Northern Ireland Thread

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0320/377575-omagh/

Two republicans have been found liable for the Omagh bombing following a landmark civil action taken by relatives of some of the victims.
Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were ordered to face a retrial after they successfully appealed a finding of liability against them in the original case in Belfast High Court.
But their second trial delivered the same outcome in the same court, with judge Mr Justice John Gillen ruling the men were responsible for the 1998 Real IRA attack.
The attack killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, when a dissident republican car bomb ripped through the Co Tyrone town on 15 August 1998. More than 200 were injured in the blast.
No-one has been criminally convicted of the bombing.
However, in 2009 Murphy, a builder and publican from Dundalk, Co Louth, and Daly, a bricklayer from Culloville, Co Monaghan, and two others were held responsible in the initial civil action taken by some of the bereaved families.
Along with Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt and Co Louth republican Liam Campbell, the men were ordered to pay £1.6m in damages.
McKevitt, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the Republic of Ireland for directing terrorism, and Campbell, who recently successfully fought extradition proceedings to Lithuania on arms smuggling charges, failed in their bids to overturn the Omagh civil judgment.
They are now seeking to have their case heard in the European Court of Human Rights.
Murphy and Daly's appeals were upheld, but both men were ordered to face another trial.
The retrial started in January and finished last month, with Mr Justice Gillen delivering his reserved judgment today.
 
I apologise for not having read this thread before. or personal reasons I've side-stepped it.

I have no idea if this subject has been broached before due to my ignorance of the content of this thread, but I'm interested to know what the tartds' general take is regarding the killings (note I don't use the word "murders") of Corporals Wood and Howes around this date 35 years ago.
 
solvista said:
I apologise for not having read this thread before. or personal reasons I've side-stepped it.

I have no idea if this subject has been broached before due to my ignorance of the content of this thread, but I'm interested to know what the tartds' general take is regarding the killings (note I don't use the word "murders") of Corporals Wood and Howes around this date 35 years ago.
Click to expand...

I'll never forget seeing that on the news.
 
Grinner said:
I'll never forget seeing that on the news.
Click to expand...

They turned the telly off in our naafi that day. We were heading out there shortly after.

The thing is that I have mixed thoughts and emotions about it. I'm just interested in hearing the caf's honest opinions. If that's possible nowadays.
 
solvista said:
They turned the telly off in our naafi that day. We were heading out there shortly after.

The thing is that I have mixed thoughts and emotions about it. I'm just interested in hearing the caf's honest opinions. If that's possible nowadays.
Click to expand...

Nobody deserves to be publicly humiliated and murdered like that, nobody. One must think why they went to the area of an IRA funeral, armed. And drove into the procession. Especially after the events of the previous week.
 
It was shocking, but it was all shocking. The fact they were there, even if it was a mistake, was mental. We can all talk about what people should and shouldn't do. But conflict kills normality early, and then heinous shit happens.
 
TheReligion said:
A hunger strike is not courageous! :lol:
Click to expand...

Not understanding the will involved in martyrdom or the strength it gives others has always been a weakness for armies facing the people.

There is no crazier or more courageous act than actually dying, slowly, for a belief. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it takes strength.
 
Word around here was that they were there to murder someone, a planned hit, if you will. It was supposed to be a high ranking republican, whose destination (after the funeral) was known to them and they were supposed to follow him and take him out.

Could be bollocks or could have some truth to it. Is it believable? Well, considering the british army/ruc/loyalist collusion and many Catholics that were setup that way, over the years, then yes, it's more than plausible. It could also just be a conspiracy that was started to gain support for the killings.

Nobody really knows why they were there, for sure but the thing that matters is that they were human being who did not deserve what happened to them, IMO.
 
Anything from a mistake to a hit is possible. There is no way they should have been there, even by mistake. If it was a hit, it was fairly sloppy. And the fallout might have been off the scale. If it was a mistake, well I can't think of two unluckier blokes.
 
Yeah, there was definitely no valid/moral reason for them to be there. It kind shows me how much I've changed though. I remember even years afterwards thinking they got what they deserved, (as recent as 10 years ago, I used to be very republican) now all I can think is that it was just a tragic waste of life and I'm sorry it happened.
 
I can barely imagine the situation, but during those days and in the middle of a funeral you can understand why it happened even though it was another terrible moment.
 
Do any of you know anything about Evelyn Glenholmes? I knew a fella who claimed that he was part of a team that snatched her and interrogated her.
 
It's a weird one. I'm thinking that I could understand how it happened because it was a grieving angry mob, but as soon as you think about them as individual people actually doing that, it's sickening and incomprehensible. If that makes sense.
 
There's no way that was a special op. Far too sloppy and in the open like that. At that stage of the conflict the people who might have done such an op would have been far more proficient than that. I'm thinking of the hit in Gibraltar for instance.
 
Yep, that's logical alright, and would be my gut reaction, but feck knows if it was a plan that just went awry.
 
It seems very unlikely indeed (although not impossible of course) that they were were hit men. Many off-duty and plain clothes soldiers carried guns then. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got attacked, possibly tortured and then murdered.

I think the most likely explanation is that they were either out repairing surveillance equipment or were just cruising and made a wrong turn even given the orders to stay well clear.
 
If you are going on a hit you don't arm yourself with just a 9mm and not have any backup. It's possible that the backup got spooked when it really went to shit but I doubt it. I don't think they had any comms gear on them either.
 
I agree with that again Grinner. The level of madness that particular week is the only thing that makes me wonder if they could have really been there by mistake. If they were I can't imagine the horror as soon as they realised.
 
Grinner said:
If you are going on a hit you don't arm yourself with just a 9mm and not have any backup. It's possible that the backup got spooked when it really went to shit but I doubt it. I don't think they had any comms gear on them either.
Click to expand...

Sounds right to me. And if they were doing something covert then they wouldn't have ended up where they were anyway. It would have been better planned I'd guess.
 
It's not unusual for squaddies to head out and not know where the feck they are going. Me and a mate ended up driving our land rover into a minefield in Bosnia without a fecking clue!
 
Grinner you make a lot of sense, but you're forgetting that those men could have been doing that hit, off the books, with no authorization and no backup. It could just as easily have been setup between those two men and a few loyalist leaders. The collusion thing didn't always go right to the top.

Still not saying that's what it was, but it didn't have to be a special ops type of thing to make it a viable theory.
 
The Don said:
Grinner you make a lot of sense, but you're forgetting that those men could have been doing that hit, off the books, with no authorization and no backup. It could just as easily have been setup between those two men and a few loyalist leaders. The collusion thing didn't always go right to the top.

Still not saying that's what it was, but it didn't have to be a special ops type of thing to make it a viable theory.
Click to expand...

Those men were British soldiers. I'm pretty sure they were carrying their service IDs and they had service issue weapons. Not exactly covert.
 
Grinner said:
It's not unusual for squaddies to head out and not know where the feck they are going. Me and a mate ended up driving our land rover into a minefield in Bosnia without a fecking clue!
Click to expand...

Which was impressive since you were billeted in Armagh. ;)
 
I think the lack of more firepower hints against a hit, no matter who was involved, if you went into that area deliberately, you'd want more than a 9mm.
 
The Don said:
Grinner you make a lot of sense, but you're forgetting that those men could have been doing that hit, off the books, with no authorization and no backup. It could just as easily have been setup between those two men and a few loyalist leaders. The collusion thing didn't always go right to the top.

Still not saying that's what it was, but it didn't have to be a special ops type of thing to make it a viable theory.
Click to expand...

Nothing in that mess is impossible but it does seem very unlikely.

I remember shitting myself every time I was in a black taxi in NI (85-88 mainly) with that footage in mind.
 
I don't see the sense in carrying out a hit at a funeral in a volatile situation when the int would surely have been able to put them in a better option at another time with less chance of it going tits up. The Gibraltar hit was messy but ultimately quite successful and there have been countless other hits and kidnappings that aren't even public knowledge to this day. In short, the people who did that sort of stuff were experts at it.
 
It was probably regs that you couldn't leave the base without being tooled up. I once sat in downtown Sarajevo getting pissed with a 9mm in a holster on my waist like some fecking cowboy.
 
Grinner said:
Those men were British soldiers. I'm pretty sure they were carrying their service IDs and they had service issue weapons. Not exactly covert.
Click to expand...

Another very valid point. The thing is, they didn't exactly need to be covert in those times. They pretty much had the run of the place and could kill whoever they liked. They could just as easily have been a rogue element who supported the loyalists or even had loyalist ties. Of course not all British soldiers were like that, in fact I'd say only a very small percentage were. The rest were just lads, doing a job and were actually there to protect Catholics from loyalist death squads. That doesn't hide that fact that a very small minority hated anything even remotely Irish and would do anything to aid the loyalists.

Thinking of that takes me back to the days when we were occupied by the the Army. Where I lived, the only time you talked to them was to give them abuse but this one time I was in the street on my own kicking a ball against the wall. A few 'peelers' or 'Brits' on patrol asked if they could have the ball. I thought they were going to take it an bust it or something but they just wanted a kick about and one even went in nets for me to hit a few shots at him. I remember asking them why I was supposed to hate them and one of them told me that they were seen as the enemy but that they were just here under orders, just doing a job and no more wanted to be here than the people wanted them here. I always carried that with me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.