Personal by Brian Clarke
The untimely death of Gerry Conlon, like the deaths recently of many people, intimate with some very important real history of the troubles, has rattled more than a few skeletons in my cupboard and I am quite sure many others. As anyone who has walked in the twilight zone, close to the reality of the Dirty War in British Occupied Ireland will tell you, it is extremely difficult to analyze facts from the fiction of this time, to separate the mowers from the growers and to connect the dots backwards. I am sure that many who have been under constant surveillance or the victims of Britain's dirty tricks, black ops and black propaganda will vouch for, it is constantly surreal and can drive the mentally strong, to drink drugs or insanity. The British operate on the basis of there being many ways to skin a cat.
A recent example of this personally, is that in the course of taking our dog for a walk with my wife, I have been almost run over, at the precise same spot, three consecutive nights in a row, while returning outside our home, by a motorbike at great speed, with the same unlit side car. I have had similar experiences regularly and consistently over the last few months. I can either put this down to paranoia or that certain leading figures around the Dirty War in Ireland believe I have secrets that they would prefer were not told.
I am but a grain of sand in the grand scheme of things but I am satisfied, that certain leading people in what was known as the Provisonals, have taken more than a passing interest in my affairs and have gone to great lengths to investigate, as have British spooks regularly. All of this is a very long story and I will not bore readers with the details or interfere in the private lives of others, I once counted as friends and family but there is considerable evidence, that the feral secret service of Britain, have besides false flag operations, spun elaborate webs for show trials and secret state hysteria and propaganda.
As the old saying goes, no one has a monopoly on the truth, there are many aspects to it but the other expression, that the truth is stranger than fiction, is equally valid. Many supposed historians of the people, engage regularly in subjective narratives and self confessed censorship of critical important historical events, in the history of the risen Irish people, which distorts and disguises the essential facts, which I might remind them, also extends far beyond Belfast. This in my humble opinion is a grave crime against humanity. Those who engage in it, know who they are, mostly.
All of this surreal reality, at one point, drove me to serious drinking, during which time, I made a very serious error, that I will eternally regret and what I can only hope, people will try to forgive, on the basis of my sincerest apology and efforts to amend. I haven't taken a drink for close to 28 years now or smoked for many, so I should be of reasonably sound mind in my observations. I can tell anyone reading, that the events in Ireland related to the ongoing troubles, for anyone intimate or emotionally involved with them, will drive most people insane, as it did in my case. There are many people who have died recently, who have taken secrets to their grave, to the considerable relief of political power brokers. I think the best way to describe the events I have witnessed in my lifetime in British Occupied Ireland, is very similar to Child rape.
As I once saw Sinead O'Connor describe it, Irish people are one of the most innocent races of people on the face of this Earth. Like most colonized peoples, they and their children have been raped, mentally, physically and spiritually, systematically for hundreds of years by the inheritors of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church and the British Empire. Like the child who has been beaten regularly by its parent, it is passed on to his younger brothers or sisters, until it reaches the family pet. It is very sad and distressing and as recent revelations in Ireland confirm, it is likely a pandemic, to the point of destroying the soul of Ireland.
Like alcoholism it is a secret disease and will not be healed without the truth and consequently will have to be treated as a disease, first and foremost, I say that as reluctantly as anyone, who is abhorred by the enormity of this wrong but it will not start to heal, until the truth is told.This cannot be done within the environment of British Occupation, because they will continue to do what they have always done for centuries, exploit it to recruit blackmailed informers, provocateurs, politicians, most of the legal profession, etc..
Note above, I have stated the Roman Catholic Church not the Celtic Church and the British Empire, not the English one. I believe as a result, the whole island of Ireland is dysfunctional, in almost every sense and place. That the ordinary decent working class people of England, as result of raising an army every generation, for their very profitable, war complex industrialists, are mostly militarized and addicted to foreign wars of aggression or piracy. Ireland like most colonized people worldwide, is being raped in every sense of the world on a daily basis. They must unite to remove the chief perpetrator, Britain. Those who don't work for this removal, are now in unjustifiable denial, perhaps for class, monetary or shame based reasons, but they are participating, in the most serious crimes against humanity and their own. Irish politicians and power brokers take note.
During the recent troubles, there have been many devastating bombs in Dublin, Monaghan, Le Mon, Enniskillen, Omagh, etc., which most informed opinion believes, were organized by the British secret services, without leaving their own personal fingerprints. Many of the leading players in these events, were unwitting leading participants, just like children who are the manipulated victims of paedophiles, who honed the skills of manipulation, growing up or surviving an abusive homes. British secret services have been aware of these matters, for many decades, and they too have honed this in their black op, dark arts. I believe that Gerry Conlon was such a victim from long before he left Belfast. The establishment in London were very aware of all of this and will systematically remove witnesses to these facts. Leading players on all sides of the so called Peace Process, continue to collude in horrific crimes, that are ironically termed sanitized collateral.
I lived in Gerry's place in London. The events around all of what happened to Gerry, continues to be as surreal today, as I am sure it is for those, who were close to these events all those years ago. Many have died young with the toll, few have survived intact. It is an unrelenting nightmare, that will remain in Ireland as long as the foreign invaders remain. Colonialism is like a bully from the house next door, breaking into you home, raping your wife and children, smashing it, occupying it, refusing to leave and then labeling you a terrorist for resisting. There really is no alternative at the end of the day but to resist. Smart people unite, reject the collaborators and stick together in the struggle to remove war criminals, like the British Empire and their collaborating war criminal, proteges.
Belfast Child
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Belfast Child / Ballad of the Streets"
"Belfast Child" is a 1989 No. 1 UK Singles Chart[1] hit single by Simple Minds from their album Street Fighting Years. The single is also known as the "Ballad of the Streets" EP, highlighting both "Belfast Child" and "Mandela Day" (originally its B-side).
The song uses the music from the Irish folk song "She Moved Through the Fair", but has completely different words.
Jim Kerr recalled in 1000 UK No. 1 Hits why he used the melody, "I first heard the melody (of She Moved Through The Fair) a few days after the Enniskillen bombing (when a bomb planted by the IRA exploded during a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, killing 12 people and injuring at least 63), and like everybody when you see the images I was sick. In the second part of the song, I'm trying to relate to people in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones. I'm trying to talk about the madness, the sadness and the emptiness. I'm not saying I have any pearls of wisdom, but I have a few questions to ask".
After finally gaining his freedom, Conlon underwent psychiatric treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Photograph: Frank Martin/picture library
I suffer from nightmares and have done so for many years. Strangely, I didn't have them during the 15 years I in spent in prison after being wrongly convicted, with three others, for the 1975 Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings. It was almost as if I was in the eye of the storm while I was inside, and everything was being held back for a replay later in my life.
Our case is well known now as one of the first of the big miscarriage of justice stories, and I am often contacted by people who, like me, spent many years in jail for something they did not do. People ask whether a case like ours could happen today. Of course it could. I know of innocent people still behind bars and I know there are echoes of what happened to us in cases that are still coming to light today.
What happened to us, after all, is not dissimilar to what happened toBinyam Mohamed, the British resident held for many years in Guantánamo Bay. Like him, we were tortured – guns put in our mouths, guns held to our heads, blankets put over our heads. The case against us was, like his, circumstantial. And like him, we tried to get people to listen to what had happened to us, and it took years before our voices were heard outside.
What has been happening in Britain since 2005 has created the same sort of conditions that helped to lead to our arrest. The same procedures are being followed – arrest as many as you can and present a circumstantial case in the hope that at least some of them will be convicted. The one difference, so far, is that juries seem less inclined to convict. But if there is another series of bombs, who knows if that will still apply?
It is still hard to describe what it is like to be facing a life sentence for something you did not do. For the first two years, I still had a little bit of hope. I would hear the jangling of keys and think that this was the time the prison officers were going to come and open the cell door and set us free. But after the Maguire Seven (all also wrongly convicted) – my father among them – were arrested, we started to lose that hope. Not only did we have to beat the criminal justice system but we also had to survive in prison. Our reality was that nightmare. They would urinate in our food, defecate in it, put glass in it. Our cell doors would be left open for us to be beaten and they would come in with batteries in socks to beat us over the head. I saw two people murdered. I saw suicides. I saw somebody set fire to himself in Long Lartin prison.
The first glimmer of home did not come until my father (Guiseppe Conlon, also wrongly convicted and posthumously cleared) died in prison in 1980. My father's last words were "my death will be the key to your release". That proved to be the case, because that was when a number of MPs started to become involved.
It was a terrible price to pay. What many people do not realise is how difficult it is to have your case reopened. It was in 1979 that I wrote to Cardinal Basil Hume about our case and he came to see me in prison. I remember it well: I had been playing football and I was called in to see him – he looked like Batman in his long cloak and he was great, but it was still another 10 years before we were free – even although the authorities knew full well by then who had carried out the bombings and that it was not us.
Since I came out of prison, I have suffered two breakdowns, I have attempted suicide, I have been addicted to drugs and to alcohol. The ordeal has never left me. I was given no psychological help by the government that had locked me up, no counselling. Since our case there have been perhaps 200 others we have heard about of innocent people being released, Sean Hodgson being the latest, and probably a few thousand others that have not had the publicity. I would say the vast majority have almost certainly had problems with drug addiction, have been estranged from their families and disenfranchised from society – yet they have been offered little in the way of help. The money we received in compensation went quickly as a lot of hangers-on arrived on the scene.
I am 55 now and I was 20 when I was arrested so what happened to us has taken up 35 years of my life. I am now with the girl that I met when I first came out of prison and I owe her an enormous amount of gratitude. Others have not been so lucky. I hope that what happened to us will always act as a reminder to people never to jump to conclusions, whatever the nature of a crime, and never to ignore the people who are now trying to get their voices heard so that the nightmare does not happen to them.
Belfast Child
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Belfast Child / Ballad of the Streets"
"Belfast Child" is a 1989 No. 1 UK Singles Chart[1] hit single by Simple Minds from their album Street Fighting Years. The single is also known as the "Ballad of the Streets" EP, highlighting both "Belfast Child" and "Mandela Day" (originally its B-side).
The song uses the music from the Irish folk song "She Moved Through the Fair", but has completely different words.
Jim Kerr recalled in 1000 UK No. 1 Hits why he used the melody, "I first heard the melody (of She Moved Through The Fair) a few days after the Enniskillen bombing (when a bomb planted by the IRA exploded during a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, killing 12 people and injuring at least 63), and like everybody when you see the images I was sick. In the second part of the song, I'm trying to relate to people in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones. I'm trying to talk about the madness, the sadness and the emptiness. I'm not saying I have any pearls of wisdom, but I have a few questions to ask".
After finally gaining his freedom, Conlon underwent psychiatric treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Photograph: Frank Martin/picture libraryI suffer from nightmares and have done so for many years. Strangely, I didn't have them during the 15 years I in spent in prison after being wrongly convicted, with three others, for the 1975 Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings. It was almost as if I was in the eye of the storm while I was inside, and everything was being held back for a replay later in my life.
Our case is well known now as one of the first of the big miscarriage of justice stories, and I am often contacted by people who, like me, spent many years in jail for something they did not do. People ask whether a case like ours could happen today. Of course it could. I know of innocent people still behind bars and I know there are echoes of what happened to us in cases that are still coming to light today.
What happened to us, after all, is not dissimilar to what happened toBinyam Mohamed, the British resident held for many years in Guantánamo Bay. Like him, we were tortured – guns put in our mouths, guns held to our heads, blankets put over our heads. The case against us was, like his, circumstantial. And like him, we tried to get people to listen to what had happened to us, and it took years before our voices were heard outside.
What has been happening in Britain since 2005 has created the same sort of conditions that helped to lead to our arrest. The same procedures are being followed – arrest as many as you can and present a circumstantial case in the hope that at least some of them will be convicted. The one difference, so far, is that juries seem less inclined to convict. But if there is another series of bombs, who knows if that will still apply?
It is still hard to describe what it is like to be facing a life sentence for something you did not do. For the first two years, I still had a little bit of hope. I would hear the jangling of keys and think that this was the time the prison officers were going to come and open the cell door and set us free. But after the Maguire Seven (all also wrongly convicted) – my father among them – were arrested, we started to lose that hope. Not only did we have to beat the criminal justice system but we also had to survive in prison. Our reality was that nightmare. They would urinate in our food, defecate in it, put glass in it. Our cell doors would be left open for us to be beaten and they would come in with batteries in socks to beat us over the head. I saw two people murdered. I saw suicides. I saw somebody set fire to himself in Long Lartin prison.
The first glimmer of home did not come until my father (Guiseppe Conlon, also wrongly convicted and posthumously cleared) died in prison in 1980. My father's last words were "my death will be the key to your release". That proved to be the case, because that was when a number of MPs started to become involved.
It was a terrible price to pay. What many people do not realise is how difficult it is to have your case reopened. It was in 1979 that I wrote to Cardinal Basil Hume about our case and he came to see me in prison. I remember it well: I had been playing football and I was called in to see him – he looked like Batman in his long cloak and he was great, but it was still another 10 years before we were free – even although the authorities knew full well by then who had carried out the bombings and that it was not us.
Since I came out of prison, I have suffered two breakdowns, I have attempted suicide, I have been addicted to drugs and to alcohol. The ordeal has never left me. I was given no psychological help by the government that had locked me up, no counselling. Since our case there have been perhaps 200 others we have heard about of innocent people being released, Sean Hodgson being the latest, and probably a few thousand others that have not had the publicity. I would say the vast majority have almost certainly had problems with drug addiction, have been estranged from their families and disenfranchised from society – yet they have been offered little in the way of help. The money we received in compensation went quickly as a lot of hangers-on arrived on the scene.
I am 55 now and I was 20 when I was arrested so what happened to us has taken up 35 years of my life. I am now with the girl that I met when I first came out of prison and I owe her an enormous amount of gratitude. Others have not been so lucky. I hope that what happened to us will always act as a reminder to people never to jump to conclusions, whatever the nature of a crime, and never to ignore the people who are now trying to get their voices heard so that the nightmare does not happen to them.
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