Common knowledge presented as red-hot news. An Ulster priest's murderous secret life led to what he would have regarded as nine casualties of war (inconveniently, Catholics as well as Protestants), one of them a nine-year-old girl, Kathryn Eakin. But didn't we know this already? ...
Many years ago, I sat down in the vast and what must once have been wonderful village green of Kew, these days bisected by the South Circular Road, and refreshed my memory of Brian Inglis's essential biography of Sir Roger Casement.
Previously secret Casement papers were about to be released at the nearby Public Records Office. But I was too early; the place wasn't yet open. So I found a bench and browsed the Inglis paperback I'd brought along as a handy reference.
When, finally, I was able to examine the documents, some still bearing the marks of government censors, I found myself amused by the excitement of some of the other journalists present. They thought they had stumbled upon a historical goldmine, yet much of what they believed to be new had already been published, years earlier, in Mr Inglis's work and, I am sure, the writing of others.
So I do not especially criticise my old colleague Owen Bowcott, and all the other Fleet Street characters now foaming at the mouth on being able to "reveal" that the bombing of Claudy, Co Londonderry, which killed young Kathryn Eakin and eight other souls in 1972, was the work of a local Catholic priest, Father James Chesney.
In their defence, the "new" information comes from a new source, an official report. But it is not new at all. This, too, I read in one or more of the countless books concerning the Troubles that I have devoured over the past two or three decades. And the earlier disclosures also led to follow-up (or simply lifted) reports in the media.
Owen, ex-Telegraph but for many years a Guardian man, was the latter paper's Belfast-based correspondent, and a very good one at that. He has probably read the same books. I suppose he would say this was the Ombudsman's report, freshened by the Ombudsman's own assessment, and that he fully answers my misgivings by pointing out that it "confirms suspicions".
But his report, which I now reproduce - I have seen others in similar vein - would have been all the better had it included fuller reference to the many previous "suspicions" (in fact, detailed accounts):
A Catholic priest directed devastating IRA car bomb attacks in the Northern Irish village of Claudy in 1972 and his role was covered up by senior police officers, government ministers and the Catholic hierarchy, an official investigation has revealed.
Nine people were killed and more than 30 were injured when three vehicles exploded on the main street without warning on 31 July. It was one of the worst atrocities of the bloodiest year of the Troubles.
Three of the dead caught up in the mid-morning blast were children. No one was ever charged with the killings, and the IRA at the time denied responsibility. The long-awaited report by the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, published today, confirms suspicions that Father James Chesney, a priest in the nearby village of Bellaghy, was directly involved in the IRA operation, and suggests his involvement was even greater than previously assumed.
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detectives who investigated the attack, the report says, concluded "that the priest was the IRA's director of operations in South Derry and was alleged to have been directly involved in the bombings and other terrorist incidents".
But they failed to act on the intelligence and evidence they had gathered because senior police officers intervened to prevent them interviewing him, the report adds: "Police ombudsman investigators spoke to a former special branch detective who said he had wanted to arrest Father Chesney in the months after the bombing," it explains, "but that this had been refused by the assistant chief constable (ACC) special branch, who had advised that 'matters are in hand.'"
Senior politicians feared the arrest of a priest in connection with such an atrocity – at a time when sectarian killings in Northern Ireland were out of control and the province stood on the brink of civil war – could destabilise the security situation even further.
A deal was therefore arranged behind closed doors to remove Chesney from the province without provoking sectarian fury. Documents seen by the police ombudsman show that the ACC wrote to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) on 30 November 1972 saying that he had been considering "what action, if any, could be taken to render harmless a dangerous priest, Father Chesney", and suggesting: "Our masters may find it possible to bring the subject into any conversations they may be having with the cardinal or bishops at some future date."
An NIO official wrote back a week later confirming that the secretary of state, Willie Whitelaw, had held a meeting with Cardinal Conway, the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, and: "The cardinal said that he knew that the priest was a very bad man and would see what could be done. The cardinal mentioned the possibility of transferring him to Donegal."
A number of senior RUC officers, including the then chief constable, Sir Graham Shillington, saw the correspondence. Shillington commented on the letter: "I would prefer Tipperary". (Donegal is only just across the border with the Irish Republic; Tipperary is 200 miles south.)
Church records confirm the deal: "An entry in Cardinal Conway's diary for 5 December 1972 confirms that the meeting with the secretary of state took place. It records that he had a "rather disturbing tête-à-tête at the end about C".
Chesney was subsequently ordered to take sick leave in early 1973, and was transferred to a parish in County Donegal later that year. When questioned by his superiors, he denied involvement in the Claudy bombings. He died in 1980. It is believed that he joined the south Derry brigade of the IRA in early 1972 in response to the killings of civil rights protesters in Derry on Bloody Sunday by British soldiers.
All the senior figures involved in the deal to remove Chesney and hush up his role have since died. The police ombudsman's inquiry stresses there is no evidence to suggest that any intelligence was discovered before the attack that could have prevented the atrocity.
In a highly critical conclusion, the report states: "For senior police officers to have had the weight of intelligence and information that they had pointing to Father Chesney's possible involvement in terrorism and not to have pursued lines of inquiry, which could potentially have implicated him in or eliminated him from the investigation, was wrong and compromised their investigation into the Claudy bombings."
The decision amounted to collusion between the church and the state, according to the police ombudsman, Al Hutchinson. "I accept that 1972 was one of the worst years of the Troubles and that the arrest of a priest might well have aggravated the security situation," he said. "Equally, I consider that the police failure to investigate someone they suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism could, in itself, have had serious consequences.
"In the absence of explanation the actions of the senior RUC officers, in seeking and accepting the government's assistance in dealing with the problem of Father Chesney's alleged wrongdoing, was by definition a collusive act."
Had the participants in the deal still been alive, Hutchinson said, "their actions would have demanded explanation which would have been the subject of further investigation".
Take away the spin, and the wise-after-the-event comments, and there is not a single important fact in that report of which I, and presumably many thousands of others (including the entire literate population of Northern Ireland) was not aware. I knew of the priest's role, of the cover-up and of the fears that drove that cover-up.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...
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