On 9 August 1971, 342 Catholic men were interned in Northern Ireland. Patrick McNally was among 23 of my p arishioners in Armagh who were arrested. He and Brian Turley of Armagh were two of the twelve hooded men tortured in Ballykelly Barracks. I took this statement from Patrick on 18 March 1974:
At 4.30am on the morning of 9 August 1971 the soldiers came to my house. I said, ‘Is it internment?’ One of them said, ‘Yes’. They brought me to the grounds of Saint Luke’s hospital in Armagh There was a lorry waiting there. I was the first into it, and shortly afterwards they brought in a few others, Corrigan and McGinley. Then we headed out to Gough Barracks, Armagh. Our photographs were taken there. Then three of us were taken in a helicopter, Dermot Kelly, Kerr of Navan Street, and myself.
We landed in Ballykinlar Barracks and were put into a hut. Only a few of us at the start, about a dozen from all over. I was taken out and had a medical examination, very brief, just strip and on me again. He was a youngish doctor, pleasant enough. Then taken to a different hut. It was full. We were left alone for a long time. Then the army came in a few hours afterwards and started making us do the ‘exercises’, continued until that night, thumping you if you were not doing them right. All this time they were taking people out and questioning them; some would come back and some wouldn’t. But I never was questioned the whole time I was there. Then processing us and moving us to different huts. On the 9th of August we were allowed an hour’s sleep, but I couldn’t sleep. I was only wearing a tee-shirt and trousers. I was freezing. On the tenth day of August we had the exercises all day again but the number of men was getting less all the time until there were only four of us in this particular hut, Brian Turley, Gerry McKerr, Seán McKenna and myself.
Gerry McKerr asked for a mattress for each of us and we were given this and a blanket. But they kept making us carry this mattress in turn and jump over the other three lying down. In between times you had to run outside between the two huts, ten times, getting faster all the time. At the end of this you were made go to the toilet which was a hole in the ground. You had to go through lines of soldiers and police standing round, watching this and laughing. They made swipes at you, odd thumps of the baton on the arm. Then when we came in again more ‘exercises’. All were told to go in and sleep, but each time we dozed over they would waken us up again and make us run round again. That went on all night. Before we went into bed each time we had to say together, ‘Good night, Sir’ and ‘Good night, Sergeant’. Once on the tenth I asked to go to the toilet but then I didn’t go because there was no paper provided and they stood there watching you all the time.
On the following morning, 11 August, just about daylight, three or four soldiers and about three police to each man came bursting into our hut, and they had the hood and handcuffs. I was held by a soldier and I think it was the policeman who put on the hood. I knew I was in for some sort of treatment. All sorts of things were going through my mind. Then I was bundled into a vehicle, thrown into the back, kicked and trailed. Then into a helicopter, grabbing your hair under the hood when they walked you along. Not a word was spoken the whole time, but I would say, about an hour, or between half an hour and an hour in the helicopter. Then out of the helicopter again into another vehicle, all the time very roughly handled, odd kick, punched and trailed. Getting into the vehicle you were banged against it and then you scrambled in on your own. Brought in the vehicle for a short distance.
Then we had a medical examination, stripped naked, still with the hood on, a short examination. No words spoken. Then into the boiler suit, about three sizes too big for me, open down the middle. Then taken out and stood against the wall, inside a building somewhere. At this time, in the beginning, I think we were lined together because you could feel people standing beside you. After a while I began to move and became restless. That was the first contact I had with anybody; my arms were falling down; they would raise them up and bang them against the wall. You were never allowed to keep your head down, just a few minutes and then it was pulled back. The noise was there at the start but at the start it didn’t annoy me much. I was expecting it to be turned off. Only after a few hours that I began to think more about it. In the beginning it didn’t seem loud but after a while seemed the only thing that mattered, nothing seemed to matter only the noise. After a while your hands and arms were numb. I imagined I was on a round wall, kept thinking it was a massive big pillar, kept thinking there was a roundness on the wall. After, I don’t know how long, I think I fainted, was lifted up again. They got my arms and wound them round.
From I went in till the time I was taken away for the Removal Order I thought it was a few days. I was against the wall all that time except for the short interrogations. At the time the first interrogation came it just seemed an endless time against the wall. I know I had collapsed a few times. If you made any movement, if your hand crumbled, they would bang your hand against the wall, give you the odd dig in the ribs to remember you to stand right. One time I did fall I was left there for a good while but I am not sure if this was after the Removal Order or before it.
Brought out for the first interrogation, I was lying on the ground. They trailed me along the ground by the collar of the overall. I know I was trailed off something, like a short stage, a few feet high or more, two of them trailing me, kicked and punched, seemed a long distance. All darkness. Brought into a room. I was sat on the floor. On the first occasion the hood wasn’t removed, but after that at the other interrogations the hood was rolled up but only up to my nose.
The first interrogation was very short. A voice just said, ‘You wanted to see me’. I never answered. The voice said again, ‘Have you anything to say?’ I answered, ‘No’. Same voice said, ‘Take him away’. I was brought back again, but more roughly this time and pushed up against the wall. And so on.
Interrogation again in similar fashion. Seemed a good number of hours to me between this and the other one. Sitting on the floor again. After about half a minute sat up on a chair. Something similar. Heard only one voice. I was being held in the chair and the voice was coming from the front of me. All darkness under the hood.
Back again against the wall. Seemed another long time. I fell another few times. Next taken away in a jeep. I felt other people in the jeep. I knew Brian Turley was in it. He was shouting for air; he couldn’t breathe. I was lying on top of him and somebody was lying on top of me. At one stage I saw underneath the hood – I could see black trousers and black boots of police. We were handcuffed in the jeep. My skin was caught in the handcuffs. An English voice said, ‘Look at the bastard’s hands’. I was thumped on the hand with a baton where the skin was caught. I had a scar there for a long time after it. Lot of kicks on the journey, lying in a heap on the floor, just kicking free-for-all. This was the most kickings I got.
Then into a helicopter and about half-an-hour in it. Then brought out. Taken on foot for a good distance. Held by the neck and arms. Run over tin and grass. Brought into a building, down steps, hood was taken off my head. There was somebody in front of me in a black uniform. That was the first time the hood was taken off me. The man in the black uniform was standing beside a table. He just held this paper up. I said, ‘I can’t see’. Everything was just a haze. I could only see the white paper and that was that. He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see anybody else. Hadn’t time to see them, all so quick. The hood was put on again. The piece of paper was put into the pocket of the overalls. Then the same journey back again.
I was wondering the whole way back what was going to happen. I had hoped at this stage that I might be going to jail. When I got back and was put against the wall again then I was really bad. Then started thinking all types of thoughts. After a few more hours of that I was thinking I would never come out of it.
A few more interrogations, about twelve to fifteen hours in between. Something similar the whole time. After what seemed a few more days to me, I couldn’t stand at all. Must have been collapsing and falling all the time. One time I felt somebody lifted my leg and a sharp needle was run along my foot. I was up against the wall again after that. By this time the noise, which was there all the time, was such that it is just impossible to explain; you couldn’t have sensible thoughts. I had come out of the helicopter listening to see were we going to the same place and when I heard the noise it just knocked the heart out of you.
After one of the interrogations I was brought into this small room. No noise there. It was completely black. I took the hood off after a few minutes. The room seemed very small, about six feet by four feet. I was exhausted. I rolled the hood up, made a pillow. It was a concrete floor, freezing out. But I was totally exhausted and I slept. That was the first sleep I got. I had never been offered any sleep.
I got only half a cup of water, only once, and it seemed after days. My lips were all dried up. They tried to put bread in my mouth, couldn’t take it, just choked me. That was the first and only water I got. They had given it to me sitting on the ground after I had fallen.
One time I took the hood off when I was standing against the wall. There was light in the place but I couldn’t see well, just seemed to be a dim orange light from the roof. I saw two men both stripped to the waist.
One of them said in an English voice, ‘Do you want to see anybody?’ I answered, ‘No’. Immediately they put the hood on again. I got a few thumpings. They were wearing what seemed to be the bottom of a track suit or a gym suit. Looked to be blue trousers. As the hood was being put on again I could see the white gym shoes. I have the idea that one had tight blondish hair. They were very fit and strong looking. This incident happened after I had come back from getting the Detention Order. The soldiers in Ballykinlar had told us there was civil war and that people and children were being shot. All this was coming back to me.
After I had fallen asleep in the small room, I was told by a Northern Ireland accent to put the hood on. Then they came in. Taken out this time walking. Taken down what seemed to be a corridor, blankets hanging down, roughish hairy material. You had to move in and out between them. Then brought in for interrogation again.
This was the first interrogation with the hood off. Before Detention Order it was just rolled up a bit. Table there. Sat in a chair. Told not to look behind me. Hand was placed on each shoulder. The interrogator had black hair thinning a bit at the front, wearing a blue anorak, thinnish, round about thirty-five years old, spoke in educated type of accent, no Northern Ireland twang about it. He said, ‘You are in the IRA’. I said ‘No’. He talked about Republican parades. He said, ‘Do you deny you are a Republican?’ I said, ‘No’. Then sort of casual questions. This particular interrogator never cut rough in the interrogations. Just straight forward simple questions.
Taken into another room. There was a mattress in this room. Later a blanket. After the door was closed I knew I was on my own and I could take the hood off. I took it off. I lay down on the mattress and went to sleep. The next thing I heard a banging on the door and a voice shouting, ‘Put on your hood’. I was taken by the arms and into a room. Sat in the chair again. The hood was taken off and the fella immediately grabbed me by the lapels of the boiler suit. He lifted me up roaring and shouting, ‘I don’t want any nonsense out of you. I want the truth. You are going to tell me everything’. Then he sat down again. Then he started asking questions. ‘We know you are in the IRA, what is your rank?’ Just general questions but pretty rough all the time. Shouting and slapping the table, pushing you about and things like that. I had about three separate interrogations with him. This man had a black heavy curly beard, black hair, combed straight forward, medium length, well-built, about just over thirty, maybe thirty-three. Always rough, losing his head, roaring and shouting.
Round about this time too I was sitting in the mattress room, might have been some time after I came out of the room where I got the first sleep. They came in and pulled the hood up to my nose and gave me some stew. I had to eat it with my fingers.
The period between these interrogations was not very long. I was brought into a different interrogator, in his fifties, going grey-haired, very big, heavy, about six foot two or three. He acted real nice, put his arm around me. Sat down. He talked about politics – where did I get my views from? Did I read any books? Did you ever join the IRA? and so on. He wouldn’t ask the same question twice. If you said ‘No’ to anything he would make you feel he believed you. He talked about Germany, Japan, the Free State, how well they were doing since the war. I was brought into him two or three times for interrogation. One time there was a plate of beans on the table. He said, ‘You can eat them’. I didn’t. I was very sick at this stage.
I had never been to the toilet since I was put against the wall. When I was in the mattress room I was very nervous and tense at this stage and asked out to the toilet, anything to get out of the room; even looking forward to the interrogation.
On the last interrogation, the big tall grey-haired man came in and shouted, ‘Face the back wall’. He came in and spoke to me, ‘Come on, get your hood on, you are coming with me’. I went into the room again. The hood was taken off. This was the last interrogation. The big grey-haired fella interrogated me. He said, ‘Anything you want to eat at all, you can have’. I got a cup of tea, beans and sausages, bread. Then he put the hood on again. He himself took me to the washroom. I was filthy. He told me to get washed. Got sort of half washed. Then he told me I was for the Crumlin Road. I didn’t really believe him at the time. I thought then this was a bluff. But I knew there was something on. Next he came in again. He had a sheet. He asked me to sign it. I told him I couldn’t see. I got it and tried to read it. He got annoyed. I waited until I could see. Then I could make out ‘boots and socks’, so I signed it. He took me to this room and I was photographed in it. I had a sort of medical check before I went into the room, could feel hands going over me, the hood was still on. I was photographed along with this interrogator. I had no clothes on. Then photographed me on my own, back and front. Then brought back to the room.
Then next time brought out treated gently, sort of guiding you instead of pushing you into the vehicle, your foot was lifted up and set into it. From that into the helicopter. The guard kept touching me reassuringly, patting me. Still hooded. Landed. Put into another Land Rover. The hood was taken off in the Land Rover. I was sitting among six or seven police, just outside the Crumlin Road Jail, Belfast. I said to one of them, ‘What day is it today?’ He said, ‘Mind your own business’. I was brought into the Crumlin through a hole in the wall. As soon as I got out of the Land Rover I could see the jail.
During the time I was away sometimes I would be stubborn with them. Other times you would have done anything. Other times I didn’t really believe it was me. The whole time I was against the wall I don’t think I stopped praying. I may have thought out loud but all the time I was praying. One time I thought a whole lot of children had been shot in Drumbreda but I don’t know whether I was told that by one of the interrogators or not.
Dear Jim,
You have now been imprisoned without trial for 14 months. During that time you suffered heavy interrogation in a military barracks, Armagh RUC station, and Portadown RUC station. You endured the rigours of the condemned prison ship, Maidstone. You have been treated like an animal in a cage in Long Kesh prison camp, a place precisely planned to break its prisoners by prolonged degradation. In Long Kesh you were beaten and injured by the British army on 25 October 1971, and on another occasion when being transferred from one compound to another.
This imprisonment, so terrible because of its injustice and its indefinite length, must weigh heavily on you, a man of nearly 50 years, considering too that you need medical care. As a peacemaker in the Armagh community you are appalled by the viciousness of the procedures employed to degrade men in Long Kesh. Not only the physical degradation causes you to suffer, but also the calumnies about internees of leading ministers of the British crown. Like the thousand or so Catholics who were arrested and detained, your basic liberty was taken from you. You had no just public trial and no proper means of defence – no warrant, no charge, no trial. Why are you being held without trial in Long Kesh prison camp? Was it because you were chairman of the National Graves Association? Would Mr Whitelaw, who reserves to himself the right to inspect each file, declare publicly or show you privately why you are being held away from your wife and family? Like yourself your wife is not in good health; deprived of her husband she has little to live on; she is on her own; she is one of ‘Mr Whitelaw’s widows’. Your son, Tony, on 3 October 1972 was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment after being found to have 6 rounds of ammunition. The people of Armagh have noted that in the same week a UVF man got the same sentence as your son for being in possession of 3 rifles and 1,163 rounds of ammunition, under suspicious circumstances. Why have you not been allowed to visit your son in Crumlin Road Jail? Why has your request been turned down so often? Why was no reason for the refusal given to you or to the welfare officer? Such permission has been granted to others.
I know that your heart contains no bitterness after having heard of the tortures of others imprisoned without trial. I understand your distress at the recent ill-treatment of the remand prisoners. What possible justification can there be for holding you and the other 211 prisoners detained without trial? Are you hostages? Are you being held for ransom by Mr Whitelaw? Are you prisoners of war? Have you, like privy councillors and ex-ministers of government, threatened to liquidate your neighbours? It appears to the community here in Armagh that you and others, Jim Fields, are the victims of English political expediency. Other Catholic men have spent 12 years of their lives imprisoned without trial. Does Mr Whitelaw with the help of Special Courts intend to do the same with you and your fellow prisoners? Does he really have any idea of what constitutes fair play, equality, and treatment of men in accordance with human Christian dignity? Is it true that Mr Whitelaw intends to keep you in the Long Kesh cages over a second Christmas? The Christmas message of peace, good will, and family unity means little to those implementing the immoral procedures of internment. The ordinary citizen wants a lasting peace, based on justice. The ordinary citizen wants all internees released immediately.
Extract from the broadsheet ‘Whitelaw violates Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights’.
The Detention of Terrorists Order (NI) introduced on 7 November 1972 provided that the British Secretary of State could appoint commissioners to adjudicate on persons arrested and determine whether they should be detained. A person who was the subject of a Detention Order could also appeal to an Appeal Tribunal. Special tribunals were set up in Long Kesh Prison to enquire into cases of those detained. They soon became known as ‘Whitelaw’s Tribunals’. I attended three, one on behalf of Patrick McNally, the same parishioner who had been tortured in Ballykelly Barracks and who had been brought to Long Kesh Internment Camp from Crumlin Road Prison, and the others on behalf of Éamon Hannaway and Brian J. Rafferty, also parishioners. These appeals were conducted by the doyen Armagh solicitor, Gerry Lennon. The appeals of Patrick McNally and Brian Rafferty failed. Éamon Hannaway’s appeal was successful.
Tuesday, 14 November 1972, at 1.45pm a prison officer arrives at the door of Hut 82, Cage 9, and calls out the names of three internees. He tells them that they are to be taken to the ‘court’. A grey prison van is waiting at the gates of the cage. When the three men and their escort of four prison officers are aboard, it begins its short journey to Cage 14 where the commission to enquire into their cases is being held. On arrival at their destination, the men are taken, one at a time, from the van and are shown into a prefabricated hut where, under the watch of two prison officers, they are asked to wait.
Cage 14 where the ‘court’ holds session is at first glance indistinguishable from the other cages in Long Kesh Internment Camp, four long Nissen huts with grey brick gable walls, corrugated tin roofs and sides. Directly in front of three of these huts are the tiny prefabricated buildings where the internees will wait, be thoroughly searched, and have all their belongings and the contents of their pockets, with the exception of a handkerchief, placed in a canvas sack. After waiting for perhaps a half-an-hour, the prison officers escort the internees into the main hut where the ‘court’ is sitting. The main Nissen hut is partitioned into three areas, the commissioner’s chamber, the court-room, and a section made up of six small rooms severed by a narrow corridor, three rooms on each side. At the end of this corridor a small door opens up into the court-room.
The ‘court’ is a well-furnished room, the bare walls covered with sheets of brightly coloured insulating board and hung with scarlet and blue drapes. The floor is covered with a scarlet carpet. The main feature of the room is a large oval-shaped table of polished wood. The commissioner sits on a high-backed well-upholstered chair at the centre and to the right of this table. Above and slightly behind hangs a painting of the British coat of arms, complete with motto, honi soit qui mal y pense. The commissioner’s chair is situated at the centre and to the right of the table. To the right of the commissioner sits a stenographer with a tape recorder and a microphone placed in front of him. Immediately in front of the oval table are a desk and chair at which sits the commissioner’s clerk; on his desk are two microphones, one angled towards the crown prosecutor and the other towards the respondent. A few feet in front of him and facing the commissioner are two chairs, for the respondent and a prison officer. To the right of these two chairs is a desk behind which the crown prosecutor sits. There is a vacant desk and chair to the left and slightly behind the respondent’s chair.
Three doors open into the court-room. One leads into the corridor already described. One is a few feet from this, but concealed by a screen of red velvet curtains, and through it come the Special Branch to take their seats and give evidence hidden from the ‘court’. The third door in the opposite wall faces this. Through this door is the commissioner’s chamber, from which he appears.
I wrote the following piece after appearing for the defence of Éamon Hannaway. It was published in Whitelaw’s Tribunals.
The Tribunal and the Appeal Tribunal are held within the now great complex of the Long Kesh encampment. Yellow and black signs point to a special entrance towered over by a military post and guarding soldier. A shout from the soldier and a few accent misunderstandings before you realise that you have to wait. A soldier finally comes through a little door, checks your name and identity with his pad, and then disappears only to re-appear immediately to re-open the big gate and admit your car. Then you drive across a great waste-land surrounded by barbed wire and corrugated iron sheeting. To the right a worm-eaten cabbage patch catches your eye. It reminds you of your ‘T. S. Eliot schooldays’. The next entrance is blocked by two Kosangas bottles. A soldier removes them and now you are through to a place where there is a little bit more life. It even cheers you to have your car searched and go into a wooden hut where there is heat and light! It is still even pleasant to dump the contents of your pockets and be amiably ‘run over’ by a smiling soldier. You go out clutching your permit which is now as valuable as a ration book. The two women witnesses have clambered into a van with two policewomen; the separation of the sexes of course for searching. You get into your own van. The solicitor is there and two other witnesses, the mate and father of the accused. And there are other lawyers who are putting their trust in their academic distinctions for their case, a formidable battery of learned lawyers.
The game we are playing is a different one. We know – the aunt, the girlfriend, father, mate, priest and solicitor – that our accused is an innocent man and we think that it will be a great compliment to the court to bring ourselves to it as human furnishings, because all the emphasis is on furnishing. One lawyer grunts in the van, ‘This court has all the incidentals down to the last detail. In fact half the courts in the country have not had the expense and detail of court trappings as this one has. It lacks only the essence of a court’. ‘But’, I remark, ‘how can judges and lawyers go through with this? Have they no professional shame?’ ‘My dear boy,’ he says, ‘they are Englishmen and you are a Hottentot’.
And true enough, when we disembark and go in, one is amazed at the beauty of the Nissen hut interior, beautifully painted, carpeted, separate rooms for lawyers and witnesses.
It is 10.30am. But it is an hour and more before any of us are called as witnesses. There has been much reminiscing about the beloved internee. His mate and girlfriend devour cigarettes. His aunt is womanly silent. I keep on building up their hopes, but not overdoing it. One poor internee was turned down at the first sitting of the appeal court the day before (and those who know him know how innocent and unfortunate he is). So today our lad stands a chance. Yesterday it was shown that the appeal isn’t just a formality by not releasing the internee. Today just might be the day it isn’t a formality by granting a release. But if our lad is released, even in this buffoon court, none of us are going to argue, because he will be going to his home that was lonely without him and his girlfriend will now plan her marriage. His mate will no longer go around like a lost dog. His father and aunt have prayed for fifteen months and have suffered. The father keeps mumbling of his release, ‘I can’t see it’. I try to reassure him.
Two policewomen and a policeman sit at the other end of the waiting-room. There is just that difference hanging in the air but it doesn’t prevent an odd loud groan from the witnesses on the injustice of internment. There was a time in Northern Ireland when you wouldn’t even have heard that groan. All are nervous about being called in. People have never been through this before. At last the bearded clerk comes in and takes out the first witness. And so the five of us are called in turn, his intimate friends, all rooting for him. As witnesses we go and come back as if we had been led to the slaughter.
My own turn comes. Into the corridor I go, at the top a small door marked ‘Private’. It reminds me somewhat of the atmosphere below deck in a submarine.
The clerk is mumbling something, whether I have any objection to the James Bible. Two things flash through my mind – how strange in these ecumenical days, and should I quip ‘James the Second?’ On the exterior I reassure him. I am going to be nice and grovel if that means the release of an innocent man.
The door opens. I enter the court-room. It seems very bright and is slashed with royal blue and scarlet curtains. I am instantly greeted by a dozen murmurs. The accused is seated. He reminds me of Christ, patient and forbearing. A look of suffering.
The swearing. I have already made a statement for the solicitor. He just runs me through it in question form. I answer the questions a little more elaborately. I know the shorthand is at work and the tape recorder. A testimony to the good character and good behaviour of a friend. The defence solicitor is at my right at a desk. The prosecutor is seated opposite. The prosecutor questions me – going back to the day of internment, was I surprised he was taken? would I accept his word? I would. Any more questions? I take my first good look at the tribunal. They are all smiling. All three grey grave men. The Irish traditional saying to beware of the smile of an Englishman tempts my good will. But they are still smiling. Is the adage true? I feel as if I would like to hear the rest of the proceedings but I have to leave.
It is one o’clock. We await the verdict in the waiting-room. The solicitor comes in. ‘Court adjourned until two o’clock. We can go to a canteen’. Another long hour of waiting but, if the tribunal has a working lunch, we console ourselves that the adjournment is a good sign. It all fits into the serious trappings of the show.
The court has been an extraordinary affair. The prosecutor can not open up the prosecution case too much because then he would reveal the secrecy of some of the RUC Special Branch officers’ testimony and this he cannot do. The defence lawyer is shadow-boxing too because he is not aware of all that he is supposed to defend, except that he knows his client is innocent and it is hard to prove that an innocent man is innocent. Our solicitor is very competent and so he shadow-boxes until the tribunal fixes on something that might at first seem a minor detail but it is something to go on and is soon torn asunder by legal ingenuity. All hypnotise themselves into a real court. There has been no precedent in this kind of court proceedings of appeal. The learned tribunal feels its way.
We are back at two o’clock. Twenty minutes later the respondent enters the waiting-room. ‘I am released’. Smiles and tears.
My appearance at the tribunal hearing of Brian Rafferty culminated in an attack on my character from the ‘prosecutor’. Reference was made to my campaign against the ill-treatment of detainees in RUC interrogation centres and RUC barracks. I then wrote to the Rt Hon. Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State, on 6 July 1974:
Dear Mr Rees,
On 13 June, 1974, I went to the Maze Prison, Long Kesh Camp, as a witness in the Tribunal Hearing of Mr B. J. Rafferty, Armagh. I have serious reservations regarding the morality and legality in international law of these tribunals. This you know from the pamphlet Whitelaw’s Tribunals which was forwarded to you when you were an MP in opposition. Yet Armagh priests, Fr Malachy Coyle, Fr Peter Makem and myself, all of Armagh Parish, have participated to help wives and families.
The 13 June, 1974, was my third appearance as a witness in the Tribunal. I was put into an embarrassing position by the prosecutor and the commissioner. It is my opinion that the prosecutor set out to smear and discredit me with the allegation of association with the guilt of men taking part in illegal activities. He presumed such guilt on the part of all Catholics for whom I have made representations and who were arrested in Armagh City. It appears to me that he could only have attacked me on the calumniatory information supplied by the police in Armagh to discredit me as a character witness.
The commissioner astonished me by his lack of objectivity, presuming the accuracy of what might well be fictitious informers. It appears to me that he tried to get me to support the immorality of what he was doing. I was astounded at his lack of objectivity. I did not realise that the prisoner had such a poor chance. His remark that the prisoner had refused to come to the tribunal initially and therefore was an IRA man was ridiculous.
Mr Lennon, the solicitor, said he would not expose me again to such a tribunal. I wish your department to furnish me with a transcript of my interrogation, which I wish to forward to the Lord Chancellor. I am also making a report to the International Commission of Jurists.
The reply came on 24 July 1974 from Mr Rees’ private secretary, A. Huckle, Northern Ireland Office, Stormont Castle, Belfast.
Dear Father Murray,
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your letter of 6th July in which you referred to the review by a Commissioner of the case of Mr B. J. Rafferty, who is a detainee in H. M. Prison, Maze.
Although Commissioners are appointed by the Secretary of State they act quite independently and regulate their own procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1973. You will appreciate, therefore, that the Secretary of State is unable to comment on your criticisms of the conduct of Mr Rafferty’s review hearing in which you participated as a witness. Finally, you asked for a transcript of your cross-examination but I regret that it is not possible to provide this.
Little flies, quivering and shaking with the wind gusts,
I look at the biological detail
of your wings.
Lightsome bloodless corpses,
glittering,
fluttering,
slightly caught on the silent strings
of the iron web,
mesh of grey, distorted vision.
Invisible men –
your escape is wider
wider than another day.
Raymond Murray, 1974
In memory of those who died in Long Kesh – Patrick Crawford, Francis Dodds, Éamonn Campbell, Patrick Teers, Hugh Gerard Coney.