:rolleyes:
I supported none of the murderous scum, whereas you glorify in the blood of the murdered innocents. Sick cunt
I supported none of the murderous scum, whereas you glorify in the blood of the murdered innocents. Sick cunt[/QUOTE]
You are the sick cunt. You would have happily had the nationalist community be murdered, beaten and burned to the ground rather than fight for an equitable existence. The Provos fought for the nationalist community because nobody else would, heroes like Sands, Lynagh, McKearney and Hughes gave their lives for us because nobody else would lift a finger. It makes me sick to hear someone like you, pontificate and lecture about rights and wrongs when you couldnât give a bollocks about the deep social injustice and genocide being committed on the nationalist community.
And what evidence do you have?:rolleyes:
why would i need evidence to object to the brutal killing of a widow and the mother of ten children. The evidence is required to be produced by those that support her murder. Thats a bit dimwitted of you to be frank.
You havenât a shred of evidence to support your theory. The words of Brendan Hughes are enough for me.
[QUOTE=âIl Bomber Destro, post: 960298, member: 2533â]You used the murder of a woman to make yours so donât take the high ground with me, you sick cunt. Jean McConville was murdered because she was an informant who passed on information to discriminate child killers and murderers. She did the deal with the devil, it was tragic what happened to her kids and really tough on them.
Majella OâHare was a 12 year old girl who was murdered by the British Army? Do you justify that? Do you justify anyone who aided the British Army in their reign of terror. The Irish Free State was happy to let nationalist suffer up here and the hands of these monsters, do you justify that? Do you justify Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, Dublin and Monaghan bombings?[/QUOTE]
you have said this a couple of times at this point. the first time i thought it was a typo but it now appears that you feel this is the correct word and it`s correct use.
I must ask considering the type of argument you are making, your stated lack of personal hygiene and so on
Are you actually stupid or merely ignorant ?
[QUOTE=âtwiceasnice97, post: 960326, member: 1061â]you have said this a couple of times at this point. the first time i thought it was a typo but it now appears that you feel this is the correct word and it`s correct use.
I must ask considering the type of argument you are making, your stated lack of personal hygiene and so on
Are you actually stupid or merely ignorant ?[/QUOTE]
Your beloved British Army discriminantly murdered children like Majella OâHare.
Are they. Good for you. they are not enough for me i am afraid though that hardly matters. I hesitate to explain further due to my realisation that you may possibly be one of the dumbest cunts on the board and i am probably wasting my time,
from republican sources we have a variety of rumours that she was an informer, she was killed for helping a british soldier, she ran off with someone which was later expanded to claim that she ran off with a soldier leaving her ten children behind her.
if she was an informer and a legitimate target why did the IRA hide from their responsibility for her death for as long as they did.
You have some long winded tale relaying your version of events that I couldnât be bothered reading over⌠Yet youâll demand evidence from other people? You fucktard. Tis easy take shots from the cheap seats, youâd be happy out if Catholics in the north were still being brutally murdered and burnt out of their homes. In time the cowardice and abetting of genocide of the free state will be recorded and itâs your ilk that stood happily by and let it happen. Youâre the type of horrible servile bastard that votes FF because your coward grandfather and coward father did. Weâre on the rise now tho and it must sicken your shit⌠Itâs not the rich we will go after when we get power but supporters of the Orange murderous state like you.
you have not answered the question i asked you
Fucking hell kev overestimated you, not only are you weak but youre exceptionally limited as well
You are a little twerp out of mary I who is going to marry a nurse and spend the rest of your life in a cushy job wearing hush puppies and a pastel jumper over your shoulder. what in the fcuk would you know about hard living or hard men. will you get to fcuk
[QUOTE=âtwiceasnice97, post: 960335, member: 1061â]Are they. Good for you. they are not enough for me i am afraid though that hardly matters. I hesitate to explain further due to my realisation that you may possibly be one of the dumbest cunts on the board and i am probably wasting my time,
from republican sources we have a variety of rumours that she was an informer, she was killed for helping a british soldier, she ran off with someone which was later expanded to claim that she ran off with a soldier leaving her ten children behind her.
if she was an informer and a legitimate target why did the IRA hide from their responsibility for her death for as long as they did.[/QUOTE]
The same reason they hid 10 or so other informants who became known as the disappeared, propaganda - they should have not hid the bodies, it was counter productive. Why do the Brits not release the names of informants on the Divis flats?
Iâm neither.
There you go again, making up stories to suit your own deranged world. Youre living in la la land⌠You know nothing about me. Zilch. Zero. For instance, Iâm friends with Maurice Quinlivan on Facebook. Be warnedâŚ
[QUOTE=âIl Bomber Destro, post: 960343, member: 2533â]The same reason they hid 10 or so other informants who became known as the disappeared, propaganda - they should have not hid the bodies, it was counter productive. Why do the Brits not release the names of informants on the Divis flats?
Iâm neither.[/QUOTE]
i can release the name of one person who was not just to help you along
Jean McConville
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0707/78095-mcconvillej/
but you are a student of mary i and will marry a nurse and have a nice cushy job paid for by me and other`s like me while professing this kind of hard chaw nonsense we see above.
What? There you go with your crazy assumptions again. I work 4 jobs to pay my way,⌠Sorry to pull the moral rug out from beneath you, but you and others like you have given me no leg up.
[QUOTE=âtwiceasnice97, post: 960356, member: 1061â]i can release the name of one person who was not just to help you along
Jean McConville
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0707/78095-mcconvillej/[/QUOTE]
I believe a volunteer of the IRA who was privvy to the Jean McConville murder would be a far more concrete source than a British civil servant. Why have the names of the Divis Flat informants not been released from that time period by the British?
So, why do we single out the First Gloucestershire Regiment in this Freedom of Information request?
The first reason has to do with the unusual act of requesting an embargo on the regimentâs war diaries and the length of that embargo, eighty-four years. This means that unless the embargo is successfully challenged the diary will not be opened until January 1st, 2059, by which time most of those reading this article will be long dead.
To put the embargo into context, it is the same length or just slightly shorter than the embargo placed on 39 Brigade war diaries at a time when the Brigade commander was Brigadier Frank Kitson and he was busy creating the Military Reaction Force (MRF), a super secret undercover unit which allegedly was involved in a series of drive by shootings and killings in Belfast.
In other words to qualify for an 84 year or 100 year embargo as 39 Brigade has, the activities in question need to be the sort that you really donât want the world to know about, at least for a very long time, and long after those responsible have shuffled off this mortal coil.
The full list of 39 Brigade embargoed war diaries is below. By contrast British Army brigade war diaries in Europe and Britain are open for public inspection:
View this document on Scribd
So what was it that soldiers from the First Gloucestershire Regiment did in Divis Flats in 1972 and also in 1973 that they want hidden until 2059?
None of the other military units that served in Divis during these years felt that way. According to records compiled by our resourceful researcher Bob Mitchell, nine British regiments served in Divis Flats between October 1970 and April 1975. The list can be seen below in the graphic and it records that only one regiment cannot be traced in the Kew archive, the Third Battalion Light Infantry. Of the other eight, all can be traced and aside from the Gloucesters, none asked that its war diary(ies) be embargoed or were ordered by the MoD to be embargoed even though some of them, like the Royal Green Jackets and the Royal Anglian Regiment were posted to Divis during the worst periods of violence.
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/gloucs3.jpg?w=500&h=154
List of regiments that served in Divis in early 1970â˛s. The First Goucesters are the only unit whose war diaries have been embargoed until 2059. All the others are available for public inspection.
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/2rar-war-diary-1-2.jpg?w=500&h=666
A war diary is a daily account of a regimentâs or Brigadeâs activity during a tour of duty. This is a sample page fromn the Royal Anglin Regimentâs war diary for 1972.
So what was it that the First Gloucesters were involved in, in Divis Flats that made them so different from seven of their brother regiments?
Our research also brought us to journals and magazines produced by British regiments during the 1970âs which describe in sometimes fascinating detail their activities while posted to Northern Ireland. The Royal Green Jackets (RGJ) Chronicle is a particularly rich source of information.
The RGJ were posted to Belfast for the second time in August 1973 and a single company, âBâ Coy, was sent to Divis where, according to the account produced in that yearâs Chronicle, priority was given to cultivating sources in the local population. While the Chronicle makes light of the way this was done, it seems that female residents of Divis were especially targeted. The account, which can be read in full below, concludes: ââŚ.by the end of the tour, all sections had established a friendly contact here and there.â
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/rgj-chronicle-page-49.jpg?w=500&h=774
Extract from Royal Green Jackets Chronicle dealing with its tour of Divis Flats in 1973, between eight and twelve months after Jean McConvilleâs disappearance
So cultivating and recruiting intelligence sources from the population of Divis Flats, and possibly from female residents, appears to have been standard operating practice for British units, which common sense suggests would be the case. It is something the British would have done as a matter of course and not just in Divis.
A key part of Brendan Hughesâ story concerned the radio that was allegedly discovered in Jean McConvilleâs flat and with which she is supposed to have communicated with her handlers in Hastings Street RUC station which had become the British Armyâs local HQ. In his interview with Boston College, Hughes did not describe the radio in any detail but it appears that it was what most people would know as a walkie-talkie type radio, small and compact, easy to hide and use.
The problem is that some people have raised doubts about whether the British Army had access to such equipment in the early 1970âs and that the only radios in use at that time were heavy, bulky sets totally unsuitable for use by an agent such as Jean McConville. In fact that is not true and the source for this is the Saville report on the Bloody Sunday killings of January 1972.
Paragraph 181.13 of the report reads:
âWe should also record that there is evidence that before Bloody Sunday some of the resident battalions were, at platoon level only, using portable Stornophone radios in place of Larkspur radios. A number of former soldiers serving in Londonderry recalled having Stornophone radios available on 30th January 1972. Often nicknamed âStornosâ, these radios, like the Pye radios discussed above, were a commercially produced system purchased by the Army. There is little doubt that the use of Stornophone radios was a consequence of the fallibility of Larkspur radios in built-up areas.â
Stornophone radios were ideal for agent use. Manufactured by the Norwegian Storno Company, the average set was 10â long. 2.5â wide and 1â thick, it had a rechargeable battery pack and a simple âpush to talkâ operation. The question then is whether Stornophone radios were available to British troops in Divis in early 1972 and the answer is yes.
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/larkspur-radio.jpg?w=500
The bulky Larkspur radio, totally unsuitable for agent use
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/stornoradio.jpg?w=500
The Norwegian made Stornophone radio, available to some platoons in NI in early 1972. Very agent friendly.
The answer comes from the âSoldiers of Gloucestershireâ website, which is dedicated to all things to do with the Gloucestershire Regiment, including a massive collection, dating back to the 18th century, of paintings, prints and photographs of the regiment during its various campaigns and wars, including its various tours to Northern Ireland.
One photograph shows a soldier from the Gloucesters on patrol in Divis Flats in 1972 holding and maybe using a Storno-type hand held radio.
Here is the photo:
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/divis-patrol-c-apr-1972.jpg?w=500
A soldier from the First Gloucesters uses a Stornophone type radio while on patrol in Divis Flats in April 1972 (Copyright: The Soldiers of Gloucestershire)
So a hand held walkie-talkie type radio of the sort that Brendan Hughes said was found in Jean McConvilleâs flat was in use by soldiers from the First Gloucestershire regiment in Divis Flats in 1972, the year she was abducted & killed, and the war diary for that tour has been embargoed until 2059. A cloud now hangs over the Gloucestershire regiment which can only be dispelled by full disclosure of the unitâs archives.
There is one final issue that arises out of the Police Ombudsmanâs report on Jean McConvilleâs disappearance. It derives from a section of her report dealing with intelligence reports on the whereabouts of Jean McConville after she disappeared from Divis. That section was summarised in a press release dated August 13th, 2006 from the Police Ombudsmanâs office. Here is the relevant section:
[INDENT]âThere is no intelligence about or from Mrs McConville until 2 January 1973. An examination of RUC intelligence files show that the first intelligence was received on January 2 1973 when police received two pieces of information which said that the Provisional IRA had abducted Mrs McConville.
âOn January 16 1973, Mrs McConvilleâs disappearance and the plight of her children were reported in the media. A police spokesman was quoted as saying that although the matter had not been reported to them, it was being investigated.
âRUC intelligence files show that the next day police received two pieces of information about the disappearance: One claimed that Mrs McConville was being held by the Provisional IRA in Dundalk. The other also alleged that the Provisionals were behind the abduction and suggested it was related to drug dealing.
âThe RUC intelligence files also show that the police later received two separate pieces of information from military sources which suggested that Mrs McConville was not missing: The first was received on March 13 1973 and suggested that the abduction was an elaborate hoax. The second piece of information, which was received 11 days later, said that Mrs McConville had left of her own free will and was known to be safe.â
There is a clear pattern here. Intelligence coming in to the RUC in the first weeks after her disappearance was remarkably accurate. The Provisional IRA had abducted her. Check. Jean McConville was being held in Dundalk. Check. A second report again said that the Provisonals had abducted her. Check. The same report claimed a drug connection which was clearly wrong. But this is the only piece of inaccurate intelligence coming into the RUC at this time.
But then in mid-March the story changes dramatically. Two separate pieces of intelligence from military sources throw cold water on the abduction explanation. One, on March 13th, says that the story of Jean McConvilleâs kidnapping was âan elaborate hoaxâ. A second report on March 24th claimed she had left Belfast of her own free will and was safe.
http://thebrokenelbow.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/oloan.jpg?w=500
Former NI Police Ombudsman Nuala OâLoan
So who were these military sources? Nuala OâLoan does not tell us. But here is an interesting coincidence. On April 2nd, 1973 the First Gloucestershire Regiment arrived in Belfast for a four month tour â their second since late 1971, early 1972 â and two days later took over duties from the Queens Lancashire Regiment.
It was standard operational procedure for advance parties to arrive several weeks ahead of the main regimental force and included in them would be an intelligence unit. This was done so that the new regiment would be able to ease in to its new duties. So an intelligence unit from the 1st Gloucesters would likely have been in West Belfast when those reports were sent to the RUC saying that Jean McConville was safe. Did the 1st Gloucesters create those intelligence reports or have any hand in them? We donât know. Perhaps the information is contained in those embargoed War Diaries. Thatâs another reason they should be opened.
As I say, the war diary may reveal absolutely nothing about Jean McConville at all, in which case her surviving family have everything to gain by knowing this. And so do the First Gloucesters, whose name deserves to be cleared if the regiment is innocent of any suspicion attached to it.
But if the diary does reveal information that the family would probably regard as unwelcome then they and everyone else will have to deal with it. We need to know the truth about what happened to Jean McConville. Hiding facts behind embargoes is unacceptable when others are being forced by legal measures to disclose theirs. Equally, lying about the past by those involved in these events is as intolerable as continuing to exploit an agent whose cover has been blown.
One way or another we need to know what is written in the embargoed War Diaries of the First Gloucestershire regiment.[/INDENT]
Bullet points please