No Stone Unturned

Tonight I saw the third in a trilogy of documentaries about Troubles atrocities. This one was about the Loughinisland massacre. A gunman bursts into a bar in the middle of nowhere where about 15 men are watching Ireland play Italy in football. The gunman kills seven of them. In the subsequent investigations, critical evidence disappears. Like the getaway car, which had been left in a field. The gist of the film was that the security services (local police, British army, MI5) were in cahoots with Protestant paramilitaries, so turned a blind eye. The film was about how the families of the victims have tried to pursue justice.

The investigative journalists behind the film identified who the three men were (the shooter, the driver, and the guy who held the door). But the police seem spectacularly uninterested in the suspects. However they are highly interested in the two journalists, whom they arrested and cuffed in front of their families.

Welcome to Northern Ireland. It is no wonder that the Troubles remain an open sore for so many. The role of the state has never been properly acknowledged or compensated for. I recounted the film later to a Protestant friend who said the IRA were worse than the Protestant paramilitaries; that there were many more IRA gunman than Protestant gunmen; that Protestants are better at forgiving and moving on than Catholics; and that Sinn Fein has been shameless in politicising the past and glorifying violence. No one is saying the IRA were angels. But it is the role of the state in granting immunity to terrorists on both sides in exchange for information that is the rotten core of the thing. That is the reason justice has never been served, decades on.

March 26