Oh dear god here we go again.
Sinn Fein is refusing to say if it will hand over to gardai the minutes of a star chamber-style inquiry into 100 cases of suspected sex abuse involving members of the Provisional movement, held in Dublin eight years ago.
The secret investigation flies in the face of repeated denials by Sinn Fein leadership of their knowledge of a culture of sexual abuse within the Republican movement.
I guess Sinn Fein learned from the bishops? And Holy Mother Church?
The 2006 ‘review’ was carried out in the wake of information which emerged in Northern newspapers and the Sunday Independent that a “rape victim” had been summoned to appear before a Provo kangaroo court. This was a reference to Mairia Cahill, though she was not named at the time. This was the meeting Ms Cahill was ordered to attend at an apartment belonging to a Sinn Fein member in west Belfast and at which Martin Morris, her alleged abuser, was given her statement. After Ms Cahill’s allegations against Morris, Sinn Fein apparently moved him to a more prominent position in the ‘policing’ body.
It was only in 2006 when Sinn Fein was pushing for more British and Irish government money for their community policing project that the matter over the rape allegations came to a head. The rape allegation was brought to the attention of the Irish Government by the SDLP in a damning document about the conduct of Morris, who was referred to as ‘CRJ’. Only then was Morris moved out of Belfast, initially to Donegal.
No attempt was made to bring the allegations about Morris to the PSNI, and gardai were not notified of his ‘re-settlement’ in Donegal. Morris subsequently moved to England and remains living in north London.
So the answer is yes – Sinn Fein learned from the bishops and the church. Well done.
On Friday, SF’s Martin McGuinness, the North’s Deputy First Minister, refused to apologise to Ms Cahill for the IRA’s handling of her abuse allegation. “I suppose the sad thing about the Mairia Cahill case is the alleged abuser has disappeared into the smoke and people are focusing their concentration on people who were not involved in the sexual abuse of Mairia Cahill, and I think that’s a mistake,” he said.
Oh that’s the sad thing, is it? And people who didn’t themselves sexually assault Mairia Caihill but who did cover it up and protect the perp – they have nothing to be sorry for, is it?
Bastards.
[Named persons] have been accused of something. Perhaps [we] shouldn’t amplify it without evidence.
[Named political organization] surely did the right thing in keeping it to themselves and doing nothing about it.
Let’s be careful not to smear.
The IRA were a gang of murderers. Sinn Fein was the political wing of the IRA. The fact that they were involved in rapes as well as murder really doesn’t make them any worse.
The back story here is that Joe Cahill, one of the founders of the IRA was identified as a rapist by MI5 in the 1970s. They used the fact to turn him. Cahill had no choice since Maria’s father would almost certainly kill him if he found out.
Cahill is the ‘IRA man’ identified in the Elm Guest House list. It seems that MI5 used the Guest House to entrap Cahill prior to raiding it. A similar operation was conducted against Protestant paramilitaries that has been a long running scandal. Colin Wallace was fitted up with a false charge and went to prison for trying to reveal that one.
The activities of MI5 and MI6 at the time are considerably compromised by the fact that the then deputy director of MI6, Peter Hayman has since been revealed to have been a pedophile.
@4 Phillip, could you please clarify? Where does Joe Cahill fit into Mairia Cahill’s victimization? By “Maria” did you mean “Mairia Cahill”? Is Joe Cahill related to Mairia Cahill? The OP was talking about some guy named “Morris”. Where does he fit into all this? Sorry if I’m appearing obtuse, but all the MI5/MI6 information you presented has left me quite WTF.
How are the people who enabled the abuse “not involved” in the abuse?
The PSNI and Gardai weren’t informed so, by Mick Nugent logic, the rape never happened.
Maria Cahill was Joe Cahill’s niece and allegedly one of his rape victims. But the intel services sting had to do with another girl who was 14 at the time.
Given that there were 100 cases and the tribunal was held after Joe Cahill was dead, it seems most likely that there were multiple offenders. Which is hardly surprising. People who get their jollies killing folk are often into other forms of violence.
It’s times like these that I like to remember that the featured speakers at my college graduation were Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Cardinal Bernard Law.
Sinn Fein ignorance = sin, feign ignorance
@Phillip I’m pretty sure that the Irish struggle for independence was not and is not waged for “jollies,” and it’s pretty goddamn offensive of you to equate the violence and oppression than women face at the hands of men (in basically every society in the world) with the violence committed by the IRA in fighting their English oppressors.
Sinn Fein originated as the political wing of a terrorist organization. Its leadership lie about having been involved in terrorist activity as a matter of course, and people pretend to believe them for the sake of breaking the cycle of violence. I’m not sure they need any input or influence from the church to convince themselves they could act in secrecy outside the law and pretend that was justice.
@dysomniak: As an Irish person I’m pretty sure the crimes committed by the IRA were not exclusively or even primarily motivated by anything as high-minded as you seem to imagine. The observation that people who kneecap, murder, bomb and terrorize to further their agenda can reasonably be expected to be bastards on several fronts isn’t offensive, it’s practically banal.
@dysomniak, the Irish struggle for independence is a very different thing from the Provisional movement. It should also be pointed out that the Provisional IRA disarmed in 2005 and were not engaged in armed resistance when the internal investigation was held.
@dysomniak No it is not insulting to compare a bunch of terrorists to rapists.
They were terrible people and loathed by the vast majority of Irish Catholics on both sides of the border. You sir are an apologist for terrorism.
The IRA were the moral equivalent of Islamic State and Al Qaeda. They were not heroes and they were not defenders of anything. Nor were their so-called loyalist opponents.
What you are doing here is taking sides in a dispute between two groups of bigots. In real life both groups of Irish terrorists were utterly appalling.