A JOURNALIST’S POLITICAL EDUCATION BY PEADAR WHELAN On my release from the H Blocks after 16 years, I began work with An Phoblacht. As a former life sentence prisoner, writing for the ‘Phoblacht’ was a platform for political work, an extension of the political education I was involved in while in jail. It was about promoting republican ideals and policies as well as challenging the narrative of the struggle, particularly that of the mainstream media and our political opponents. Writing for this 50th Anniversary edition of the paper, I recall how often in situations where I would be labelled a journalist, I would retort “I’m not a journalist, I’m a political activist who uses the media to further republican politics.” However, these political aspirations, these ideas that what I would be engaged in high flying political argument, promoting the ideals and vision of the republic with our ideological enemies, came crashing down in the reality of Belfast in February 1992. In my first week, eight nationalist civilians were gunned down in two separate attacks on the Sinn Féin centre on the Falls Road at Sevastopol Street and in Sean Graham’s Bookmakers on the Ormeau Road. Eleven others were wounded in the shootings which were carried out by an RUC member and a notorious UDA gang based in the Annadale area of South Belfast. I recalled that week in an article titled ‘February 1992 – A Baptism of Fire’, which was carried in the February 2017 edition which marked the 25th Anniversary of the killings. In that article, I highlighted the killing of IRA Volunteer Joe McManus who was shot dead by a British soldier in Fermanagh. Also shot dead by loyalists that week was Padraig Ó Cléirigh an Irish language activist and Black Taxi driver. And, reading through that 25th anniversary article, I
described how I got to know women like Rita McCracken, mother of IRA Volunteer Kevin McCracken killed in action in March 1988, and Patricia Campbell from Turf Lodge who supported me and other life sentence prisoners who were released on license through the North’s ‘Work Out’ scheme. Both these strong republican women are now dead. With the reality of these attacks comes the realisation that the political establishments across the North, in Britain, and in the 26 Counties were willing to ignore the British military strategy that we now know and accept as collusion. And the more and more republicans pointed out that the British military and RUC were facilitating the loyalist death squads in one way or another, the more we were told that our claims of collusion were merely propaganda. A lot of credit must go to Laura Friel and our other writers who logged so many incidents involving loyalist death squads, listing the activities of the crown forces before and after attacks and seeing the patterns emerge. One all too common example was when a heavy crown force presence in an area would disappear only for a loyalist gun gang to appear. The killing of Kathleen O’Hagan in August 1994 by the UVF is an example of the fundamental nature of collusion and exposes how the RUC campaigned against the family. Kathleen’s husband Paddy was a former H Block prisoner, The RUC continually carrying out raids on their home and sent out a message to loyalists that the O’Hagan family were ‘legitimate targets’. An Phoblacht travelled to the O’Hagan home in County Tyrone and spoke to local republicans. They brought us to where the ‘getaway’ car was abandoned and speculated that, given the remote nature of the area, their suspicions were that members of the UDR were involved and that they melted into the countryside ‘on patrol’.
In my first week, eight nationalist civilians were gunned down in two separate attacks on the Sinn Féin centre on the Falls Road at Sevastopol Street and in Sean Graham’s Bookmakers
• Rita McCracken shares a joke with Martin McGuinness as Mary Lou McDonald and Stephen McCracken look on 58
ISSUE NUMBER 4 – 2020 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 4 anphoblacht
