If you want a deeper understanding on how women and children are the "Spoils of War" in any conflict, listen to the wonderful Olivia O'Leary - unrivalled in her detailed observations of human nature - and in her delivery.
At 2 minutes 11 seconds here ;
Announcement re Aoife Grace Moore’s recent book on Sinn Féin.
Moral of the story? Check, check again, and if you get it wrong, do the decent thing and apologise.
I've turned comments off as I am solely concerned with a dignified addressing of a very distressing episode.
The woman on the right of this picture at the coffin is Breige Wright. She features heavily in my book as one of three IRA members who took me into a room to face my rapist.
She's just this year, been put on the board of Community Restorative Justice. Go figure.
This all sounds lovely, and would be, if she wasn't telling IRA victims, there was "no alternative" at the same time. You cannot on the one hand say you "regret" a "loss of life" and then argue there was no other way out than for the IRA "campaign" which killed them...
I've been thinking about this post, and to explain how ridiculous it is, it's like saying "The rapes of Máiría Cahill by an IRA man were terrible, but put them in the context of the Famine and partition."
Rape is a war crime. No ifs or buts.
Michelle O'Neill is currently speaking about "having women's backs" in relation to violence against women and girls. Here's what she said on an IRA sex abuse case. "Not for me to say whether I believe her."
“I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist and still support Sinn Fein while they continue to deny what happened in my case. I think that’s called hypocrisy.”
Where to start?
In '91, the IRA killed two people by bombing Musgrave Park hospital.
They also left a bomb outside the Royal Children's Hospital on the Falls Road.
Then, the time bullets ripped through incubators in the neo natal unit when they tried to kill Nigel Dodds.
Pat Cullen asked if she will take her seat in Westminster, and whether she will move to the Fermanagh and South Tyrone area during her time as MP
@irish_news
#GE24
The SF difficulty with this interview was not the interviewer's approach, but that McDonald was not allowed to waffle as she normally does, particularly in media doorsteps and in NI. The interview was simply trying to illicit detail on her vacuous policy.
Here is the FM saying the Kingsmill families deserved truth and justice at the inquest. The republican movement, including members of her party, refused to cooperate with the inquest, meaning that they denied the full truth to them.
Anyone going to call out this gaslighting?
🚨FM
@moneillsf
: "I am sorry for every lost life, including those in Kingsmill disaster."
When asked if she would apologise on behalf of republican movement for killings carried out - FM also said "families deserve truth & justice."
Political Reporter
@jamesgould23
was there.
So, the man who abused me - and other children - sent a good luck message to
@johnfinucane
for going on the telly last night. This was John Finucane's public response. Seriously, John?
Here is the former Officer Commanding of the IRA in Long Kesh prison, tweeting me complaining about who he thinks turned up to my book launch.
This is what I have to put up with.
News, Flash. Youse don't scare me any more.
@splancmc
@moneillsf
Agree. You couldn't start by exercising your own responsibility as a SF leader and admit that the IRA "investigated" my abuse, brought me face to face with my rapist, and used SF offices to question me?
You could ask your colleague Duckser. He might know the answer...
Fair play to the man who walked into the SF shop on the Falls Road to ask if he could buy a copy of Rough Beast. He couldn't because, although they sell Ian Paisley's books (even though he removed a tricolour nearby), they're censoring mine... here it is in Tenerife instead. 😉
If anyone else put out a sweeping sectarian statement like this, it would be called a dog-whistle. But its Joe Brolly (who incidentally believes he has a positive contribution to make to political office), and so many people just roll their eyes and go "That's Joe".
Why?
Why do Ulster Scot Protestants support genocide? The mass murder of men, women and children? Why do they champion it with such relish - crush, erase, eradicate, destroy? 8,000 murdered already. How many dead kids is enough? 10,000? 100,000? 500,000?
I just spent time with the families of the Shankill bomb at a very moving service. I put my arms around a terminally ill mother whose 13 year old child was taken from her along with eight others that day. I watched devastation on first responders faces. Take down your tweet.
Not sure what is going on with Joe Brolly these days, but this is really unacceptable. Perhaps if you read the book Joe, you'd think twice about your online persona, which, I'm told, is marginally worse than your offline one. I'll send you a copy if you like.
@JoeBrolly1993
Me being questioned by the IRA in Gerry Adams' office and in other Sinn Féin offices about my abuse, has been read into the Dáil record by
@ciarancannon
Sinn Féin should answer questions put to it by journalists.
Rough Beast details the meetings and I'm glad to have it raised.
Congratulations to
@mikenesbittni
on
@uuponline
leadership. I've known him since he was Victims Commissioner, and he's a good guy. A wee story... Mike wasn't able to make my Belfast book launch, so he hopped on a train after a busy day and surprised me at the Dublin one. 1/2
Monday's Shankill bomb memorial service taken by their official photographer. Joe Hendron visited the road in the aftermath of the bomb to offer help to people. Now, at almost 91, he's still visiting.
In every conflict, the sense of entitlement over women's bodies means that they and children are the "spoils of war." The recent videos showing women who have been clearly raped and are bleeding being paraded through the streets, is both chilling and sickening.
4 star review from The Telegraph for
#roughbeast
"To begin with Rough Beast reads like a thriller... Anyone who thinks Adams' party should be anywhere near power in Ireland, should read this book."
For those who don't know, a 'museum' has opened up in Derry called "Peacemakers", consisting of a load of information about Sinn Féin people and a photo of John Hume, presumably to give it credence. Hume's family have distanced themselves. Who funds it? Photos below..
This woman came into my life ten years ago because she stood up for the right thing and gave me a voice against my abusers.
She got dogs abuse, has integrity to her fingertips. and stayed the course. I am so proud of my friend
@ReginaDo
. She deserves every bit of this win.
This is disgusting. Brolly would be the first to complain if his views on anything were linked to his late father. John FitzGerald is an economist who stated on air he is agnostic on unity. He also said his father was "suffering from confirmation bias". Brolly should apologise.
The “top economist” who spearheaded the ‘research’ on a United Ireland is John Fitzgerald. He is Fine Gael royalty. His grandfather a founding member of FG. As Taoiseach, his father Garret supported Margaret Thatcher’s position on the hunger strikes. He loathed our community.
Like anyone else who knows Jeffrey Donaldson, I am shocked by recent news. There is a court process in place, and that has to be allowed to run its course. Online speculation is not helpful to anyone, and I don't intend to add to it, but I will await the outcome of that process.
Life comes at you fast. One minute, you've got Sinn Féin proudly displayed in your profile, then after insulting a child abuse victim who calls you out, you don't.
Thank you to
@fionnansheahan
.
"Sinn Féin has ducked, dived and dodged questions for almost a decade now about whether its offices hosted an IRA kangaroo court. Imagine the outcry if a Labour Party office was used for a Kinahan Cartel meeting..."
Here I am, late 1990s at a Sinn Féin organised protest ( later turned into a riot). I have confidence in Drew Harris and the Justice Minister, because I watched Gardaí deal with widespread disorder in a short space of time, without firing one baton round. Mary Lou is showboating.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald says she has no confidence in the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris or the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee following last night riots in Dublin city centre.
Shinners really treating the electorate as if they're taking their votes for granted by repeatedly not putting Michelle O'Neill up in debates. It also makes her look like an imbecile and not capable of holding her own.
Republicans have long understood the connection between Irish freedom & women’s rights. From Ann Devlin to Anna Parnell, Markievicz to Drumm, from Sheena Campbell to Mairead Farrell - an unbroken line of women who sacrificed for freedom, equality & justice
I'm very happy at this judgement - it has been a long 4+ years case for
@malodoherty
- and it was a disgraceful case to take against him.
Other Sinn Féin representatives should drop their existing cases against journalists and stop issuing legal letters like confetti.
#slapp
"Not since Gerry Kelly blew up the Old Bailey in London half a century ago has he caused so much damage. But whereas that explosion killed one man and injured more than 200 others, this time the damage is confined to himself and his party. "
I've known
@columeastwood
since before he had a beard.. He's hugely talented - a great communicator, nimble in an argument. I have always appreciated his support, and I am sorry to see him stepping down as SDLP leader. Best of luck to you, Colum, as you go forward.
Great news!
Rough Beast is now available to buy in all good bookshops throughout Ireland and the UK.
Thanks to everyone who will buy a copy, or who has already pre-ordered. Very much appreciated.
Well. Rough Beast went to Number One in the Irish Paperback Non-Fiction charts. Thank you to all who are buying the book and reading it. And who are telling your friends to pick it up too.
#roughbeast
@chrisadonnelly
Wasn't a myth Chris. I did a series on tape of prominent SF women, one of whom was Marie Moore - then the Deputy Mayor of Belfast - who not only admitted to impersonation, but described how she voted 6 times in one day.
@SJAMcBride
Am really chuffed (and overwhelmed) to say that world-renowned author and playwright Roddy Doyle has read my book, and he says it is "Shocking, important, and unputdownable." Thanks so much Roddy, I really appreciate it.
Rough Beast is available from 28th September.
Jim Allister rightly pointing out to the First Minister her words about a rape victim, and indeed Gerry Adams' words to me.
He didn't need to use the word hypocrites on a motion on Violence against women. Have a listen.
Here's Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey switching on the Stormont Christmas tree lights in November, Mairéad. In 2022, there were 45,292 households on the social housing waiting list in NI.
Spotted this tree in the Dáil this evening just after speaking on homelessness in the Dáil, shame on the Government for making people homeless in the run up to Christmas, thinking of the families who can't put up a tree this year, shame on this Government
IRA man Seamus Marley, son of IRA leader Larry Marley, who abused Paudie McGahon and another boy, will be released next week.
He refuses to accept responsibility for his crimes.
Sinn Féin had the info and never reported it to Gardaí, putting children at risk.
Just to those who are running accounts with very little followers all saying the same thing.
Not my first rodeo. I now thankfully have recourse to hold abusive accounts (and those operating them) accountable.
If you had any wit you'd realise you're selling my book for me.
"In Belfast Adams carried the Shankill bombers coffin. There is a myth, oft-repeated, that he had to, for peace. Nonsense. He chose to, and he should own the fact that he deliberately shouldered Begley, knowing the signal it would send to the bereaved."
In 1999, the body of Ardoyne man Eamon Molloy (killed in 1975) was left in a coffin above ground near Faughart cemetery. Now, again in the same townland, the ICLVR are digging for the remains of Robert Nairac. His family deserves closure.
I'm scratching my head at the whole Pearse Mc Auley debate.
1. SF members will not go to his funeral.
2. SF members will go to Rose Dugdales funeral.
That is because SF (as I wrote previously) separate different acts of violence. Cont'd.
"For instance, Mary Lou McDonald is suing RTÉ over comments made about the Mairia Cahill case, while her husband is suing Shane Ross over parts of his book that dealt with the purchase and renovation of the couple’s house."
“I understand that people are frustrated and look for where the grass is greener..but anybody that thinks Sinn Fein is going to wave a wand and have this utopian magic united Ireland, which is going to do away with every social ill there is bonkers...”
Big thank you to
@StephenNolan
and his team at
@BBCNolan
for that interview.
A reminder that Sinn Féin has never admitted an IRA investigation took place, or that their offices were used by the IRA to question me.
Read the book. It's in there from A-Z.
#roughbeast
To stand against violence inflicted on women, you have to stand against it all without party hypocrisy,blind eyes, or refusal to admit your own failings.
Mary Lou McDonald told a newspaper she had "no regrets" on her handling of my case. She lost all credibility at that point.
Sinn Féin Leader
@MaryLouMcDonald
has extended her solidarity to Natasha O’Brien, adding: “Yesterday’s court judgement and others like it raise fundamental questions about how the government and the judicial system deal with violence against women.”
@patcullen9
I look forward to you speaking up and speaking out about sexual abuse by republicans, and covered up by Sinn Féin, which resulted in victims having to be treated by the health service.
The crazy thing about all this is that SF want Stormont funding to name a peace building in Derry – and they want Mc Guinness' name alongside John Humes. Can anyone think of a worse insult to Hume's legacy?
When I wrote the line in the McGuinness The Fisherman poem : 'He loaded the boot with a bomb and smiled for the camera', this is the film I was referring to.
Watch Martin McGuinness help to put a car bomb together, which later blows up Shipquay Street.
To the person who recently sent me a letter about IRA sexual abuse but didn't leave your name or contact details. Just to let them know that I received it. And that you should never blame yourself for the actions of another / others. Thank you for writing.
This is two years after I was first abused, and the same year that the IRA came to me in 1999. Look how young I was. This is the young woman who walks up the street in the Prologue of Rough Beast.
Today's column.
Máiría Cahill: Rhasidat Adeleke is an icon of true Irish pride. Racists should run a mile in her shoes. A hard job, when they are not fit to tie her laces.
My daughter Saorlaith was 13 recently. I was pregnant with her when I made my police complaint. What better way to be an embarrassing mother than to have everyone at a book launch sing Happy Birthday? (We kept her out of the room due to the sensitive content until the end.)
I absolutely condemn the threat against Ms McDonald.
She should rethink her comments below in light of her recent experience. Words carry weight and contribute to a toxic environment. Zero tolerance of violence means zero without justification, past or present.
"If a victim of abuse is telling you (Mary Lou Mc Donald) that the Sinn Féin party offices were used by an illegal armed organisation to question them, then you have a responsibility to do something about that."
Sinn Féin are corporately responsible.
Happy New Year. The first two women made my year in October, and are the kindest (and brilliant) women. The second two are wingnuts, but good wingnuts. Here's to 2024, and thanks to everyone who read the book, shared the book, or sold the book in the last one. Always appreciated.
The obvious question to Michelle would have been : "Have you ever instructed a solicitor to send a legal letter on your behalf to a journalist, and then not follow up with a writ?"
I know the answer, I would just like to know if it was asked. If not, people are sleeping in.
Michelle O’Neill said Sinn Fein has no “joined-up or concerted effort” to silence anybody through legal action after a party MLA was ordered to pay costs in a failed defamation action.
➡️
In short. If you're going to complain that being called an IRA man accused of shooting someone in the head damages your reputation, probably best not to write not one but two memoirs about being in the IRA.
At the risk of starting murder, it isn't just "British people" who call it Boxing Day. We've always called it Boxing Day in NI, and in all of my 42 years, I never heard one Irish west Belfast republican refer to it as anything else.
I am thinking of my friends Breege and Stephen on the 16th anniversary of their son Paul's murder.
Anyone who can help the Quinn family, please do so. It's never too late.
Quite a lot of misogyny flying around here again, which disproves my theory that had I gone public after
#MeToo
I wouldn't have been treated as badly by republicans online.
They're just as bad, and so the only thing to do is keep plugging the book.
Una has been suggesting for the last number of years that SF is a left wing party. They are not. Never have been.
To understand the party, you have to understand that two things come first.
1. The party
2. Irish republicanism.
Every other policy is secondary.
Before the bots fly at me, I was specifically asked "Do you think Kneecap would be treated the same if they were Loyalists? And I said "no, there would be less romanticism"..
Still wondering how this happened. No agent, little clue what I was doing, just me, a laptop and an understanding editor and publisher when I changed from the book I was writing, to Rough Beast.
Now, nominated for Non- Fiction book of the year.
Vote.
Thanks to everyone who has helped to get this book out there since September. All those who have read the book, bought the book, sold it, recommended it, or gifted it. All my Christmas prep is done, so I'm now catching up on reading everyone else's writing.
@DominicDohertyj
No Dominic. Just an abuse victim who is upset that two other traumatised victims are traumatised that their abuser is getting out next wk, and that the party of which you were/are a press officer, would be so indifferent to their pain, that you would tweet this and think it's OK.
Southern media take note :
Mc Donald's 'move on' response is all the more callous to those hurt, given a victim whose mother was blown to bits was on radio this morning reacting to Pat Cullen's answer.
Until SF take responsibility, no one is moving forward.
I loved this review for
#roughbeast
"They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and Mairia Cahill has served both Adams and McDonald on ice, like 2 beautifully dressed crabs."
"If Cahill hasn't considered a career as a political sketchwriter, she really should start."
Last night's book launch was a microcosm of NI society. There were Unionists and Nationalists, Loyalists and Republicans, people who had no position on the Constitutional question, police, lawyers, politicians and non political people.
Everyone got along. Thank you all.
A bit of a thread as to why this case was such a head scratcher for Gerry Kelly to take.
1. He was involved in the 1983 Prison escape.
2. He was involved with Bobby Storey in a takeover of part of the prison. A gun was involved.
3. A prison officer was shot in the head.(1/3)
I'm very happy at this judgement - it has been a long 4+ years case for
@malodoherty
- and it was a disgraceful case to take against him.
Other Sinn Féin representatives should drop their existing cases against journalists and stop issuing legal letters like confetti.
#slapp
When I wrote the line in the McGuinness The Fisherman poem : 'He loaded the boot with a bomb and smiled for the camera', this is the film I was referring to.
Watch Martin McGuinness help to put a car bomb together, which later blows up Shipquay Street.
I interviewed Ian Bailey four years ago in west Cork for
@Independent_ie
. It remains the strangest interview I've done. I don't know definitively whether or not he killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier. But I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
Thirty years ago today, UFF gunmen shot my classmate's mother, Theresa Clinton (34), 23 times as she sat on her sofa, killing her. She had two children. Later, a report found collusion. This is a plaque about her life. I think of her and Roseann often, but especially on the 14th.
I wrote this piece for
#IWD
a few years ago. Rather than write another, given my view hasn't changed, I'm recycling this one.
It's for those people who call themselves feminists but cherrypick their victims, making them not feminists but hypocrites.
It shouldn't have to be said, but if you publish information which could, or is likely to lead to the identification of a complainant in a sexual offences case, it is 6 months imprisonment.
Complainants in such cases have a legal lifetime right to anonymity +25 yrs after death.
As the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis gets underway, The Newsletter continues to try and get an answer from the party.
"Mairia Cahill has called for clarity over a claim in her book that the IRA used Sinn Fein offices to question her about abuse allegations."
Meant to post this earlier. My daughter Saorlaith is usually very cool around public figures because she's grown up around a lot of them and thinks they're her mates. I have never seen a reaction from her like the other night when she met Ryan Tubridy and
@1rorycowan
. Delighted.
I would expect the
@duponline
, the
@SDLPlive
the
@uuponline
and
@allianceparty
to make the obvious point.
We cannot cherry pick which women we treat properly and those we don't. Treating women properly means admitting responsibility for how they were treated.
#nocredibility
Sinn Féin will bring forward an Assembly motion to ensure the Violence Against Women & Girls Strategy becomes a priority.
Tackling violence against women & girls is essential in our community.
The scourge of gender violence & misogyny must be ended
#WorkingForAll