Did you know that every single injection of Botox in the entire world is made in one single factory right here in Ireland, in Co Mayo? The plant in Westport exports the product to 70 countries and, since its foundation, has shipped hundreds of millions of vials of botox worldwide. The company is called ‘Allergan’ and the facility is 18,000 square metres of mainly automated lines, as well as state-of-the art microbiology and cell-based laboratory facilities with research and development capabilities. The new accounts show that the company’s overall revenues increased by 25 per cent or €1 billion, rising from €4 billion to €5 billion – evidence of the huge demand for the product worldwide. The company’s largest market is the US, which accounts for 68 per cent in sales followed by Europe, Africa and the Middle East, accounting for 14 per cent of revenue. Aging is something that none of us can hide from. Father Time waits for no man as the old saying goes, however, many of us do our best to keep him at bay. That’s where Botox comes into play with over seven million injections of the product administered annually. Its job is to paralyse the muscle so that lines cannot be formed from movement. By now we’ve all at least heard of Botox, some of us have had it, some of us know people who have had it and now we know where it’s made. But did you kanow that sausages were instrumental in its creation!

Yes, sausages. The poison known as Clostridium Botulinum forms in improperly canned tin foods, where small amounts of oxygen can enter and initiate the production of the botulinum toxin. It flourishes in anaerobic conditions and during wartime in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when canning meat in order to preserve it became popular, the toxin exploded in volume and began killing people at unprecedented rates. Scarily, no one knew what was happening, it was a bizarre epidemic that spread, whereby people who had ingested the toxin became ‘frozen’, their faces were no longer able to move, their legs became rigid and within days they died. Botulinum toxin is one of the most lethal poisons in the world and it wasn’t until the late 19th century that we figured out what it was. In the late 1790s and early 1800s, the Kingdom of Württemberg in southern Germany was plagued with the effects of gone off sausages, which had expired and become sour in the tins they were packaged in. Amidst the ongoing Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, adequate food production was stymied by poverty and lapses in food hygiene. Cases of fatal poisoning spiked in the region, prompting the capital of Stuttgart to issue a notice in 1802 on the dangers of the “harmful consumption of smoked blood-sausage.” These sporadic outbreaks were characterised by blurry vision and paralysis. Still, no one knew exactly what was wrong.

Between 1817 and 1822, the German physician Justinus Kerner published the first complete description of the symptoms of botulism, based on extensive clinical observations and animal experiments. He concluded that the toxin that develops in bad sausages under anaerobic conditions, is a biological substance, acts on the nervous system, and is lethal even in small amounts. Kerner hypothesised that this ‘sausage toxin’ could be used to treat a variety of diseases caused by an overactive nervous system, making him the first to suggest that it could be used therapeutically. In 1870, the German physician John Müller coined the term botulism to describe the disease caused by sausage poisoning, from the Latin word botulus, meaning ‘sausage’

 However, it took until 1978 for it to be used in the fashion we are familiar with today, when Alan Scott, an ophthalmologist, in an unprecedented move decided he would inject the world’s deadliest toxin into a human for the first time. This was momentous and required extreme caution including doing the injection in an operating room, monitoring by emergency personnel, and a stay in the intensive care untit post injection. It went without a hitch, but the minuscule dose allowed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) overseers had no effect. The good news was it caused no harm. 

In December 1989, Scott received approval for use in humans aged 12 and over for treating strabismus, and blepharospasm. The following year he sold his company to Allergan for 9 million dollars. Allergan opened the facility in Mayo and is worth $63.65 billion dollars today. Ironically, the anerobic conditions that Allergan uses to grow the botulinum toxin in Westport are the exact same conditions that allowed the preservation of a neolithic village under the Céide Fields in Mayo, as well as bog bodies throughout the country. Despite them being thousands of years old, they have been preserved so well that we can see their fingerprints. Arguably, the best advertisement for Botox of all.

Born in Brussels in 1890, De Wiart was the son of Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart, a well-known and connected lawyer and Ernestine Wenzig, whose mother was Irish.

A combatant in WW1, The Boers War and WW2, de Wiart served four decades in the army, during which time he was shot 11 times: in the face, skull, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, ear, groin, the eye, the hand and the elbow.

He was blinded by the gunshot wound to his eye, leaving him with a trademark eyepatch for the rest of his life.

The bullet to his left hand, sustained in Ypres, on the Western Front, during WW1, completely destroyed three of his fingers and left two hanging on by a shred of skin. When the doctor refused to remove the fingers, which he felt could be salvaged, De Wiart is recorded as ripping them off himself with his right hand. This action meant he eventually lost his arm, leaving him with his other trademark, an empty uniform sleeve.

De Wiart survived his army base being bombed, enemy fire on a plane he was a passenger in, and a plane crash. After crash landing in Italy during WW2, he was taken as a prisoner of war. As a senior member of the British army at the time, he became the highest ranking POW in history. He and his fellow POWs made five escape attempts. During one attempt they spent seven months digging a tunnel, succeeded in breaking free, but were recaptured after a week. He was awarded the Victoria Cross,  the highest decoration for valour in the British armed forces, acknowledging his bravery.

Unencumbered by any ideological inclination, and narcotised by the smell of blood, de Wiart was doggedly loyal to any arbitrary cause that would pitch him against armed adversaries. In other words, he was the field-marshal’s dream and the pacifist’s nightmare. He was also utterly, resolutely, ‘unkillable’.

De Wiart was brought up in Surrey, England, and then Cairo, where his father was a lawyer, magistrate, and a director of the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company and well-connected in Egyptian governmental circles. Adrian Carton de Wiart learned to speak Arabic during his time here.

After attending boarding school in England, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, leaving around 1899, just before or during the Second Boer War, to join the British Army. Failing his law preliminary, de Wiart was drawn to the Foreign Legion “that romantic refuge of the misfits” but the outbreak of the Boer War sparked an epiphany in him: “At that moment I knew, once and for all, that I was determined to fight, and I didn’t mind who or what. If the British didn’t fancy me I would offer myself to the Boers.”

In South Africa, de Wiart joined up with a bunch of local corps, during which time he copped the first of several bullets, this one in the groin.

“I do not think it possible for anyone to have had a duller dose of war,” he later wrote, having been invalided back to the nursing home on Park Lane, London, that would become his second home over the course of the next few years. “I returned to England bereft of glory, my spirits deflating with every mile.”

Once recuperated, he journeyed to Egypt to ask his father’s permission to commit his life to martial endeavour. After some persuasion, de Wiart senior gave his blessing, and shortly afterwards the young, thrill-seeking militiaman arrived back in Cape Town to join the Imperial Light Horse Colonial Corps, who promoted him to corporal within days, then demoted him within 24 hours for threatening to punch his sergeant. “My vivid imaginings of charging Boers single-handed and dying gloriously with a couple of V.C.s were becoming a little hazy.” Before long, he was shipped to the 4th Dragoon Guards and stationed in India.

De Wiart’s time in India generated some happy memories, but not for the first time in his life, the lack of life-threatening combat left him knee-deep in nihilism. “India for me was a glittering sham coated with dust, and I hoped I should never see her again,” he wrote.

Eventually returning to what had become his motherland and joining his regiment in Brighton, de Wiart distracted himself from the vacuous banality of peacetime by taking part in polo matches and making occasional jaunts to Austria, Hungary, and what was then Bavaria, to spend the interwar years shooting deer, chamois and pheasants.

Accepting an adjutancy with the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, his plans changed in 1914 when his father broke the news that he had been ruined financially due to the crash in Egypt. Without an allowance and soldiering in England not being well paid enough to sustain him, de Wiart again sought active service abroad. His intended destination this time, in 1914, was Somaliland, where a low-key war effort was being waged against Mohammad ‘Mad Mullah’ bin Abdullah. By his own admission, de Wiart’s “cup of misery overflowed” when he discovered, during a stop-off in Malta, that England had declared war on Germany. In light of this development, his forthcoming station of duty “felt like playing in a village cricket match instead of a test”. De Wiart’s hunger to have his mortality tested in new and interesting ways was soon sated though, during a testy battle with bin Abdullah’s Dervish forces. One bullet whistled through his rolled-up uniform sleeve; the next went through his eye, the next gunshot required the plucking of a bullet splinter from his elbow, the one after that required the services of a nearby surgeon to stitch up his ear.

His last Polish aide de camp was Prince Karol Mikołaj Radziwiłł, member of the Radziwiłł family who inherited a large 500,000 acre estate in eastern Poland. They became friends and Carton de Wiart was given the use of a large estate called Prostyń, in the Pripet Marshes, a wetland area larger than Ireland and surrounded by water and forests. In this location Carton de Wiart spent the rest of the interwar years. In his memoirs he said “In my fifteen years in the marshes, I did not waste one day without hunting”.

After 15 years, Carton de Wiart’s peaceful Polish life was interrupted by the looming war when he was recalled in July 1939 and appointed to his old job, as head of the British Military Mission to Poland. Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on September 1 and, on September 17, the Soviets allied with Germany, attacked Poland from the east. Soon Soviet forces overran Prostyń and Carton de Wiart lost all his guns, fishing rods, clothing, and furniture. They were packed up by the Soviets and stored in the Minsk Museum, but destroyed by the Germans in later fighting. De Wiart never saw the area again, but as he said “they did not manage to take my memories”. De Wiart was posted back to the command of the 61st Division, which was soon transferred to Northern Ireland as a defence against invasion. However, following the arrival of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall as Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland, Carton de Wiart was told that he was too old to command a division on active duty. This was followed by command of the Central Norwegian Expeditionary Forces, in its hopeless attempt to hold Trondheim. A year later, he was sent to head the Military Mission in Yugoslavia but, on the way, his plane crashed into the sea and after swimming ashore he was made a prisoner of the Italians. In August 1943, the Italians released him and sent him to Lisbon to negotiate their surrender terms.

From October 1943 until retirement in 1946, De Wiart was the Government’s Military Representative with General Chiang Kai-Shek in China. On his retirement, he bought Aghinish House in Macroom and moved there with his wife. His awards include the Victoria Cross, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Companion of the Order of the Bath, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, Distinguished Service Order (Mentioned in Despatches), Virtuti Militari (Poland) Croix de Guerre (Belgium) Legion of Honour (France) and Croix de Guerre (France).

After a lifetime of brave battles, Adrian Carton de Wiart passed away on June 5, 1963 and now rests in Killinardish Churchyard, Carrigadrohid, County Cork.

Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad was the person who brought the concept of DIY furniture building into our homes. Ikea was already a successful business when, on a promotional photoshoot one day, the photographer complained to Ingvar about having a lack of storage space for his equipment. He quick-thinkingly removed the legs of his stool and packed it away in his case. Notoriously thrifty, Ingvar realised that he could use this method to cut shipping costs, so he stole the idea, and flatpack build-it-yourself furniture was created.

Ingvar’s German father and grandmother were both confirmed Nazi’s and he himself was a member of the most extreme Nazi Party that existed in Sweden. He was also lifelong friends with Per Engdahl, one of the most prominent fascists in the world post WW2. On coming to light, these facts plagued the Ikea founder in his later years, threatening the success of his company.

Ingvar’s father, Feodor, was the son of German immigrants. His mother, Berta, was Swedish. Ingvar grew up on the farm that his father inherited from his parents, in Elmtaryd, in the parish of Agunnaryd, Sweden. In 1943, aged 17, before going to the School of Commerce in Gothenburg, Ingvar set up his own mail order business selling imported pens. He called it IKEA: I for Ingvar, K for Kamprad, E for Elmtaryd and A for Agunnaryd. In 1948, he began to advertise items of furniture designed to appeal principally to farmers and the rural poor in his mail order brochure, ‘Ikea News’. The first lines, all at unprecedentedly low prices, included an armless nursing chair called Ruth, a coffee table, a sofa bed and a chandelier, all made by local manufacturers in Almhult and sold at the lowest possible price. All Ikea pieces were given names, as Ingvar, who was dyslexic, had difficulty with numbers.

The same year Ingvar set up Ikea, he also became member number 4,014 of Swedish Socialist Unity, the country’s leading far-right party during the war. Apparently, Sweden’s general security service kept him under surveillance for at least eight months, confiscating and reading his correspondence. These files became readily available posthumously upon Ingvar’s death. His file was titled ‘Memorandum concerning: Nazi’ and it was stamped ‘secret’ in red letters. It was this membership that would plague Ingvar for the rest of his life despite many efforts to conceal the information.

In November 1942, Ingvar wrote that he had recruited “quite a few comrades” to the party and missed no opportunity to work for the movement. The memorandum about his correspondence reached the Sixth Division of the Stockholm police on July 6, 1943. Ingvar was an active member of the Svensk Socialistisk Samling, Sweden’s Nazi party. Six days later, Ingvar sent an application to the county administrative office in Vaxjo to register his new company, Ikea.

It is known that Ingvar’s involvement in Per Engdahl’s fascist organisation, the New Swedish Movement, continued after the end of the war. He invited comrades from the movement to his home in Elmtaryd and was regarded as their benefactor. There are letters where he is asked to donate or thanked for the latest contribution. Ingvar also acted as publisher for one of fascist leader Per Engdahl’s books. The two had become close friends and called each other ‘BB’: best brother. Engdahl was invited to Ingvar’s wedding in 1951. During the first two years after the war, Per Engdahl received refugees, hid them from their persecutors, and helped transport them to safety — Nazi refugees, that is. By 1945, Engdahl had created a network for Europe’s shattered Nazi and fascist movements, as he was afraid the ideas would die with them. His underground network interlinked Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, Belgian Flams Bloc, Dutch Nazis, French fascists, Germans who were still loyal to Hitler, Swiss hardcore Nazis, remnants of the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement, the Italian MSI, who propagated Benito Mussolini’s ideas, as well as Danish and Norwegian Nazis. Ingvar regularly attended meetings with pro-Nazi extremist groups, maintaining a long-running friendship with Per Engdahl and, according to some accounts, was an active member of the Swedish version of the Hitler Youth.

By the time he was in his mid-20s Ingvar had quietly abandoned his fascist activism to focus on his business, which eventually grew into the multi-billion dollar furniture empire that it is today. His earlier Nazi sympathies weren’t exposed until the 1990s, when a Swedish newspaper named ‘Expressen’ published evidence of his role in the fascist movement. Further revelations came to light in a 2011 book by journalist Elisabeth Asbrink that discussed his relationship with Otto Ullmann, an Austrian Jew, refugee who had worked on his parent’s farm. Paradoxically, Otto and Ingvar became lifelong friends. However, at no point did Otto know of his friend’s Nazi sympathies or his membership of Sweden’s Nazi party. On numerous occasions, the Swedish billionaire admitted how he was once involved in the movement and apologised: He blamed his activities on youthful “stupidity”, calling them his “greatest mistake.” But his past dogged him until the end of his life. Some detractors accused him of trying to conceal the uglier aspects of his affiliations. Among them was Asbrink, whose book offered evidence that Swedish law enforcement had identified Kamprad as a Nazi. Asbrink told the Telegraph in 2011, “He said in 1998 that he would get everything up on the table and that there would be nothing hidden. Why then didn’t he tell us that he was a member of the worst Nazi party, and that the police found it serious enough to create a file on him?” A question Ingvar never answered.

Expressen’s articles caused a public relations nightmare for Ikea. Some Jewish groups called for boycotts of the company, although the efforts had little effect on its business. In response, Ingvar wrote an apology letter to the company’s 25,000 employees, saying he had severed ties with fascists by the 1950s and called the period “part of my life which I bitterly regret.” He wrote that he was influenced by his grandmother, who hailed from the Sudetenland, the ethnically-German region of the former Czechoslovakia that was annexed to Hitler’s Germany in the run-up to World War II. However, he refused to condemn his friend and wrote that Per Engdahl was a great man, and I’ll maintain that as long as I live.”

Ingvar admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his “stupidity”. He also admitted to Swedish media that he had attended meetings of Nazi groups between 1945 and 1948. In a statement, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants demanded that an inquiry be opened into Kamprad’s past. “Holocaust survivors are shocked at the reports of the depths of Kamprad’s Nazi involvement, which he previously had dismissed as mere ‘teenage confusion’,” it said. “It is time for Kamprad to come clean. Swedish intelligence files describe his recruitment of others to the fascist movement and his involvement with it well after World War II. This can hardly be characterised as youthful confusion.”

When Ingvar Kamprad died on January 27, 2018, his Nazi skeletons in the closet went with him to his grave. Today there are 462 Ikea stores in 59 countries all over the world.

Dessie ‘The Border Fox’ O’Hare was, for a time, the most wanted man in Ireland. Bestowed on O’Hare by the media, his ‘Border Fox’ moniker was earned for successfully crossing the border undetected for years, evading arrest by the Gardaí and the RUC. He was so pleased with his title that in later years, during interviews, he would refer to himself in the third person by that nickname. A protagonist during the Troubles and known for violence, O’Hare was a Republican and staunchly on the armed struggle side of the fence, which would lead to a fall out with the IRA in later life as the movement and Sinn Féin progressed towards political means to unify the country. Born in Keady, Co. Armagh, a republican stronghold, O’Hare joined the IRA at the age of 16. He was from a dedicated and active Republican family; his grandmother served time in a British jail for housing Republicans and his father and six uncles were interned in the 1940s, one of his uncles dying while in an Isle of Man jail. Due to disciplinary issues, in the 1970s Dessie left the IRA and joined the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), soon finding himself in a senior position. Years later O’Hare found himself in constant turmoil with other leaders within the INLA. He decided to leave and create his own group, the Irish Revolutionary Brigade, with some of his most loyal followers joining him. 

Known for both violence and fundraising efforts throughout his life there was one event that made Dessie O’Hare a household name during the Troubles. On October 13, 1987, O’Hare led the INLA kidnapping of dentist Dr. John O’Grady. It was an act that would make him infamous and result in the longest fixed-term prison sentence ever handed down in the Republic for a non-capital murder offence. 

The gang kidnapped Dr O’Grady from his home in Cabinteely, Dublin, having gone there looking for the victim’s millionaire father-in-law, medical doctor Austin Darragh. However, Dr. Darragh had moved out and John O’Grady and his family had taken up residence in the house a number of years earlier. At the time Austin Darragh was a well-known doctor, appearing on radio shows such as the Gay Byrne Show; he was also a major shareholder in a leading pharmaceutical company. The intention was to hold him hostage until a £1.5 million ransom was paid.

In the end John O’Grady was held for 23 days, during which time the whole country watched in horror as the kidnap gang managed to evade Gardaí and remained at large with their hostage. Dr O’Grady was initially imprisoned in a Dublin basement before being moved to Cork, where he was held in a cargo container. Gardaí happened on the site but O’Hare and his gang escaped after opening fire and hijacking a car. The burnt-out car was later found in Dundalk. 

O’Hare moved Dr O’Grady to a house in Cabra, North Dublin. When ransom demands were not met, O’Hare cut off the little finger from each of O’Grady’s hands and sent them to Carlow Cathedral.

Garda detectives eventually traced the gang to the Cabra house where a shootout ensued. A Garda detective was seriously wounded and O’Grady was rescued but once again O’Hare and his gang escaped. O’Hare became the most wanted man in Ireland with the Gardaí offering a IR£100,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.

Two of the gang were arrested near Cahir, County Tipperary. Three weeks later on November 27, O’Hare was arrested when his car drove through an Irish Defence Forces checkpoint in Urlingford, County Kilkenny. O’Hare was shot eight times during the arrest, which was effected after a firefight, and the driver of the car, Martin Bryan, was killed. An Irish Army soldier was wounded in the affray. 

At his trial at the Special Criminal Court, O’Hare was convicted of false imprisonment, wounding with intent and possession of firearms, and received a 40-year sentence. After sentencing, he made a speech in which he called for support for the Irish Revolutionary Brigade, calling for Republicans to turn their guns on the Irish judiciary, prison service, Defence Forces and Gardaí. He concluded by declaring, “May all my deeds reverberate until bloody war is waged against the British and their southern allies”. He was sent to the maximum security Portlaoise Prison, where he was isolated by former IRA and INLA associates who accused him of bringing Republicanism into disrepute. In December 1987, the INLA’s political wing issued a statement disassociating themselves from the kidnapping and stating that O’Hare was no longer a member of the INLA having been removed from his position.

In 2008, Dessie O’Hare was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. However, upon his release he continued with his old ways and took up work collecting debts for individuals. In 2019 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for the 2015 assault of John Roche in Saggart, Co Dublin. He also pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Martin Byrne at Rathcoole and Saggart on the same date. It is believed that he was employed by Dublin businessman Jim Mansfield Jr to evict Mr. Byrne from his home. Dessie O’Hare turned up at the home with convicted murderer and former INLA member Declan Duffy. The judge remarked that O’Hare and Duffy would have been known to Martin Byrne and that their reputation would have preceded them and that is the reason they were employed to do the job. Both men are still in prison.

The Price sisters are two of the most famous female republicans in Irish history. Dolours is the more well-known of the two because of inflammatory comments she made about Gerry Adams and the death of Jean McConville in interviews before her death. The focus this month however – in  a continuation of last month’s article on hunger strikes – is on the strike the sisters went on in Brixton prison whilst incarcerated for the London bombings, as well as the effects that the strike and the force feeding the sisters endured had on their immediate and future lives.

In 1971, Dolours, together with Marian, joined the Provisional IRA. In 1972 Dolours joined an elite group within the IRA called ‘The Unknowns’ commanded by Pat McClure. The unknowns were tasked with various secretive activities and transported several accused traitors across the border into the Republic where they were ‘disappeared’; some of whom have still not been discovered. Dolours claimed that she, Pat McClure, and a third unknown were tasked with killing Jean McConville, with the third unknown actually shooting her.

Dolours was in charge of the car bombing attacks in London on March 8, 1973, which injured over 200 people; and is believed to have contributed to the death of one person who suffered a fatal heart attack. 

Dolours and Marian along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and six others, were arrested as they were boarding a flight to Ireland on the day of the bombing. They were tried and convicted at the Great Hall in Winchester Castle on  November 14, 1973. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which was to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence was eventually reduced to 20 years. The Price sisters served seven years for their part in the bombings.

Following the conviction and sentencing of the London bombers, all eight immediately announced they would go on hunger strike, in pursuit of a demand to be returned to Northern Ireland to serve out their sentences there. Not only would transfer to a jail in Northern Ireland bring the four hunger strikers closer to their families and to IRA comrades, but they would also qualify as special category prisoners, a status close to the classification of ‘political prisoners’. This would mean that they would not have to do prison work, could wear their own clothes and mingle more or less freely with associates. The contrast to the strict, disciplined life that faced them in an English jail could not have been greater. Within days four of the prisoners dropped out, leaving the Price sisters, Dolours and Marian, and two of the men, Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly to pursue the protest. 

Famous Irish republican Thomas Ashe had gone on hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail in 1917 and was force fed. A contemporary of Ashe’s, Eamon O’Dwyer later described to the Bureau of Military History what had happened to him during the forced-feeding process or ‘artificial feeding’ as it is referred to by the British authorities:

“Each man in turn was brought to a large room in which they had the usual operating chair. We were tied into this chair with bands around the legs and arms, a band around the body and also a band around the neck, and into each man’s mouth an instrument was passed to keep it open. The forcible feeding outfit was brought along—a pint of milk with an egg broken into it, the pump and the tubing. The tubing was passed down through the mouth and into the stomach. I never had any fear of hunger striking and that was the first one, but I certainly did not like this pipe being passed down through my throat and I began to have a horror of it. I must admit that I was very much afraid of it, and often in years afterwards I woke up and felt this damn pipe or tube going down my neck like a snake. Every one of the crowd who suffered this vomited terribly. The days passed with this [force-feeding] as the only relief from the monotony of being held in the cell.”

Two weeks into their hunger strike, the British authorities made the decision to force feed Dolours, Marian, Gerry and Hugh. Marion described her experience of this ordeal in detail:

“Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can’t struggle. You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it open. They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your head back. You can’t move. They throw whatever they like into the food mixer; orange juice, soup or cartons of cream if they want to beef up the calories. They take jugs of this gruel from the food mixer and pour it into a funnel attached to the tube. The force-feeding takes fifteen minutes but it feels like forever. You’re in control of nothing. You’re terrified the food will go down the wrong way and you won’t be able to let them know because you can’t speak or move. You’re frightened you’ll choke to death.”

Dolours Price and her sister Marian, along with Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly, spent 205 days on hunger strike, 167 of which were punctuated by daily, and sometimes twice daily bouts of forced feeding. Feeney’s and Kelly’s prison protests attracted only a fraction of the public attention that the Price sisters received. The trauma of the force feeding often made hunger strikers vomit. The British authorities believed the sisters were throwing up for vanity reasons and continued to force feed them. 

Both now suffering from anorexia and other ailments, Marion Price was released in 1980 and Dolours Price in 1981 on humanitarian grounds. After their release the sisters continued to struggle with anorexia for many years. 

In 1983, Dolours married Irish actor Stephen Rae. They divorced in 2003. Throughout her life she suffered from depression and PTSD, as well as having a long-time addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs.

The more famous Irish hunger strikers are the ones who died. Particularly Bobby Sands and the nine men who followed him. In a way, those men and their legacies, as fighters and emblems, are easier to make sense of than Price’s. Her story points to a more complicated experience, in which the traumas of war seep into people’s emotional and mental fabric. Marian is still alive. Dolours died in 2013 from a toxic mix of prescribed medications at her home in Dublin.

There are two different types of hunger strike, wet and dry. Humans can generally last months without food; the longest hunger strike in history is recorded at 94 days by Irishman John Francis Crowley. However, the human body can only survive roughly a week without water. The effects of a hunger strike on the physical body of the participant are catastrophic and often irreversible.

Committing to a hunger strike is an astonishing show of belief in one’s cause, considering the consequences of even a successful strike when your demands are met, as the aftermath of the strike can be incredibly debilitating. 

While a precarious weapon, used strategically, a hunger strike cannot only draw attention to a situation of injustice or violated rights, but also elevate the cause and credibility of those who have chosen to take such a strong and personally risky action, giving hunger strikers more leverage at the negotiating table. Famously in 1981, during a prolonged hunger strike for better conditions and political recognition, 10 imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Army died, including strike leader Bobby Sands (after 66 days) who was elected MP from prison during the strike. The strike radicalised Irish nationalist politics, elevating Sinn Féin into a mainstream political party. Publicity is critical to a strike, especially to escalate pressure as the stakes rise and public attention grows. In the 1981 IRA hunger strikes, Bobby Sands began first, but other strikers joined one at a time, at staggered intervals to generate maximum pressure and public support.

But how does a strike such as this affect the body? Long-term refusal of food affects most organs and systems in the human body. Such behaviour causes muscle weakness, vulnerability to infections, psychological problems, and, eventually, organ failure. It is estimated that if a protester is healthy before going on a hunger strike, and continues to receive fluids, he or she is at risk of dying from malnutrition after six to eight weeks. However, a protester can die much sooner, after three weeks if they are seriously ill. If refusing fluids too, death can come after one week. While the loss of muscle mass may be significant, a person usually dies because of an infection or organ failure. 

While people can survive up to several weeks without food under certain conditions, physical and mental impairment can begin within two to three days. Due to a lack of carbohydrates, the body switches to its fat and protein reserves and starts using them as its main source of energy. This leads to fat and muscle loss as well as changes in the body’s processes. Levels of electrolytes also drop significantly, which can lead to impairment of various bodily functions. After two weeks, a person can experience dizziness, weakness, loss of coordination, and a low heart rate. Within the next week, he or she may suffer from vision loss or other neurological problems. After one month or after losing more than 18 per cent body weight, there may be permanent damage to the body. The person may experience difficulty swallowing, vertigo, hearing and vision loss, as well as possible organ failure. After 45 days, there is a high risk of death, mostly due to infection or cardiovascular collapse. 

Even after a protester decides to end a hunger strike, there is the potential risk of ‘refeeding syndrome’, which occurs as a result of shifts in fluids and electrolytes, meaning that giving too much food or fluids too quickly may be dangerous and potentially fatal. It may include liver dysfunction, heart arrhythmia, and pulmonary, neurological, or other symptoms. Therefore, when a person is coming off of a hunger strike, trained health-care professionals make sure that nutrients are cautiously and gradually introduced to anyone who has refused food for five days or more.

Next month’s column will cover the most famous male Irish republican who took part and ultimately died on hunger strike, Bobby Sands, and also the most famous Irish female republican who took part in a hunger strike but lived, Dolours Price. It will also outline the life changing implications the hunger strike had on Dolours and her sister.

“When it awarded him The George Cross, was Buckingham Palace aware that Captain Robert Nairac was named, in an official Ministry of Defence document, as having been ‘involved in the planning and execution of The Miami Showband murders’ or was the palace misled by the government?” – Stephen Travers

Robert Nairac was known by several different aliases, depending on the company he kept: To the republican community and the IRA, he was known as Danny McErlaine or ‘Danny Boy’. To the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), a subset of the British Army, he was known as Charlie McDonald. Loyalists consisted of a large number of the UDR’s membership, which is an important point to note. To the Loyalists in Ardoyne, he was known as Charles Johnson. He is also known to have swapped between accents, again depending on who he was speaking with and whether he was on a phone call or speaking in person. After his death, three different berets were found underneath his bed in his Military quarters at Bessbrook: A fawn beret of the elite British Army force, the SAS; a feathered beret of the Argyll Highlanders, a regular regiment of the British Army stationed in Northern Ireland; as well as a black beret of the Provisional IRA. Between 1974 and his death in 1977, Nairac’s movements are shrouded in mystery. However, during that time period there have been allegations that not only was he part of some of the darkest atrocities of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but that he led, managed and orchestrated many of them. One of the most notorious cases he is linked to, is the Miami Showband Massacre in 1975, which was covered in last month’s column. He is said to be the man at the scene who spoke with the ‘educated English accent’; the one who directed the killings of the band members on behalf of the British Army. New information has recently been uncovered that seems to corroborate these allegations.

Nairac was born in Mauritius, then a British Crown colony, to an English mother and a father of French Mauritian origin. His mother, Barbara (née Dykes) was Anglican and his father, Maurice, a Catholic, who worked as an eye surgeon. Nairac was the youngest of four children; he had two sisters and a brother. He had a devout Catholic upbringing, which is thought to be why he was able to camouflage himself so well as a spy into the republican areas of Northern Ireland. He attended Oxford university and studied medieval, as well as military history. He played rugby and was a trained boxer, receiving blues awards for his achievements in boxing whilst a student there.

Nairac’s first tour of duty in Northern Ireland was with No.1 Company, the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. The Battalion was stationed in Belfast from July 5, 1973 to October 31, 1973. The Grenadiers were given responsibility first for the Protestant Shankill Road area and the predominantly Catholic Ardoyne area. This was a time of high tension and regular contact with paramilitaries. Ostensibly, the battalion’s main objectives were to search for weapons and to find paramilitaries. Nairac was frequently involved in such activity on the streets of Belfast and was a community relations activist at the Ardoyne sports club. The battalion’s tour was adjudged a success with 58 weapons, 9,000 rounds of ammunition and 693 lbs of explosives taken, and 104 men jailed. The battalion had no casualties and did not shoot anyone. After his tour ended, he stayed on as liaison officer for the replacement battalion, the First Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. On their first patrol, Nairac narrowly avoided the impact of the explosion of a car bomb on the Crumlin Road.

Rather than returning to his battalion, which was being transferred to Hong Kong, Nairac volunteered for military intelligence duties in Northern Ireland. Following the completion of several training courses, he returned to Northern Ireland in 1974, attached to Four Field Survey Troop Royal Engineers, one of the three subunits of a Special Duties unit known as 14 Intelligence Company (14 Int). Posted to South County Armagh, Four Field Survey Troop Royal Engineers was given the task of performing surveillance duties. Nairac was the liaison officer for the unit, the local British Army brigade and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Nairac finished his tour with 14th Int in mid-1975 and returned to his regiment in London, having been promoted to Captain on September 4, 1975. Following a rise in violence culminating in the Kingsmill massacre, the British Army increased their presence in Northern Ireland and Nairac accepted a post as a liaison officer. On his fourth and final tour, Nairac was a liaison officer in Bessbrook Mill.

It’s late in the evening in the ‘Three Steps’ pub in Dromintee, County Armagh. A stranger walks into the pub and gets talking to some locals at the bar. He says he is a member of the Provisional IRA in West Belfast. He gives his name as Danny McErlaine, says he is from Ardoyne, a strictly Republican area of Belfast and that he works as a car mechanic. He mingles with the locals, speaking in an impeccable Northern Ireland accent and, at one point, he gets up on stage to sing a known republican song ‘The Broad Black Brimmer’ to an amused crowd. However, something is off. His story isn’t matching up and he starts to draw attention to himself from genuine members of the IRA.

When the stranger leaves the pub at roughly 11:45pm, he is followed out into the carpark by several members of the IRA who suspect him to be a spy. They do not know at this point that the stranger is Robert Nairac, however their suspicions are proved right. He is a spy, collecting information for the British Government. After a short scuffle, Nairac is bundled into a car and taken to a field close to the border of the Republic of Ireland. He is then tortured and beaten to within an inch of his life by the IRA man but still does not give up his name. Terry McCormick, one of the IRA, impersonates a priest in order to try and get Nairac to reveal information. He never does. Nairac’s last words to McCormick are ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned.’ –  he is then shot in the back of the head by Liam Townson and buried.

Over the coming days, with the ensuing media frenzy for the missing British Army Intelligence officer, the IRA men realise that they have killed Captain Robert Nairac.

Terry McCormick flees to the USA, remaining there for the rest of his life, never returning to Northern Ireland. Liam Townson is found by police. He names all the other men involved: Five men from the South Armagh area. Three of them – Gerard Fearon (21), Thomas Morgan (18), and Daniel O’Rourke (33) – are charged with Nairac’s murder. Michael McCoy (20), is charged with kidnapping and Owen Rocks (22), is accused of withholding information. Fearon and Morgan are convicted of Nairac’s murder. O’Rourke is acquitted but found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for ten years. McCoy is jailed for five years and Rocks for two. Morgan dies in a road accident in 1987, a year after his release. Liam Townson is convicted of Nairac’s murder, for shooting him in the back of the head, and serves the longest sentence. He serves 13 years in jail and is released in 1990, however he never reveals where the body of Nairac is buried. Nairac remains one of the infamous ‘Disappeared’ 19 people that vanished during the Troubles. Most notable of these vanished people are Nairac and Jean McConville. McConville’s body was found in 2003, however, Nairac’s body still remains missing. Fifteen of these bodies have been found; four remain missing.

Nairic is alleged to have been involved in many terrible events during the Troubles. He was accused of taking part in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in May 1974, as well as the Miami Showband Massacre in 1975, in which new evidence has come to light that seems to prove his guilt. A long battle for justice for three members of a popular Irish music group, Miami Showband, who were murdered during The Troubles in Northern Ireland received a huge boost in January 2020 with official confirmation that an undercover British Army soldier was involved.

Heavily redacted Ministry of Defence papers released to the lawyer for the family of one of the victims confirmed the involvement of Captain Robert Nairac. The documents back up the claims of survivors and family members, over many years, that British security force personnel were directly involved in the murders, which sent shockwaves across the island of Ireland. The papers were released to solicitor Michael Flanigan, who represents the widow of one of the murdered musicians.

The redacted documents suggest that Nairac obtained equipment and uniforms for the killers and that he bore responsibility for the planning and execution of the attack carried out by members of the notorious Glenanne Gang. Finally, there is proof of Nairac’s involvement and some closure for the victims. Stephen Travers a survivor of the attack said he was hugely disappointed to be proved right with the revelation that a British Army captain had planned the attack, which saw three of his friends lose their lives, “This was a case of the British army being involved in the planning of an execution,” he said. The documents were released to the solicitor representing Varlie Andersen, widow of Fran O’Toole, who is taking legal action against the Ministry of Defence and the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), “When I first saw it, I must have read each line at least 10 times, desperately searching for some reason to be sceptical. But the stark reality of his name on the page before me was both dreadfully sad and at the same time tremendously exciting,” said Travers.

Captain Robert Nairac has posthumously been awarded the Victoria Cross for the work he did for the British Government.

“That bomb was definitely placed there with a view to killing all in that band.”
– James O’Neill

On July 31, 1975, in County Down, five people were killed, including three members of the popular Miami Showband, in an attack in by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group. Despite the story of the Miami Showband killings being well-known throughout Ireland, there are some quite peculiar aspects of the night that fly a little under the radar. In fact, when studied deeper, they become the most pivotal aspects of the whole story; none more so than the man with the ‘educated, English accent’ who appeared on the scene on the night in question. As testified by surviving members of the band, the mood and actions of the checkpoint soldiers immediately changed on the arrival of this man, who was clearly in charge.

The Miami Showband massacre was an attempt by the British Army and the UVF to kill all the members of the popular Irish showband by placing a bomb inside their van. The hope was that the optics of the night would represent a failed attempt by the Miami Showband to transport a bomb across the border to kill British Army personnel, when in fact it blew prematurely and killed the band themselves. This would then allow the British Army to lobby the government to tighten restrictions at borders from the republic into the North and, with that, give the British the upper hand. However, it did not go to plan.

There were six members in total in the Miami Showband – Tony Geraghty, Fran O’Toole, Ray Millar, Des McAlea (Des Lee), Brian McCoy and Stephen Travers. Five members of the band were travelling home after a performance at the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge, County Down on Thursday, July 31, 1975. Ray Millar, the band’s drummer, was not with them, as he had chosen to go to his home town of Antrim to spend the night with his parents. The band’s road manager, Brian Maguire, had already gone ahead a few minutes earlier in the equipment van. At about 2.30am, when the band was seven miles (11 km) north of Newry on the main A1 road, their Volkswagen minibus (driven by trumpeter Brian McCoy with Stephen Travers in the front seat beside him) reached the townland of Buskhill. Near the junction with Buskhill Road they were flagged down by armed men dressed in British Army uniforms waving a red torch in a circular motion. This was so common during the Troubles that the band assumed it was a legitimate checkpoint. The unsuspecting band members (still wearing their stage clothes) got out and were politely told to line up facing the ditch at the rear of the minibus with their hands on their heads. More uniformed men appeared from out of the darkness, their guns pointed at the minibus. After McCoy told them they were the Miami Showband, one gunman, Thomas Crozier (who had a notebook) asked the band members for their names and addresses, while the others bantered with them about the success of their performance that night. As Crozier took down the information, a car pulled up and another uniformed man appeared on the scene. He wore a uniform and beret noticeably different from the others. He spoke with an educated English accent and immediately took charge, ordering a man who appeared to have been the leader of the patrol, to tell Crozier to obtain their names and dates of birth instead of addresses.

The jocular mood of the gunmen abruptly ceased. At no time did this new soldier speak to any of the band members nor did he directly address Crozier. He relayed all his instructions to the gunman in command. Travers, the band’s new bass player, assumed he was a British Army officer; an opinion shared by McCoy. Just after the arrival of this mysterious soldier, McCoy nudged Travers, who was standing beside him, and reassured him by saying “Don’t worry Stephen, this is British Army”. He was almost right – there were roughly 10 soldiers at the checkpoint, four of which were members of the UDR, the Ulster Defence Regiment and branch of the British Army. However, all 10 in fact were members of the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Forces, a loyalist paramilitary organisaton.

Out of sight of the band members, two of the gunmen placed a ten-pound (4.5 kg) time bomb in the rear of the minibus. The UVF’s plan was that the bomb would explode once the minibus had reached Newry, killing all on board. Had it all gone according to plan, the loyalist extremists would have been able to clandestinely bomb the Republic of Ireland, yet claim that the band were Republican bomb smugglers carrying explosives on behalf of the IRA. They had hoped to embarrass the Government of Ireland, as well as to draw attention to its under-patrolled border. This would have resulted in the Irish authorities enforcing tighter controls over people crossing the border, thus greatly restricting IRA operations. Stephen Travers recalls being concerned about what was taking so long. “My guitar was in there. I had a very unusual guitar, a transparent Dan Armstrong Plexiglas bass, and I was very protective of it. I was damned if I was going to let some awkward soldier manhandle it. I loved my guitar.

When the device was tilted on its side, clumsy soldering on the clock used as a timer caused the bomb to explode prematurely, blowing the minibus apart and killing UVF men Harris Boyle (aged 22, a telephone wireman from Portadown) and Wesley Somerville (aged 34, a textile worker from Moygashel) instantly. Hurled in opposite directions, they were both decapitated and their bodies dismembered. What little that remained intact of their bodies was burnt beyond recognition.

The other assailants opened fire, killing the band’s frontman, Fran O’Toole, trumpet player, Brian McCoy, and lead guitarist, Tony Geraghty. Stephen had also been shot. Face down in the grass and motionless, he played dead, his only thoughts of survival. After some time had passed, Des McAlea, who also survived the attack, called out to Fran, Brian and Tony. He heard Stephen moaning and called out to him, saying he was going to try to get help. Des pleaded with a lorry driver who had stopped to take him to Newry police station, but he refused. Then a young couple in a car pulled up and agreed to take Des to Newry.

Stephen says that Des saved his life. “I had managed to roll on to my back. I slowly brought my hands across my chest and carefully counted my fingers,” he says. “It was suddenly very important to me, as a musician, that I had all my fingers. They were all there. I thanked God, as I heard my platform shoes click against each other; I still had both legs.” Stephen remained there for almost an hour before help arrived. To this day he is “still in that field” according to Stephen.

“When I discovered music I discovered Tír na nÓg, and I lived there for a while, but now I just get to visit it occasionally. Some day I might get to move back there permanently. Who knows… but I’ll have to get out of the field first,” Stephen says.

Stephen Travers has spent 47 years trying to prove that there was collusion between the British Government and paramilitary organisations in the North that ultimately led to the killings and the lifelong damage caused to the survivors’ lives. Last year he succeeded, Mr Travers was awarded £425,000 and Mr McAlea will receive £325,000 in damages. The court ruled the personal representatives of Fran O’Toole and Brian McCoy would receive £375,000 and £325,000 respectively.

The legal action followed a 2011 ‘Historical Enquiries Team’ report, which raised concerns about collusion around the involvement of an RUC Special Branch agent.

It found that Ulster UVF man Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson claimed in police interviews he had been tipped off by a senior RUC officer to lie low, after his fingerprints were found on a silencer attached to one of the weapons. Two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers were convicted for their roles in the attack. However, it is the man with the ‘educated English accent’ that is of the utmost importance, because his involvement is proof of ongoing collusion between the organisations. He went unidentified, as he was protected by the British government. He is said to have organised the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, as well as the Miami Showband Massacre. He has now been named as being almost certainly the man in charge of the massacre and next month’s column will go into detail on his involvement and the fact that he has posthumously been awarded the George Cross by the British Government for his involvement in British Military procedures in the North of Ireland.

“She is regarded today as one of the most significant figures of 16th-century Irish history and an inspiration to those who choose to live their lives according to their own rules and by no others.” –  Joshua J. Mark

Known in most historical records as Grace O’ Malley, Ireland’s most famous pirate Gráinne Ní Mháille was essentially written out of history because of her gender: a female pirate going against the societal expectations of a woman in the 16th century. It is only recently and due to the work of historian Anne Chambers that Grace O’Malley is given the airtime and newspaper space that her unusual and incredible life warrants. Grace O’Malley lived an extraordinary life, achieving enormous wealth as a pirate and business woman before the Tudor conquest of Ireland imposed enormous hardship and caused her extreme financial and personal problems. This culminated in imprisonment, poverty, the death of her children and a meeting with Elizabeth I, the Queen of England. Such was Grace’s notoriety and accomplishments in a male-dominated world however, that the Queen was able to empathise with her and actually conceded to some of Grace’s requests.

Grace was born into the Uí Mháille family on Clare Island, County Mayo in 1530. One of the seafaring clans of Connacht, the Uí Mháille family built a row of castles facing the sea to protect their territory. They controlled most of what is now County Mayo, taxing everyone who fished off the shores of their coast. Grace was actively involved in the O’Malley’s seafaring enterprise from childhood, learning the trade from her father and taking part in the family’s plundering and piracy missions.

The clan’s territory spanned areas along the coastline of County Mayo centred in island-strewn Clew Bay, a body of water which had Clare Island at its mouth. Life as a pirate on the west coast of Ireland was a tough and dangerous career. Grace’s plundering and piracy missions took her as far afield as Spain and the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Closer to home, she made forays into isolated coastal areas to reap whatever she could find, such as cattle. Anne Chambers notes:

“Ireland at the time was a great cattle rearing country, and the wealth of every chieftain was numbered not on the acres of land he had, but on the number of cattle these acres could support.”

Grace also pioneered a new method of piracy: Tolls. She charged other ships a toll at sea, in return for a safe passage through her waters. According to Anne:

“Grace and her clan took tolls on ships which she maintained were passing illegally through waters controlled by the O’Malley clan for generations.” Chambers says, “It was a very busy route, with traffic coming up from Spain to the busy port of Galway and onwards to Ulster and Scotland.”

The O’Malleys had long-established trade links with Spain from where they imported items such as iron, weapons and wine in exchange for barrels of salted fish, pine marten skins, fleeces, cattle hides and tallow. O’Malley’s early life prior to her first marriage is preserved almost entirely through folklore, as Irish historians chose to ignore her for the reasons given above and, also, because she was thought to have overstepped the boundaries of propriety as a woman. The Irish Brehon Laws (written c. 227-266 CE) granted women equal status and a woman was regarded as her husband’s partner, not his property. Even so, there were certain expectations for how a woman should comport herself, which O’Malley chose to ignore, preferring instead to live and do as she liked. This is the reason for her exploits being withheld from the Irish annals. The reason, we know of her at all is because she is included in English records due to her meeting with the Queen.

Grace married twice and had four children. Her first marriage was in 1546 to Dónal an Chogaidh Ó Flaithbheartaigh. Donal was the heir to the Flaithbheartaigh clan with aspirations to rule over what is now Connemara. The couple had three children – Eóghan, Méadhbh and Murchadh. After her husband Dónal’s death, O’Malley returned to her family’s lands with her children and established a base on Clare Island. She may have built, or at least improved upon, the tower house, now known as Granuaille’s Castle, which became one of three strongholds she maintained throughout the rest of her life. The men who had served under Donal when they were married followed her to her new home and swore their allegiance to her, suggesting she had already established herself as a strong leader who rewarded personal loyalty. O’Malley and her crew had a number of ships at their disposal, which they used for trade and to exact tribute from passing ships, earning her the name of ‘pirate queen’ for her efforts. Her father Eóghan had died by this time, and she had assumed the title and responsibilities of Lord of the O’Malley clan, which included exacting tribute from those who plied her waters.

By 1566, O’Malley had married a second time, this time to Risdeárd an Iarainn ‘Iron Richard’ Bourke, a prestigious landowner and chieftain who was next in line to inherit the sizeable lands of the MacWilliam clan. Burke’s holdings provided O’Malley with numerous inlets from which she could launch her ships on unsuspecting vessels that encroached on her territory. His nickname derived from the ironworks he owned. They had one child. Tibbot Bourke, who became the first Viscount of Mayo. O Malley and Burke soon had serious problems in Ireland due to the English government. English magistrates were carrying out Elizabeth the first’s policy of divide-and-conquer in Ireland and these magistrates would reward one chieftain with land and various gifts for help in suppressing another clan the English considered troublesome.

The Norman Invasion of 1169 first brought the English to Ireland, and King Henry II of England (r. 1154-1189) personally established English control of the island in 1171. Since then, English control of the land had increased, and under Elizabeth I, their control expanded further. In 1584, Sir Richard Bingham of England became Lord President of Connacht and began systematically dismantling the old structure through ruthless military campaigns, bribery, and pitting one Irish lord against another. This created many problems for Grace. O’Malley mounted a resistance against Bingham, and he retaliated by killing her son Owen and imprisoning Tibbot, Murrough, and O’Malley’s half-brother. O’Malley herself was also arrested, but her release was somehow arranged through the help of her son-in-law. Instead of trying to negotiate with Bingham, O’Malley decided to go over his head and speak directly with Elizabeth I herself in 1593.

Official accounts of O’Malley’s life come from English sources such as letters and reports Bingham sent to Elizabeth I, Sir Henry Sidney’s account of their meeting, and the document known as the Articles of Interrogatory – 18 questions O’Malley had to answer in writing prior to her meeting with the Queen. After answering the questions, O’Malley was brought into Elizabeth I’s presence and, according to legend, refused to bow as she considered herself the Queen’s equal. She was searched and found to be carrying a dagger, which she claimed was for her own protection and was allowed, by Elizabeth, to keep; suggesting a significant level of respect, and trust, on Elizabeth’s part.

Their conversation is not recorded but was carried out in Latin as Elizabeth I did not speak Irish and O’Malley would not speak English. The meeting seems to have lasted some time and concluded with the agreement that Bingham would release the captives and leave O’Malley alone. In return, O’Malley pledged 200 men and her fleet to Elizabeth I’s service in keeping the peace in Ireland. Elizabeth sent word of the agreement to Bingham, which read, in part:

“We require you to deal with her sons in our name to yield to her some maintenance for living the rest of her old years…And this we do write in her favor as she showeth herself dutiful, although she hath in former times lived out of order. She hath confessed the same with assured promises by oath that she will fight in our quarrel with all the world.”

O’Malley returned to Ireland expecting Elizabeth I’s orders would be swiftly obeyed, but Bingham took his time in releasing the prisoners. He was certain O’Malley would not keep her side of the bargain, and she proved him right by lending ships to the Irish rebels under Hugh O’Neill at the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War in 1593. She lived on in folk legend up through the 20th century when she came to be associated with the cause of Irish independence from England. After a lifetime traversing the sea, Grace died in 1603, aged 73. Her definitive biography was not written until 1979 by Anne Chambers. She was buried in the Cistercian Abbey on Clare Island. Grace O’ Malley being remembered in folk memory is as much a tribute to, and validation of her status, as any academic treatise. She lived an incredible life one we almost didn’t know existed. There are many books dedicated to her life, one called ‘Grace the Pirate’ is currently part of the Year 3 English curriculum in Dubai.

The Shankill Butchers, a gang of 12 men, operated for seven years, between the years 1975-1982. Their leader Lenny Murphy is known to have had a seething hatred of Catholics and is quoted as describing them as ‘scum’ and ‘animals’ on many occasions. Born in Shankill in 1952, Lenny was 16-years-old when he joined the UVF and age 20 when he was first charged with  the crime of murder. It is believed that Mervin Connor and Lenny Murphy carried out the murder of 32-year-old protestant William Pavis on the orders of the UVF who were convinced Pavis was selling weapons to the IRA. Although there were two witnesses who said they saw Lenny Murphy pull the trigger in broad daylight and he was also picked out from an identification line up while in police custody, not long after, Mervin Connor died in an apparent suicide. It is believed the note he left admitting to the murder was written under duress. Nonetheless, the case went to trial and Lenny Murphy was acquitted of the murder. After his release, Murphy was immediately rearrested and jailed for two years due to various escape attempts while incarcerated. It was the first of many murders that Murphy was accused of, or involved in, and the first of many stints in jail.

Upon his release, not wanting to be governed by the rules and regulations of the UVF, Murphy went about setting up his own paramilitary organisation, recruiting three other individuals with the same deep-rooted hatred of Catholics as himself.

Robert ‘Basher’ Bates (25), Sam McAllister (20), and William Moore (25) all had substantial criminal records. William Moore drove a black taxi and had previously worked as a meat packer, which gave the men access to a set of butcher’s knives and meat cleavers, repeatedly used in future killings. While other men passed through the organisation, these three were Murphys’ trusted inner circle.

The very first victims of the Butchers met their fate on October 2, 1975; two men, two women, shot dead in a robbery. One month later, the first victim to be killed viciously by knife was the aforementioned Francis Crossan. The killings continued in this same manner for years. Armed with cleavers and axes, the Shankill Butchers roamed the streets of Belfast looking for random Catholic victims to torture and kill.

In the mid-seventies, security forces were stretched to breaking point by the high profile actions of republican and loyalist paramilitary gangs, and so were perceived to have turned a blind eye. Though many members of the gang were said to be members of the UVF, targeting innocent Catholics, the group also turned on their own at times, killing Protestants mistaken for Catholics.

Thomas Quinn (55) was their next victim. The account of the woman who found the body of Thomas Quinn became vital, as she mentioned that she had heard the sound of a heavy diesel engine similar to that of a black taxi.

Just three days after killing Thomas Quinn, the Shankill Butchers shot dead protestants Archilbald Hannah and Raymond Carlisle – who they mistakenly took for Catholics – while they were sitting in a lorry on their way to work.

Just two weeks later, Francis Rice (24) had his throat slashed from ear to ear by the Butchers, in an almost identical killing to Thomas Quinn. it was after this murder that the media christened the gang the ‘Shankill Butchers’

On March 11, 1976, there was finally a break in the case when two Catholic women were shot at from a passing car in Belfast. While the gunman abandoned the vehicle and fled, a witness reported that they had seen someone acting suspiciously at the scene. After finding a gun, the police placed the street under surveillance, which led to the arrest of Lenny Murphy on his return for the gun. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for possession of a firearm with intent to kill but ordered his accomplices to continue with the ‘cut-throat’ murders. Three more Catholic men from north Belfast, Stephen McCann (21), Joseph Morrissey (52) and Francis Cassidy (43), were subsequently kidnapped, tortured and hacked to death between 1976 and 77.

However it was the killing of Ted McQuade, which led the police in the direction of the black cabs once again. Ted and his wife were walking home from a party when a car pulled up alongside them. She six times, Ted died instantly. When interviewed by police, McQuade’s wife said the men fled the scene in a black taxi. Although met with a wall of silence from the terrified residents of Shankill, the police had enough identifications of black taxis to conclude that the killings were linked and went on to search all 700 black taxis in Belfast. Although William Moore’s taxi – the vehicle the Butchers used to carry out the murders – was forensically examined, nothing was found. After Murphy ordered the cab destroyed, Moore replaced it with a yellow Ford Cortina, which was used in subsequent attacks. With the huge media attention, it was no wonder that people were so terrified they ran away from black cabs in Belfast.

Although Loyalist leaders called Lenny Murphy a ‘bloody psychopath’, they did not want to intervene for fear of revenge attacks. The police also knew Murphy was the leader of the gang but did not have proof.

On May 10, 1977, the investigation changed course when one of the Butchers’ victims, Gerard McLaverty, was found alive in an alleyway after being beaten, stabbed and with his wrists cut. The detective in charge of the case, Jimmy Nesbitt, came up with the idea to disguise McLaverty, who was recovering from his injuries a week later, and drive him the same route taken on the night of his attack. Unbelievablly, McLavery was able to identify Sam McAllister and Benjamin ‘Pretty Boy’ Edwards. He recalled that hat McAllister had rolled up his sleeves during the attack and revealed gunshot wounds on his arms. On the basis of this, McAllister was arrested. As well as the scars on his arms, the police found a six inch steak knife and two 10 inch boning knives under the floor boards.

McLaverty also described one of the other attackers and mentioned the car he was taken away in was a yellow Ford Cortina., which fit the bill of William Moore. After Moore’s car was searched and traces of McLaverty’s clothing found in his car, he was interrogated and eventually confessed to being present at all of the cut-throat killings. He said, “Murphy done the first three and I done the rest.” The Butchers – the most prolific serial killers in British history – had been caught.

McLaverty also admitted that Murphy was giving him the orders from prison. In the end, Lenny Murphy’s three main henchmen, as well as eight others all confessed to the 19 murders of the Shankill Butchers, although it is suspected that there might have been more victims.

In February 1979, the 11 men were sentenced to a total of 2000 years in jail. However, Lenny Murphy, who escaped conviction, was released from prison three years later. Just 24 hours after his release, Murphy beat to death a protestant man with special needs. He immediately began recruiting for a new gang of Shankill Butchers. Not long after this, Murphy violently killed a Catholic man named Joseph Duggan, The body was dumped behind Murphy’s house, who was arrested but released due to a lack of evidence.

Unstable and out of control, the IRA saw Murphy as a liability and ordered his execution. On November 16, 1982, shot more than 20 times, Murphy was killed by the IRA in Glencar, in the same estate where many of the Shankill Butchers’ victims were found.

Lenny Murphy’s mother Joyce always maintained her son’s innocence and Murphy was given a paramilitary funeral to which thousands of loyalists attended as well as some politicians. The remaining members of the Shankill Butchers were all released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, as part of the peacemaking process in Northern Ireland.

One of the main Loyalist paramilitary organisations in Belfast at this time was the UFF or the Ulster Freedom Fighters. The leader of the UFF was Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair. Leadership of the UDA and UFF used the office above Frazzelli’s chip shop on the Shankill Road as their headquarters. It was also the office used by the Loyalist Prisoners Association, which was a group that gave out money to the families of Loyalist paramilitary prisoners. Saturday was the day that money was distributed. Therefore, on Saturday, October 23, the building and the surrounding area was busy. The IRA knew this. They also knew that Johnny Adair had been seen entering the building Saturday morning. He was the main target in the Shankhill Road bombing. The IRA put a plan in place to execute him.

Shortly after 1pm on Saturday, October 23, 1993, two IRA men, Sean Kelly and Tomas Begley, walked into Frazelli’s chip shop dressed like delivery men in white coats. It was a normal Saturday afternoon and the area was busy with shoppers. However, in one of the men’s hands was a five pound bomb with an 11 second timer attached. A third IRA man waited outside in a car so that once the bomb was planted, all three could make a quick getaway.

Sean Kelly waited just outside the front door of Frazelli’s, while Thomas Begley walked through the crowd of customers holding the bomb. The IRA’s official statement regards this was that, Begley’s orders were to remove all the civilians from the building by gunpoint and arm the bomb before fleeing himself. The bomb was designed so that it would explode directly upwards, with the aim of killing the occupants of the office above: Hopefully including Adair. However, what actually happened was the bomb prematurely exploded whilst still in his hand. The violent and extremely powerful blast caused complete destruction of the building, making it collapse in on itself, and  trapping many people underneath the rubble. Begley was killed immediately along with nine other people, two of whom were children.

Killed in the blast were chip shop owner, John Frazell, 63, his daughter Sharon McBride, 29, UDA member Michael Morrison, his wife Evelyn and their seven-year-old daughter. Michael’s father had recently died and the three of them were walking to a shop to pick up a wreath when they were caught up in the explosion. Others killed were Leanne Murray, 13, George Williamson, 63, his wife Gillian and Wilma McKee, 38. On top of the fatalities, there were 59 casualties. Johnny Adair had left the building before lunchtime.

Many of the wounded lay under the rubble for hours before they could be rescued due to the huge mounds of debris and bricks. Something else that hindered the rescue operation was that some bodies were so badly maimed that paramedics found it difficult to  identify bodies. The bomber Thomas Begley was killed immediately in the blast. His accomplice Sean Kelly was severely injured; he tried to run from the scene but was too badly wounded to get far.

Sean Kelly was taken to hospital by ambulance lying beside other victims of the bombing that he had caused.

After the bombing, the IRA released this statement: “The IRA today targeted a regular meeting of UFF activists on the Shankill Road UDA headquarters. Eight hours after the operation not all of our volunteers are accounted for, we can only conclude at this stage that those volunteers are amongst those that were tragically and unintentionally killed by a premature detonation of this device. We regret all innocent deaths and understand the grief felt by those loved ones of all those who died today.” 

Within hours of the bombing, the UFF called the BBC and issued a statement saying that all their service units would be fully mobilised and that the national electorate would pay a heavy price for the bombings as a reprisal. Their statement is below:

“This afternoon the people of West Belfast have been on the receiving end of a blatantly indiscriminate bombing attack supposedly aimed at the UFF. The number of women and children killed and injured is still unclear but lends a lie to the false claims. As from 18:00hrs tonight that’s six o clock on Saturday on the day of the bomb all brigade and active service units of the UFF across Ulster will be fully mobilised. John Hume, Gerry Adams and the nationalist electorate will pay a heavy, heavy price for today’s atrocity, which was signed, sealed and delivered by the cutting edge of the Pan Nationalist Front. And finally to the perpetrators of this atrocity we say this. There will be no hiding place, time is on our side and to Hume, is this part of your peace process?” 

Sean Kelly was sentenced to nine terms of life imprisonment at his trial in January 1995. The judge at his trial, Lord Justice McDermott, described the bombing as “wanton slaughter” and “one of the worst outrages to beset this province in 25 years of violence.”

Kelly was released in July 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He now works as a tour guide in Belfast, teaching tourists and anyone interested in the Troubles, the history of the conflict.

“When I came to the front of the hospital, it was absolutely quiet. What greeted me when I got into the main corridor was sheer pandemonium. This was not a major incident, but a major disaster of battlefield proportions.” – Dr. Dominick Pinto

The name ‘Martha Pope’ was the IRA code word used when alerting the authorities that a bomb had been placed in a nearby area. It was common practice for the IRA to alert the police they had planted a bomb, apparently in order to limit or bring to zero the number of civilian casualties! The bombs were meant to disrupt the work of the UK government in Northern Ireland and to make life as difficult as possible for trade and general day to day living for people in the North with the hope that the UK government would rethink their position in the State. Of course, loss of life inevitably happened, none more so than when a bomb was detonated in Omagh on August 15, 1998. Bloody Sunday is often attributed with being the culminating event that began the Troubles in Northern Ireland but the Omagh bombing is associated with being the event that ended the Troubles, such was the disgust at its outcome.

After 30 years of violence and tit-for-tat killings, the Irish and British governments sat down to try and finally bring peace to Ireland; in 1997 both governments signed the ‘Mitchell Principles’, a commitment by both parties to focus on resolving political issues by peaceful means. While the Provisional IRA also declared a ceasefire, many of their members saw this as a betrayal of the republican struggle. These members broke off from the P-IRA and formed a splinter group called the Real IRA, a group that rejected the Mitchell principles, as well as the Good Friday Agreement, opposing any political settlement that falls short of Irish unity and independence. The Real IRA focused their bombing campaign on town centres so that they would damage the economic infrastructure of Northern Ireland. Similar to the P-IRA before them, they wanted to damage the economy of the towns and limit civilian casualties. They attempted to do this by calling the police before a bomb was due to explode. Generally, three calls were made, one 30 minutes prior, one 15 minutes prior and one five minutes prior to the explosion. However, this was often not enough to mitigate fatalities, as was the case in Omagh. Furthermore with Omagh, some miscommunication during the calls led the police to direct evacuees towards the blast instead of away from it, leading to catastrophic results.

The Omagh bomb created Ireland’s largest-ever medical emergency. Within the first 45 minutes of the explosion, 240 injured people were taken to Tyrone General Hospital. The staff were completely overwhelmed with the scale and volume of people needing treatment. Buses, cars and helicopters were used to take people to other nearby hospitals to alleviate some of the workload of medical staff. Of the 29 people killed, 16 were Catholic and 11 were Protestant; two Spanish tourists were also killed. The deaths included many children and teenagers with most of the victims being women. In one case, three generations of the same family were killed. Mary Grimes, her daughter, Avril Monaghan and Avril’s 18-month-old baby, Maura. Avril was also pregnant with twins at the time of her death.

The initial reaction to the bomb was revulsion. The Irish, Northern Irish and British governments had been working politically to try and bring peace to Ireland after 30 years of war. The killing was entirely unnecessary and it killed Catholics, as well as Protestants. For the general public, it cemented the idea that the method to a free and united Ireland was to be a political journey, not one fought with blood.

Gwen Hall whose 12-year-old son was severely injured in the explosion wrote a letter to the R-IRA from her hospital bed.

“To the bold lads who ripped out the heart of Omagh, I will probably never know who you are, but you know. I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Gwen, I am the mother of Alistair, who is the bravest person I know. We and all the other victims of your ambush last Saturday, would like to know why? I went to hell and back lying injured in the debris and the water and the blood. Not knowing if my 12-year-old son was alive or dead. By God’s grace he survived and that is why I am lying here able to write. I wish you could have heard that child crying inconsolably yesterday, as he struggled with the pain from his severed limb. That was what ripped at my heart. However, we are two of the lucky ones for which I thank God, we do have a future. You may have broken the bodies of the people of Omagh, but you can never break their spirit. The last line of one of my favourite songs is. ‘God is watching us from a distance’ you can run but you cannot hide.” 

Gwen was right, the culprits could run. However, they could not hide. Three days after the bombing, on August 18, 1998 the R-IRA took responsibility for the bombing. One month after that, they announced a ceasefire, which lasted for two years. Despite knowing that the R-IRA as a group were responsible, no names of the actual bombers were in the crosshairs of the RUC. After much detective work and suspicions, it was a mobile phone conversation between the bombers that eventually led the police to them.

They were Michael McKevitt (Dundalk, Co. Louth), Liam Campbell (Dundalk, Co. Louth), Colm Murphy (Dundalk, Co. Louth) and Seamus Daly (Castleblaney, Co. Monaghan). However, it wasn’t until 2009, 11 years later, that the families of Omagh bombing victims found a form of justice.

Michael McKevitt was the founder of the R-IRA and is married to the sister of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. McKevitt served 13 years in jail for offences related to being a member of an illegal organisation, the R-IRA, as well as directing terrorism. Liam Campbell only last week was extradited to Lithuania on gun smuggling charges and will face trial there soon. He was convicted of being a member of an illegal organisation, the R-IRA and has served eight years behind bars previously. Colm Murphy was the one who supplied the mobile phones that were used for correspondence between the scout car and the car fitted with the bomb. He was the first of the four men to be charged in relation to the case, however his conviction was overturned on a technicality. However, he also served years in jail for various offences related to terrorism, being a member of an illegal organisation, the R-IRA and gun running. His son, Conan Murphy (Dundalk, Co. Louth), is currently serving a jail sentence on an explosives charge. He was found making a 500 lb bomb in a shed in Dundalk Co. Louth. Seamus Daly, was found guilty of being a member of an illegal organisation, the R-IRA and served three-and-a-half years behind bars. 

All four men were never charged in a criminal court with being the culprits for the Omagh bombing, as the prosecution felt there was not enough evidence to convict them. However, the families of the victims raised money and sued them in a civil court. The civil court requires a lesser burden of proof. In the civil court, all four men were found guilty, and were found to be liable for the Omagh Bombing and killing 29 people. The biggest case of mass murder in Northern Irish history. They were requested to pay 1.5 million pounds in damages to the victims: None of which has been paid.