Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I spoke to a woman from Belfast a few weeks ago about Ballymurphy. She told me that her mother always said that her brother went out that day and came home a totally different person and was lost to the family. He reacted to the state-sponsored violence and the subsequent cover-up of what happened at Ballymurphy and on Bloody Sunday a few months later in the only way he could, which was by taking up arms.

I was staggered over the past month or so by how few people to whom I spoke had heard about Ballymurphy. There are a number of reasons for that. Going back to section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, the political programming that was offered by journalists in this State led to a narrative that ultimately served no purpose at all. The people who went further than what was required in the Broadcasting Act silenced campaigners who were campaigning against injustice. Those campaigners were labelled as fellow travellers. The Special Branch followed them around, they were harassed and they lost their jobs. Even people from my party who were trade union representatives were not allowed to speak on television on behalf of their trade union. People think cancel culture is something that has only been happening recently. In fact, anyone who was supportive of people like the Birmingham Six and the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and Ballymurphy was, in effect, cancelled back in the 1970s and 1980s, whereas the leaders of the campaign to silence became establishment figures, columnists and programme controllers. If they are to be believed, they became Government advisers.

Fortunately, truth and justice have now been obtained by the families of the Birmingham Six and the victims of Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy, but the other campaigns go on. The political coverage and whitewash that happened around that time and in the years leading up to Ballymurphy saw lies being told about weapons being stored in Catholic churches, making both the church and its lay and clerical members legitimate targets in the eyes of loyalists and the British army. Even to this day, journalists and newspaper executives are assumed to hold political views and affiliations based on where on the island they come from. We have seen recently that this continues. Campaigners and documentarians who sought to establish the truth were harassed viciously. It is hard to imagine that political advice was sought until recently from some of the people who engaged in this nonsense but apparently that is the case. Many media outlets may not admit it but there was a whitewash in the British legal system and there was a whitewash of silence in Ireland over Ballymurphy, Bloody Sunday and many others.

Issues with inquests in the British state are not confined solely to the Six Counties, as a recent report by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, on the 26-county system demonstrates. The report documents the heartbreaking incidents where families have had to wait many years to find out what happened to their loved ones. What was done to the Ballymurphy families through malfeasance and contempt is being done to others through neglect bordering on contempt. This must be urgently addressed and the findings of the ICCL report must be implemented.

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