UNWITTINGLY, AS she arrived in Ireland yesterday morning, Elizabeth was complicit in a belittlement of Irish people, or rather she was compounding a belittlement of Irish people perpetrated by Irish governments and by most of the Irish people themselves.
At some stage in the preparation of the visit of Elizabeth to Ireland, somebody must have adverted to the coincidence of the proposed date of her arrival here with the anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 17th, 1974. Or maybe nobody adverted to this coincidence until plans were already so far advanced that it was impractical to change the date of arrival.
So either nobody on the Irish side remembered the date of the single biggest atrocity perpetrated here since the Civil War and nobody bothered to check, which says a lot about the disregard in the Irish establishment for the 34 people killed that day. Or someone – or some ones – did remember or did check but thought the coincidence of no consequence.
Margaret Irwin of Justice for the Forgotten (the organisation that has campaigned all these years for a proper inquiry into what happened that day and the follow-on official inquiries) said yesterday at a commemoration of those 34 dead that it was for 34 “little people” whose lives hardly mattered to the “authorities” on either island, certainly not as compared with the great matters of state with which these important people were primarily concerned.
It just adds insult to those already heaped on the memories of the innocent people killed then, insults caused by the inept Garda investigation into those bombings, the peremptory ending of those inquiries after a few months, the failure to follow leads and the absence of any pressure from the government of the day to pursue those inquiries with vigour. All this in spite of the solemn promise of the then taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, on the night of those atrocities, that the perpetrators would be tracked down and brought to justice. And the refusal of the British “authorities” to co-operate fully with their Irish counterparts in those inquiries.
Enda Kenny added further insult on Morning Ireland yesterday, in conceding he might discuss the issue of the British security files relevant to that atrocity, in conversation with the British prime minister in the next few days, should the issue arise. (Incidentally, I use quotation marks around the word “authorities” in these instances because of unease over the suggestion that there are any authorities other than the people).
The 1974 bombings took place in the context of spiralling violence in Northern Ireland. It was the Provisional IRA which instigated the use of car bombs as a weapon of murder and terror in 1972. On July 21st, 1972, the IRA had exploded 22 bombs in Belfast in the space of 75 minutes, killing nine people and injuring approximately 130.
Soon afterwards, loyalist gangs started to use car bombs and one of those early devices was detonated in Dublin on December 1st, 1972, killing two people and injuring 127.
However in the months from the beginning of 1973 to May 1974, the IRA had been responsible for over 90 per cent of the car bombs that exploded on the island of Ireland and many of these were responsible for the deaths of 74 people in the Northern Ireland conflict in the first four months up to May 1st, 1974. The May 1974 bombings took place in that context and against a background of a strike by loyalist workers that ultimately brought down the first powersharing government in Northern Ireland. The clear evidence is that the Dublin and Monaghan attacks were perpetrated by loyalist organisations, possibly with the support of elements of the British security forces.
An official report on these bombings by Patrick MacEntee, the venerable senior counsel, was published in March 2007. He reported how, following persistent inquiries of the British “authorities”, a photocopy of a document was made available to him which had been withheld from previous inquiries. However portions of this document were obliterated even though it seemed obvious that this was directly relevant to the investigation of the May 1974 bombings. MacEntee concluded he had been limited in the scope of his investigation “by not having access to original security and intelligence documents in the possession of the British government”.
Suppose the position were reversed and that, for instance, there was evidence of some complicity on the part of the Irish government with the IRA pub bombing in Birmingham on November 21st, 1974, in which 21 people were killed and 182 were injured, and that the Irish “authorities” were refusing to disclose relevant original documents to an official British inquiry. There would be justifiable fury in Britain and indignation on the part of the British government. Here, no fury and no indignation on the part of our government, merely the possibility that the issue might be mentioned should it come up in conversation.
It is a pity Elizabeth is embroiled at all in this and a pity if it diminishes the significance of her visit and her enjoyment of her stay.