Longford Lecture 2009 - War is easy — peace is the difficult prize

I don’t spend every evening at a function mixing with an eclectic collection including Sir Hugh Orde the President of APCO, Sir Ian Blair, Lord David Ramsbottom, the good and the great and well, me! However the Longford Trust which was set up to continue the work of the late Lord Longford in promoting prison reform and acting as an advocate for the outcasts in society has a unique way of bringing a disparate but committed group of people together. Indeed so diverse is the roll call of benefactors of the Longford Trust that it includes uber- financier George Soros as well as the noble Lords Archer and Black — both of whom have what might be described as having an intimate inside knowledge of prison life.


Lord Longford

So it was on an otherwise gloomy London night which was anointed with impressive torrential rain we proceeded across the yard behind Westminster Abbey to Church House, Westminster, to the Synod Hall of the Church of England for the 8th annual “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I forswear from commenting that all this splendour of the Church Commissioners has been paid for by stolen goods during the reign of Henry VIII and augmented from the “immoral earnings” of the Bishop of London’s Estate at Paddington which contains more than a fair share of London’s houses of pleasure. I admire myself for such self restraint and turn towards Frank Pakenham’s legacy and Sir Hugh Orde’s lecture reflecting on his experience of tackling the legacy of sectarian murders in Ireland during the Troubles under the title “"War is easy — peace is the difficult prize: An Alternative Approach to Resolving Unsolved Murders."


Sir Hugh Orde

Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be 'the outcasts' outcast'. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee's post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson's Cabinet.

He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.

He attracted much controversy with his (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison; some would suggest she was an unworthy subject of his attention. He attracted criticism for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement and he was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.

In 1936, motivated by a gospel teaching that 'those who visit prisoners visit Christ', Longford begins visiting prisoners at Oxford gaol. Subsequently he attempts to visit at least one prisoner every week. After the war, he enters Clement Attlee's Labour government where he is tipped by Attlee as a future prime minister. He gained notoriety as the Cabinet Minister responsible for starting the reconstruction of occupied Germany. Conrad Adenauer hails him among the founders of West Germany; at home he is condemned for being soft on Britain's erstwhile enemies.

Despite his campaigning, Longford took a hard line on what constitutes criminality and was not a supporter of gay Rights. In 2000, during a House of Lords debate on equalising the age of consent for homosexuals, Longford declares: "I regard homosexuality as a sad disorder and handicap and it makes it very unlikely that a healthy family life can be had," adding that, "homosexual leanings are not to be condemned any more than schizophrenia or alcoholism, but they are sinful by Christian standards and those of many other churches."


Rachel Billington & Lady Antonia Fraser - Lord Longford's daughters

The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis. The Longford Trust is headed up by another son, Kevin Pakenham.

Before he took over at ACPO Sir Hugh Orde was Chief Constable of Northern Ireland for seven years and his great task was “How do you tackle 2,000 unsolved murders stretching back more than 30 years?” That was the dilemma which confronted him when he was appointed Chief Constable of the new cross-community Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2002 in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

The controversial solution he came up with – to provide victims' families with what he calls "maximum disclosure" of everything known about the killings, even if the police could not convict a suspect – could be a model, he believes, both for police work with victims of unsolved crimes, and for other societies with a history of sectarian tensions.



"The question I faced," he said, "were there alternative ways of dealing with unsolved serious crime where convictions are unlikely? In Northern Ireland, they were unlikely because of the lapse of time and the potential for loss or contamination of evidence, or for witnesses to have died or forgotten what they saw. And the longer a crime is unsolved, the harder it is to solve and therefore the less effort is put into it.

"But at the same time I was acutely aware that the families of the victims, who ranged from the widows of police officers and soldiers to the relatives of an IRA terrorist killed by the SAS, have not had satisfaction in any sense of the word. If I was going to move policing forwards, I was going to have to deal with the past first." His lecture also reflected on the general treatment of victims of crime. "What we achieved demonstrates a different way of thinking about victims. Traditionalists might argue that the role of the police is to investigate crime and therefore the sort of work we did was for others to do. I would disagree with that. Victims are a key part of our work. They are citizens first and we have a duty as police to protect citizens and help them get on with their lives. And if this work we did made a difference to them, then it is of value."

The over 3,524 deaths in the modern conflict in Ireland are recorded in the Cain Index (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) and it makes for harrowing reading. In the 80’s I was living in Dublin and three of the deaths recorded on the Cain Index touched me personally. In 1983 as part of their “Fund Raising” activities the IRA kidnapped Don Tidey the head of an Irish Supermarket chain and held him for ransom. Four IRA men with their captive were discovered in a hide at Balinamore Woods, Co. Leitrim and in breaking out of the Irish army / Gardai cordon they killed a trainee policeman and a trainee soldier. A person who worked for me was the girlfriend of the young Garda recruit who was murdered in the name of “fundraising” and she had a complete breakdown and never returned to her job. In March 1987 my friend Peter Nesbit who lived in Belfast and was in the RUC Reserve was answering a hoax burglary call on the Crumlin Road when he was blown apart by a litter bin bomb. Peter was a friend through Scouting and part of a mixed (Protestant / Catholic group) in Ballysillan on the edge of the Ardoyne in Belfast who all moved out of the area to be able to stay in touch as Belfast became polarised. He really enjoyed coming down to Dublin as he could leave his personal protection revolver behind. Indeed in the gallows humour which pervaded the North he used to joke how tall the Gardai in Dublin seemed as it was too dangerous to be a tall police man in the North. In September 1987 the brother of a good friend was “lifted” by the IRA from the streets of Dublin and found later shot on a border road in Co. Armagh. My friend had to identify his brother’s body in Craigavon mortuary and I remember to this day the expression on his face when he returned to Dublin having completed this dreadful duty.


Longford Scholar display at the lecture

I use these personal examples of two members of the security forces on either side of the border and of a person who the IRA claimed was a member because I had an insight to the grief left behind and to my knowledge nobody was held to account for these murders through the courts. So there is a huge “Justice Gap” for the families of the victims. Sir Hugh Orde’s Historic Cases Team (HCT) obviously filtered the evidence (for all the right reasons) and dealt with families of the victims on a 1-2-1 relationship basis and left it to these relatives of the victims to decide if they wished to make the evidence public. In doing this he did a great service in providing a measure of closure to the victims’ families for which he deserves full credit. My own feeling is that there is a bigger picture here and that the whole Island of Ireland needs closure, needs to know what happened and needs to move on. Is there a case for saying at a future date (2020?) that ALL the Police Files, ALL the Intelligence Files, NORTH and SOUTH, warts and all, mistakes and all, rubbish and all, need to be put into the public domain in a single searchable archive. This would undoubtedly be a highly controversial event and a double edged sword in the public perception but in the examples I’ve given what had happened to the three victims would be known and the public could make up its own mind about these events. I honestly believe that Ireland needs to endure such a catharsis before it can truly move forward – the past must no longer be a mystery.

The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Inquest, a charity that has worked for more than 20 years with the bereaved families of those who have died in custody, has been awarded the 2009 Longford Prize, sponsored by The Independent and established as part of a trust in memory of the late Labour cabinet minister and outspoken prison reformer Lord Longford.


A Prison Cell

As well as its work with individuals, Inquest is also a lobbying organisation, recently persuading the Government to adopt many of its proposals for improving the coroners system so that it better serves the interests of all bereaved people. Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, said: "Our small dedicated team is delighted to receive this award for upholding the human rights of bereaved people. We hope that this award brings wider attention to and understanding of our important work."

We appreciated the impact of Inquest and its work at the reception afterwards. We were humbled to speak to a wonderful women they had helped and hear what she had gone through. As part of the strangely titled “Operation Safeguard” when Wandsworth Prison was being renovated her son was transferred to Bedford Prison. The son had been a heroin addict and Bedford could not care for him as it did not have a methadone replacement unit and he killed himself in his prison cell. She could not speak more highly of the help Inquest gave her family and for our part we were humbled by her courage and dignity.

Commendations were also awarded by the prize judges to Keyring's Working for Justice project, which supports individuals with learning difficulties in the criminal justice system, and to Junior Smart for his work with gangs to reduce knife crime.
As for Sir Hugh’s other legacy in Ireland? In the few short years following the Patten Commission, admirable strides were made under his leadership in turning a sectarian, divisive police force, with the perception of blood on its hands, into a democratic, accountable police service with the respect of much of the community.

Just as Northern Ireland still has a long journey ahead of it, the police service still faces challenges, and the prospect of further reform, as the remaining Patten Commission recommendations are implemented. Strong foundations have been laid for a solid police service. It is now in the hands of the various players in Northern Ireland to support these foundations, and the continued reform process, to deliver to the people of Northern Ireland a police, at their service. Sir Hugh left Ireland with his reputation enhanced as a “straight copper.” Let me tell you in the Irish context this was no mean achievement.

See also;

2007 Longford Lecture by Professor Mary McAleese, President of Ireland

“Changing History”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html

2008 Longford Lecture – debate by Sir Ian Blair, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr and Phil Wheatley

“We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/longford-lecture-2008-we-cant-build-our.html

For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;

http://www.longfordtrust.org/

Republican Criminals Smoked Out

The Anne Scan - "No Smoking"

In the bad old days before the Gerry Adams Gang aka Gerry and the Peacemakers discovered Peace, Love and Understanding one of the more disreputable aspects of the IRA (In Ireland these things are relative) was the euphemistically named “Fundraising Activities.” Indeed these crypto-fascists masquerading as Republicans were the greatest beneficiaries of Partition running numerous rackets in the border areas of Ireland relating to smugglings, fraud on EEC subsidies, diesel rackets etc; Indeed it was never obvious where private gangsterism and “The Cause” began and ended as many fine houses and “businesses” owned by Republican hard men in border areas testify.

Now the group of Neanderthals known as the Real IRA were last night being linked to the largest ever haul of contraband cigarettes in Ireland, in what Gardai described as a significant strike against organised crime. Nine people, including seven Irish nationals, were arrested after a ship “Anne Scan” containing 120 million cigarettes worth €50m was seized in Co Louth following a massive surveillance operation.

The haul, with a potential revenue loss of €40m, was destined for the Irish and UK markets. Regarded as the biggest seizure of its type in Europe and described as organised crime on a global scale, the contraband was uncovered after the chartered ship arrived at 6am on Monday at Greenore Port. Code-named 'Samhna', the operation, which targeted an organised crime group operating on both sides of the Border, involved the Revenue Customs Service, the Naval Service, Air Corps, Gardai, the Criminal Assets Bureau and PSNI officers and HM customs officials.



When customs officers searched the cargo, they found over 1,400 bags containing up to 120 million cigarettes hidden among a consignment of animal feed. While the top quarter of each of the one-tonne bulk bags of feed was genuine, the rest were packets of two brands of cigarettes including Palace, which are sold in Britain. Seven Irish nationals, all male, aged between 19 and mid-40s, one Lithuanian male in his 50s and one Ukrainian male in his 40s were arrested after part of the ship's cargo was loaded early yesterday onto waiting trucks. Gardai and customs officers pounced when the convoy was driven to the importer's premises.


The Anne Scan's cargo of cigarettes

Last night, the men, who included the ship's captain and first officer, were being detained at Garda stations in counties Louth and Monaghan. The Real IRA have funded their terrorist activities partly by smuggling along the Border and by operations bringing material into Ireland. In 2003 a large haul of cigarettes was seized as a Real IRA cigarette smuggling ring was smashed when warehouses in Holland and the Ireland were raided. Six men were arrested after consignments of cigarettes worth millions of euro were found in the searches.

As part of follow-up searches more cigarettes were found in a warehouse in Monaghan. In another incident Gardai and the US authorities investigated links between the terrorists and a major cigarette smuggling ring in the United States. The seizure in Greenore is significant as this port at the end of the Cooley Peninsular (along with Heysham in Lancashire) was built by the LMS Railway based in Euston Station as part of a Rail / Ferry connection to Ireland and Greenore still has Euston and Crewe roads and the remnants of a once fine railway hotel as visible evidence of this connection.


The Greenore Hotel, built by The London and North Western Railway in the 1870s as one of the most imposing railway hotels in Ireland, and one of only a handful to be built of brick.

The Cooley Mountains form the setting for "An Tain Bo Cuailgne" or "The Cattle Raid of Cooley". Recounting the heroic defence of Ulster by the legendary Cuchulainn against Queen Medbh of Connacht and her attempt to seize the prize brown bull of Cooley, the story is at least 1,200 years old and is among the oldest surviving pieces of vernacular literature in Europe. This very beautiful part of the world has suffered greatly from IRA “fundraising” over the years including the murder of a local farmer, Tom Oliver, and the burying of bodies of IRA murder victims. One of these was Jean McConville, a 37 year old Catholic mother of 10, who was abducted from her home, St. Judes Walk, Divis, Belfast, around Xmas 1972 when Gerry Adams was commander of the “West Belfast Brigade”. She was accused of giving water to an injured British soldier. Her remains were eventually recovered, on general instructions from the IRA, buried at Shelling Hill beach, near Carlingford, Co. Louth, on 27 August 2003.


Jean McConville and three of her children

And consider those who suffered from the euphemistically titled “fundraising” which enabled Gerry and the Peacemakers pay for their comic strip patriotism. There was Thomas Niedermayer, the German managing director of Grundig’s Belfast factory where IRA Godfather Brian Keenan once worked who was kidnapped for ransom and whose body has never been found. Of course Brian was not there that wet dark night at Greystones pier in Co. Wicklow some years later when his widow, still consumed with grief, walked off the end of the pier. He was however, in West Belfast when Grundig closed down with a loss of 900 jobs, but he wasn’t at Balinamore Wood in Co. Longford when the Army and Gardai rescued the kidnapped managing director of an Irish Supermarket chain but not before the fleeing IRA gang killed two 19 year olds, a rookie cop and soldier, as they broke out of the cordon. Nor did he know the girlfriend of one of them who worked for me who had a breakdown as her life and future were so cruelly destroyed.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/death-of-brian-keenan.html

So let us praise the security services for frustrating the Neanderthals of the so called “Real IRA” in their gangster activities and remember those who did not live to see the discovery of democracy by Gerry and the Peacemakers. They are remembered on the Cain Index of violent deaths caused by the IRA and others who feel it is right to kill for “Freedom”.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/index.html


Cooley Peninsular