Category Archives: pro-IRA

Let’s start with the bare if not so lovely bones, so to speak. This paean to the IRA Chief of State and Irish Presidential candidate Martin NcGuinness appeared on Today this morning. (8.43am)

Martin McGuinness, once a leading figure in the IRA and who was feared and loathed in almost equal measure, is now a respectable political leader. So respectable that he wants to become president of the Republic of Ireland. Ireland correspondent for the Guardian and Observer Henry McDonald.

For starters, turning to the Guardian and Observer correspondent for opinion is hardly balance but I suppose it is natural for the BBC to seek the opinion of their own print arm. Helpfully, Henry is able to instantly point out that just like Martin McGuinness, he lives in Northern Ireland but chooses to have an Irish passport in preference to a British one. Natch. We know where this one will go,

Then let’s move on to this business of McGuinness being “once a leading figure in the IRA”. Good to see that the BBC now grudgingly admits McGuinness actually was a terrorist commander but their journalistic curiousity seems a tad restricted. For example, why not ask when did McGuinness leave the IRA, exactly? When he was occupying the position as Capo di tutti capo, just how many innocent lives did he arrange to have terminated.Perhaps even more pointedly, how many peope did he murder HIMSELF? What exactly did he “command”?

Why is the BBC so coy about pursuing these aspects to the McGuinness pedigree?

I venture to suggest because the State Broadcaster has been central to sanitising the reputation of bloodthirsty IRA killers and McGuinness is being increasingly presented as a warm if not cuddly character that we all need to learn to love. Not sure if those families who visit lonely graveyards care of the actions of this piece of Republican scum would agree – but then again, through the BBC prism, I’m the extremist.

Today is the zenith for Irish republican propaganda and the BBC is keen to play a part. The Saville Report is published today and the BBC reporters in “Derry” (No hint of bias there, folks) are there to join in the British Army bashing contest. They interviewed IRA Commander Martin McGuinness (the butcher in charge of terrorism in Londonderry at that time ) and never asked ANY challenging questions about his role. Instead we are served up what republican agitators want – namely the blackening of the reputation of the British Army. I also see the BBC whitewashes the significance of the earlier Widgery report which found the Parachute Regiment innocent of the charges levelled at it. The BBC – never happier when it is playing a role in making us feel ashamed of our military. 

For decades, the IRA has had a very sympathetic hearing from the BBC. I do not suggest that the BBC supported the killings, the bombings, the maimings carried out by Irish Republicans but it did seem to have a visceral sympathy with the IRA ideal that “Britain” needs to get out of Northern Ireland.

The BBC reports here that the report on the events of Bloody Sunday has been delayed again. (Let’s hope the lawyers are not out of pocket!) Tribunal chairman Lord Saville has confirmed he hopes to hand the report to the Northern Ireland Secretary at the end of March 2010.

It’s part of the BBC brief to portray certain favoured bloodthirsty terrorists as Statesmen, doves of peace even. Self confessed IRA terrorist Martin McGuinness is such a man and be sure to have a hanky ready when you read this cloying BBC report concerning how poor McGuinness has had his life threatened by, erm, other republican terrorists. The BBC chooses not to discuss the fact that when McGuinness was a senior IRA commander, many innocent men, women and children lost their lives. But that was then and this is now – and so the prospect of one terrorist being killed by another breaks BBC hearts.

I was reading this report on the BBC NI portal and it sickens me insofar as the way in which it is written tries to portray the police as villains when in fact all they are seeking to do is to apprehend the brutal killers of Police Constable Carroll, murdered by the “I can’t believe it’s the IRA” last week. Alex Maskey, a convicted bank robber and senior Sinn Fein spokesman (What could be more normal than that?) is allowed to pontificate about the wrongness of the police investigation and then one of the myriad pro-Republican human rights parasites in the shape of Mike Ritchie from the Campaign Against Justice, (as I like to call them) weighs in to support the Maskey line. The BBC cannot seem to find any other politicians who support the decision by the police to question these alleged republican killers for seven days. Maybe they could try and look just a little harder, I am certain they are out there.

You have to hand it to the BBC, they are great at grovelling to terrorists. On Today this morning, in the lead up to the big interview with IRA leader Gerry Adam, there was a helpful contribution in the “Thought for the Day” slot from the Rev Joel Edwards suggesting that the Northern Ireland peace process is Biblical in tradition. ( Blessed are the bombers…?) Leaving aside that little theological aside, Naughtie was granted a few minutes in the august presence of Grisly Adams. True to form, his “interview” was pathetic, allowing Adams the chance to blacken the reputation of the British Army whilst piously expressing his formulaic regret at what has happened. Naughtie COULD have asked Adams is it ever right to kill British soldiers – but he didn’t since Adams would have to qualify that answer. (Right for the IRA to do so, not right for others) Naughtie came across as a useless sycophant, afraid to put any hard questions to Adams and in that regard, on this issue, the BBC stands indicted.