I’m reading Enda McNulty’s Commit!: Make Your Mind and Body Stronger and Unlock Your Full Potential ( review to follow & no I don’t like/follow Gaelic football ) and among the many gems of helpful and inspirational suggestions/stories is how he helped Ian McKeever prepare mentally and physically for the Seven Summits Challenge and the program he put together helping Ian get ready for this mammoth undertaking. Ian’s commitment & determination struck a cord with me & I was saddened to learn of his tragically young death and the almost unbelievable bad luck that ended his life.
Enda McNulty
Ian McKeever
– Life & Death –
Ian McKeever (13 February 1970 – 2 January 2013) was an Irish mountaineer, broadcaster, and motivational speaker. He once held the world record for the fastest completion of the Seven Summits challenge, completing the Messner and Bass lists in a record 156 days. He was killed by a lightning strike on Mount Kilimanjaro.
McKeever studied social sciences at University College Dublin (UCD). He was a traffic announcer on AA Roadwatch in Ireland for many years before becoming a mountaineer. He also worked in public relations.
In his later years McKeever founded the Kilimanjaro Achievers Organisation, and through this led many expeditions to Mount Kilimanjaro for Irish secondary school students. He led an average of around 10 climbs per year, and maintained a 100% success rate regarding his groups reaching the summit.
Achievements
In 2004, McKeever set the Five Peaks Challenge world record, climbing and descending all five peaks in 16 hours 16 minutes. He climbed the 26 peaks of the island of Ireland in 98 hours in 2006.
McKeever broke the world record for the Seven Summits Challenge in 2007, climbing the highest summit on each of the seven continents in 155 days, 32 less than the previous record. In 2008, he helped his 10-year-old godson Sean McSharry become the youngest person in Europe to reach the top of Kilimanjaro.
McKeever was part of a team that attempted to row the South Atlantic Ocean in under 30 days in 2009. Members of this crew included Leven Brown, Livar Nysted, and Breffny Morgan. After 11 days at sea, and 1003 miles covered, the boat lost its rudder and they were forced to postpone the attempt.
When McKeever turned 40 in 2009, he set himself the challenge of beating Eamonn Coghlan‘s four-minute mile for a person over 40. His mile dropped from 7 minutes to 4 minutes 20 seconds in 22 months of training.
McKeever set a new record for the most climbs of Croagh Patrick in 2011, when he made 35 summits in 80 climbing hours.
Death
On 2 January 2013 McKeever was struck by lightning and died while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. He was on the third day of the climb and had experienced torrential rain for the duration. The group was due to pass the mountain’s famous Lava Tower on that day. During the lightning strike his fiancée was injured, although not seriously.
McKeever’s family confirmed his death with a late night Facebook posting.Climbing experts described the nature of his death as extremely rare.
McKeever updated his website regularly during his final expedition, with his last posting, stating:
Torrential rain all day. Spirits remain good even if drying clothes is proving impossible. We pray for dryer weather tomorrow – the big day.
British Isis fighters known as ‘the Beatles’ captured in Syria
Two British Isis militants implicated in brutal acts of torture and execution, have been captured by US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria.
The two men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, formed part of a group of four fighters nicknamed “the Beatles” due to their British accents and are allegedly responsible for murdering approximately two dozen hostages in Syria.
Kotey, a 34-year-old convert to Islam who grew up in west London, and 29-year-old Elsheikh, whose family fled to the UK from Sudan in the 1990s, were the only remaining members of the group still at large.
The group’s leader, Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed Jihadi John, was killed in a 2015 airstrike. Emwazi was believed to be the militant responsible for the gruesome beheadings of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, which were captured on film and distributed in Isis propaganda videos.
The capture was first reported by the New York Times and independently confirmed by the Guardian.
Citing unnamed US officials, the Times reported the two men were captured by the American-backed Kurdish militia the Syrian Democratic Forces, operating south of the Euphrates river, close to the Syria-Iraq border.
Two US officials also confirmed the capture to Reuters. The two men were captured in early January, and US forces were given access to them, one of the officials told the news agency.
They all grew up in west London, and all wound up in the same cell of the Islamic State group guarding, torturing and killing hostages in Syria and Iraq.
Now, the last two members of the group dubbed the “Beatles” by their hostages, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, have been arrested by Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The group of four British men were radicalised in the UK before travelling to Syria, where they became infamous for their high-profile executions of Western hostages.
US officials believe the “execution cell” beheaded more than 27 Western hostages and tortured many more.
Each was known to their hostages by their respective Beatles moniker – Paul, Ringo, John and George.
I’m delighted that these animals have been caught & will face justice somewhere/someday (hopefully in the UK or USA) for their inhuman cruelty and abuse they showed to their poor hostages including James Foley , Steven Sotloff, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning
Whom after months/years of abuse & torture at the hands of theses monsters , where slaughtered like animals in the backyard of humanity , in the name of the sickest and most barbaric Islamic ideology of modern times.
Their crimes shocked and sickened all decent folk the world over , including peace loving Muslims and they passed a red line of humanity not seen since biblical times.
Thankfully Emwazi , the ringleader & most brutal of the group was incinerated on 12 November:
“as the car he was in was targeted in a strike by an unmanned drone in the city of Raqqa, destroying the car and killing him instantly”.
Hallelujah – Hope he’s burning in the eternal flames of hell!
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The Beatles Terrorist Cell
History & Background
“The Beatles“, dubbed as such by their hostages because of their English accents, was an active Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. Its members were nicknamed John, Paul, George, and Ringo by the hostages, after the four members of the British rock group the Beatles. In November 2015, one of The Beatles was killed and one was arrested, but the other two remain active with ISIL as of 2017.
They have taken hostages; have guarded more than 20 Western hostages of ISIL in cramped cells in Western Raqqa, Syria; have beheaded hostages; and have memorialized their acts in beheading videos that they made public.
The Beatles spoke to each other in English, and struggled with Arabic. They always kept their faces hidden.
Guarding, torturing, and seeking ransoms for hostages
The Beatles, who have been assigned responsibility to guard foreign hostages by ISIL commanders, are harsher than other ISIL guards. One source said:
“Whenever the Beatles showed up, there was some kind of physical beating or torture.”
Haines, for example, was severely tortured and subjected to electric shock taser punishments by the Beatles, from the time of his March 2014 abduction. The group have also forced hostages to fight each other in boxing matches as the group watched, and then tortured the losers.
Because of their excessive brutality, at one point they were removed from their guard duties by ISIL.
The Beatles were interested in obtaining ransoms for their hostages. A former hostage reported that the Beatles bragged that they had been paid millions of dollars in ransoms by certain European countries; enough to retire to Kuwait or Qatar. The group contacted families of some UK hostages, and are believed to be maintaining links to their associates and friends in the UK.
James Foley‘s mother, Diane Foley, said in an interview:
“their requests were impossible for us, 100 million Euros, or all Muslim prisoners to be freed. The requests from the terrorists were totally directed towards the government, really. And yet we as an American family had to figure out how to answer them.”
The Beatles cell held at least 23 foreign hostages, nearly all of whom were ransomed or killed.
Jihadi John beheaded or participated in the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as British humanitarian aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, American aid worker Peter Kassig, Japanese private military contractor Haruna Yukawa, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and 22 members of the Syrian armed forces in a period from August 2014 to January 2015.
A former ISIS member said that using a British man to carry out the beheadings was likely a deliberate effort by ISIS to:
“project the image that a European, or a Western person, killed an American so that they can … appeal to others outside Syria and make them feel that they belong to the same cause.”
Hostages
In August 2014, it was claimed that there were more than 20 hostages remaining. Many hostage families have chosen not to reveal their relatives’ names in order to avoid drawing attention to them and compromising their safety.
The jihadist known as “John”, usually referred to as “Jihadi John”, was identified by The Washington Post, in February 2015, as Mohammed Emwazi, and appears in a video as Foley’s killer. His identity was known to US and UK intelligence agencies in September 2014, but was not released for reasons of operational security.
On 12 November 2015, a United States drone aircraft reportedly conducted an airstrike in Raqqa that targeted Emwazi as he left a building and entered a vehicle. US officials stated he had been killed, but his death had not been confirmed. The US was still analysing the data.
The official called it a “flawless” and “clean hit” with no collateral damage and that Emwazi “evaporated”.A senior US military official was quoted as saying, “we are 99% sure we got him”. In January 2016, ISIL confirmed his death.
“George”
George, the leader of the Beatles, often spent time repeating sections of the Quran and promoting ISIL’s extremist views publicly. George uses the nom-de-guerre of “Abu Muhareb“, which means “Fighter” in Arabic. It was the view of the hostages that George was not very intelligent. The Daily Telegraph has speculated that George is the West London jihadist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary who may have travelled to Syria with fellow jihadist Mohammed Emwazi.
Mohammed Emwazi.
In 2016, Alexanda Kotey, a 32 year old convert from west London, was identified as a member of the Beatles by The Washington Post and BuzzFeed News. They were uncertain whether he was George or Ringo, although social media evidence pointed towards Ringo.
Alexanda Kotey
A few months later, another joint investigation by the Post and BuzzFeed identified the last member of the group. El Shafee Elsheikh, a British citizen whose family fled Sudan in the 1990s, was a 27 year old Londoner who had travelled to Syria in 2012. They were still uncertain as to whether Elsheikh or Kotey was George.
In early January 2017, the US State Department froze the assets of Alexanda Kotey but did not confirm he was ‘George’.
“Ringo”
Ringo was frequently seen by the hostages. In 2016, Alexanda Kotey, a 32 year old convert from west London, was identified as a member of the Beatles by the Washington Postand BuzzFeed News. They were uncertain whether he was George, or whether he was Ringo, although social media evidence pointed towards Ringo.
A few months later, another joint investigation by the Post and BuzzFeed identified the last member of the group. El Shafee Elsheikh, a British citizen whose family fled Sudan in the 1990s, was a 27 year old Londoner who had travelled to Syria in 2012. They were still uncertain as to whether Elsheikh or Kotey was Ringo.
In early January 2017, the US State Department froze the assets of Alexanda Kotey but did not confirm he was ‘Ringo’.
“Paul”
Aine Lesley Davis
Paul appeared in the cells of the hostages less than the other Beatles, and appeared to be a guard only. Aine Lesley Davis, reported to have been one of the British Islamists assigned to guard Western hostages, was arrested in Turkey on 13 November 2015.
He was tried in Turkey in 2016 over allegations that he was plotting a terror attack there.[42]On 9 May 2017, he was convicted of terrorism offences by a Turkish court and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
Reactions
The use of “Beatles” as a nickname for the group elicited a response from English musician and former Beatle Ringo Starr, who expressed his disgust at the use of his former band’s name in this context, saying:
“It’s bullshit. What they are doing out there is against everything The Beatles stood for,” and adding that the Beatles had stood for peace and opposed violence.
Former British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron said: “British people are sickened thaa British citizen could be involved in murdering people – including a fellow British citizen who had gone to Syria to help people – in this way. It is the very opposite of what our peaceful, tolerant country stands for.”
A significant force of the British Special Air Service was deployed to Northern Iraq in late August 2014, and according to former MI6 chief Richard Barrett will be sent to Syria, tasked with trying to track down the Beatles using a range of high-tech equipment and with potentially freeing other hostages.
As of September, British intelligence and security agencies including MI5 and Scotland Yard, aided by GCHQ communication monitoring, were working with the FBI and CIA, and field teams from MI6 and the CIA in Northern Syria, to identify and locate the group. British and US electronic eavesdropping agencies have targeted communications by the group.
In October, British Prime Minister Cameron told the heads of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ that the manhunt was their top priority
Etching by William Hogarth in Beaver’s Roman Military Punishments (1725)
Decimation (Latin: decimatio; decem = “ten“) was a form of military discipline used by senior commanders in the Roman Army to punish units or large groups guilty of capital offences, such as mutiny or desertion. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning “removal of a tenth”.
The procedure was a pragmatic attempt to balance the need to punish serious offences with the realities of managing a large group of offenders
Procedure
A cohort (roughly 480 soldiers) selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten. Each group drew lots (sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were often given rations of barley instead of wheat (the latter being the standard soldier’s diet) for a few days, and required to camp outside the fortified security of the camp.
As the punishment fell by lot, all soldiers in a group sentenced to decimation were potentially liable for execution, regardless of individual degrees of fault, rank, or distinction.
Usage
The earliest documented decimation occurred in 471 BC during the Roman Republic‘s early wars against the Volsci and is recorded by Livy. In an incident where his army had been scattered, consul Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis had the culprits punished for desertion: centurions, standard-bearers and soldiers who had cast away their weapons were individually scourged and beheaded, while of the remainder, one in ten were chosen by lot and executed.
Polybius gives one of the first descriptions of the practice in the early 3rd century BC:
If ever these same things happen to occur among a large group of men… the officers reject the idea of bludgeoning or slaughtering all the men involved [as is the case with a small group or an individual]. Instead they find a solution for the situation which chooses by a lottery system sometimes five, sometimes eight, sometimes twenty of these men, always calculating the number in this group with reference to the whole unit of offenders so that this group forms one-tenth of all those guilty of cowardice. And these men who are chosen by lot are bludgeoned mercilessly in the manner described above.
The practice was revived by Marcus Licinius Crassus in 71 BC during the Third Servile War against Spartacus, and some historical sources attribute part of Crassus’ success to it. The number of men killed through decimation is not known, but it varies between 1,000 (used on 10,000 men), or a cohort of around 480-500 men, meaning that 48-50 were killed.
Antony was furious and employed the punishment known as ‘decimation’ on those who had lost their nerve. What he did was divide the whole lot of them into groups of ten, and then he killed one from each group, who was chosen by lot; the rest, on his orders were given barley rations instead of wheat.
Decimation was still being practised during the time of the Roman Empire, although it was very uncommon. Suetonius records that it was used by Emperor Augustus in 17 BC and later by Galba, while Tacitus records that Lucius Apronius used decimation to punish a full cohort of the III Augusta after their defeat by Tacfarinas in AD 20.
G.R. Watson notes that “its appeal was to those obsessed with “nimio amore antiqui moris” – that is, an excessive love for ancient customs – and notes,
“Decimation itself, however, was ultimately doomed, for though the army might be prepared to assist in the execution of innocent slaves, professional soldiers could hardly be expected to cooperate in the indiscriminate execution of their own comrades.”
According to legend, the Theban Legion, led by Saint Maurice, was decimated in the third century AD. The Legion had refused, to a man, to accede to an order of the Emperor, and the process was repeated until none were left. They became known as the Martyrs of Agaunum.
The Eastern RomanEmperor Maurice forbade in his Strategikon the decimatio and other brutal punishments. According to him, punishments where the rank and file see their comrades dying by the hands of their own brothers-in-arms could lead to a collapse of morale. Moreover, it could seriously deplete the manpower of the fighting unit.
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm assembled a court-martial in Prague which sentenced the Madlon regiment to exemplary punishment. Six regiments, which had distinguished themselves in the battle, were assembled fully armed, and surrounded Madlon’s regiment, which was severely rebuked for its cowardice and misconduct, and ordered to lay down its arms at the feet of General Piccolomini.
When they had obeyed this command, their ensigns (flags) were torn in pieces; and the general, having mentioned the causes of their degradation, and erased the regiment from the register of the imperial troops, pronounced the sentence that had been agreed upon in the council of war, condemning the colonel, captains and lieutenants to be beheaded, the ensigns (junior officers) to be hanged, the soldiers to be decimated and the survivors to be driven in disgrace out of the army.
Ninety men (chosen by rolling dice) were executed at Rokycany, in western Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, on December 14, 1642 by Jan Mydlář (junior), the son of Jan Mydlář, the famous executioner from Prague.
On the first day of the execution, the regiment’s cords were broken by the executioner. On the second day, officers were beheaded and selected men hanged on the trees on the road from Rokycany to Litohlavy.
Another version says that the soldiers were shot, and their bodies hanged on the trees. Their mass grave is said to be on the Black Mound in Rokycany, which commemorates the decimation to this day.
On Sept 3, 1866, during the Battle of Curuzu, during the Paraguayan War, the Paraguayan 10th Battalion fled without firing a shot. President Lopez ordered the decimation of the battalion, which was accordingly formed into line and every tenth man shot.
In 1914, in France, there was a case in which a company of Tunisian tirailleurs (colonial soldiers) refused an order to attack and was ordered decimated by the divisional commander. This involved the execution of ten men.
Italian General Luigi Cadorna allegedly applied decimation to underperforming units during World War I. However, the military historian John Keegan records that his “judicial savagery” during the Battle of Caporetto took the form of the summary executions of individual stragglers rather than the formalized winnowing of entire detachments.
Certainly one specific instance of actual decimation did occur in the Italian Army during the war, on 26 May 1916. This involved the execution of one in ten soldiers of a 120 strong company of the 141st Catanzaro Infantry Brigade, which had mutinied. Officers, carabinieri and non-mutinying soldiers had been killed during the outbreak.
According to some accounts, the Whites ordered all the captured Reds to assemble in a single row on the ice of Lake Huruslahti, selected every tenth prisoner, and executed him on the spot. The selection was not entirely random though, as some prisoners (primarily Red leaders) were specifically selected for execution and some good workers were intentionally spared.
Current usage of the word
Outside of references to the historical punishment, the word decimation in English is used to refer to an extreme reduction in the number of a population or force.
Princess Elizabeth has formally proclaimed herself Queen and Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith.
Lords of the Council – numbering 150 – representatives from the Commonwealth, officials from the City of London – including the Lord Mayor – and other dignitaries witnessed the accession of the deceased king’s eldest daughter this morning.
The new monarch read an official Proclamation – also ordered to be published – declaring her reign as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.
I shall always work to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples
Queen Elizabeth II read:
“By the sudden death of my dear father I am called to assume the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty.”
“My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work, as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples, spread as they are all the world over.”
Her husband, Prince Philip of Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh, was also present at the 20 minute meeting at St James’s Palace.
The couple returned to the UK yesterday after cutting short a tour of the Commonwealth – beginning in Kenya a week ago – because of King George VI’s sudden death on 6 February.
After the Accession Declaration, at 1000 GMT, the new Queen held her first Privy Council meeting and her Proclamation was signed by the Lord Chancellor, the prime minister, and many other privy counsellors along with representatives of the Commonwealth and the City and the Lord Mayor of London.
During the ceremonies the 25-year-old Queen also took an oath to assure the security of the Church of Scotland and approved several other Orders in Council.
Other dignitaries formally announced the new sovereign across the UK and Commonwealth.
In a statement this evening the Home Secretary, Sir David Fyfe, asked the nation for two minutes’ silence on 15 February when the late King will be buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
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Proclamation of accession of Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed sovereign throughout her realms after her father, King George VI, died in the night between 5 and 6 February 1952, while Elizabeth was in Kenya. Proclamations were made in different realms on 6, 7, 8, and 11 February (depending on geographic location and time zone). The line of succession was identical in all the Commonwealth realms, but the royal title as proclaimed was not the same in all of them:
WHEREAS it hath pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy Our Late Sovereign Lord, King George the Sixth, of blessed and glorious memory, by whose decease the Crown is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary: We, therefore, Sir William John McKell, The Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Commonwealth of Australia and members of the Federal Executive Council do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of this realm and of all her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Supreme Liege Lady in and over the Commonwealth of Australia, to whom her lieges do acknowledge all faith and constant obedience, with hearty and humble affection: Beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Princess Elizabeth the Second with long and happy years to reign over us.
Given at Canberra this seventh day of February in the Year of our Lord One thousand nine hundred and fifty two, and in the first year of Her Majesty’ s reign. God Save the Queen
The views and opinions expressed in this post/documentaries are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
In the late 19th century Catholics began to migrate in large numbers to the prosperous Ulster Protestant city of Belfast in search of work.
By the time of the riots Catholics made up over one-third of the population of the city. This migration brought with it sectarian tensions as Catholics and Protestants competed for jobs. As the minority, Catholics found themselves discriminated against in this area and were kept at the lower end of the labour market.
At this time there was a real possibility that the British government would establish a devolved Irish parliament (see: Irish Home Rule Movement). Belfast Catholics believed that a devolved Irish government would be sympathetic to their situation and end the discrimination. Belfast Protestants believed this too and feared the end of their privileged position.
In April 1886 Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced a home rule bill. On 8 June the bill was defeated in the House of Commons.
Riots
The introduction of the bill led to renewed sectarian tensions in Belfast. On 3 June a Catholic navvy sneered to a Protestant co-worker that under an Irish government Protestants would never get hired, even in Belfast. This represented the very worst fears of Protestants towards Home Rule and the story quickly spread throughout Belfast.
This led to clashes between Protestant and Catholic labourers on the shipyards.
Preachers such as Hugh Hannaplayed a prominent role in encouraging rioters.
The riots intensified on 8 June, the day that the home rule bill was defeated in parliament. Celebrations were held throughout the city to celebrate the defeat. Some of those celebrating attacked Catholic homes and businesses.
The police found themselves unable to cope with the situation. Reinforcements were sent in from other parts of Ireland. Most of the reinforcements were Catholic. A rumour that the reinforcements were sent by Gladstone to punish Belfast Protestants for opposing Home Rule spread throughout the city.
It was encouraged by popular preachers such as Hugh Hanna. The rioters thus began to attack the police, and later soldiers.Running battles between security forces and rioters lasted until 14 June.
On 22 June the reinforcements were sent home by the city government, although some were kept as trouble was expected on 12 July, the date of annual Protestant celebrations
Trouble did indeed erupt on the 12th and, contrary to the expectations of the government, the police found themselves overwhelmed by the Protestant attackers. Reinforcements had to be sent into Belfast again and the threat of over 2,000 police officers and soldiers descending on the city caused the rioters to quit by the 14th.
On the last Saturday of July Hanna held his annual outing for the Protestant children of Belfast. This outing usually involved a trip out to the country with marching and drum along the way. Hanna agreed to comply with the city’s request that he forgo the drumming and marching due to the tense situation.
As the outing made its way through Belfast disappointed local Protestants joined in to march with their own drums and anti-Catholic banners. Marchers deliberately provoked the Catholics by marching into Catholic areas.
Taunting quickly gave way to heavy street fighting between Catholics, Protestants and police. Bloody clashes on a par with the riots in June lasted for a few days, but low-intensity rioting continued until September.
Officially thirty-one people were killed in the riots, although George Foy, who made surgical reports on the riots, reckoned that the real death toll might have been as high as fifty.
Hundreds were injured. Over four hundred arrests were made.
An estimated £90,000 worth of property damage was incurred, and local economic activity was significantly compromised.
My autobiography: A Belfast Child is now available to pre-order on Amazon , launch date is 30th April.
Victor Arbuckle (aged 29), a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast.
Two Protestant civilians were shot dead by the British Army during rioting.
They were:
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11 October 1969 Goerge Dickie, (25)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot during street disturbances, at the corner of Shankill Road and Downing Street, Belfast
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11 October 1969 Herbert Hawe, (32)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: British Army (BA)
Shot during street disturbances, Hopeton Street, Shankill, Belfast.
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First deaths in Trouble
The first deaths of the Troubles occurred in July 1969. Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian had been found unconscious on 13 July near the DungivenOrange Hall following a police baton charge against a crowd who had been throwing stones at the hall.
Witnesses later said they had seen police batoning a figure in the doorway where McCloskey was found, although police claimed that he had been unconscious before the baton charge and may have been hit with a stone. He was taken to hospital and died the following day.
On 11 October 1969, Constable Victor Arbuckle was shot dead by loyalists on Belfast’s Shankill Road during serious rioting in protest at the recommendations of the Hunt Report. Arbuckle was the first police fatality of the Troubles.
In August 1970, two young constables, Donaldson and Millar, died when an abandoned car they were examining near the strongly republican town of Crossmaglen exploded. They became the first security forces victims of the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign.
This campaign involved the targeting of police officers, and continued until the final ceasefire in 1997, as the peace process gained momentum.
The last RUC officer killed, Constable Francis O’Reilly (a Catholic), was also killed by loyalists, in a September 1998 bombing during the Drumcree conflict.
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06 October 1998
Francis O’Reilly (30) Catholic
Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Red Hand Defenders (RHD)
Died one month after being injured by blast bomb, thrown during street disturbances, Charles Street, Portadown, County Armagh.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, its formal title became the Royal Ulster Constabulary, GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.
During the Troubles, 319 members of the RUC were killed and almost 9,000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the Provisional IRA, which made the RUC, by 1983, the most dangerous police force in the world in which to serve.
In the same period, the RUC killed 55 people, 28 of whom were civilians.
The RUC has been accused by republicans and Irish nationalists of one-sided policing and discrimination, as well as collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Conversely, it was praised as one of the most professional policing operations in the world by British security forces.
The allegations regarding collusion prompted several inquiries, the most recent of which was published by Police OmbudsmanNuala O’Loan. The report identified police, CID and Special Branch collusion with loyalist terrorists under 31 separate headings, in her report on the murder of Raymond McCord and other matters, but no member of the RUC has been charged or convicted of any criminal acts as a result of these inquiries. Ombudsman Dame Nuala O’Loan stated in her conclusions that there was no reason to believe the findings of the investigation were isolated incidents.
During 12–17 August 1969, intense political and sectarian rioting took place in Northern Ireland. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to discrimination against Irish Catholics. Civil rights marches were repeatedly attacked by both Ulster Protestantloyalists and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a unionist and largely Protestant police force.
The disorder led to the Battle of the Bogside in Londonderry, a three-day riot in the Bogside district between the RUC and the nationalist/Catholic residents. In support of the Bogsiders, nationalists and Catholics launched protests elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Some of these led to attacks by loyalists working alongside the police. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Scores of houses, most of them owned by Catholics, as well as businesses and factories were burned out. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. Events in Belfast have been viewed by some as a pogrom against the Catholic and nationalist minority.[1][2]
The British Army was deployed to restore order and state control, and peace lines began to be built to separate the two sides. The events of August 1969 are widely seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles.
This is simply the story of a boy trying to grow up, survive, thrive, have fun & discover himself against a backdrop of events that might best be described as ‘explosive’, captivating & shocking the world for thirty long years.
Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
29th January
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Thursday 29 January 1976
Two Catholic civilians were killed in separate attacks in Belfast by Loyalist paramilitaries.
Saturday 29 January 1977
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explode seven bombs in a series of attacks in the West End of London.
Friday 29 January 1982
John McKeague, who had been a prominent Loyalist activist, was shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in his shop, Albertbridge Road, Belfast.
See below for more details on John McKeague
Thursday 29 January 1987
The New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), an organisation associated with the views of the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and whose chairman was then John McMichael, published a document called Common Sense.
The document proposed a constitutional conference, a devolved assembly and a coalition government.
The ‘Belfast Telegraph’ newspaper published the results of an opinion poll of people in Northern Ireland. One result showed that 68 per cent of Protestants and 62 per cent of Catholics felt that the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) had made no difference to the political situation in Northern Ireland.
Saturday 29 January 1994
US Visa Given to Adams
Bill Clinton, then President of the United States of America (USA), ordered that Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF), should be given a ‘limited duration’ visa to enter the USA to address a peace conference. [The decision was supported by the National Security Council and Irish-American Senators but was taken against the advice of the State Department and the British government.]
An Irish Republican Army (IRA) incendiary device was defused in London.
Monday 29 January 1996
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), held their first meeting under the ‘twin-track’ negotiations.
Thursday 29 January 1998
Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, announced a new inquiry into the events surrounding ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Derry on 30 January 1972. Relatives announced that they could now consider Lord Widgery’s report to be “dead.”
[The new inquiry was to be known as the Saville Inquiry.]
See Bloody Sunday
Monday 29 January 2001
Six members of one family escaped injury after a pipe-bomb was left in their refuse bin. The device was uncovered just after midnight at the rear of a house in a predominantly Nationalist estate in Greencastle. The attack was carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries.
A Catholic couple escaped injury when a pipe-bomb was thrown through the living room window of their home in Coleraine, County Derry, shortly before midnight.
Just over an hour earlier the home of a Catholic mother-of-two was targeted in the Harpurs Hill area of Coleraine.
The woman was in her kitchen when a pipe-bomb was thrown through the window. It landed on the floor but failed to explode. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) said that both attacks were sectarian. The attacks were carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries.
Tuesday 29 January 2002
[There was a petrol-bomb attack on flats in Ormeau Road, south Belfast, at approximately 9.50pm (2150GMT). The device caused scorch damage to the building but there were no injuries. It was not clear if the attack was sectarian.]
A Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) delegation travelled to Downing Street, London, for a meeting with Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister. The meeting discussed the controversy over the investigation of the Omagh bombing and also reforms to the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.
There were media reports that members of the security forces would soon lose the right not to have to give evidence at inquests. British Army soldiers and police officers are currently exempt from being compelled to attend inquests when they have been involved in fatal shootings. The change was expected to be introduced by the British government sometime in February 2002.
Solectron, an American company with a factory in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, announced that it was entering a 90-day consultation with its workforce over the future of the plant. It was reported that 200 jobs would be lost. The job losses are a direct result of the problems facing the telecommunications company Nortel – which have resulted in the loss of more than 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
7 People lost their lives on the 29th January between 19723 – 1982
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29 January 1973
James Trainor (22)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY) Shot at his workplace, petrol filling station, Kennedy Way, Andersonstown, Belfast.
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29 January 1974
Matilda Withrington (79)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: Royal Air Force (RAF) Shot while in her home during Irish Republican Army (IRA) sniper attack on Royal Air Force (RAF) bus, Shimna Parade, Newcastle, County Down.
RAF members returned fire.
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29 January 1974
William Baggley (43)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol, Dungiven Road, Derry.
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29 January 1975
Robert McCullough (17)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: Ulster Defence Association (UDA) Shot at his workplace, United Paper Merchants, Downshire Place, off Great Victoria Street, Belfast.
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29 January 1976
Joseph McAlinden (44)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY) Shot at his home, Upper Cavehill Road, Belfast.
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29 January 1976
Martin Crossen (26)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ)
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY) Shot during gun and bomb attack on Brady’s off licence shop, Antrim Road, Belfast.
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29 January 1982
John McKeague (51)
Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA)
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Former Loyalist activist. Shot at his shop, Albertbridge Road, Belfast.
This is simply the story of a boy trying to grow up, survive, thrive, have fun & discover himself against a backdrop of events that might best be described as ‘explosive’, captivating & shocking the world for thirty long years.
John Dunlop McKeague (1930 – 29 January 1982) was a prominent Ulster loyalist and one of the founding members of the paramilitary group the Red Hand Commando in 1970. Authors on the Troubles in Northern Ireland have accused McKeague of involvement in the Kincora Boys’ Home scandal but he was never convicted.
The views and opinions expressed in this post/documentaries are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
Before moving to Belfast he had already been questioned in relation to a sexual assault on two young boys. The charges were dropped after the intervention of some friends who held prominent positions in Northern Irish society.
McKeague split from Paisley in late 1969 under uncertain circumstances. Rumours that a young man with whom McKeague was living was his boyfriend had been rife but McKeague did not discuss the details. He stated only that he had been summoned to a meeting by Paisley where he was told he was an “embarrassment” and would have to leave the Free Presbyterian Church.
Whatever the circumstances, the two became bitter enemies, with McKeague frequently criticising Paisley in print.
Early loyalist involvement
McKeague’s relationship with William McGrath‘s Tara, a partially clandestine organisation that sought to drive Roman Catholicism out of all of Ireland and re-establish an earlier Celtic Christianity which it claimed had existed on the island centuries earlier, has been the subject of some disagreement.
According to Tim Pat Coogan McKeague was a founder-member of Tara of 1966 although he does not eleaborate on the details. Chris Moore, in his investigation into the Kincora scandal, insists that McKeague was never a member of Tara but that he and McGrath had met to discuss trading weapons between their two groups and that following these meetings McKeague had become a regular visitor to Kincora, where he was involved in several rapes of underage boys living at the home.
Although making no comment on his membership or otherwise of the group Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald insist that McKeague shared the far right conspiratorial views advanced by McGrath and UPV leader Noel Doherty.
Martin Dillon also makes no comment on McKeague and Tara but insists that he was one of a number of shadowy figures, along with McGrath, who played a leading role in the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1966 and in helping to direct its strategy for the rest of the 1960s.
In late 1969 Thomas McDowell, a member of the Free Presbyterian Church who held dual membership of the UPV and UVF, was killed after a bungled attempt to blow up the power station at Ballyshannon led to him being electrocuted, suffering severe burns.
Investigations by the Garda Síochána, who found UVF insignia on McDowell’s coat, led them to question his associate Samuel Stevenson who named McKeague as a central figure in a series of UVF explosions that had been carried out at the time, many involving UPV members.
The case went north, where the previous explosions had taken place, and on 16 February 1970 the trial opened. McKeague, along with William Owens (McKeague’s 19-year-old flatmate), Derek Elwood, Trevor Gracey and Francis Mallon, were charged with causing an earlier explosion at Templepatrick.
The case collapsed after serious doubt was cast on the character of Stevenson, whose evidence was the main basis of the prosecution’s case
Shankill Defence Association
In 1968 McKeague became a regular figure amongst groups of locals who every night congregated in large groups in the Woodvale area close to Ardoyne after a series of incidents between loyalists and republicans during which flags from both sides had been forcibly removed.
Having split from the UPV due to its perceived inaction in May 1969, McKeague addressed a meeting of loyalists in Tennent Street Hall at which he called for organisation against Catholic rioters. From this meeting he founded the Shankill Defence Association(SDA), with the proclaimed intention to defend the Shankill Road from Catholic rioters.
He became a notorious figure locally, usually prominent in the rioting, carrying a stick and wearing a helmet.
The violence of the SDA was accompanied by equally violent rhetoric from McKeague as he boasted that the group possessed “hundreds of guns” and vowed that
“We will see the battle through to the end”.
His militant stance won him the public support of Ronald Bunting who, like McKeague had earlier been associated with Paisley but had since broken from him.
In November 1969, McKeague was cleared of a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions. He was however sentenced to three months imprisonment for unlawful assembly.
McKeague’s absence on remand for the initial charges saw his stock fall on the Shankill, where he was already mistrusted due to being from east Belfast and where his reputation had been further blackened by supporters of his former friend Ian Paisley.
Leaving the Shankill he attempted to set up a group similar to the SDA on the Donegall Roadbut was declared persona non grata by the head of an existing local Defence Committee, who was a loyal Paisleyite. This, combined with a rumour that McKeague was a “fruit“, saw him abandon all initiatives in the west and south of the city and concentrate on east Belfast.
The SDA continued in his absence until 1971 when it merged with other like-minded vigilante groups to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
Much of the content of the magazine was of a low-brow nature, containing jokes and cartoons in which Catholics were portrayed as lazy, dirty, stupid and alcoholic or, in the case of women, highly promiscuous.
In 1971 he was tried for incitement to hatred after publishing the controversial Loyalist Song Book. The first man to be tried under the Incitement to Hatred Act, McKeague’s book included the line
“you’ve never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his head”.
After the jury disagreed at his trial a retrial was ordered at which he and a co-defendant were acquitted. Martin Dillon argues that it was around this time that RUC Special Branch first recruited him as an agent, allegedly using information they had obtained about his paedophile activities to force him to agree. He was handed over to the Intelligence Corps by Special Branch the following year.
Loyalist paramilitarism
John McKeague and mother
His mother, Isabella McKeague, was burned alive on 9 May 1971 when the UDA petrol-bombed the family shop in Albertbridge Road, Belfast. Reporting on her death in Loyalist News, John McKeague claimed she had been….
“murdered by the enemies of Ulster”,
….a common term for republicans.
In fact, the UDA had tired of McKeague both for his loose cannon attitude in launching attacks and starting riots without consulting their leadership and due to his promiscuous homosexuality with teenage partners. According to Ed Moloney a dispute over money had also been central to the schism between McKeague and the UDA.
McKeague broke fully from the UDA and established the Red Hand Commando in the middle of 1972, recruiting a number of young men primarily in east Belfast and North Down.
McKeague had already been involved in organising the “Tartan gangs“, groups of loyalist youths who were involved in rioting and general disorder, and used these as the basis of his new group.
Following various attacks by his paramilitary organisation, in February 1973 he became one of the first loyalist internees and was later imprisoned for three years on an armed robbery charge (a conviction he disputed). He started two hunger strikes in protest against the Special Powers Act and prison conditions while in jail.
In his absence he lost control of the Red Hand Commando, which became an integral part of the UVF. UVF leader Gusty Spence however contended that he had secured McKeague’s agreement that the running of the Red Hand Commando should be taken over by the UVF not long after McKeague established the movement.
According to British military intelligence and police files McKeague was believed to have been behind the sadistic murder of a ten-year-old boy, Brian McDermott, in South Belfast in September 1973.
The killing, which involved dismemberment and the burning of the body in the Ormeau Park, was so gruesome that the local press speculated that it might have been carried out as part of a Satanic ritual. On 3 October 1975, Alice McGuinness, a Catholic civilian, was injured in an IRA bomb attack on McKeague’s hardware shop on the Albertbridge Road. She died three days later. McKeague’s sister was severely injured in the same bombing.
Ulster Nationalism
McKeague became a leading figure in the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee (ULCCC), and in 1976 publicly endorsed Ulster nationalism in his capacity as an ULCCC spokesman. The aim of the group, which McKeague chaired, was to co-ordinate loyalist paramilitaries with the aim of founding a unified “Ulster army” although this premise did not prevent a loyalist feud between the UDA and UVF continuing following its foundation.
With John McClure, McKeague contacted Irish republicansRuairí Ó Brádaigh and Joe Cahill to initiate talks in an attempt to find a common platform for an independent Northern Ireland. This collapsed after Conor Cruise O’Brien discovered and revealed the activity.
McKeague met with Gerry Adams briefly to discuss the independence option but the meetings were unproductive and reportedly convinced Adams that such clandestine discussions with loyalist paramilitaries were a waste of time. The contact between McKeague and his allies and the republicans, which was not endorsed by the wider ULCCC, saw the group fall apart as both the UDA and Down Orange Welfare resigned from the co-ordinating body when it came to light.
McKeague was subsequently a leading figure in the Ulster Independence Association, a group active from 1979 in support of an independent Northern Ireland. McKeague served as deputy to George Allport’s leadership of the group.
Death
In January 1982 McKeague was interviewed by detectives investigating Kincora about his involvement in the sexual abuse. Fearful of returning to prison, McKeague told friends that he was prepared to name others involved in the paedophile ring to avoid a sentence.
However on 29 January 1982, McKeague was shot dead in his shop on the Albertbridge Road, East Belfast, reportedly by the INLA.
It has been argued that following McKeague’s threats to go public about all of those involved in Kincora his killing had been ordered by the Intelligence Corps, as many of those who could have named were also agents (often more effective than McKeague, who by that time was highly peripheral in paramilitary circles). To support this suggestion it has been stated by Jack Holland and Henry McDonald that of the two gunmen who shot McKeague one was a known Special Branch agent and the other was rumoured to have military intelligence links.
The image depicts two human skeletons, seemingly in an embrace, which earned the photograph its title Hasanlu Lovers or The 2800 Years Old Kiss. There is clear evidence that the skeleton on the right was a male. The sex of the skeleton on the left is being disputed as it has both masculine and feminine characteristics, having a pubic area which masculine in form, but a wider sciatic notch than is typical in males.
In the twentieth century, Robert Dyson and M. A. Dandamaev determined it as female.. Penn Museum, the holding museum, believe on balance the skeleton is likely male. Recent genetic analysis undertaken by David Reich at Harvard indicates the skeleton was genetically male.
The pair of skeletons was found in a bin-like structure with no other objects except a stone slab under the head of one skeleton.
They died together around 800 B.C., during the destruction of the Teppe Hasanlu citadel.The site was burned after a military attack. People from both fighting sides were killed in the fire, which apparently spread quite unexpectedly and quickly through the town. The skeletons were found in a plaster grain bin, probably hiding from soldiers, and they almost certainly asphyxiated quickly. The “head wound” is actually from modern-day excavators.
The original source of this image is the Penn Museum and officially named “The Lovers”.
Its description in the museum label reads:
“The Lovers” from 1972 season at Hasanlu. Hasanlu is an archaeological excavation site in Iran, Western Azerbaijan, Solduz Valley. Theses skeletons were found in a bin with no objects. The only feature is a stone slab under the head of the skeleton on the left hand side (SK335).
Isotopic signatures indicate that the diets of the residents of Hasanlu were varied indicating a diet comprising Wheat and Barley, Sheep and Goat, and that the residents of Hasanlu were largely born and raised in the area.
It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years after the battle. It tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans.
According to Sylvette Lemagnen, conservator of the tapestry, in her 2005 book La Tapisserie de Bayeux:
The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the Norman Romanesque …. Its survival almost intact over nine centuries is little short of miraculous … Its exceptional length, the harmony and freshness of its colours, its exquisite workmanship, and the genius of its guiding spirit combine to make it endlessly fascinating.
The tapestry consists of some fifty scenes with Latin tituli, embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns. It is likely that it was commissioned by Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, and made in England—not Bayeux—in the 1070s.
In 1729 the hanging was rediscovered by scholars at a time when it was being displayed annually in Bayeux Cathedral. The tapestry is now exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, Normandy,
The designs on the Bayeux Tapestry are embroidered rather than woven, so that it is not technically a tapestry.
Nevertheless, it has always been referred to as a tapestry until recent years, when the name “Bayeux Embroidery” has gained ground among certain art historians. The tapestry can be seen as a perfect example of secular Norman art. Tapestries adorned both churches and wealthy houses in Medieval western Europe, though at 0.5 by 68.38 metres (1.6 by 224.3 ft, and apparently incomplete) the Bayeux Tapestry is exceptionally large. Only the figures and decoration are embroidered, on a background left plain, which shows the subject very clearly and was necessary to cover large areas.
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