John le Carré spent most of his career exploring the British psyche through the lens of its secret service. You’d think he might have mentioned Ireland once or twice.
LG
-
-
By David Burke. UPDATE: See also Just declassified UK memo on John Hume reveals interest of PM John Major’s top civil servants in “possible press stories regarding John Hume’s private life”. John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination in the early 1970s perpetrated by British spies. It was spearheaded by an individual called Hugh Mooney, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, who once worked as a sub-editor for the Irish Times. Mooney belonged to the ‘Special Editorial Unit’ (SEU) of the Information Research Department (IRD). It was responsible for the production of black propaganda. Mooney’s boss was the IRD’s Special Operations Adviser, Hans Welser, a veteran of the WW2 Political Warfare Executive. The IRD was part of the Foreign Office and worked closely with the British Secret Service, MI6, which is also attached to the Foreign Office. The IRD operated from a building in London called Riverbank House. Although Mooney worked at Army HQ Northern Ireland under the cover title of ‘Information Adviser to the GOC’, official documents show that in 1972 he was reporting to the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at Stormont – not to the GOC. This means that his activities were known about at a very high level. Prior to his attack on Hume, Mooney had worked in Bermuda where his colonial and racist side had come to the fore, a story for another day. Mooney and his associates sought to depict John Hume: as part of a communist conspiracy to turn Ireland into Europe’s Cuba; as a supporter of the IRA; as a fundraiser for the IRA; as a thief who stole charitable donations; as a man for whom a warrant had been issued for his arrest in 1972. There may have been other smears which have not yet been detected. Unintentionally, Her Majesty’s spies and their colleagues in the British Army also made his task of achieving peace extraordinarily difficult at key moments in his career, such as those of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 in his native Derry. Rogue elements inside MI5 also plotted with the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) to tear down the 1974 Power-Sharing Executive of which Hume was minister for commerce. This left Hume without a reliable source of income for a number of years and could have forced him to abandon politics for a job outside of it. Throughout his career he was placed under surveillance, something that was tantamount to treating him as a subversive. In the 1980s the Gardai in the Republic of Ireland helped MI5 bug some of his conversations. A house where his deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, stayed in 1983 was also bugged by the Gardai. In the 1990s MI5 opposed his discussions with Gerry Adams. Hume was a towering political figure of immense courage, foresight and integrity. Boris Johnson has paid him a lavish tribute, praising his “strong sense of social justice” and saying that without him “there would have been no Belfast or Good Friday Agreement”. Despite Johnson’s fine words, the Tories did their best to stand in Hume’s way during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In fact it is not an exaggeration to say that they made his life hell. HEATH IN THE 1970s: Ted Heath served as Tory prime minister, 1970-1974. He sent his black propaganda operatives to Ireland to conduct dirty trick campaigns in the early 1970s. It was they who ran the smear campaign against Hume. Ironically, it is Heath’s legacy which is in now in tatters while Hume’s has never soared higher. Heath’s reputation was destroyed by a report published by the Wiltshire Police in 2017 about his abuse of boys, one as young as 14. THATCHER IN THE 1980s: Margaret Thatcher, Tory PM, 1979-90, let MI5 (attached to the Home Office) spy on Hume in gross violation of his human rights. Some of this surveillance was carried out in the Burlington Hotel in the Republic of Ireland with the assistance of the Republic’s special branch. The first steps of the peace process were taken in the middle of Thatcher’s premiership in 1986 when a back channel was opened between Gerry Adams and Charles Haughey via Fr. Alex Reid. Haughey ‘s Northern Ireland adviser Martin Mansergh was a pivotal figure in the process. Thatcher’s battery of spies do not appear to have had any inkling of what was afoot. Had Thatcher discovered this development, it is – to put it mildly – likely she would have denounced it. The Haughey-Adams process was so secret that even John Hume did not know about it when he entered the process later and expressed disbelief when he finally discovered this fact. MAJOR IN THE 1990s: Thatcher’s successor at 10 Downing Street, John Major, PM 1990-97, was not supportive of the next phase of the process which became known as ‘Hume-Adams’. In 1993 and 1994 key elements of the press in the Republic denounced Hume’s dialogue with Adams, in particular Conor Cruise O’Brien who wrote for Ireland’s Sunday Independent. O’Brien was close to a number of dubious intelligence figures such as Dame Daphne Park, a self-confessed MI6 dirty tricks expert and David Astor, one of MI6’s most important assets in the media. O’Brien knew them through the British-Irish Association (BIA) which Astor had helped set up in the 1970s, and which Park co-chaired in the 1980s. It was Astor who appointed O’Brien as editor of The Observer. Haughey considered the BIA a British Intelligence front and forbade Fianna Fail figures (such as Brian Lenihan) from attending it. How much O’Brien was influenced by his friends in the British Establishment is an imponderable. Major, who had an exceptionally close relationship with his spymasters, was not supportive of what Hume, Adams and Dublin were trying to achieve either. Eventually, Bill Clinton had to intervene to twist Major’s arm and move the process forward. Still, MI5 tried to derail it. Haughey’s successor as taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, 1992-94, became so concerned about the hostility of MI5 that he told Major
-
By Joseph de Burca. Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge and other senior Royals continue to retain a sinister cabal of deeply corrupt officials in their employment at Buckingham Palace. These officials bartered access to William and Kate as a bribe to ABC TV in the US in return for the concealment of a child abuse network involving Prince Andrew which was run by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. In the worst case scenario the ABC scandal threatens to recast the popular Royal couple as hypocritical, cynical and uncaring, not to mention accessories after the fact to the criminal concealment of child rape. The best case scenario for them is that they are dupes with little or no control over their own lives. Amy Robach, the ABC TV News anchor, interviewed Virginia Roberts in 2015, three years before the Jeffrey Epstein scandal (Phase 2) erupted. Robach was not allowed to broadcast anything Roberts revealed to her by her superiors at ABC. Roberts had been flown by ABC from Colorado to New York City with her family all of whom were put up at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. She was then interviewed by Robach and her colleague Jim Hill about Epstein. In late August 2019 Robach was captured by a live microphone in her TV studio describing her disappointment to colleagues. A recording of this off-air moment leaked. On it she can be heard complaining: “I’ve had this interview with Virginia Roberts…we would not put it on the air. First of all, I was told ‘who’s Jeffrey Epstein.’ Then the Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways… [Roberts] told me everything. She had pictures, she had everything. It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton, we had everything.” Robach continued: “One of the reasons an interview with Roberts was not broadcast was because, “We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will, so I think that had also quashed the story.” After Robach’s outpouring was broadcast online by the Project Veritas website, an ABC ‘source’ claimed that the company had “never stopped investigating the story” and that: “A lot of broadcasters can probably empathize. We do have to run everything past standards and practices and there are times when interviews can’t air. We needed time to corroborate details, and we were unable to verify a lot of Virginia’s claims.” There cannot be a village idiot anywhere on the planet who believes this drivel from ABC. The company did not let one of the most important stories of this century slip through its fingers because it was unable to back it up. Absolutely nothing changed over the next three years when the story finally broke. The claims made by Roberts have since been corroborated by a number of witnesses. Roberts knew a great number of them. She even set up an organisation to support them long before the scandal erupted whereby there was a cohort of available witnesses with corroborative stories, documentation and photographs. As the world now knows, Prince Andrew has been shamed and pushed out of the Royal spotlight, Jeffrey Epstein has died in suspicious circumstances in his New York prison cell while Ghislaine Maxwell is facing a criminal trial. The ABC top brass is simply lying when they claim they ever had any intention of letting their journalists pursue the story in any shape, form or manner. ABC’s excuse simply does not hold water. There is something deeply sinister about this scandal. Robach was undoubtedly telling the truth when she raised the prospect of a boycott of ABC by Buckingham Palace. Nonetheless, while the top brass at ABC may be hard boiled and ruthless, it is difficult to believe they would allow children be raped indefinitely just to secure a few minutes of footage with the Royal couple. So why did ABC really protect Epstein? Robach issued a statement after the ABC leak was broadcast online which was less strident than her off-the-cuff outburst in the TV studio. It is reproduced in full below. You can make your own minds up whether it feels authentic or reeks of coercive pressure from above. It is difficult to believe that Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge were consulted in advance about the threats which were made in “a million different ways” to ABC. Yet, unless they are helpless pawns hermetically sealed from what is going on around them at Buckingham Palace, they surely know by now about the threats issued by their courtiers. Surely they have at least one friend who has alerted them to what Robach let slip in the ABC TV studio. Assuming this is so, they cannot be happy that media access to them was bartered to protect a child abuse network, even if it was not the sole or decisive factor in the cover-up at ABC TV. Despite the Royal couple’s presumed discomfort, no one at Buckingham Palace has been dismissed nor disciplined. The threats from the Palace enabled Epstein and his associates to groom, traffic and abuse young girls for a further three years. Not a single Royal correspondent has asked the future King to confirm that he was unaware of the threats made by his courtiers back in 2015. Nor is anyone asking him {i} when he became aware of the ABC suppression scandal; {ii} what he has been told by the staff at Buckingham Palace about it; {iii} what he believes to be the truth of the affair and {iv} what, if anything, he is doing about it. Most remiss of all, no one is asking him if he has demanded sight of the ABC file kept by his courtiers. There must be a string of emails and memos. One suspects Robach has copies so it would be a brave pursuivant at the Palace who would destroy them. The couple, viewed as a royal breath of fresh air, are clearly hard working and have helped bring some
-
By David Burke. Introduction. Law-enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have been – and continue to be – adverse to making inquiries into VIP child sex-abuse. This has been the position for decades. Donald Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, was a paedophile who abused boys on both sides of the Atlantic, including one from Kincora Boys’ Home, Richard Kerr, whom he selected in Belfast and had taken to him in Venice for sexual abuse. The mere fact of the trip to Venice demolishes the findings of a series of official inquiries into the Kincora scandal. The cover-up continue to this day. Richard Kerr had been prepared to supply all of the information in this article – including the photographs and financial records – to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London but it was not interested. There is a common thread between the Kerr case, Cohn’s activities and, in more recent times, those of Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell: a disturbing refusal by British and American authorities to investigate their cases properly. Cohn may have been part of a sexual blackmail network with Mafia and intelligence links which was later managed by Epstein and Maxwell. Cohn was so corrupt that he was eventually disbarred from practice as a lawyer after which Trump dumped him. He died from AIDS in 1986. Trump then let Epstein and Maxwell into his life. In the US, the FBI has covered-up for an ‘intelligence’ agency for whom Epstein and Maxwell ran ‘honey traps’. Their victims should brace themselves for another round of betrayal by the FBI which has acted deplorably thus far. Ghislaine Maxwell may be thrown to the wolves but the intelligence agencies involved in the scandal will escape justice. In August 2019 the Metropolitian Police in London anounced that it was not going to investigate Prince Andrew for having had sex with a minor. A spokesperson for the Met announced that it had investigated allegations he had “had sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre aged 17 in Ghislaine Maxwell’s bathroom” in London and confirmed that while they had received “an allegation of non-recent trafficking for sexual exploitation” that “no further action is being taken”. It is doubtful Met officers even spoke to Prince Andrew or Ghislaine Maxwell. As far as they are concerned, the matter is “closed”. Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to ignore the fact that the notorious paedophile and friend of the Royal Family, Lord Greville Janner, introduced a teenage male prostitute to Prince Andrew. Roy Cohn was a cheating, corrupt, tax-dodging, cocaine-snorting New York lawyer linked to the Mafia who persecuted homosexuals. He acted for Donald Trump and was the driving force behind Trump’s book, ‘The Art of the Deal’ which was published in 1987 shortly after Cohn died. With the election of Trump as US President, Cohn’s primary historical significance is that he imbued the younger Trump with his ruthless, amoral and deceitful approach to life. Cohn was a paedophile with connections to the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring in London. The link to it may have come through a Texan living in London called Fred Ferguson who was also a paedophile or Dr Morris Fraser, a Northern Ireland psychiatrist who was a key figure in the network. In any event, in 1977 he and Ferguson were able to gain access to a boy from Northern Ireland through the network. The boy was part of a group of 14-year-old boys who had been residents of Williamson House in Belfast until they were transferred to Kincora Boys’ Home in 1975. Up to this point, Kincora had mainly catered for 16-18-year-olds. Some, if not all, of the Williamson boys had been subjected to horrific abuse, violence and intimidation by one of the staff at the home, Eric Witchell and his associates from outside of it, so much so they had become fearful and compliant child-sex puppets. Witchell now lives in London. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) in London has shown no interest in making any form of contact with him despite his key role in the Anglo-Irish vice ring, a paedophile network that – as this story will demonstrate – overlapped with abuse rings in the US. Village magazine has published an 80,000-word online book entitled ‘The Anglo-Irish Vice Ring’ which outlines the history of the Irish branch of this egregious paedophile underworld as well as its connections to, and exploitation by, MI6 (attached to Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and MI5 (attached to Britain’s Home Office). https://villagemagazine.ie/https-villagemagazine-ie-anglo-irish-vice-ring-online-book/ The abuse of the children at Williamson House, Kincora and elsewhere in Northern Ireland, was carried out with the knowledge and connivance of both MI5 and MI6. At the time of the transfer of the boys from Williamson House to Kincora, MI5 was the dominant UK intelligence service operating in Northern Ireland. It was commanded by Director-General Sir Michael Hanley. His key officer on the ground in Northern Ireland was Ian Cameron who was mooted in the media as a contender for the position of Director-General of MI5 in the late 1980s. Cameron might well have ascended to the post but for the Kincora scandal which erupted in 1980, and a fear that MPs such as the redoubtable Ken Livingstone might have raised the issue in the House of Commons. It is deeply disturbing that Livingstone was booed and jeered by Tory MPs when he raised this type of matter in the Commons. One of the boys transferred to Kincora will be familiar to Village readers, Richard Kerr. He was transferred in August 1975. The other boys were: − ‘F’, who is still alive; − ‘B’, who later shot himself; − ‘S’; − Steven Waring, who had not been in Williamson House, joined a few months later. He committed suicide in November 1977. He had been abused by Lord Louis Mountbatten the previous August; (See the online book for further details.) − Another young boy, ‘D’, would be consigned to the hell of this existence
-
INTRODUCTION Last December Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had to slap down Priti Patel MP, who now serves as Britain’s Home Secretary, when she threatened the Republic with food shortages if the Irish Government did not drop demands for the Irish backstop. Varadkar reminded Patel of the starvation that had engulfed Ireland in the 19th century and said he hoped she would think more carefully about what she said in the future. Tensions eased as Johnson dropped the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and conceded a regulatory border in the Irish Sea. Now, tensions are on the increase again. Johnson has seen fit to reappoint Patel as Home Secretary and has made bellicose noises about the forthcoming trade talks with the EU. In Dublin Varadkar has stated: ‘It is going to be difficult to secure a good trade deal for Ireland, principally because Boris Johnson has fixed on a harder Brexit than we anticipated under his predecessor or at the time of the referendum, and that is one where he talks very much about divergence’. If Britain does not get what it wants out of the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, Anglo-Irish relations could deteriorate again. In extremis Britain could resort to its all too familiar policy of bullying Ireland. The worst example of this was the bombing of Dublin and Monaghan in 1974 by Loyalist paramilitaries who were RUC Special Branch and MI5 agents such as Robin Jackson. Anyone who doubts Johnson’s moral vacuity and capacity for wrongdoing should listen to the infamous recording of him providing Darius Guppy, an old Etonian colleague, with the contact details of a journalist so the latter could be beaten up. Guppy told Johnson he intended to have the journalist’s ribs broken: Boris Johnson Darius Guppy telephone call threatening violence at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDJWkS2A9T0 Unlike many of his predecessors, Varadkar is not the type of taoiseach to back down when under severe pressure. He also has an utterly ruthless streak. Anyone who doubts the latter point should study the manner in which he plotted against and undermined Enda Kenny, his predecessor as Taoiseach over the Garda Maurice McCabe paedophile smear scandal. Kenny was completely blameless in that scandal. Bearing this in mind, Johnson should note that the Irish police – the Gardai – may very well hold a file which could be deployed to devastate the British Royal Family if relations become really toxic. 1. MOUNTBATTEN ABUSED BOYS IN THE IRISH REPUBLIC. Last August Village published an article revealing that a boy abused by Lord Louis Mountbatten in August of 1977 committed suicide a few months later. He had been taken by car to Classiebawn, Mountbatten’s castle in the Republic of Ireland from Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. The man responsible for trafficking him was Joseph Mains, the Warden of Kincora, also a paedophile. Mains was a British agent and an asset of both MI5 (Home Office) and MI6 (Foreign Office). (For further details about Mains and Kincora, please click on the Joseph Mains button at the end of this story.) Mains had to cross the Irish Border to get to Classiebawn. The Village story about the boy who committed suicide is also available on this website. (Click on the Mountbatten tag/button at the end of this story.) 2. LOWNIE’S LABOURS Village also revealed that the British historian Andrew Lownie had sought the Garda file on the assassination of Mountbatten in August of 1979 while preparing a book on the Mountbattens. Lownie was rebuffed politely. His book has since become an international bestseller and was listed by the Daily Mail as one of the best biographies of 2019. Lownie’s book contained interviews with two other boys who were abused by Mountbatten in Ireland both of whom are alive. Since the publication of his book, Lownie has asked the Gardai to release the logs they made of the vehicles which visited Classiebawn. They emailed Lownie on 7 October 2019 stating that files ‘generated during the course of a criminal investigation’ are considered confidential and hence they would not be releasing them. It is significant that they did not deny that the logs still exist. Lownie responded by pointing out that the logs he was looking for related to August 1977, i.e. two years prior to Mountbatten’s assassination. There could not have been an investigation of a ‘criminal’ nature in 1977 into an assassination that did not take place until 1979. The Gardai did not – and clearly have no intention of – releasing the logs. 3. JOHNSON HAD BETTER BE ON HIS BEST BEHAVIOUR DURING THE FORTHCOMING BREXIT NEGOTIATIONS The Mains’ log (or indeed logs) are political dynamite, even forty years on, especially with the Royal Family reeling from the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein scandal. There is more to the Prince Andrew story which has been ignored by the British press thus far: his relationship with the paedophile peer Lord Greville Janner. Details, however, can be found by clicking the Prince Andrew tag/button at the end of this story. Boris Johnson should be told in no uncertain terms that MI5 and MI6 are despised in the Republic and it would be folly to unleash them to spy on, bully or coerce the Irish government during Brexit negotiations; most particularly, they should not use their influence in the media – on either side of the Irish Sea – to besmirch Irish politicians. Village has evidence that one of the most senior media figures in Ireland was an ally of MI6. While his influence is now nonexistent, he has surely been replaced by other traitors. It was he who got Dr Martin O’Donoghue TD to attempt to bribe two Fianna Fail cabinet ministers – Sean Doherty and Ray MacSharry in 1982 to oust Charles Haughey as Taoiseach. Village has referred to him in the past as the ‘Paymaster’. British spies and their agents are also blamed by all and sundry in Ireland for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974 which led to the death of 33 people; the atrocious Miami Showband massacre; the egregious assassination of the solicitor Patrick Finucane in
-
Arlene Foster, Leader of the DUP, has a rich and ancient Gaelic heritage with a family tree dominated by two august Irish surnames – Doonan and Kelly. Her more distant ancestors, who spoke Gaelic, would have considered themselves part of the Ó Dúnáin and Ó Ceallagh clans, not Doonans or Kellys. Her family tree also demonstrates how the overwhelming majority of her ancestors lived and died in the Barony of Clankelly in Fermanagh. The Irish language act has amounted to an impasse which continues to be a stumbling block to the reinstatement of the Northern Executive and Assembly at Stormont. To her credit, Foster has shown leadership on the issue. At the launch of the DUP’s Westminster general election manifesto she declared: “The Irish language has been made a key block by Sinn Féin. I would regret that because I do think there is a way forward through those issues, because there are those in Northern Ireland who love the Irish language.” While she was not in favour of ‘a full-blown costly Irish language act which would bring about discrimination against those of us who don’t speak the Irish language’ she did say that there ‘is a way forward – I absolutely believe there is a way forward – but there has to be a willingness on all sides to find that way forward’. The Ó Dúnáin Connection Arlene’s Doonan connection is fascinating. Doonan or Ó Dúnáin is a rare name in Ireland. According to the leading authority on Irish names, The Surnames of Ireland, by Edward MacLysaght, the Doonans of Fermanagh were ‘Erenagh’, or hereditary stewards and guardians of Roman Catholic church lands. In old Irish they were known as ‘airchinnech’. The translation is ‘head of an ecclesiastical settlement’. Hereditary stewards and guardians were nominated by the local Catholic Bishop. The Plantation of Ulster in 1609 saw the Doonans completely dispossessed by the English. The Roman Catholic church was taken over and the congregation was denied the right to worship. The Doonans never recovered their earlier status, yet the family still survives in Fermanagh as Arlene’s family tree demonstrates. Further research is required to pinpoint when the Ó Dúnáin branch in Foster’s family tree converted to Protestantism. The Ó Ceallagh Connection According to MacLysaght, the surname Kelly (Ó Ceallagh) is the second most populous name in Ireland. It is not certain where the name hails, however the most probable suggestion is that is comes the word ceallach, meaning ‘strife’ in the Irish language. The Barony of Clankelly (from the Irish: Clann Cheallaigh meaning ‘Clan Kelly’) is in Co. Fermanagh. Clankelly takes its name from Cellach, son of Tuathal, a king of the Ui Chremthainn who was killed in 731. The ruling family of Clann Cheallaigh in the late medieval period bore the surname MacDomhnaill – from Domhnall, a grandson of Cellach, whose death is recorded in the year 791. Further research is also required to pinpoint when the Ó Ceallagh line in Foster’s family tree converted to Protestantism. Arlene Foster’s Family Tree. Whilst the documented evidence traces the roots of the Kelly branch of Arlene’s family back to the early 19th century, the surnames involved establish that the roots indeed go much deeper and their respective links to the history and culture of Gaelic Ireland is well documented. Her grandparents on her father’s side were Nathaniel Kelly (born 1881), a farmer, and Alice Jane Doonan. They married in 1924 in St. Mark’s Church of Ireland Parish of Aghadrumsee and lived in Derawilt, County Fermanagh. This townland is in the Civil parish of Clones and the Barony of Clankelly. Her great grandparents were John Kelly (6 May 1851) and Alice Doonan who were married in the Church of Ireland Parish of Clones on 18 May 1873. The marriage confirms that John’s father was also a John Kelly while Alice was the daughter of Nathaniel Doonan of Drummans, Clones, County Fermanagh. Her great-great grandfather was yet another John Kelly who married Sarah Ferguson on 4 December 1846 in St. Mark’s Church of Ireland Parish Aghadrumsee. This marriage record did not note the father’s names only to say that both were deceased. However, it confirmed that John Kelly was living in the townland of Drummaw in the civil parish of Galloon, also in the Barony of Clankelly. The townland is not far from Derawilt where the family ultimately moved. The land in Derawilt came into the possession of the Kelly family in 1892 when John Kelly took over the 47-acre plot from a John Richardson. He bought the land outright under the Land Act Purchase in 1908. Great-great-grandmother Alice Doonan was born circa 1843 to Nathaniel Doonan and Eleanor. Eleanor’s maiden name is unknown. Her father, Nathaniel, was born in 1812 to James Doonan and Jane Moore. Sadly, her mother, Eleanor, died prematurely in 1849 and Nathaniel married again, to Jane Forster in 1850 and went onto have a second family. One of his sons from this marriage, John Doonan, was the father of Alice Jane Doonan (mother of John William Kelly, Arlene’s father). While Arlene Foster may not speak Irish herself, it is surely lurking in her DNA. Perhaps she can now navigate her way through the Irish language act impasse at Stormont and make her ancestors proud of her nonetheless.
-
SOME REALLY DANGEROUS QUESTIONS WERE NOT ASKED The BBC’s Emily Maitlis has broadcast the interview she conducted with Prince Andrew about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It was billed as a ‘no holds barred’ interview. Unfortunately, Maitlis did not ask a single question about his relationship with the notorious child molester, Lord Greville Janner. Yet the Prince’s relationship with Janner raises as many questions as that of his friendship with Epstein. The British media has turned a blind eye to the Janner-Duke of York relationship. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex (IISCA) in London chaired by Professor Alexis Jay may soon abandon its inquiry into Janner completely. If it does, the Prince will get to heave yet another deep sigh of relief for he will not have to face questions about his friendship with Janner from that quarter either. Alan Kerr, an Irish victim of sex abuse from Belfast, has provided the IICSA with details about the Prince’s friendship with Janner. Kerr’s story was revealed exclusively by this magazine. Readers who are not familiar with it are invited to read ‘The Boy on the Meat Rack’ and ‘Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire’ on this website. (Click on the ‘Alan Kerr’ tab at the end of this story.) A PRINCE WHO IS ABOVE THE LAW The possibility that the IICSA will not investigate Janner comes in the wake of an announcement last August that the Metropolitian Police were not going to investigate the Prince for having had sex in London with Virginia Roberts when she was 17. A spokesperson for the Met announced that it investigated allegations he had “had sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre aged 17 in Ghislaine Maxwell’s bathroom” in London and confirmed that while they had received “an allegation of non-recent trafficking for sexual exploitation’ that ‘no further action is being taken”. Last August Channel 4 News discovered that the Met had “reviewed the available evidence” and decided that the matter “would not progress to a full investigation”. The Met’s purported inquiry had begun with a review of the “available evidence” in 2015 after receiving a complaint over claims in US court papers that a girl was “forced to have sex with Prince Andrew”. Independently, Roberts’ lawyers contacted the Met in 2016. A further complaint concerning the sexual trafficking of Roberts to the UK was received by the Met in 2015 from an unconnected third party. As Channel 4 disclosed, ‘The Met Police has refused to answer detailed questions about the allegations and whether they ever spoke to Epstein, his friend Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew or anyone from the Royal Household. Channel 4 News asked the Metropolitan Police a series of questions about Virginia Roberts’account of what she says happened to her at Maxwell’s London residence in early 2001. The Met told Channel 4 News: “[We] can confirm that the Metropolitan Police Service [MPS] received an allegation of non-recent trafficking for sexual exploitation. The MPS reviewed the available evidence and the decision was made that this would not progress to a full investigation. As such, the matter was closed”. It will come as no surprise that the Prince chose the BBC, not Channel 4 for his interview about Epstein. THE PRINCE IS CLAIMING THIS WOMAN IS A LIAR AND A FORGER. Ghislaine Maxwell procured and trained underage girls to have sex with adult males, as part of Jeffrey Epstein’s now infamous international paedophile ring. Roberts has spoken about how she was taken to London in 2001 by Epstein. During her trip, she was awoken from her sleep by Ghislane Maxwell who told her ‘you’re gonna meet a prince today’. That night she went out dancing with Prince Andrew in a club where he gave her alcohol and she was later ‘forced’ to have sex with him. She claims had sex on two other occasions with the Prince. Although the Prince had precise dates, times and places at the tip of his fingers, he affected genuine surprise at the suggestion he had participated in an orgy in America with her. This demonstrates that he was putting on a performance for the cameras. His facial expression was tantamount to a lie: how could he have been so surprised at an accusation – acting as if it was the first time he had heard it – if he was long since familiar with it? HAS TIME RUN OUT FOR THE JANNER STRAND OF THE IICSA’S INQUIRY INTO CHILD RAPE? On 9 March 2016 Ben Emmerson QC for the IICSA said the Janner investigation “has been identified for an early hearing, partly in recognition of the length of time the complainants in this matter have had to wait before their allegations could be heard. The Janner investigation is one of four investigations in which preliminary hearings are being heard this month and in which early public hearing of the evidence are expected”. The Janner strand was intended to have opened in September 2016 but was moved to March 2017. It was adjourned again in the expectation it would be heard in 2018 but was then moved to a three-week slot in February 2020. It may now not proceed at all. Overall, the Inquiry proposes to conclude its hearing by November 2020 and publish a final report by March 2022. The threat of discontinuance of the Janner strand arises from the fact the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is considering whether or not to prosecute an unnamed individual on a referral from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The Janner strand may not proceed while the CPS decides whether or not it will prosecute the individual. If the CPS decides to prosecute, the IICSA will have to wait until after the prosecution has been completed. By then IICSA may have completed its hearings. If there are further delays and or appeals, the IICSA may even be wound up by the time all issues are determined. Unfortunately, the CPS was not in a position to tell the
-
Update: this article was published in October 2019. One year later the British government has refused to carry out a judicial inquiry. One of the stated reasons is that the PSNI and Police Ombudsman are reviewing the case. However, no review is about to take place. Patrick Finucane’s widow has responded by saying that “as long as there is breath” in her body she will continue to seek answers about her husband’s murder and that the decision by the British government was “quite a shock” and showed “startling arrogance at ignoring the highest court in the land”, i.e. the UK Supreme Court which has ruled that an inquiry should take place. Mrs Finucane has also pointed out that Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, did not go into any detail about why the decision to refuse the inquiry was made. It “does seem rather bizarre” she added “that he [Lewis] is insisting the police [will investigate]” as the PSNI later issued a statement saying there is nothing new to investigate. The Police Ombudsman has no funding for a review. In any event such a review would be pointless and it is a judicial inquiry that is required. Clearly, there are other reasons Lewis and his boss Boris Johnson are blocking an inquiry. Village’s 2019 investigation addressed some of the issues the Tories, MI5 and other elements of the British Establishment are trying to suppress. That article starts here: Introduction: Margaret Thatcher and the cold-blooded murder of an Irish lawyer On 12 February, 1989, the UDA assassinated Patrick Finucane, a highly-regarded Belfast solicitor, at his North Belfast home. Finucane, who was 38-years-old, was shot 14 times by two masked UDA gunmen who sledgehammered their way into his house. His wife Geraldine was also injured during the attack which took place while the couple was enjoying a meal with their young family. In 2019 the Supreme Court in London ruled that the British Government had failed to investigate the murder properly. The only tenable reason for this is because the murder was organised by MI5, the intelligence service attached to the Home Office. A retired Canadian judge, Peter Cory, investigated the murder on behalf of the British State. During his inquiry MI5 officers broke into his office and stole some of the evidence he had accumulated. Cory also told Geraldine Finucane that he had seen a document relevant to her husband’s case which was marked “for Cabinet eyes only”. Mrs Finucane knows no more. This raises the distinct possibility that her husband’s case was discussed in Whitehall in sinister circumstances before the murder. These revelations formed part of BBC NI’s compelling seven part Spotlight series, ‘The Secret History of the Troubles’. They have been ignored by the mainstream British media. Put simply, the finger of blame is now pointing at Margaret Thatcher. It now looks like she gave MI5 the green light to murder a perfectly respectable, law abiding lawyer. If Thatcher and her circle did not order the murder, why are the Tory top brass so terrified of an inquiry? MI5 was led by Sir Patrick Walker at the time the assassination was planned and executed. If MI5 was involved, it is inconceivable he did not call the shots – literally. When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air. Theresa May, who was Cameron’s Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, did not order a proper inquiry either when she took over at 10 Downing Street. The opportunity and duty to do the right thing and call one has passed to Theresa May’s successor, Boris Johnson, and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Yet, will they prove every bit as disdainful and corrupt as Blair, Cameron and May and continue the cover-up? Time is fast running out to hear what potentially key living witnesses have to offer about the Finucane case. The list includes Thatcher’s then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. Born in March 1930, he published a 524 page autobiography in 2003. Unfortunately, there is no entry under the word “Finucane” in its index. Village offers him the freedom of this website to inform our readers about what he know about the case, most particularly anything about “cabinet eyes only” documents. The evidence that continues to accumulate points to the probability that Finucane, a skilful lawyer, was targeted by the British State because he had mastered the intricacies of the Diplock Court system in NI and was representing his clients to the best of his very considerable abilities. A lot of Provos were walking free from court. In the mind of Thatcher and others in London, he had to have been a Provo and his death warrant was approved. In these circumstances, the task of assassinating him was passed to Walker and his gang of cutthroats at MI5. However, Finucane was not a Provo. On the contrary, he represented both Republicans and Loyalists. Who ever heard of a Provo securing the freedom of the Loyalist enemy? Moreover, he was married to a Protestant. Finucane was perfectly innocent of any involvement with the IRA although he was vilified as a member after his death. Insofar as the UDA was concerned, the kill-order was issued by Tommy ‘Tucker’ Lyttle, the UDA’s ‘brigadier’ or commander in West Belfast. Ian Hurst, who served with the then top secret Force Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) of the British Army, has stated “with cast iron certainty” that Lyttle was a British agent who was “handled” by the RUC’s Special Branch (RUCSB) using the codename “Rodney Stewart”. Lyttle himself
-
Forty years ago this month Margaret Thatcher sent Sir Maurice Oldfield, the former Chief of MI6, to Belfast to co-ordinate the activities of the various branches of British Intelligence in Ireland. Within a few weeks MI5 was reporting to Downing Street that he was a homosexual and an inquiry was launched to see if he had been blackmailed by the Soviets or any of Britain’s other enemies. He was soon given a clean bill of health. Kieran Conway, the former Provisional IRA Director of Intelligence in the 1970s, has confirmed to Village that the Provos knew Oldfield was gay. What, if anything, did the Soviet intelligence apparatus, the KGB, know about Oldfield’s homosexuality? More significantly, if the KGB found out, what did they do with the information? The answer is nothing despite the fact it could have destroyed him. Such inaction makes no sense as Oldfield was reputed to have been a highly effective opponent of the KGB. The notorious MI6 traitor Kim Philby described him as an officer of “high quality” and “formidable” in his memoirs. In 2017 the Hart Report into child sex abuse published details of an MI6 document which revealed a “small collection of papers in file three which relate to the relationship [Oldfield] had with the Head of the Kincora Boys’ Home (KBH) in Belfast”. The “Head” of Kincora was “Warden” Joseph Mains who abused teenage boys at Kincora and elsewhere. Joseph Mains, according to MI6 records he had a “relationship” and a “friendship” with Oldfield. PART 1: OLDFIELD AS A SECURITY RISK A DANGEROUS ATTRACTION TO YOUNG MALES Oldfield was in fact attracted to young males. The KGB could have ascertained this through routine surveillance or from its spies inside MI6 such as Kim Philby and George Blake who would have been on the lookout for blackmail material on their colleagues. There is, of course, a world of difference between being a homosexual and being attracted to underage males. However, back in the unenlightened 1970s and 1980s, few in politics would have acknowledged this important distinction. Incredible as it now seems, the mainstream print media routinely referred to the Kincora scandal as a “homosexual” one when it was nothing of the sort. In the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s those who ran British Intelligence definitely viewed a homosexual in the ranks as a security risk. Hence, when Margaret Thatcher was told about Oldfield’s sexuality, his security clearance was withdrawn while an inquiry was carried out to see if he had been compromised by the Soviets. It determined that he hadn’t. However, inquiries into the loyalty of Kim Philby, another senior MI6 officer, had failed to expose evidence of his true allegiance to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, MI5 and MI6 had let at least Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald MacClean, John Cairncross, George Blake – all Soviet agents – run amok inside Britain’s intelligence community for decades. HER MAJESTY’S SPYMASTER Who was Maurice Oldfield and what was he capable of? When ‘The Troubles’ erupted, Oldfield was Deputy Chief of MI6. He assumed control of Irish affairs because his Chief, Sir John Rennie, did not share the same experience as he in the dark arts of the secret world. Rennie, who had been a surprise appointment as Chief of MI6, had a diplomatic and propaganda background whereas Oldfield had participated in deception campaigns during WW2; fought terrorism in Palestine after it; monitored the flow of weapons and money to the communist guerrillas fighting the British in Malaya in the 1950s. And, if all this wasn’t enough to square up to the IRA, he had a good idea of what it took to run a paramilitary campaign due to his knowledge of MI6’s guerrilla campaign against Albania, something that happened in the 1950s during his stint as deputy chief of MI6’s counter espionage directorate, R5. The Albanian campaign was a disaster. Most observers believe it was betrayed from the inside. Oldfield was a tubby little man who waddled when he walked, often dressed badly and was allegedly afflicted with occasional psoriasis. He has become more famous than most of his contemporaries, probably because Alec Guinness drew on his bespectacled appearance for his celebrated portrayal of George Smiley for the BBC’s production of John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The glamour of the association with Le Carrie has eclipsed the true nature of Oldfield’s character When Rennie retired prematurely in 1973 after a drug smuggling scandal in Hong Kong involving his son, Oldfield finally secured the top spot he had coveted for so long. Once in the driving seat, he steered MI6 until his retirement in early 1978 under an appropriately misleading title, ‘Head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research Department’. Under Oldfield, MI6 HQ continued to be what it had always been: a haven for criminals and the sort of place where a visitor would have been well advised to wipe his or her shoes on the way out of the building. Oldfield’s retirement as MI6 Chief was not to prove the death of his career: he re-emerged from his crypt to become Ulster Security Co-ordinator at the behest of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. By then too many intelligence cooks had congregated in NI and were spoiling the spy broth. Oldfield was asked to knock heads and streamline their work. While he was in Northern Ireland MI5 discovered he was gay. An MI5 report submitted to Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, on 31 March 1980 revealed that on 28 March Oldfield had after “some preliminaries” admitted he “had first been introduced to homosexuality at university and he admitted having engaged in homosexual practices, intermittently, up till the time of his acceptance of his Northern Ireland appointment. His relationships were, for the most part, with restaurant waiters and the like: he had none, he said, with (MI6) staff or agents”. In other words, Oldfield admitted that he had engaged in homosexual activity throughout his career as an MI6 officer with random individuals. A copy of
