Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1122

A Morning Thought (105)

Sinn Fein Could Benefit From Unionist Split

If the Shinners are to have any hope of ever achieving a united Ireland, they need to refocus their efforts on Stormont again rather than hoping the next Dail General Election will deliver them seats in a Leinster House coalition government. That’s the controversial view of Radical Unionist and conservative evangelical commentator, Dr John Coulter, in his latest Fearless Flying Column today.
If I was a top Shinner, I would spark a snap Stormont poll at Christmas or the New Year before the Unionist family gets its so-called unity act together.

But first, I’d make sure devolution was restored to Belfast’s Parliament Buildings - even if that means putting a temporary hold on demands for a stand-alone Irish Language Act.

Plan A for Unity will only work if a fully-functioning power-sharing Executive is back in business.

A united Ireland will be the long-term outcome of the fallout from the bitter battles which are taking place in both the election-battered Ulster Unionist Party and the crisis-hit DUP over Paisley junior’s Commons suspension.

The UUP is privately split at the moment over the presence of leading UUP elected representatives at the recent Pride parade in Belfast - a move which has infuriated traditional ‘born again’ Christians both inside the party and among its voter base.

Church-going traditionalists within the party are holding chats and talks if it is time to either face down the liberals within their ranks, or adopt the Biblical advice of ‘come ye out from amongst them’ and go to the DUP, or even form a new Christian Party.

Party leadership sources are at pains to point out that media statements by liberal MLAs, such as Beattie, Nesbitt and Stewart, are personal opinions - not a significant shift on UUP policy regarding same-sex marriage.

There is a growing perception both within and outside the party that the UUP has moved away from its traditional voter bases - namely, the Loyal Orders, evangelical Christians and the marching band fraternity.

The UUP will split – that’s the inevitable consequence of the vicious war of words between the party’s rival liberal and traditional Right wings in spite of rhetoric each side will work with the other.

It’s only a matter of time before several hundred party members will gather for a special meeting of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council for the showdown.

The fight is a straight two-horse race between liberal champion Doug Beattie of Upper Bann and John Stewart from East Antrim on one hand, and traditional Right standard bearers.

At the beginning of the summer, the Right-wing had a clear lead. But as Assembly members return from their ‘summer recess’ (even though there has been no devolution since January 2017!), it is now neck and neck.

It is now so close, both camps have been preparing a Plan B if their candidates loses, making a further split inevitable. A series of informal meetings has already taken place, but neither side will implement Plan B until after any potential leadership battle has been decided.

Given increasing Unionist voter apathy, especially among church-going Protestants, another political split will greatly assist Sinn Fein’s bid to become the largest Stormont party after the next poll and thereby lay claim to the coveted First Minister’s post.

In the DUP camp, the battle will be decided if the North Antrim petition reaches the required 10 per cent to force Paisley junior to step aside and spark a Westminster by-election. Letters to voters in North Antrim explaining the rules of the petition have already been sent out.

The outcome of any potential by-election (if there is one!) will decide who actually runs the DUP - will the fundamentalist faction make a comeback, or will the more liberal modernisers hold sway?

Would a suspended Paisley junior still be the official DUP candidate, or would he have to run as an Independent Unionist candidate?

Would Paisley junior be de-selected and the party hierarchy parachute Arlene Foster into North Antrim in a bid to get her into the Commons to assist under fire Theresa May as soon as possible? Or would the DUP rather save Mrs Foster as its candidate for Upper Bann and de-select David Simpson following revelations about his private life?

But with the Unionist family at its most fragmented since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, republicans need to act now before Unionists re-negotiate the St Andrews Agreement before any future Stormont poll.

Both the Right-wing and liberal UUP camps have ruled out a merger with current ‘outgoing’ First Minister Arlene Foster’s DUP, a move Unionist liberals stressed will only spark republican unity.

However, a further split Unionist vote will increase the chances of Irish unity, not republican unity, particularly with plans in the pipeline to cut the number of MPs seats at Westminster.

In last year’s General Election, Unionists stayed marginally ahead of nationalists seven seats to 11.

Future Commons reform could even see the number of Northern seats reduced by three to 15, and with the redrawing of boundaries, nationalists will be in the majority.

A future Westminster poll on these boundaries could see nationalists win eight seats to the Unionists’ six, with Alliance retaking Belfast.

This could put the North well on the way to Irish unity, especially if nationalists decide to again vote tactically for Sinn Fein at the expense of the SDLP or a Northern-based Fianna Fail.

In the meantime, if liberals win the battle for the heart and soul of the UUP, that result could initially see the creation of an independent Unionist Assembly group, especially if Beattie wins a future UUP leadership tussle.

The liberal UUP ‘dream team’ would be Beattie as leader, Stewart as deputy leader, with ex-boss Nesbitt as their policy advisor.

Plans have been discussed informally for the remaining Right-wing MLAs to defect from the UUP and form an Independent Unionist Assembly Group – a move which could financially cripple a Beattie-led UUP.

The independent group would also want any ‘Independent Unionist’ MLAs, such as Claire Sugden of East Londonderry (a former Justice Minister in a past Assembly mandate) and TUV boss Jim Allister from North Antrim, to join their ranks.

And North Down Independent Unionist MP Sylvia Hermon, who quit the party over the UUP’s links with the Tories, could even be asked to lead the new grouping.

However, a Right-wing win could spark a rebellion within the UUP by liberal supporters – already suspected of allegedly being behind moves to de-select existing pro-Right-wing candidates. The battle within the UUP mirrors the current split within the mainstream Presbyterian Church over same-sex marriage.

Sinn Fein could benefit from this Unionist split, not just in terms of seats, but also if it rebrands itself as a moderate left-wing party and agrees an oath of allegiance which enables the party to take its Westminster seats.

That would allow Sinn Fein to propose more Irish unity laws from the Commons chamber.

A rebranded ‘soft left’ image would allow Sinn Fein to shake off the image among Southern voters that it is really a hardline left-wing Marxist movement – an image which resulted in a disastrous showing in a past Dail election.

Sinn Fein’s tactics on any UUP and DUP splits should be to strike hard, but strike fast.

Speaking of boxing clever, the decision by Pope Francis to visit Ireland is also aimed at undoing the damage caused by Pope Benedict when he insulted Irish Catholicism by refusing to visit the Emerald Isle as part of his Britain tour.

While tens of thousands of Catholics packed into his big city prayer vigil, Benedict has made a huge, long-term tactical error in snubbing Ireland.

The Irish Catholic hierarchy is tottering on the brink of a spiritual meltdown because of the clerical sex abuse and Provo priest Chesney cover-up over the Claudy massacre.

When it comes to Catholic strings manipulating the government puppet, Southern Ireland was always viewed as the bastion of such influence throughout Europe, second only to the Vatican’s grip on Italian politics.

Pro-Vatican spin doctors belted out a Te Deum-style chant about the success of Benedict’s papal tour to Britain, highlighting his grovelling public apology for the sexual abuse dished out by perverted clerics over the generations.

But that apology needed to be made in Ireland where the legacy of sex abuse will linger for generations. Pope Francis can right this wrong with a sincere public apology.

With rumours that more alleged clerical abusers are about to be unmasked, Irish Catholicism faces its biggest crisis since King Billy sparked the Protestant Ascendancy in the 1690s.

Many Irish Catholics privately saw Pope Benedict’s decision to remain in the safety of Britain as an admission the Pontiff is really too scared to set foot in Ireland. Francis seems determined not to make the same mistake.

There will not be a mass exodus from Catholic pews, nor will there be an overnight growth in secularism and atheism and all the other ‘isms’ which threaten the Christian faith generally.

What will steadily emerge is a new Christian movement known as Pentecostal Catholicism.

It is already entrenched in the South, with little fellowships dotted across the island, especially in the Republic’s border counties.

It was even rumoured one of its most high-profile converts was a former republican terrorist, who at one time led a republican terror gang allegedly responsible for the deaths of over 30 people.

Dubbed the ‘Penties’, these Pentecostal Catholics take their influence from the rapidly growing Northern Pentecostal movement, especially in the Protestant Elim denominations.

But Catholic Penties are not Protestants under another name. The big attraction is the power of the people in the pews – not the orders of any bishops.

Happy-clappy, foot-stomping forms of worship are the order of the day at such services, not the repetitive litany of priests.

Catholic Penties believe in married clergy and stress they are purely Christian. Divine healing, speaking in Biblical tongues and highly emotional prayer meetings are all aspects of this new brand of Catholicism seeping steadily through Ireland.

Its major pulling power is its attraction to young people. Gone is ritualistic religion which was the pillar of the Catholic bishops’ influence; in comes personal and public expressions of faith.

Ironically, the Protestant version of the Penties began in Monaghan in 1915 at the height of the Great War.

Pentecostal Catholicism will not see mass defections from the mainstream faith along the same lines as the famous 1859 Spiritual Revival which swept across the North East of Ireland.

Those years saw tens of thousands convert to fundamentalist Christianity. The Penties will not see a gushing of converts to their cause; it will be a steady drip feed.

It may take more than a decade to see the full impact of this new movement. The Catholic bishops will try to dismiss it as a mere blip in their reign of influence.

But by 2020 when Irish bishops are announcing the closure of once packed chapels, they will look back at the Pontiff’s 2018 and mutter – if only His Holiness had had the guts to publicly apologise to Ireland.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter


Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter. @JohnAHCoulter

A Morning Thought (104)

Soufflé La Mort

Anthony McIntyre on why he thinks Gerry Adams is cooking up an Aras recipe with his soon to be launched book on cookery. 
Photo @ The Daily Mail

Norman Tebbit is not quite amused that Gerry Adams is publishing a culinary work, supposedly under the title The Negotiators' Cook Book . So unamused is Norman that he has expressed the view that he hopes Adams chokes on the book. I guess Gerry would have to try eating the book for that to happen. Which isn’t really the point of the book at all. Nor is cooking if my political instinct is correct.

Adams as a writer seems for critics to have a knack similar to Stephen King. The Maine writer turns the mundane into horror whereas Adams stands accused of doing the opposite, transforming terror into trivia: "one of the prime apologists for terrorism in the 20th century is writing a book about tasty things to eat."

Nevertheless, there would appear to be some convergence on the provenance of the idea for The Negotiators' Cook Book.

Adams told his West Belfast audience that during negotiations, "the British never fed us. They never had any food." Jonathan Powell in his book Great Hatred Little Room observed that the first item on the Adams menu was that the British had no menu: he persistently insisted on being fed. While Gerry might claim that was some sort of personal revenge for the famine, that should be treated much as his claim to have worn a Bobby Sands T-shirt beneath his outer garments during talks in Downing Street. 
Adams tells us that recipes in the book are what helped sustain the Sinn Fein negotiating team. But like hugging trees and bouncing naked on trampolines this is to be treated more as gimmickry and less as cookery.
Fionola Meredith, a cooking aficionado, is pretty much appalled at what is on the menu. Speaking of the erstwhile Provisional IRA chief of staff she asserts:

he has also convinced many people that he is, in fact, a cuddly, eccentric and genial old grandad who likes nothing better than playing with his toy ducks in the bath and bouncing in the nude with his dog on the garden trampoline.
He's just a harmless, caring, progressive, good-hearted man, who also happens to be a fan of the poet and civil rights champion Maya Angelou. What a darling.
This weird cook book is merely the latest episode in a long vanity process of revisionism, selective editing and blatant self-mythologising by Mr Adams, which often seems to be deployed strategically as a convenient distraction from awkward political issues.

While right, arguably there is a fuller explanation in terms of the purpose of the strategic deployment. Meredith tilts towards a reading of the past rather than the future.

Sinn Fein is putting up a candidate against Michael D Higgins in the forthcoming presidential election. Adams' name will not be in the hat this time around. A stalking horse will be put out just to keep the challenger’s seat hot. Adams remains much too toxic to have any chance of winning but  that might change in seven years time when the field will be more open sans the almost insurmountable hurdle posed by a sitting incumbent, and one as popular as Michael D. If the right to vote in presidential elections is extended to the diaspora, Adams must fancy his chances of coming up on the inside track.

Mary Lou’s role in this is to act as sanitiser: a clean pair of hands that have left no finger prints at the scene of the crime so to speak. If she manages to successfully clean up the party’s image, take a broom to the cupboard’s skeletons and its bullies, allow the image of the culinary chef rather than the military chief to marinade over the next seven years, then its is a tide that will lift all boats.
Adams for his own part will hope that in the public mind the mundane matters of cookery books will help displace the murderous, that the aroma of spices will mask the malodour of decomposition. Seven years is a long time in politics.


Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre      

These Christians Just Realized They Face Life In Prison For Killing Their Baby

Hemant Mehta reports on a case of religious cruelty now before the courts in Michigan. 

Mary, who only lived to be 10 months old, was very skinny at the end of her life due to malnutrition and dehydration. Her parents did nothing about it, citing religious reasons for not taking her to a doctor. Presumably, they thought God would just magically take care of everything.

They were recently in Kent County Court in Michigan to hear the charges and potential sentences against them, and a video of their reactions made its way online.

Allow me to narrate.

Initially, when the judge begins reading the charges, Welch (left) and Fusari remain defiant.

Then Fusari (right) learns that the charges against them include murdering their own daughter. Welch can’t believe it.

Oh no! The judge says a guilty verdict could mean spending life in prison without parole… and Welch realizes God will not get him out of jail. 

Is anyone else hearing this shit? Welch seems to ask as he looks around for sympathy. 

Then the judge mentions the other charge: intentionally hurting the child. Fusari seems very disturbed by this, even though not taking your emaciated daughter to a doctor is literally a way of intentionally hurting her. 

Finally, the judge explains that the penalty for the child abuse charge is also potential imprisonment. Suddenly, Welch tries to do the math in his head, not realizing two prison sentences can be served concurrently. 

Here’s the whole video in all its glory:



As one Redditor noted, it appears that Fusari reacts to the charges against their child, as if she never meant to hurt her daughter, while Welch reacts to the potential punishments against them. That looks about right to me.

Still, I don’t have any sympathy for Fusari. How many months did she do nothing while her daughter starved right in front of her? She chose not to take care of the child. She chose not to see a doctor. Just because she didn’t mean for Mary to die doesn’t mean she’s not responsible for Mary’s death.
Welch, on the other hand, has been infuriating throughout this ordeal.

Welch has posted about Child Protective Services, a distrust of doctors and religious beliefs on Facebook. He called doctors “priesthoods of the medical cult” and spoke in one video post about refusing to get his children vaccinated.
“The righteous shall live by faith. It’s God who is sovereign over disease and those sorts of things and, of course, ultimately deaths,” he said.

God is “sovereign over disease,” says the man who saw an eye doctor for his glasses.
If they are indeed found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, it’s because they deserve it.

Hemant Mehta blogs @ Friendly Atheist 
Follow Hemant Mehta on Twitter @hemantmehta

A Morning Thought (103)

Auld Fergie

Dixie Elliot recalls an old blanketman, Auld Fergie.


Auld Fergie, as we called him, got the longest sentence handed out, natural life, for if I remember scouting for the shooting of a British soldier.

Needless to say he went into serious downer and would hardly leave his cell. Then the wing lunatics like the late Duice Mullan and Geek O'Halloran stepped in and dragged him out of his cell telling him he was now part of their gang.

Before long Auld Fergie, an ardent Fermanagh fan, was as crazy as they were pulling mad mixes etc.

Sharon and I visited him a few times in the late 80s and early 90s, once in Maghaberry, but sadly we lost touch. Then when I inquired about him in later years I was shocked to hear he had died not long after he got out.

It's sad that Republicans like him, Jimmy Conway et al have become forgotten.



Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie    

Drew Harris - A Hammer-Blow To Every Victim Of Collusion

Via The Transcripts Audrey Carville speaks to Miami Showband Massacre survivor, Stephen Travers, about the appointment of Drew Harris as the new Commissioner of An Garda Síochána. 

RTÉ Radio 1Time stamp begins @ 00 
Audrey: Drew Harris will be the new Garda Commissioner. He’s Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) who began his career in the old RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary). He’s the first non-citizen of the Republic to fill the post. For several years Mr. Harris was Assistant Chief Constable in command of the PSNI Crime Operations Department – that incorporated everything to do with intelligence gathering plus serious crime. He was promoted to Deputy Chief Constable four years ago. We’ll hear Sinn Féin’s reaction to his appointment in a moment. The Miami Showband But first, I’ve been speaking to a survivor of the the Miami Showband Murders – three members of the band were taken from their tour bus and shot dead on a country road after a gig in Banbridge, Co. Down, in July 1975. 

The Crime SceneThey were traveling back to Dublin when a fake British Army patrol made up of UDR (Ulster Defence Regiment) soldiers and UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) members stopped them at a bogus checkpoint outside Newry. In 2011, a report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) raised collusion concerns around the involvement of an RUC Special Branch agent. Well Stephen Travers survived the attack. He told me a while ago why he was angry about Drew Harris’ appointment as the new head of An Garda Síochána. 
Stephen Travers
Image: Michael MacSweeney
Source: Independent
Stephen: Well I believe that it’s putting the fox in charge of the hen house. As a survivor of the Miami Showband Massacre I’m part of a civil action against the Chief Constable of the PSNI and the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). And during the past eight years, since our action was started, the Office of the Chief Constable, of which Drew Harris is the second most senior officer, has blocked, delayed and frustrated our every effort to access the files on those who murdered our three lads and who shot me. And just last week they gave us notice that they’re seeking a Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate to block us from getting their files on the notorious RUC Special Branch agent and mass murderer, Robin Jackson, often referred to as ‘The Jackal’. Now can you imagine our new Garda Commissioner being question in relation to the Miami Showband Massacre and its cover-up? This new appointment is a hammer-blow to every victim of collusion between British security forces and the Loyalist terrorists. This new appointment is not progressive. It’s a massive step backwards and it’s certainly not helping reconciliation.

Truth and Reconciliation Platform
on Twitter
And while every effort is being made, and rightly so, in reconciling both communities and understanding that no side has a monopoly on suffering or loss, it’s certainly not right to reach out to one community and slap the other community in the face like this. The damage it will do to our government’s relationship, hard-won relationship, with the Nationalist community in The North will be catastrophic.

Audrey: And yet, Drew Harris is someone, despite his own personal loss and personal tragedy, continued to work with Republicans during his time in senior roles in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He’s seen as a trusted part of a modern, senior PSNI management and he says that there will be no conflict of loyalties when he takes up his new role.

Stephen: Well he can swear allegiance to uphold our constitution as many times as he like but in my experience I would prefer if he just held up his hands and said: Here are the files. We will no longer block the files on the people who are responsible for the Miami Showband Massacre and indeed, Dublin-Monaghan bombing.
Stephen’s book
Available at Amazon
I think that perhaps we should be talking as well to people like Joe Campbell – whose father was Joseph Campbell, an RUC sergeant, a decent man, who was shot and murdered in Cushendall by the Glenanne Gang of which Jackson was the leader – and we should be talking to him and getting his opinion on how badly treated he and his family – and indeed, his widowed mother – has been treated by the PSNI/RUC. Being a victim does not qualify him to take over the, our, our Garda – the Garda Commissioner role.

Audrey: That was Stephen Travers there who survived the Miami Showband Murders in July 1975. 


The Transcripts, Of Interest to the Irish Republican Community.You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts 

A Morning Thought (102)

Totally Tasteless - The Life of John Nathan Turner

Christopher Owens with a tasteful review of Totally Tasteless.



Doctor Who has, for 55 years, cast a long spell over the consciousness of many a person. The Time Lord (now on his 13th incarnation and to be played by a woman, Jodie Whittaker) takes the viewer to parts unknown in the galaxy, fighting off an array of evil monsters and restoring order to chaos.


All very obvious and very science fiction. But there's much more to the show than that. There's obviously the theme song (from the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop and composed by Delia Derbyshire, one of the pioneering women in electronic music). There's obviously the iconic logo. There's the Daleks. There's the Cybermen. But there's a human spark to the show that keeps it fresh in the hearts of many.

Matthew Sweet once remarked that:

several actors who have played the lead...report that fans sometimes unburden extraordinary intimacies as they present their autograph book for signature at a convention. The Doctor, they're often told, is the father figure who will never let you down. He is never cruel, never self-serving, never unjust. He is the man who will rescue you from the tyrants, the bullies and the exploiters...

I have to admit having a tear in my eye after reading that. This nails the deep connection the fans have. To them, it's much more than a sci-fi programme. It's good and evil in its purest form, with a parental figure who took you on adventures not of this earth.

Often vilified by long term Doctor Who fans for the decline, and eventual cancellation, of the series, John Nathan Turner was nonetheless a visible and important figure in Doctor Who fan world in helping set up conventions for the show in the UK and USA. Very common nowadays with the likes of San Diego Comic Con but, back in Britain in 1981, very unusual and very un-BBC (who seemed to regard any attempt of commercialisation as repulsive).

Meticulously researched, Richard Marson (former editor in chief of Blue Peter) paints John as a complex and likeable man. One who is in thrall to the old school British music hall tradition of light entertainment, and one who keeps hitting his head when trying to move upwards in the BBC because of this attitude. Someone who did their best for Doctor Who, even when every series became a salami slicing exercise in trying to do better with less, and with idiots in charge.

What really interested me was the power struggle between certain Doctor Who fans and the producer. By crossing a line into inviting fans (such as Hi-NRG producer Ian Levine) to contribute to the show (and, in some cases, shagging them), John ended up in a situation where certain fans felt they had a say in the show (when they really didn't). Which is where a lot of the ill feeling towards that period of Doctor Who comes from (that and the inconsistent episodes, which is put down to classic BBC apathy towards the show).

Because of the revelations that John was having sex with fans, some around the age of 19 (the age of consent for gay men in the 1980's was 21), the book has been condemned by the likes of Peter Davidson and Colin Baker for supposedly attempting to draw a parallel between John and Jimmy Savile. While there are moments which, speaking as someone reading in 2018, make for uncomfortable reading, they mainly centre around John's partner, Gary Downie (who is now dead).

Although there is no proof that John engaged in any activities that would place him alongside Savile, there are one or two suggestions that Downie was a different matter. The author tells a tale of sexual assault at the hands of Downie, which he now claims to see the funny side of. And there's an allegation of inappropriate behaviour towards a 14 year old boy in a theatre in the 90's.

Nonetheless, there is no evidence that the two of them indulged in child molestation.

Although the narrative can be jumbled at times, and there is an overreliance on people commenting on what a nice guy he was, Totally Tasteless is an outstanding read. By shedding a light on a less understood period of Doctor Who (and the BBC for that matter), Marson has given fans of the show food for thought, helping to rehabilitate a deeply misunderstood and maligned character who kept the show going for more years than the BBC would have liked, and laid the foundations for the global success of the revived series in 2005.

Richard Marson, 2016. Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan Turner .  Miwk Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1908630650


➽ Christopher Owens reviews for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland.Follow Christopher Owens on Twitter @MrOwens212