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    A loathsome dirty trick. 4 December was the 50th anniversary of the infamous bombing of McGurk's Bar. The families have made a complaint to Parliamentary Ombudsman Against the Cabinet Office. By David Burke.

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    Saturday the 4th of December was the 50th anniversary of the infamous bombing of McGurk’s bar in Belfast by the UVF.  15 people were killed in the massacre. The bomb reduced the building to rubble. The attack was the most devastating atrocity suffered by Belfast since the bombing of the city during the Second World War. Brigadier Frank Kitson, the counterinsurgency specialist in charge of Belfast, knew that the bar had been attacked by Loyalist paramilitaries, yet participated in a black propaganda operation to blame the atrocity on the occupants of the premises. He and others  portrayed the explosion as an IRA own goal, i.e. that McGurk’s was an IRA pub and the bomb had been left there for collection by Republican terrorists, but had gone off prematurely. This was a lie. Kitson is alive. He has never been asked why he covered up for the actions of the Loyalist murder gang. Kitson is alive. He has never been asked why he covered up for the actions of the Loyalist murder gang. Kitson’s lies were used by Tory politicians to mislead the House of Commons. The record has never been corrected. The British government is refusing to investigate what really happened. The most likely explanation for the deception is that it was designed to avoid calls for the internment of Loyalist terror groups. At the time Ted Heath and NI PM Brian Faulkner had decided not to intern the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando. Furthermore, Brigadier Kitson had entered into a conspiracy with Tommy Herron of the UDA’s Inner Council. It amounted to nothing less than an agreement for mass murder. Herron ran the UDA’s assassination squads in Belfast. They killed Catholics whether they were connected to the IRA or not. Herron was aided by Kitson’s allies in the RUC. Some of these RUC men were stationed at Mountpottinger RUC station in Belfast. They supplied murder weapons to Herron’s killers. This was how British State collusion with Loyalist murder gangs began in Northern Ireland. Herron maintained contact with Kitson through a Captain Bundy. Bundy later ran the notorious UDA killer and sadist, Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker’. His codename was ‘Broccoli’. Herron, Baker and others participated in the ghastly ‘Romper Room’ kidnap, torture and murder programme of Catholics they abducted on the streets of Belfast. If the truth about the UVF’s responsibility for the McGurk bombing had surfaced, Kitson’s strategy of collusion with the UDA would have been severely jeopardised while still in its infancy. Members of both organisations might have been rendered subject to internment. Instead, Kitson chose to vilify the innocent victims of the bombing as patrons of an IRA meeting place. Ciarán MacAirt is the grandson of two of the McGurk’s Bar victims. His grandmother, Kathleen Irvine was one of the fifteen civilians killed; his grandfather, John Irvine, was badly injured but survived. He has written a book which exposes the scandal in forensic detail. He has also produced an addendum which can be read here: The McGurk’s Bar Bombing Post-Script: https://mcgurksbar.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/McGurks-Bar-Post-Script-Final-Redux.pdf See also, the McGurk’s Bar Bombing and the Plot to Deceive Two Parliaments https://mcgurksbar.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-McGurks-Bar-Bombing-and-the-Plot-to-Deceive-Two-Parliaments-Report-Redux.pdf The scandal ranks among the most repellent dirty tricks of the Troubles and is part of a pattern of criminal wrongdoing perpetrated by Kitson that can be discerned in the Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday massacre outrages. The scandal ranks among the most repellent dirty tricks of the Troubles and is part of a pattern of criminal wrongdoing perpetrated by Kitson that can be discerned in the Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday massacre outrages. Yesterday, the Chief Constable of the PSNI refused to talk to a delegation representing the relatives of the families who mounted a dignified protest outside his office. The families of those killed and injured are still trying to find out the full truth about what happened to their relatives. Last month they made a complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) in London against the British Cabinet Office. As far as the families are aware, this is the first complaint of its kind to the PHSO regarding a conflict legacy case and the Cabinet Office. The complaint concerns: The Cabinet Office’s decision not to investigate a serious complaint regarding a high-level, coordinated and sustained plot by senior members of the Civil Service, British Army and RUC to deceive both Stormont and Westminster governments about the true circumstances of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre; The Cabinet Office’s handling of the original complaint which was first raised in December 2020. The original complaint to the Cabinet Office on 11th December 2020 also included a request to the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, for an investigation following the publication of a report by Ciarán MacAirt. See pages 24-25 of The McGurk’s Bar Bombing and the Plot to Deceive Two Parliaments. The report also includes new evidence from secret British military and governmental archives proving that there was a high-level, coordinated and sustained plot to deceive both Parliaments at Stormont and Westminster. The plot and disinformation involved both Prime Ministers, Brian Faulkner and Edward Heath; the General Officer Commanding Lt. General Sir Harry Tuzo; Brigadier Frank Kitson; RUC Chief Constable Graham Shillington and his head of Special Branch; and leading Civil Servants across a number of government departments. The disinformation included blaming the victims of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre for the bombing following a secret agreement between the British Army and RUC hours after the explosion, and before all victims had even been identified; and burying evidence which proved that the British Army and RUC knew that the victims were innocent, and the bar had been attacked. Colum Eastwood MP, leader of the SDLP, counter-signed and submitted the complaint to the PHSO on behalf of the families on Wednesday 4 November 2021. Ciarán MacAirt has said: After undue delay, the Cabinet Office denied us access to an investigation despite new evidence of a high-level, coordinated and sustained plot by public servants and Government Departments to mislead Stormont and Westminster about the McGurk’s Bar Massacre,

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  • Kitson

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    Frank Kitson, Collusion and the McGurk’s Bar Cover-Up. By Ciarán MacAirt.

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    Saturday 4 December is the 50th anniversary of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre which, in 1971, was the greatest loss of civilian life in any single murderous attack in Ireland since the Nazi Blitz in 1941. 15 civilians including two children perished in the atrocity when Loyalist extremists planted a no-warning bomb in the hallway of McGurk’s Bar, a family-run pub in north Belfast. The McGurk family lived above their bar. In a split second, Patrick McGurk lost his wife, his only daughter, his brother-in-law, his livelihood and his home. He and his sons thankfully escaped, albeit injured. I am a grandson of two of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre victims. My grandmother, Kathleen Irvine, was one of the 15 civilians murdered. My grandfather, John, was badly injured but survived. Like the other survivors, he shouldered the physical and mental scars of that night every day until he died 22 years later. He had night terrors and his frightened family sometimes found him pushing the rubble away from himself as he slept or clawing at his mouth as if it had filled with pulverised mortar once again. An eight-year-old paperboy called Joseph McClory saw the bomber plant the bomb in the hallway and light its fuse. The man ran to a waiting car which then drove off, leaving the young boy behind. Joseph saw a local man about to turn the corner and go into the pub, but he shouted to him, “Mister, don’t go into that bar. There’s a bomb there.” The eight-year-old saved the man’s life and gave the Royal Ulster Constabulary a detailed statement regarding the attack on the bar and the escape of the bombers. The local man told the police that Joseph had indeed warned him and the bar exploded in seconds after that. Nevertheless, before we buried our loved ones, the British state buried the truth. Nevertheless, before we buried our loved ones, the British state buried the truth. Within hours and before all of the victims had been identified, police, the British Army and government officials briefed the press that the explosion was the result of an Irish Republican Army “own-goal”, to use their heinous language. Instead of trying to bring the pro-state mass murderers to justice, the British state instead blamed the bombing on the innocent civilians in the bar. Their only crime? The victims and survivors were Irish Catholics, and they were living and dying in a rotten, sectarian Orange state. Proof that the ‘Irish Question’ could not be solved by military and legal means alone came early in the conflict but was not heeded for another generation. Far from quelling what the British portrayed as localised unrest, the introduction of internment on the 9th August 1971 plunged the north of Ireland into an all-enveloping spiral of violence, destruction and death. The story of its failure is told in the death toll in the months prior to and following its introduction. Ten people (four British soldiers, four civilians and two Republican Volunteers) died in the four months leading up to internment. One hundred and twenty eight died in its four-month aftermath (sixty nine civilians and fifty nine combatants – thirteen Republican Volunteers and forty six British army, RUC, UDR and Loyalist personnel). Before Internment was introduced in August 1971, the British authorities had urged the Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner to include alleged Protestant extremists in the initial lifts. It could then be argued that the Special Powers were not designed to be directed solely against the Catholic community. Faulkner refused as he knew that he would not have the support of his party or the RUC. Instead, the British authorities formalized an “Arrest Policy for Protestants” (discovered by Pat Finucane Centre) which meant that no Protestants were interned until 1973 even though they had murdered well over a hundred civilians by then. Therefore, if it was admitted to the public that pro-state Loyalists had perpetrated the McGurk’s Bar Massacre on the 4th December 1971, the Northern Ireland government’s assertion to Whitehall that they were “no serious threat” would be completely untenable. As it was, internment without trial remained directed against the Irish Catholic community alone for another 14 months over the bloodiest year of the conflict. Even after that, alleged Protestant extremists only made up 5% of internees even though the Protestant community was around twice the size of the Irish Catholic community in the statelet. As Village Magazine examined (https://villagemagazine.ie/a-pact-sworn-by-devils-how-a-british-prime-minister-sold-his-soul-to-acquire-votes-to-enable-the-uk-to-join-the-european-economic-community-the-forerunner-of-the-eu/), Edward Heath and the Northern Ireland Prime Minister are in the frame for a sordid Faustian pact which bartered the maintenance of the highly discriminatory internment policy, Unionist votes in favour of the European Economic Community, and the cover-up of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. So devastating and all-enveloping was this cover-up, that the victims and survivors of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre were blamed for the attack and their families are still fighting for scraps of truth and justice from the British table half a century later. The Loyalists who murdered them murdered many, many more civilians in the years afterwards although only one served any time whatsoever for the murders. The police had detailed information on them all from a covert human intelligence source relating to the bombing. The British state had much to bury, though. The British state had much to bury, though. We know from secret documents that it undermined Joseph McClory who saw the bomb being planted and the bombers escape. The McClory family received death threats afterwards. The British authorities ignored the witness testimony of the man he saved and all of the civilians who survived the bombing although they buried corroborating information from a witness at the bomb site the following day. The British state even ignored a public claim by Loyalists that its members blew up McGurk’s Bar. We now know too that the police and British Army had information relating to a suspect car within a minute of the explosion. It found and finger-printed what secret police records called the “car used in

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