This story of the betrayal of the victims of the IRA in Claudy, Co. Tyrone, by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Northern Ireland Office and the British Government, in order to placate the Church of Rome and conceal its links, at the highest level, as this press report shows, with terrorism and murder, portrays just what the Ulster Protestant people have had to endure and the true face of Roman Catholicism!
It must be remembered that this took place at a time when the Roman Catholic Church and Irish Republicanism were claiming that the police force in Northern Ireland, and Protestants in general, were discriminating against the Roman Catholic Community!
Is that not the very essence of irony!
The British Government was in full cooperation in this evil machination, not only in covering up this horrendous crime but to the extent of sympathetically listening to the complaints of Rome regarding the charges of police harassment of Romanists and endorsing these complaints before the world and helping Rome in the creation of the image of the ‘persecuting Ulster Protestant’!
I recently watched an American documentary on the ‘Kennedy Clan’, once considered the ‘cream of American society, its ‘royal family’! I was amazed at the blunt and open frankness of the exposure. Joe Kennedy Sr, the patriarch of the ‘clan’ was declared to be a serial philanderer, involved with some of the most famous Hollywood ‘stars’ in his day. His son Jack, later President of the USA, followed in his footsteps as did his youngest son Ted, who will ever be linked to the death of 28 year old, Mary Jo Kopechne, in the infamous Chappaquiddick incident.
Bobby, his third son, rose to be United States Attorney General but has been linked to the cover-up of the death of Marilyn Monroe; some even allege he had links to the suspicious death of the Hollywood film actress who had immoral relationships with a number of the men of the ‘Kennedy clan’.
Both Jack and Bobby were assassinated and their oldest brother Joe Jr died as a result of the cargo of explosives his plane was carrying accidentally exploding over England in 1944. He was his father’s first choice for grooming as a future president of the USA.
The immorality, the hypocrisy, the cruelty by both Joe Sr and his wife, Rose, to their daughter Rosemary, who had been slightly brain-damaged at birth, is unspeakably cruel. She was locked up following an unsuccessful lobotomy, an experimental surgery on the brain. She was left with the limitations of a 2-year old! After the lobotomy, Rosemary was immediately institutionalised only seen by her mother after 20 years and never visited by her father again!
This is the morality of popery and we in Ulster have come face to face with it for centuries and it remains unchanged as Claudy and its aftermath illustrates!
You don’t have to look too far for the fingerprints of the agents of Satan in the carnage generated during the years of the IRA’s murderous outrages in Ulster.
Ivan Foster.
Claudy bombings families to receive pay-outs after report found ‘cover-up’ of IRA priest’s involvement
Civil claims were taken against the PSNI and UK Government
(Text taken from the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – September 10th 2021)
Relatives of some of the victims of the 1972 IRA Claudy bombings have taken legal action against the PSNI and NIO in relation to a cover-up to protect a catholic priest involved in the attack.
‘Father’ James Chesney
Relatives of three people murdered in the Claudy bombings are to receive pay-outs in civil claims against the PSNI and British Government, it has been announced.
Confidential settlements were confirmed at the High Court in actions brought over investigative failures in the 1972 outrage where the main suspect was a Catholic priest.
No admission of liability has been made by either defendant in a case centred on damning findings that senior police officers colluded with the church and the state to protect Father James Chesney.
Nine people were killed when three no-warning bombs exploded in the Co Derry village on July 31, 1972.
Dozens of others were injured in the atrocity for which the IRA was blamed but never admitted responsibility.
In 2010 a Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman report identified a huge cover-up to shield Father Chesney. He was believed to be the IRA’s director of operations in south Derry, and a prime suspect in the Claudy attacks as well as other terrorist incidents.
Main Street Claudy in August 1972 when three Provisional IRA car bombs exploded without warning, killing 9 local people and injuring many others.
But documents from the time revealed that a deal was arranged behind closed doors to remove him from the jurisdiction.
He was transferred to a parish in Co Donegal following secret talks between the then Northern Ireland Secretary of State William Whitelaw and the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal William Conway, according to papers.
Chesney died in 1980 without ever being questioned by police, and no-one has been brought to justice for the Claudy bombings since.
Following publication of the Ombudsman’s report bereaved relatives launched legal action against the Chief Constable, the Northern Ireland Office and the Catholic Diocese of Derry.
Claims were lodged by David Temple, who lost his 16-year-old brother William; James Miller, whose grandfather David Miller, 60, was among those killed; and Colin McClelland and Tracy Deans on behalf of their 64-year-old uncle, Thomas McClelland.
The resolutions in the three cases against the police and Northern Ireland Office represent the first time pay-outs have been made for investigative failings in a suspected IRA atrocity.
In a statement the families’ legal representatives, KRW Law, confirmed: “Our clients have instructed us to discontinue the legal action against the Chief Constable of the PSNI and the NIO, who have agreed a full and final settlement without an admission of liability.
“The sum of the settlement is to remain confidential, and the PSNI and the NIO have agreed to pay the costs of our clients up to the date of this agreement.”
Proceedings against the Diocese of Derry are continuing, with a trial in that action expected to take place next year.
“The Temple, Miller and McClelland families… wish to place on record their anger and disgust at the attitude of the Church to date within the legal proceedings,” their lawyers said.
“The families would like to finally say that they were deeply disappointed in the lack of a proper investigation into the murder of their loved ones by the Police.
“However, they would like to place on record a sense of appreciation for the mature attitude displayed by the Police and the NIO at mediation which assisted the families in understanding some serious failings by the state.”
Solicitor Kevin Winters also reiterated his concern at proposals to end Troubles-related prosecutions, civil actions and inquests.
He said: “If the British Government had its way this type of case wouldn’t be on here today.”