The Murder of Ian Gow

 

There are thousands of decent people who want nothing more than to live in peace in what I will always think of as God’s own province.

Tom Utley

 

The murder of a British member of Parliament, Ian Gow, by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), illustrated the organization’s contempt for democratic, or indeed, human values. Gow’s mentor was another British MP, Airey Neave, who was killed in the House of Commons car park on March 30, 1979. Neave had had a remarkable life before he became an MP. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and managed to escape from Colditz in 1942, and on returning to England was recruited as an intelligence officer for M19. When he died he was a Conservative MP for Abingdon and had proved to be a prominent politician. His killers were never caught and intrigue still hangs over his death.

Ian Gow was under no illusion that he had become a prime target by the IRA, by choosing to identify himself with Northern Ireland and for his support of the Unionist cause.

 

Ian Gow the MP

 

Ian Gow was born on February 10, 1937. He married Jane Elizabeth Price in 1966 and they had one son. Gow was both a politician and a solicitor, and he joined the Conservative Party in February 1974 as member for Eastbourne, East Sussex. He soon made an impression on all his political colleages and his debating abilities on the floor of the Chamber became legendary.

Gow will go down in parliamentary history as the first person to speak in the House of Commons in front of television cameras. He was an articulate, intelligent and witty man and his speech was received well by both audiences – those in the chamber and the television viewers.

His early years in parliament were filled with difficult problems such as the Rhodesian negotiations and the Falklands War. However, Gow handled pressure well and proved to be a great asset.

Gow made his mark in the House of Commons when he assisted his associate, Airey Neaves, with Northern Ireland issues. In 1979, when Margaret Thatcher came into power, Gow was offered the position of Parliamentary Private Secretary.

In 1983, he left the doors of Number 10 to take on a ministerial office, and he threw himself into the role as Minister for Housing with great verve. He showed his usual energy and enthusiasm and soon made his own impact on the problems of housing issues up and down the country.

In 1985, Gow moved on to the Treasury, but it was here that problems started to arise. His downfall was the fact that he was a staunch Unionist with a deep interest in the affairs of Ulster. He feelings ran so deep he was asked to resign in 1985 over the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was an historic agreement signed by Margaret Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald, who was head of the government of the Republic of Ireland, on November 15, 1985, at Hillsborough Castle in County Down.

It was an agreement that was aimed at bringing an end to the troubles in Northern Ireland, but instead it plunged the area into turmoil. Unionists who had not been consulted, reacted with shock, anger and humiliation to the pact that offered Dublin a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland.

There were violent reactions all over Ireland to the agreement, which was vehemently rejected by the Republicans because it confirmed that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK.

The Provisional IRA, who also refused to sign the agreement, continued their reign of terror. The national Fianna Fáil party in the Republic of Ireland rejected the agreement and the future President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, resigned from the Irish Labour Party over the exclusion of the Unionists.

On the other side of the coin, the Unionists rejected the agreement because they felt it gave the Republic of Ireland an increased influence over Northern Ireland. The agreement not only failed to bring an end to the political violence in Northern Ireland, it did nothing to bring the two communities any closer to a reconciliation.

 

Murder Victim

 

Ian Gow was preparing to leave his farmhouse near Eastbourne, East Sussex, on July 30, 1990. He climbed into the driver’s seat of his Austin Montego, completely unaware that the IRA had planted a bomb underneath one of the seats. At exactly 8.39 a.m. the bomb exploded, leaving Gow with appalling injuries to the lower part of his body. His wife, who was inside the house at the time of the explosion, rushed out to see what had happened, but her husband died ten minutes later.

The IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, possibly hoping that the assassination would be a major setback to the Northern Ireland peace discussions. However, politicians on both sides remained resolute in trying to find a peaceful way to end the on-going dispute between the two countries.

Ian Gow’s seat in the House of Commons was filled by David Bellotti, a Liberal Democrat. Ann Widdecombe, a Conservative MP who is known for her outspoken conservatism, stirred up a hornet’s nest after Bellotti’s election by saying, ‘the IRA would be toasting their success’.

The police did question two IRA members over the murder of Ian Gow, but they have never been brought to trial.

 

Ian Gow Memorial Fund

 

The former chancellor and foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and the former chief of the general staff, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, set up a fund for Ian Gow. With Gow’s deep love of Ulster in mind, the fund was an effort to promote understanding between the feuding communities in Ireland. It also invests in young people between the ages of 16 and 30 who are from a disadvantaged background, encouraging them to help themselves.

The fund has been in existence for 16 years now and has raised and distributed in excess of £850,000. More than 2,500 individuals have benefitted, including victims of the Omagh bomb in 1998, in which 28 people died.

The injustice of the death of Ian Gow seems overwhelming, in a country that is supposed to encourage freedom of speech it seems he had to pay for his criticism of the Irish peace process.