Ana the Imp
This is a tale of a succubus
In Memory of Jean McConville
I'm generally quite a controlled person. I do get angry but I prefer not to let emotions get the better of my judgement. I prefer to look at things in a detached manner, especially items on the news which have little direct bearing on my life. But sometimes my guard slips. It did at the weekend after I read a story by Amanda Forman in The Observer. It concerns a nobody; it concerns a woman who was turned into a nobody: it concerns Jean McConville.
Perhaps you've never heard of her. I hadn't until I opened the paper. She's dead now; she's been dead for years, her remains long incarcerated in a hidden grave. She was a victim, the victim of an IRA murder squad, who kidnapped her in front of seven of her children from their home in West Belfast in the winter of 1972. Their father was already dead and they were never to see their mother again. Sent to orphanages, they were told a malicious lie – that she had deserted them.
Jean McConville was a victim long before those IRA thugs took her. A Protestant by birth, she married one Arthur McConville, a Catholic, converting in the process. But this just made her a double outcast, rejected by the Unionist Community and suspected by the Nationalist. She and her husband both suffered repeated sectarian persecution. Forced to move from place to place, they finally ended up in the Falls Road. After her husband's death from cancer in 1971, Jean's position, already bad, became intolerable. When her neighbours reported that she had been seen aiding a wounded British soldier she was taken away by an armed gang, never to be seen alive again.
We now know that she was tortured prior to being murdered; that she was beaten with such force that her bones broke and her hands were mutilated. After she was shot in the back of the head, death in the well-practiced Moscow style, she was taken over the border and buried on Shelling Beach in County Louth. For the next thirty years, as Forman says, the IRA denied that they had anything to do with her disappearance.
The murder was only the beginning of the crimes against Jean McConville. It was almost as if she had never existed, that she did not matter, that her disappearance did not matter. The then Royal Ulster Constabulary did not even trouble themselves to record the complaint of her abduction. More than that, they refused to accept that she was even missing, insisting on the basis of an anonymous tip-off (no real need to guess from whom) that she had absconded with a British soldier.
That would have been that but for the fact that a silent witness turned up. In 2003 the earth gave up its secret when a storm washed away part of the Shelling Beach car park, finally exposing her body. The IRA now admitted responsibility for the crime, justifying the act on the basis that she had been an 'informant.'
It was only now, after years of shocking negligence, that the authorities began to take the matter seriously. Robert Carswell, the Lord Chief Justice, ruled that, in the circumstances, the government should break its neither confirm or deny policy on such intelligence matters, to reveal if there had been any secret dealings with Jean McConville. There were none. In 2006 Baroness Nuala O'Loan, the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, ruled that she had never been an agent at any time, that she was "an innocent woman who had been abducted and murdered."
The police have apologised for their negligence. The IRA, an organisation I hold in the deepest contempt, has also offered a hypocritical, self-serving 'apology', saying that it "regrets the suffering" caused to Jean's family. Remember, most of them were small children, including six year old twin brothers, when their mother was taken as they screamed and cried.
Jean McConville is just one among the legion of the lost, totally unimportant then and too insignificant now to derail the so-called peace process, which has seen terrorists enter government in Northern Ireland. But justice, unlike law, never sleeps; justice bleeds from open wounds. We now know who exactly was responsible for ordering Jean's abduction and murder. He is Gerry Adams, president of Sein Fein, accused by former confederates, the same man who is about to enter the politics of the Republic, who is standing for the Dail for County Louth, the same place where Jean was hidden all those years ago. I fully share Foreman's disquiet;
Ireland is a member of the International Criminal Court whose charter clearly states that the definition of a war crime includes the murder of civilians in "an armed conflict not of an international character". Thus a man who is alleged to be a war criminal, who is alleged to have broken the law in one of the worst crimes in Irish and Northern Irish history, is poised to become a governor and make that country's laws.
There are so many things done for the sake of expediency, but this can be pushed too far, even for peace. To reach any accommodation with a wretch such as Adams, to vote for a wretch such as Adams, to breath the same air as a wretch such as Adams would be too much for any normal human being, anyone who entertains even the most elementary concepts of moral rectitude and justice. Jean McConville, friendless and isolated, murdered for no good reasons, an uneducated woman without connections, a victim of the worst kind of prejudice, is his abiding legacy. Like Foreman I will not forget. This blog is dedicated to her memory.
Posted by Anastasia F-B at 16:01
Labels: ireland, murder, terrorism
Fletch's Blog 6 December 2010 at 16:13
Anastasia F-B 6 December 2010 at 16:45
Well I hope the ends of justice are served, in one way or another.
I'm not an English nationalist; I'm an English patriot. England is my nation and I love my nation. I'm not anti-British; I'm just indifferent to Britishness, something that has come to me over time. As far as Ulster remaining part of the United Kingdom or not that is up to the people of Ulster, not me. Your final sentence reminds me of someone, I quite forget who it was. :-)
A patriot is a girl who loves her country. A nationalist is a girl who hates everyone else's country. :-) Nighty-night. It's wooden hill time.
still_here 6 December 2010 at 18:27
Bringing one instance of wrong doing that happened in Northern Ireland's history is very distorting and emotive. Many acts were carried out by many people, representing all sides, none of them nice. Then attempt to lay the shooting in the back of the head as something done in Moscow. Need I remind you that in the trenches of the First World War British officers shot their own troops in a similar fashion for not going over the top. You may have empathy with the plight of Jean Mc Conville, as I do myself, but to put one side and not mention names like those killed in cold blood, and branded terrorist, on bloody Sunday by British soldiers, or those killed mercilessly by the shankill butchers is only telling one side of a very troubled, and still healing, societies story.
anthony 6 December 2010 at 18:36
When a country is divided by colonial interests there will always be problems until like people are reunited as Vietnam . Ireland , Korea, China-Taiwan etc. pretty much the same.
Calvin 6 December 2010 at 19:27
As the old tales reveal, Ireland has been brewing such tragedies since prehistory. Some peoples remember their triumphs and accomplishments; the Irish recall their sorrows, and each sad memory begets more.
Adams and his fellow cutthroats are tainted with more than Ireland's tradition. They are also infected with the corruption of International Socialism, a creed willing to sacrifice anyone (except its adherents, of course) in the cause of creating a rigid, centrally-controlled utopian prison indistinguishable from Hell.
Jeremy Janson 6 December 2010 at 20:26
No one ever needs to act that way, but then again these are the people who gave us "bonefires."
"A patriot is a girl who loves her country. A nationalist is a girl who hates everyone else's country."
Well said. I don't hate anybodies country. I know that occasionally bad stuff happens, and when it does it needs to be resolved, but that's a matter of business, not hate.
Adam, what on earth are you on about, what gives you the idea that I 'hate' Serbia and Russia? Where did you pick that up? Because I made fun of Putin and his vest? Is Putin and the vest Russia? Please don't be so absurd.
I've said precious little here about Serbia, though I reviewed Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon at length earlier this year. You will find plenty on Russia, including plenty on my admiration for Russian literature and my interest in Russian history and fokelore. Dostoevsky continues to be my favourite author, along with Dickens. Please think before you write silly things like this, or I really will et angry. Indifferent to the point of contempt is a non-sequitur.
Still here, first welcome to my blog and thanks for your contribution. To begin with I would like to see your evidence that British officers shot soldiers in the back of the head during the First World War, a clear breach of military law. Some deserters may have been shot in the heat of battle but not in this intimate and cold blooded manner.
Now for your more substantive point. Yes, lots of terrible things happened during the Troubles, and again yes, there were perpetrators and victims on both sides. Each and every one of the stories deserves to be heard but not here and not now. This blog is my observation on a particular tragedy, one whose anniversary falls this month. I do not wish the case of Jean McConville to be drowned in anonymity, drowned in a sea of tragedy, especially as it has an immediate moral and political relevance in the context of Adams election campaign
Anthony, there are places in the world where history has an immediate relevance.
Calvin, agreed.
Jeremy, it should be.
Ireland has never been united . . . ever. Before the Norman Conquest it was a set of feuding kingdoms, subject to raids by Norse slavers - some of whom established permanent settlements - and to a constant exchange of raids with their feuding cousins in Scotland. After the Conquest, there were new invaders to accommodate - not English, but Norman, who established themselves as overlords with the same tact and sensitivity with which they treated the English. But the real indignity that seems to seethe beneath Oirish resentment of the English was not a result of racial or political domination, but the direct result of the Reformation. It is the religious divide, and the perpetual vicious propaganda of each sect, that has fueled resentment for the past 400 years. That energy fueled the Fenians, and was diverted and channeled by the cynical Marxists of Sinn Fein.
'As the old tales reveal, Ireland has been brewing such tragedies since prehistory. Some peoples remember their triumphs and accomplishments; the Irish recall their sorrows, and each sad memory begets more.'
That really is the most egregious hokum, Calvin.
Hello Ana. Re Adams, I hope he loses in Louth, though he will probably gain a seat. But he and SF are small and irrelevant in the Republic anyway, except in their own minds. They will not be part of any coalition government.
I am uneasy about the 'alleged to be a war criminal' angle. We have a legal system to which all are amenable. If someone has committed crimes they ought to be charged with them in court.
'Oirish', Calvin? WTF?
Your reading of Irish history is skewed and simplistic.
Adam, I am not keen on contemporary Russian politicians. In fact you would have to go back an awful long way to find a Russian politician I was keen on, all the way back to Pytor Stolypin.
I support, if support is the right word, the men you mention inasmuch as they are members of the Conservative Party and the present government. Their views are their views; my views are my views. I would still like to see the evidence, though, for their alleged 'hatred' of Russia. Too many eggs, Adam, always to many eggs.
Calvin, I certainly agree that Sein Fein has fearfully misused 'their' community.
Brendano, I hope so too. Your point is a fair one.
Adam, I think that's going too far. I really do have to go now.
Retarius 7 December 2010 at 02:15
Beats me why they didn't emigrate..to Australia for example. What a repulsive story. If Adams is the author of the deed he should be whacked..slowly. But how is he implicated? I haven't heard this one.
COUNT SNEAKY 7 December 2010 at 07:23
I just finished reading your current post. It was most interesting and I will be back to read all of them. In the meantime, I am your new follower. My best. Count Sneaky
@Calvin: Baloney. The Highlanders may have occasionally made raids in to Ireland, but they made them while allied with OTHER Irish clans. Norway's economy was never highly dependent on slaves, though it did occasionally happen.
The difference is that when the Highlanders came, they came tied to the traditional clan structure of Ireland, often on behalf of another Irish clan, while when the Norwegians came, the majority of the time they were primarily businesspeople who conducted trade, which they found far more profitable then attempting to create slave plantations on marginal Scandinavian land that can barely support the people already on them.
Ireland was not "united" in the sense of being one kingdom, but it was "united" in the sense of being one culture, and then the SCOTS BORDERERS (a totally different people, more similar to the English then the Highlanders, even though they fly a Scottish flag) came and began pushing the Irish clans off their land, exploiting the lack of a central kingdom to their ends. It had nothing to do with the reformation - Ireland and the Catholic portions of the Highlands have always been very different from the other Catholic countries as they follow the principles of Saint Andrew instead of Saint Paul.
This pecuiliar system and way of thinking is part of why the Irish were in the unique position to be an important influence on so called "Anglosaxon" economics. Free trade and economic freedom is how the Irish had done things from day one, being the original European free port. This is also why the Irish were wealthy enough at one time to develop such a gluttonous culture.
Feel free to post contradictory evidence, B. Merely saying "it ain't so" is not a compelling argument.
Adam, I don't have to prove a thing, certainly not a negative. You have made an inflated comment to the effect that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of this country, as well as a leading MP, my constituency MP, are 'Russophobes'. On the basis of what, exactly? Is any criticism of Russian action or policy to be denounced as Russophobia? It seems it is as far as you are concerned. You seem to be basing your inflated accusation solely on the Hancock business. You should do a little bit of background research on this man and see what you come up with; it's not all that edifying. See what some of his Portsmouth constituents think of him. This is a good start www.po12bg.com/id4.html
Did you know, for example, that he has an accusation of sexual assault hanging over him? So, here we have this fading man, a man with a dubious sexual record, with access to sensitive information, an obvious target for an agency interested in espionage. The next thing he acquires a young and attractive assistant, who just happens to be Russian. He asks for all sorts of information, sensitive information vital to the security of this country, information that might be of interest to a potential enemy, that might be of interest to, say, Russia.
It's a classic situation, almost a cliché. MI6 would have negligent in the extreme not to have this woman under surveillance. They have now produced a prima facie case, strong enough to have her deported, material the government, quite rightly, is acting on. I have not the least idea if this woman is a spy or not, but in Cameron or Hague's position I would have done exactly the same; I, too, therefore, would be Russophobe, or a hater of Russia, an accusation you have already made against me on the basis of no evidence at all.
I'm so glad that you have no position of power, no position where you oversee the interests and security of this nation. Forgive me, but your wholly uncritical attitude towards a foreign power is unusual in a private citizen; in someone in a position of influence, someone who had access to sensitive information, it would be dangerous. You would be a perfect target for some foreign spymaster, for Moscow centre itself. I know I'm going to be misunderstood here but in so many ways your outlook resembles that of the infamous Cambridge Apostles. Can you not see that yourself? And before you rush in I'm not for a moment suggesting that you would ever consider treason. I don't for a moment imagine Hancock would either.
Retarius, it comes from information supplied by the late Brendan Hughes, one-time commander of the IRA's Belfast brigade, and Dolorous Price, the Old Bailey Bomber.
Welcome, Count Sneaky. I shall be sure to return the favour. :-)
@Jason - squabble over details and definitions of race, culture, if you wish. The point is that ENGLAND is the Irish Republican's demon state, whereas Ireland has never be free of foreign interference and alien intrusion. In fact, its very composition is the result of such intrusion. Anglian oppression is a myth made to serve ambitions that are the result of manufactured hatreds, not historical reality.
I said Russia was a potential enemy, and it is, one that carries out an active espionage mission here. If that's your definition of Russophobia then I can see no evidence of it anywhere in this country, certainly not in the office of the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary. I say 'my MP' in the usual fashion, an expression that most people use. I have no interest at all in Ukip, that party of sad and sexist old men! If Russia's has been our 'deepest friend' you really should see exactly how that friendship was shown in the period from September 1939 to June 1941, when the country became an important prop for the German war machine. Once again you simply can't grasp the point. You are a perfect spy target because you have no sense of detachment, no sense of critical distance. Your world is all white and black, only hagiography or demonology, absolute good or absolute evil. Perhaps another FSB murder squad should be sent out to kill the traitors who blew this woman's cover! I have far more important things on my mind than setting up websites dedicated to chastising you or anyone else for that matter. :-)
For most of this century and the last Russia has pursued policies in direct or indirect challenge to our own. It's an unstable county, a nuclear power, that continues to represent a challenge to our interests. It has a government that it is best to be wary of.
Oh, yes, a rotten stereotype; poor old Ukip (sorry, UKIP!). My boyfriend's just off to a lap dancing club -after all, everybody does it -,leaving me to clean behind the fridge and think about the career I will never have. :-))
Your accusations of Russophobia against Cameron are utterly without merit, though, I confess, you are beginning to stir such a mood in me.
Your blog was not critical of Russia. It was critical of the president for not behaving in what you perceive to be the correct Russian way, the Putin way.
Yes, I loath dirty old men, men like Mike Hancock. :-))
And why have you this fixation with Farage's lap dance remark. So what if everyone in his world likes lap dance cabarets. Everyone in your world likes freedom. That does not mean that those outside Farage's circle likes land dance cabarets and it does not mean everyone outside your circle likes individualism. I gave both a go at the behest of others and disliked each.
Moral zealots like Disraeli, I presume?
A young MP might have more sense than this stupid man, the sense not to inquire too deeply into this country's security affairs with Miss Kremlin 2010 in the wings.
Oh, you've quite forgotten about Mr Fridge!
Disraeli's policy was based on a need to curtail Russian advances into Ottoman territory and you know that. It had nothing at all to do with moral considerations, none what so ever.
I doubt it, most young people probably don't even know what the NKVD was.
I haven't a clue what Mr. Fridge is.
And my suspicion of Putin has nothing to do with moral considerations either and everything to do with practical politics, unlike your abject hero worship!
Ah, so you are not quite as up on Ukip (Sorry, UKIP!) gossip as I had assumed? Mr Fridge is Geoffrey Bloom MEP, who regrets that women no longer clean behind fridges and thinks that no sane employer would ever hire a woman of child-bearing age, which rather puts the kybosh on my career prospects.
Well, without being unduly modest, and admitting that I do not have the experience of Russian bodies that you do (most of the women I saw in Moscow looked kind of, well, dumpy) I'm a match for any Russki; so I better stay out of this old, yes, old Lotharios's way, what, with his weakness for 'feshy things.'
Oh, Adam, the heroes you pick; first Bishop Pete and now Don Hancock. :-))
Well in that case your suspensions are empirically unfounded.
Oh Godfrey Bloom, who was just expelled for a day from the EURO-Parliament for referring to Martin Schulz as a fascist when Schulz refers to all Eurosceptics fascists at all times? Yes I remember that remark, but it was just a joke; not in good taste, but just blokeishness, nothing more; perfectly harmless however distasteful. Bloom though is a great economic mind, and a rather good orator.
I didn't think people like you required careers anyway though? I should hope not anyway. Who would work if they didn't have to?
That Bishop and Hancock are not my heroes, I'm just defending Hancock against a gutter press campaign which is deeply racialist and deeply ludicrous.
Unlike Hancock fleshy things matter little to me, but there is a wide global consensus that Russian bodies are the most ably naturally constructed in the world. But as you well know these things are rather irrelevant to me.
I must say though a trend is emerging. You do not care for old men, bearded men and short men. I've not idea how tall Hancock is, but still...
Adam, I never read the gutter press; well, I do: I read the Telegraph and the Times, and -when I really want to go right downmarket - the Guardian, and, always in brown paper, The New York Times. I'm not quite sure in what fashion criticism of Russia and Russian policy could be considered racist. There is a subtlety here that clearly escapes me.
If you think I'm going to spend the best years of my life doing charity work or contemplating my navel you are very much mistaken!
Do convey my apologies to Mr Fridge!
Actually, my targets are never random, always specific. But a fool is a fool, even if they are old, bearded and short.
The things being said about Russia in this country to-day are scarcely different than what was said about non-Germans and Jewish Germans in the Third Reich; all of it without evidential basis. It plays on the stereotypes that have been in the firmament since Palmerston's time; I've even written a blog about that. It's the same racialist bigotry about 'corrupt, violent, cliqueish, barbarous, un-sophisticated Russians' and it is written in each of the publications you mention; and you mention them as if to say I don't read the steadily declining Telegraph, which as you well know I do. I also read the Times most days and even the Guardian and some tabloids if there's time; Peter Hitchens for example in the Daily Mail without doubt punches above the weight of his paper.
I never said you'd go naval gazing, but I just thought that unlike the Middletons of this world the propertied classes didn't need to dirty their hands in indignant slavery to the owners of the means of production. As an advocate of upper class superiority, I should hope not, indeed.
You knowledge of UKIP is selective and that's being charitable. You pick up on Daily Mirror slander stories but never write anything on the great work UKIP MEPs do to spread the truth about the greatest threat to our Sovereignty since the War. How you can think the EU is harmless and Russia is harmful beggars belief.
Your targets may be specific but I notice some trends. And frankly I'll come out and say after this nonsense about needing to 'stay clear of Hancock', I'm going to say I defend him against these fatuous allegations just as his wife does. Hancock poses no threat to you, no threat to these girls and not threat to British security. He's just a somewhat eccentric MP, who is much better looking than William Hague or David Miliband and who realises what everyone in the world knows about Russian bodily construction. Just consider the fitness of Putin vis-a-vis someone like Merkel for example. I wonder what Teutonic Anthony has to say about that?
Calvin, I didn't say 'it ain't so'. You make no actual point, just a sort of generalized tendentious mush that you may (I am guessing) think contradicts Sinn Fein's case, which nobody was making in the first place.
Irish history is complex (especially the seventeenth century, as Ana knows). To scoot through millennia in a few sentences, apparently with the aim of apportioning blame (and absolving from blame) is foolish no matter where the blame might be directed.
Your opening is such overblown rubbish, dangerous rubbish, the sort of grotesque relativising that I mentioned in my blog on the Rote Armee Fraktion. This discussion is at an end.
Incidentally, Ana, the blog is a good one and you are absolutely right about Jean McConville and those who granted themselves the right to kill her.
Her case has been well known here for a long time.
Brendano, it's nice to see you back, it's been a while.
Thanks, Brendano. It was doubly shocking, I suppose, because it was so new to me, that a woman could be taken like this in front of her children. There is one tiny detail that I forgot to mention. Perhaps you already know it? Three weeks after she disappeared her rings were returned together with her purse to the family. The purse contained exactly 52 pence.
Thank you, Adam.
Yes, I remember that now that you mention it, Ana. A poignant postscript to a tough life and death.
Ah, Brendan, you are so tender of Ireland's reputation that you are blind to her faults. "Oirish" is the Irish equivalent of the Orthodox Jew (geddit?) who views all life through the conceit he alone is God's chosen, and that the world turns upon his triumphs and tragedies.
Sadly, for both Jews and Irishmen, a sentimental attachment to victimhood has become a mainstay of politics - an easy vote catcher - and it harms their ability to create a better future. During the boom years, I was hoping we'd see Oirishness shrivel away to nothing, but the recent financial problems may prompt a return. Such a waste.
Adam, a joke, I assume; at least I hope so.
The Crimean War is an event in history. It was a rather pointless event. It's also completely beside the point of this blog. I intend to write a review of Orlando Figes' book on the war at some point. I will discuss it then.
@ Adam: What I have to say is this, do make an effort to stay on the subject, all events are not just about Russia,Stalin,Putin,Hitler,The Third Reich and Yugoslavia.
'Ah, Brendan, you are so tender of Ireland's reputation that you are blind to her faults.'
Not at all, not could anything I have said be reasonably construed as such. In fact I have said nothing about Ireland except that its history is complex. You are making assumptions.
'a sentimental attachment to victimhood has become a mainstay of politics' ... oh God; standard know-nothing waffle. Can you support it?
Verry good, Anushka..I look hims up.
Is it just my imagination or are the Russian spies a bit more obvious than they used to be? These days they don't even bother to wipe the snow off their boots.
Retarius, James Bond would be so disappointed. The challenge has gone!
Anastasia F-B
Hi, I'm Ana! History is my passion -and that is not too strong a word - but I also enjoy politics, philosophy, art, literature and travel. In addition I have a deep interest in witchcraft, in all of the ancient arts. Apart from that I'm a keen sportswoman. I play lacrosse and tennis, but I love riding most of all. I have my own horse, Annette.
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