Review: Shooting Crows: mass murder, state collusion and press freedom
Geoff Bell reviews ‘Shooting Crows: mass murder, state collusion and press freedom’ by Trevor Birney, published by Merrion Press
If you read Shooting Crows as fiction you could become critical. Not believable, you would think. Too many dead bodies. Too many evil psychopaths. Too many conspiracy theories. Yes, it might be set in Ireland, but even there, things were surely not that bad. Even there, right-wing fanaticism was not that deranged. Even there, the forces of the state were not so deep in collusion with the red, white and blue crazies.
The thing is that Shooting Crows is not fiction. It is not the work of an over-active imagination. It is a real and recent story, or to be more precise a series of stories, each one as shocking as the other. Indeed, “shocking” is something of an understatement.
The first story concerns the historical record of unionist violence in the North of Ireland. Principally, this is how, in the early twentieth century, the Protestant community armed themselves to take on the then British (Liberal) government in protest at its plans for a limited form of all-Ireland self-rule. This was when the gun was brought back into British/Irish politics and stablished a tradition future unionists would look to and follow. The name of the private militia set up in 1912-14, the Ulster Volunteer Force, was adopted by loyalists in the mid 1960s who started killing Catholics, because they were Catholics. This was before the civil rights campaign got underway and before the emergence of the IRA. Thus, the pattern of unionism initiating violence was re-established.
Birney then retells the story of one of the most horrific examples of this, the massacre of six Catholic men as they were watching Ireland winning a World Cup football match on television in 1994. The loyalist gang burst into a pub in Loughinisland, County Down, shouted “Fenian bastards” and opened fire on everyone there. None of the victims had any association with the IRA. Again, they were targeted because they were Catholics.
Birney first told this story when he and fellow journalist Barry McCaffrey produced the film No Stone Unturned in 2017. This also named those involved in the massacre and revealed that leader of the gang, Ronnie Hawthorne, was a police informer. One of the sources the filmmakers used was a written testimony from Hawthorne’s wife, others came from within the police.
In the aftermath of the massacre the police declined to properly forensically examine evidence linked to the murders – for example, the car used and then abandoned by the killers, and the clothes and weapons they dumped. The forensic failures were not carelessness: the priority of the police was to protect Hawthorne, not pursue a case against him and his fellow fanatics.
It was not just the police who sought to cover up. The guns used in the massacre were from a shipment bought by the loyalists from apartheid South Africa. The British army and MI5 were fully aware of this deal and did nothing to prevent many of the weapons falling into the hands of known sectarians. Again, protecting their agents who informed them what was happening was their priority.
This is the story No Stone Unturned told. After it was screened, it seemed, the Police Service of Northern Ireland were finally investigating the Loughinisland Massacre, and they even brought in the Durham Police to help them. But it was not the massacre they investigated, nor was it the state collusion that sanctioned and covered it up. It was Birney and McCaffrey, who were raided in early hours of the morning and eventually charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act and stealing police documents. There was no evidence of this.
Perhaps, the most shocking incident, was when the police were questioning the journalists and asked if they regretted the “hurt and pain” they had caused Hawthorne. Both the journalists and their lawyers could hardly believe their ears. A lawyer asked the police, “I’m sorry, are you asking my client if he regrets causing hurt and pain to a man who the police said murdered six people.” The question went unanswered.
The journalists’ nightmares continued for some time until the Northern Ireland High Court strongly condemned the action of the police and a lower court judge for issuing a search warrant in the first place. Eventually, they were awarded substantial damages.
Such is the horror story meticulously told by Birney in this important book. And remember this. The cover-up of the massacre was undertaken by members of the old discredited Royal Ulster Constabulary, but also by the supposedly “reformed” Police Service of Northern Ireland. The attack on press freedom was sanctioned by the British state; the raids were conducted after the Good Friday Agreement was meant to confine such attacks on civil liberty to the bad old days of the Special Powers Act. And the one British politician who attended the Northern Ireland High Court hearing to show his solidarity with the journalists was David Davis, a Conservative.
No charges were brought against the Loughinisland killers.
- You can grab a copy of ‘Shooting Crows: Mass Murder, State Collusion and Press Freedom’ here or in major outlets.
- Labour for Irish Unity is holding a public meeting at the Wilson Room, Portcullis House, 18 November, 7pm. Speakers include Colin Harvey, Ireland’s Future, and Daniel Holder, Committee for the Administration of Justice (NI). The prospects for Irish unity and legacy legislation that could deal with Loughinisland and similar incidents will be discussed.
- Geoff Bell is an author and an executive member of Labour for Irish Unity. You can follow Labour for Irish Unity on Facebook and Twitter/X.
Geoff Bell reviews ‘Shooting Crows: mass murder, state collusion and press freedom’ by Trevor Birney, published by Merrion Press
If you read Shooting Crows as fiction you could become critical. Not believable, you would think. Too many dead bodies. Too many evil psychopaths. Too many conspiracy theories. Yes, it might be set in Ireland, but even there, things were surely not that bad. Even there, right-wing fanaticism was not that deranged. Even there, the forces of the state were not so deep in collusion with the red, white and blue crazies.
The thing is that Shooting Crows is not fiction. It is not the work of an over-active imagination. It is a real and recent story, or to be more precise a series of stories, each one as shocking as the other. Indeed, “shocking” is something of an understatement.
The first story concerns the historical record of unionist violence in the North of Ireland. Principally, this is how, in the early twentieth century, the Protestant community armed themselves to take on the then British (Liberal) government in protest at its plans for a limited form of all-Ireland self-rule. This was when the gun was brought back into British/Irish politics and stablished a tradition future unionists would look to and follow. The name of the private militia set up in 1912-14, the Ulster Volunteer Force, was adopted by loyalists in the mid 1960s who started killing Catholics, because they were Catholics. This was before the civil rights campaign got underway and before the emergence of the IRA. Thus, the pattern of unionism initiating violence was re-established.
Birney then retells the story of one of the most horrific examples of this, the massacre of six Catholic men as they were watching Ireland winning a World Cup football match on television in 1994. The loyalist gang burst into a pub in Loughinisland, County Down, shouted “Fenian bastards” and opened fire on everyone there. None of the victims had any association with the IRA. Again, they were targeted because they were Catholics.
Birney first told this story when he and fellow journalist Barry McCaffrey produced the film No Stone Unturned in 2017. This also named those involved in the massacre and revealed that leader of the gang, Ronnie Hawthorne, was a police informer. One of the sources the filmmakers used was a written testimony from Hawthorne’s wife, others came from within the police.
In the aftermath of the massacre the police declined to properly forensically examine evidence linked to the murders – for example, the car used and then abandoned by the killers, and the clothes and weapons they dumped. The forensic failures were not carelessness: the priority of the police was to protect Hawthorne, not pursue a case against him and his fellow fanatics.
It was not just the police who sought to cover up. The guns used in the massacre were from a shipment bought by the loyalists from apartheid South Africa. The British army and MI5 were fully aware of this deal and did nothing to prevent many of the weapons falling into the hands of known sectarians. Again, protecting their agents who informed them what was happening was their priority.
This is the story No Stone Unturned told. After it was screened, it seemed, the Police Service of Northern Ireland were finally investigating the Loughinisland Massacre, and they even brought in the Durham Police to help them. But it was not the massacre they investigated, nor was it the state collusion that sanctioned and covered it up. It was Birney and McCaffrey, who were raided in early hours of the morning and eventually charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act and stealing police documents. There was no evidence of this.
Perhaps, the most shocking incident, was when the police were questioning the journalists and asked if they regretted the “hurt and pain” they had caused Hawthorne. Both the journalists and their lawyers could hardly believe their ears. A lawyer asked the police, “I’m sorry, are you asking my client if he regrets causing hurt and pain to a man who the police said murdered six people.” The question went unanswered.
The journalists’ nightmares continued for some time until the Northern Ireland High Court strongly condemned the action of the police and a lower court judge for issuing a search warrant in the first place. Eventually, they were awarded substantial damages.
Such is the horror story meticulously told by Birney in this important book. And remember this. The cover-up of the massacre was undertaken by members of the old discredited Royal Ulster Constabulary, but also by the supposedly “reformed” Police Service of Northern Ireland. The attack on press freedom was sanctioned by the British state; the raids were conducted after the Good Friday Agreement was meant to confine such attacks on civil liberty to the bad old days of the Special Powers Act. And the one British politician who attended the Northern Ireland High Court hearing to show his solidarity with the journalists was David Davis, a Conservative.
No charges were brought against the Loughinisland killers.
- You can grab a copy of ‘Shooting Crows: Mass Murder, State Collusion and Press Freedom’ here or in major outlets.
- Labour for Irish Unity is holding a public meeting at the Wilson Room, Portcullis House, 18 November, 7pm. Speakers include Colin Harvey, Ireland’s Future, and Daniel Holder, Committee for the Administration of Justice (NI). The prospects for Irish unity and legacy legislation that could deal with Loughinisland and similar incidents will be discussed.
- Geoff Bell is an author and an executive member of Labour for Irish Unity. You can follow Labour for Irish Unity on Facebook and Twitter/X.
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