention. The IBA refused to allow the programme to be transmitted on the grounds that ‘the subject matter could have an unfortunate impact on opinions and emotions’ in Northern Ireland, despite the fact that the programme was to be shown at 8.30pm, half-an-hour after the polls had closed. The Thames ACTT union shop were rumoured to be contemplating blacking the substitute programme. A caption however was displayed before the screening of the substitute, stating that the original had been postponed at the request of the IBA, and would be shown a week later, which it subsequently was.
1976
March ARTICLE 5 BBCA play commissioned by the BBC from Brian Phelan about three mercenaries/torturers, who are hired through an agency by an English businessman to protect his interests in an unspecified country. The nature of their work was brought home to the businessman by the torturing of his secretary. The play’s title came from the relevant section of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states ‘No-one shall be subjected to torture, or cruel inhuman treatment, or punishment.’ It was written with the assistance of Amnesty International, and was recorded in January 1975. Aubrey Singer, then Controller of BBC2, for whose channel it was intended, having viewed the play in May/June 1975 said that ‘it would not be allowed to be shown.’ The play’s director, producer, and Phelan later that year met Christopher Morahan, the BBC’s Head of Plays. ‘It was put to me that if we made certain alterations, it would be more acceptable,’ said Phelan (Guardian, 5 May 1976). In March 1976 Singer wrote Phelan a letter saying ‘The play would have caused such offence to viewers that its impact would have been dulled and its message negated.’ The message of the play was anti the use of torture. Northern Ireland was referred to once in the play in passing, as an illustration of the use of torture by governments. Shaun Sutton, BBC Head of Drama, at the Symposium on Broadcasting at Manchester in February 1977 dismissed the work as a ‘bad play’. The ICA staged the play in May 1976, as did the Project Theatre in Dublin in October 1976.
October THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION BBC ScotlandA local documentary, not primarily intended for networking, which traced the cultural and political links between the respective Catholic and Protestant factions in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The BBC Northern Ireland Controller insisted that an interview with a Provisional IRA man be dropped. As was usual with IRA interviews it was referred upward to Director-General Charles Curran, who confirmed the dropping of the interview. When the documentary was transmitted on 23rd October, a subsequent statement to be appended was omitted, which read ‘We cannot show an interview with a spokesman from the Provisional IRA. The BBC’s policy is not to interview them. Members of the UDA are, however, not subject to this restriction.’ The programme went out in the same cut form on the network on 5 February 1977. The UDA, unlike the IRA, is not an illegal organisation in Britain. Interviews with UDA members were broadcast by the BBC at the discretion of the Director-General or a programme controller. The UK Press Gazette (25 October 1976) in the week that the programme was transmitted in Scotland reported that Alistair Hetherington, BBC Scotland Controller, in a speech had deplored ‘the sanitisation’ of TV news on Northern Ireland as the ‘worst unreality’ on television.
1977
February EIGHTEEN MONTHS TO BALCOMBE ST. London WeekendA drama-documentary reconstruction of the events leading up to the six-day siege at Balcombe St. ShaneConnaughton, the writer, asked for his name to be withdrawn from the credits. He explained ‘I wanted to explain why the bombers were there. But the English are not interested. They just don’t want to know. I thought the programme could achieve some good - especially since Irish news is so heavily censored in England’ (Irish Post, 26 Feb. 1977). As Richard Last wrote, ‘Far from "glamourising" the IRA, as some feared when the project was announced, London Weekend’s EIGHTEEN MONTHS TO BALCOMBE ST (ITV) presented the London bombers as archetypal thick Micks, leading lives in which violence provided the only relief from stupefying boredom’ (Daily Telegraph, 22 Feb. 1977), or Philip Purser, ‘The first impression, I suppose, was of the sheer incompetence of the four terrorists, worthy contenders all, for starring roles in Thick Irish jokes’ (Sunday Telegraph, 27 Feb. 1977).
March TONIGHT - INTERVIEW WITH BERNARD O’CONNOR BBCKeith Kyle interviewed an Enniskillen Catholic schoolmaster, Bernard O’Connor, who alleged he’d been ill-treated by the RUC at Castlereagh Holding Centre. The production team ran exhaustive checks on his story, obtaining for example, his family doctor’s medical report, and a similar account (on film) from a production controller of a local firm, arrested at the same time. In a letter to the Guardian (31 March) Kyle wrote ‘Before the (BBC) governors decided… that TONIGHT was correct in transmitting the interview they had asked for and received a detailed memorandum in which I described every stage of the preparation and production of the interview, and the motives that determined every important decision that I made.’ The programme was transmitted a week later than scheduled on 2nd March. The RUC had been invited to comment within the programme, but had refused, because they were still conducting their own internal inquiry. TONIGHT invited the RUC Chief Constable to appear, when the inquiry was completed. When a RUC constable was killed by the IRA 9 days after the programme was shown, Alan Wright Chairman of the Ulster Police Federation said, ‘There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that the BBC had returned a guilty verdict against the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The sentence - a cowardly bullet in the back - has now been carried out by the Provisional IRA.’ The Daily Express ran the story under the headline ‘Murder by TV’ (15 March 1977). On air Sir Charles Curran defended the BBC decision to transmit the interview by saying, ‘I cannot believe that the IRA needed the TONIGHT programme in order to find an excuse.’ Questioned about the possible insensitivity of the decision he replied, ‘Remember my background is Irish. The background of my news and current affairs chief editor (Desmond Taylor) is Northern Irish. My childhood was lived in the light of stories of policemen of the Royal Irish Constabulary being shot in the back, and my family was an army family in Southern Ireland. How can I be unconscious of the enormous threat to civil security?’
MAN ALIVE - A STREET IN BELFAST BBC (also known as SHORT STRAND)A film about Short Strand, a small Catholic enclave in an overwhelmingly Protestant area of Belfast. It focussed on the daily lives of three Catholic families. Erik Durschmidt, a freelance film-maker, who had covered the Northern Ireland situation for some considerable time, shot the original footage for the film in 1975, and returned in 1977. The film was commissioned for the MAN ALIVE slot, but has never been shown. ‘The BBC claimed that possibly unbeknown to Durschmidt two of the three families were prominent IRA activists (which was) not made clear in the film (and was therefore) misleading’(Edinburgh International TV Festival brochure 1978, p. 54).Since Durschmidt himself in the commentary pointed out that a husband of one of the women featured in the film was a member of the IRA, killed in a shoot-out with the British Army in 1971, the BBC claim must be counted dubious.
August THIS WEEK - IN FRIENDSHIP AND FORGIVENESS ThamesThe programme was made on the occasion of the Queen’s Jubilee visit to Northern Ireland (10th and 11th August). It was intended to counter the pervasive media picture of a trouble spot now at peace, an impression fostered by for example ITN’s 5.45 News presented direct from a Belfast public building’s rooftop during the visit. The programme was banned 2 minutes before transmission on 17th August. After some small alterations it was finally transmitted on 26th-27th August at a variety of times in the various ITV regions. (see Peter Taylor, Reporting Northern Ireland).
September THIS WEEK - LIFE BEHIND THE WIRE ThamesThe programme Thames originally intended to make, at the time of the Jubilee visit, on prison conditions in Northern Ireland and the claims by prisoners for special category status. As was normal practice, the programme was submitted to the IBA who had no objections, and it was transmitted on 22nd September. The Secretary of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers’ Association, who was interviewed in the film, was killed by the Provisional IRA 10 days later, and the programme was blamed. (see Peter Taylor, ibidem).
October THIS WEEK - INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT ThamesAn investigation into the alleged ill-treatment of suspects by the RUC at Castlereagh. The RUC refused co-operation, and it seemed as if the programme would have to be dropped, since the IBA desired the programme to be balanced. The RUC were offered alternative methods of presentation of their case, and chose to provide a (5 minute) editorial statement to camera by the Chief Constable. Reluctantly Thames accepted, and a precedent had been set for public bodies to be represented in programmes that were critical of them, a growing trend. The programme was transmitted on 27th October. (see Peter Taylor, ibidem).
1978
February THE ORANGE, THE GREEN, AND THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE ThamesDavid Elstein (editor of THIS WEEK) and Peter Taylor (THIS WEEK reporter) offered to Thames a project on Ireland, and British involvement, intended to give some historical perspective. The project was in three parts and was to mix documentary with dramatised episodes from Ireland’s past. Thames turned the project down, possibly because the management were acutely aware of tackling a subject likely to bring them into conflict with the IBA, during the period when the IBA was renewing the contracts of ITV companies. Elstein offered it to the BBC, who also turned it down.
May WEEKEND WORLD London WeekendA programme assessing the current strength of the Provisional IRA. As David Cox, the editor of WEEKEND WORLD, stated in LOOK HERE (transmitted 8th July), ‘After we had started filming, there was a full meeting of the IBA authority, and at the end of that afternoon we got a phone call telling us that the whole programme had to be scrapped because the authority felt that a programme about the Provisional IRA wasn’t appropriate at that time.’ The production team still went ahead (although dropping a film of IRA training sessions and a mooted interview with IRA leader David O’Connell on ‘editorial grounds’). The authority again banned the newly completed film since ‘it didn’t give a complete picture of the affairs of Northern Ireland as a whole’. Lady Plowden (Chairman of the Authority) eventually decided to allow the programme to be transmitted on 21st May, 3 weeks after its original planned transmission.
May THE CITY ON THE BORDER and THE IRISH WAY - A BRIDGE OF SORTS BBCTHE CITY ON THE BORDER was intended as a preface to the 7 part series THE IRISH WAY, and concentrated on daily life in Derry in the April week, including aspects of the British Army’s presence. Colin Thomas (a BBC director of 16 years’ standing and one of the film’s 3 directors) had already had some doubts about the way the film had turned out, when he learnt that 2 sequences were to be cut out. The programme was transmitted in its cut form on 31st May. One of the two films Thomas had directed in THE IRISH WAY series, A BRIDGE OF SORTS, had in the meantime been referred to BBC Northern Ireland, who had decided that the film and commentary had to be substantially changed before it could be transmitted. Thomas refused to make the changes and resigned. The film was transmitted with changes under a new title A ROCK IN THE ROAD. (see extracts from Colin Thomas, Blowing my Cover).
June THIS WEEK - THE AMNESTY REPORT ThamesThames planned to transmit on 8th June a programme about the Amnesty report on the ill-treatment of suspects by the RUC, which had already been widely leaked. It was to be a mixture of filmed reports and studio discussion. The IBA banned the programme. Subsequently the local ACTT union shop blacked the screening of a substitute programme, perhaps the first real case of industrial action being taken in the broadcasting industry against a programme ban. Jeremy Isaacs, Director of Programmes at Thames, allowed the BBC’s NATIONWIDE to show extracts from the shot film on 9th June. (see Peter Taylor, ibidem).
August SPEARHEAD - JACKAL SouthernA 7-part drama series about an Army battalion, two episodes of which were set, although not location-filmed, in Northern Ireland. According to Simon Theobalds, Southern TV’s Chief Press Officer (and ex-major in the Green Jackets) whose idea the series was, ‘I wanted to do for the Army what WARSHIP did for the Navy.’ The 4th episode concerned the battalion’s emergency call to go to Northern Ireland to reinforce the policing of a rally in a small town. A crowd of children stoned a battalion patrol. Later they find a 14 year old boy with a live round, possibly ammunition for a sniper, whom they interrogate. Ulster TV, despite having screened the 1st episode of the series, also set in Northern Ireland and about a hunt for a bomber, refused to screen the 4th episode. The network transmission date, 8th August, coincided with the anniversary of the introduction of internment in 1971. This was the first time a drama series, as opposed to a current affairs programme, had been dropped by Ulster TV. Theobalds apparently said of the series that ‘great care had been taken to steer clear of Irish politics, and there is no reference to the IRA.’
August THE LEGION HALL BOMBING (Play for Today) BBCA play based on the trial transcripts of the case of Willie Gallagher, sentenced to 12 years gaol for bombing the British Legion Hall in Strabane in 1976. The play showed the operation of the Diplock Court system, and was scheduled for transmission on 23rd February, and was repeatedly postponed. The BBC insisted that the original voice-over commentary introducing the play should be changed, since it ‘editorialised’. This had been written, along with an epilogue, to lead into a discussion programme that was to follow the play. This discussion was dropped.
international | anti-war | opinion/analysis 
Saturday November 10, 2012 00:11
by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices 
