Politics
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The Top Level Appointments Committee (TLAC) long since succumbed to groupthink
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Taoiseach Jack Lynch and British Ambassador John Peck alarmed at prospect of Captain Kelly’s book
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By Joseph de Burca. Michael Wolff has published two highly critical books of Donald Trump. Despite this, the former president granted Wolff an interview which has helped inform his latest book ‘Landslide’. In the book, Trump fulminates and groans about perceived slights and betrayals. He is particularly critical of the 1,000 or so lawyers he retained during his career. None of them merit praise save for Roy Cohn, one of the most dishonest and indisputably evil lawyers ever to practice law in the US (that is to say until he was disbarred). Cohn was also Trump’s mentor. In July 2020 Village published a detailed and lengthy expose of Cohn’s trafficking of a young boy from Kincora Boys Home in Belfast to Venice, Italy, in the 1970s. The story can be found here: Trump’s mentor: another sociopathic paedophile child-trafficker in the mix; from Roy Cohn to Epstein and Maxwell. The revelation that Cohn was involved in paedophile rings was not a new disclosure. In 1992 John W. De Camp published a book called ‘The Franklin Cover-Up’ in which he described a number of child abuse rings in the US including one which furnished children to political VIPs run by the CIA. De Camp’s book has never gone out of print. A second edition was published in 1996 and reprinted in 2001, 2005 and 2006. In the 2006 edition at page 179 the author described the role of Robert Gray, a child trafficker from the Watergate era. Gray and a CIA agent called Edwin Wilson were involved in blackmail operations which exploited vulnerable children. According to the former CIA officer and whistleblower, Frank Terpil, CIA blackmailing operations involving paedophiles were intensive in Washington at the time of the Watergate scandal. Wilson ran one of them. Terpil told De Camp that: historically, one of Wilson’s [CIA] jobs was to subvert members of both houses [of Congress] by any means necessary … Certain people could be easily coerced by living out their sexual fantasy in the flesh … A remembrance of these occasions [was] permanently recorded via selected cameras… The technicians in charge of filming … [were] TSD [Technical Services Division of the CIA]. The unwitting porn stars advanced in their political careers, some of [whom] may still be in office. According to De Camp, the blackmail operation had been set up by Roy Cohn. He quotes the former head of the vice squad for one of America’s biggest cities who told him that: Cohn’s job say you had an admiral, general, congressmen, who did not want to go along with the programme, Cohn’s job was to set them up, then they would go along. Cohn told me that himself. This revelation helps makes sense of Cohn’s exploitation of the boy from Kincora. The latter home was part of a paedophile network exploited by MI5 and MI6 for a variety of nefarious reasons including the collection of ‘compromat’ and blackmail material. MI5, MI6 and the CIA were – and remain – allies. There was probably co-ordination of all sorts of blackmail operations during the Cold War to control politicians and senior NATO military figures. Enoch Powell MP, who ran against Ted Heath for the leadership of the Tory Party in 1966, became highly critical of NATO. That might explain why he was supplied with a boy from Wiliamson House in the 1970s while he served as a Unionist MP at Westminster. Powell exploited the same boy a few years later at the Europa Hotel while the latter was a resident at Kincora. Both events were probably recorded to gather information for possible use in an operation to damage his reputation or to blackmail him into silence. There were other reasons for targeting Powell such as his opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 which was supported by the Foreign Office (which controls MI6 – Britain’s overseas intelligence service.) For more information about Powell see: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s mentor was a violent paedophile and a racist with deranged views about the lack of intelligence of women. All of this raises the strong possibility that the CIA has files on MI5 and MI6 operations in NATO member states, including the UK, that involved the exploitation of children. While there is little or no possibility that MI5 and MI6 will ever admit their role in the Kincora scandal, it is possible that a CIA file may yet emerge to expose the truth. The horrific Marc Dutroux child murder and sexual abuse scandal in Belgium involved a vice ring which was probably linked to a similar blackmail operation designed to control and reward influential Belgian figures and ensure they supported NATO. The publication of De Camp’s book in 1992 also raises the strong possibility that Trump has known about Cohn’s role as a child trafficker for decades.
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By David Burke. Internment – arrest and detention without trial – was introduced by the Stormont Government of Northern Ireland in August 1971. Hundreds of Nationalists were rounded up and detained. Members of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando were not targeted for arrest. The swoops were carried out by British troops including the Parachute Regiment. Loyalist gangs exploited the chaos that erupted to attack Catholic estates. It was against this background that members of the Parachute Regiment perpetrated the Ballymurphy massacre. Officially, it is now recognised by the British state that the Ballymurphy victims had not posed any sort of a threat to the military. At the time of these atrocities Col. Derek Wilford was in command of 1 Para. He reported directly to his superior, Brigadier Frank Kitson, the British Army’s counterinsurgency guru who ran Belfast. Kitson was praised by General Michael Carver for his efforts during the internment swoops in Belfast in the latter’s 1989 memoirs. Kitson was also ‘mentioned in despatches’ in the weekly London Gazette for his efforts. Soldier F, one of the central figures in the Bloody Sunday massacre that took place the following January in Derry, was also ‘mentioned in despatches’ for his gallantry in Belfast in August 1971. A soldier is mentioned in despatches for gallant or meritorious action in the face of the enemy. This happens after an official report is written by a superior officer and submitted to the high command. This means that someone such as Maj. Edward Loden, Col. Wilford or Kitson furnished a report about the gallantry of Soldier F during the internment swoops to General Ford and General Tuzo in HQNI at Lisburn. In turn, they would have passed it to Carver in London. If Kitson was not the instigator and author of the report praising Soldier F, he most certainly approved one passed to him by Wilford or another of his superior officers. Soldier F’s ‘mention in despatches’ was published a few weeks after Bloody Sunday. Presumably, he knew all about the official report praising his gallantry before he went to Derry and became a key figure in the shootings that followed. Indisputably, Soldier F was highly valued by both Wilford and Kitson. Soldier F, who had joined 1 Para in 1966, was a key member of the elite ‘Support Company’ of 1 Para, the group which carried out the Bloody Sunday massacre. Soldiers mentioned in despatches are often seen as leaders of men with a bright military future ahead of them. Wilford and Kitson were obviously earmarking him for the future. While the role of Soldier F in Belfast in August 1971 is not clear, what he did in Derry is now a matter of history: he was accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and of the attempted murders of Patrick O’Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and Michael Quinn on Bloody Sunday. He faced a seventh charge of the attempted murder of a person or persons unknown. In his testimony to the Saville Inquiry in 2003, Soldier F admitted to firing 13 rounds on Bloody Sunday The killings and attempted murders for which Soldier F was to have been tried occurred in the Glenfada Park North and Abbey Park north areas of Derry. He has also been linked to other shootings on the day including a sequence at a rubble barricade adjacent to the Rossville flats where six unarmed civilians were slaughtered. One of his bullets was found in one of these victims. Last week, charges against him for murder on Bloody Sunday were dropped. That decision is now being challenged by way of a judicial review. Also honoured by being mentioned in the London Gazette were the following paratroopers: Corporal Patrick Butler; Private Ronald Cook; Sergeant Paul Copson; Lance Corporal Joseph Hill; Staff Sergeant Denis Gilbert Poynter; Second Lieutenant John Pullinger. Village would like to hear from anyone who knows anything about the gallantry and meritorious actions of the soldiers listed above in Belfast in August 1971. David Burke is the author of ‘Kitson’s Irish War’. It can be purchased here: https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/ OTHER STORIES ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY, THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE, BRIGADIER FRANK KITSON AND COLONEL DEREK WILFORD ON THIS WEBSITE: The covert plan to smash the IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday by David Burke Soldier F’s Bloody Sunday secrets. David Cleary knows enough to blackmail the British government. Learning to kill Colin Wallace: Bloody Sunday, a very personal perspective Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? Another bloody mess. Frank Kitson’s contribution to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 300,000 have died in Afghanistan since 1979. Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Kitson’s Private Army: the thugs, killers and racists who terrorised Belfast and Derry. Soldier F was one of their number. Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. Mentioned in Despatches. Brigadier Kitson and Soldier F were honoured in the London Gazette for their gallantry in the face of the enemy during the internment swoops of August 1971. Soldier F, the heartless Bloody Sunday killer, is named. Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, John Widgery, a former British Army brigadier, Freemason and oath-breaker. Counterinsurgency war
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By David Burke. UPDATE: Please also see the following story where Soldier F is named as David James Cleary: Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enem ****** While ‘Soldier F’ was running amok in Derry on Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972, murdering people in cold blood, one of his colleagues shouted out his christian name, ‘Dave’. Lord Saville wanted to name the soldier, a former lance corporal in 1 Para, but he was overruled by the Court of Appeal in London. Hence, he remained ‘Soldier F’ for the purposes of the Saville Inquiry. Last month the Northern Ireland courts confirmed his entitlement to anonymity. After the murder charges against him were dropped in July 2021, his full name appeared on at least two notices which were hung in Guildhall Square in Derry. They first appeared on Saturday 3 July. Photographs of the notice was circulated on social media. PSNI officers removed them and initiated inquiries to establish who was responsible for their erection. The justification for concealing his name was out of concern that his life might be endangered. This was fanciful in the extreme as his name has been known in Derry and beyond for decades. Indeed, so too are the names of some of his colleagues who participated in the Bloody Sunday massacre. In any event, the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. The photograph below is of one such notice. We have blurred the killer’s surname. All of Soldier F’s legal costs to date and what have been described as “welfare support” have been paid by the State. Meanwhile, Soldier F retains the support of John Mercer MP, the former Veterans Minister, as is evident from his twitter account: Soldier F is named in the following story: Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. David Burke is the author of ‘Deception & Lies, the Hidden History of the Arms Crisis 1970’ and ‘Kitson’s Irish War, Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland’ which examines the role of counter-insurgency dirty tricks in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. His new book, ‘An Enemy of the Crown, the British Secret Service Campaign against Charles Haughey’, was published on 30 September 2022. These books can be purchased here: https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/ https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/an-enemy-of-the-crown/ https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/deception-and-lies/ OTHER STORIES ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY, THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE, BRIGADIER FRANK KITSON AND COLONEL DEREK WILFORD ON THIS WEBSITE: The covert plan to smash the IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday by David Burke Soldier F’s Bloody Sunday secrets. David Cleary knows enough to blackmail the British government. Learning to kill Colin Wallace: Bloody Sunday, a very personal perspective Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? Another bloody mess. Frank Kitson’s contribution to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 300,000 have died in Afghanistan since 1979. Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Kitson’s Private Army: the thugs, killers and racists who terrorised Belfast and Derry. Soldier F was one of their number. Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. Mentioned in Despatches. Brigadier Kitson and Soldier F were honoured in the London Gazette for their gallantry in the face of the enemy during the internment swoops of August 1971. Soldier F, the heartless Bloody Sunday killer, is named. Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, John Widgery, a former British Army brigadier, Freemason and oath-breaker. Counterinsurgency war criminals, liars and cowards: Kitson and Wilford, the brigadier and colonel who led the soldiers who perpetrated the Ballymurphy Massacre. Brigadier Kitson’s motive for murdering unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy. The McGurk’s Bar cover-up. Heath’s Faustian pact. How a British prime minister covered up a UVF massacre in the hope of acquiring Unionist votes to enable the UK join the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the EU.
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Supply, and Student Housing
By Niamh Alexander. Despite expectations due to the pandemic, the cost of student accommodation in Dublin has remained steady – and costly. Two semesters in the cheapest campus accommodation in UCD will set you back just over €8,000, with the most expensive coming in at almost €14,500, per annum. Sky-high costs can have the effect of pushing students towards private landlords, creating more demand in a market that is already at capacity. Private rentals also bring with them their own issues. With the average cost of a room in a shared property costing around €680 per month, according to a Student Housing Report done in 2020, rent is not much more affordable in private properties. There is also the fact that most private landlords will only accept a 12-month lease, meaning students can be stuck paying for accommodation in the summer months when college is finished. In the current market, landlords can get away with just about anything. I once viewed a room that was completely taken up by the bed and had no floor space at all. There have been accounts of rooms with just one bed sleeping two to three people. In 2017, the Government launched the National Student Accommodation Strategy – a scheme aiming to provide more purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) in a bid to free up private rental properties that would otherwise be occupied by students. The Higher Education Authority (HEA) estimates that 75,640 bed spaces will be required by 2024 to satisfy demand for student accommodation. It estimates that around 55,000 will be completed by this time. However, a report by Mitchell McDermott, a construction consultancy group, believes this “appears ambitious” due to the fall in construction activity during the pandemic. According to the report, around 3,500 units were built in 2020, and this is expected to fall to 1,600 in the coming year. However, according to Dr Lorcan Sirr, a housing lecturer at TU Dublin, supplying more PBSA is not the answer. “Some [PBSA][/PBSA] were looking for change of use even before the pandemic, which suggests to me that the market is oversupplied”, he says. The notion that supplying more PBSA is the best way to take students out of the private rental sector simply isn’t accurate. “Traditionally, Irish students don’t stay in student accommodation. Many attend college close to home and commute, and if they don’t, they typically stay in suburbia, along bus routes, mainly because it’s cheaper”, says Sirr. The key issue is that a lot of the accommodation is being supplied by profit-driven private companies. These companies have discovered a highly profitable, sometimes extortionate, business model: luxury purpose-built student accommodation. What little accommodation is being built is largely luxury accommodation out of the price range of the average family. Aparto is a private company with five student residences across Dublin city. Prices start at €210 per week for a shared room in its Dorset Point property, located a 20-minute walk from TU Dublin’s Grangegorman campus. The most expensive option is the Platinum Ensuite in Beckett House priced at €285 per week, meaning two semesters here will cost a shocking €11,685 in total. Many of Aparto’s properties boast amenities such as games rooms, gyms, and ‘stylish’ cinema rooms, which is exactly what every student working a minimum-wage, part- time job is looking for. Some even have ‘house pets’. The question that needs to be asked is, with so many students struggling to find reasonably priced accommodation, why has there been a surge in high – priced accommodation with such unnecessary luxuries? The answer, it seems, is international students. According to the HEA, in 2019, 12% of all students in Ireland were international students. However, a report conducted by EY found that international students represented 79% of the total students living in PBSA. Privately-owned PBSA is profit-driven and was never marketed to Irish students, but instead to wealthy overseas students, says Sirr. Developers can get away with charging international students three times the price they would Irish students. With so much uncertainty surrounding international students in Ireland post-Covid, the student accommodation market is extremely volatile. With fewer international students expected to
