Danny Morrison
Daily Ireland, 29/03/2006
In
the early days of the conflict letters would frequently pop up in the
local papers from ‘Catholic Mother of Ten, Bogside’, ‘Disillusioned
Republican’ and ‘True Patriot, Crossmaglen’ attacking the republican
movement and overtly or implicitly praising the ‘peace-keeping’ efforts
of the RUC/British army. The letters were so gauche and written in such
a strange idiom that they fooled few republicans who correctly assumed
that they came from the British army propaganda unit based at Thiepval
Barracks in Lisburn.
Other stories appeared in the media alleging
that IRA explosives officers could get cancer from handling
nitro-benzine (a major component of home-made explosives) and that the
nylon underwear worn by women IRA Volunteers was prematurely setting
off detonators. A Sunday Mirror in 1973 headline read, ‘Danger in those
frilly panties’.
Colin Wallace, a full-time public relations officer
based at Lisburn, later admitted conjuring up most of the black
propaganda stories of this period.
Another of his stories was one about Czechoslovakian snipers whom the
IRA hired at £1,000 a hit. The subtext, of course, was that an IRA
volunteer was not really a guerrilla because he/she couldn’t fire
straight; that there was a connection between the IRA and east European
communism; and wasn’t it both ironic and a disgrace that the money
raised by republican/Catholic sympathisers in the USA was financing
communists/atheists.
My favourite story was the one about those topless women in west
Belfast’s Turf Lodge housing estate. The British army would be out on
patrol when an upstairs bedroom curtain would suddenly be drawn back
and there would stand at the window a naked woman baring her voluptuous
breasts. The young, courageous squaddie (it would either be his first
day of duty or his last – never in between) would understandably feast
his sore eyes on this comely maiden. Having temporarily dropped his
guard, the wicked plan had fallen into place and an IRA sniper’s bullet
would ring out and strike down the young soldier (undoubtedly, this
represented a tragic reversal of that old saying, he died and went to
heaven).
Yes, the nonsense and lies and black propaganda we had to listen
to was incredible. This shite, to which we were subjected throughout
the conflict, actually bears an uncanny parallel to the propaganda
offensive by the British during the Tan War.
A new book, written by
historian Brian Murphy, titled The Origins and Organisation of British
Propaganda in Ireland 1920, was launched last Friday in Dublin. It
focuses on Basil Clarke, a former English journalist with the Daily
Mail, and a number of his colleagues, who came to Dublin Castle to
streamline the propaganda offensive against Sinn Féin and the IRA which
the British felt were winning the publicity war. Furthermore, the
author demonstrates how British lies and distortions of that period
have been treated as credible primary sources by some contemporary
historians for what he states are anti-republican purposes.
The press relied heavily on Dublin Castle’s Summaries of Official
Reports of Outrages which accentuated the alleged successes of the
Crown Forces against the IRA, whilst omitting British crimes against
civilians and civilian property, and blackened the IRA at every
opportunity through inventions, distortion and lies.
Journalists – long before the term ‘embedded’ was invented – were invited to visit and meet with Auxiliary Companies.
One story had an IRA Volunteer shoving a revolver down the blouse
of an innocent woman in the seat in front of him when the omnibus is
being searched by auxiliaries. He retrieves it from her cleavage after
the search and commuters are either so intimidated or supportive that
they say nothing.
On a more serious level, Murphy details the planting of false
stories (that Terence MacSwiney, for example, had planned to kill the
Bishop of Cork); the Brit use of sympathetic journalists; and the
recruitment of the Catholic hierarchy to the British side.
It is impossible not to see the resonances with the recent conflict.
What happened in 1920 was repeated in the ‘70s. The British claimed
that prisoners were inflicting injuries on themselves to denigrate
their interrogators. They claimed that the IRA was “a bloody-minded
coterie of criminals’ that intimidated the community for support. The
British abolished jury courts, denied inquests, suppressed evidence,
and if you think Public Interest Immunity Certificates are something
new, think again. It had its precursor in the powers of the Restoration
of Order in Ireland Act. Divisional Inspector Colonel Smyth of the RIC
correctly boasted that no “policeman will ever be held up to public
odium by being pilloried before a Coroner’s Jury or other such inquiry”.
Hunger strikers were impugned: their families encouraged to induce their loved ones to end the strike.
In another episode British forces murdered John Lynch, a
solicitor’s clerk (and Sinn Féin supporter), having previously
attempted to kill his employer, John J Power, because he legally
defended IRA volunteers.
Commenting on the propaganda work of Basil Clarke, author Brian
Murphy says: “By shaping and refining the news in the British interest,
Clarke not only produced a propaganda message for his time, but also
laid the foundations for an historical narrative for all time.”
In particular, Murphy challenges two historians, Roy Foster and
Peter Hart. He upbraids Foster for appearing to be unwilling to accept
that Michael Collins (who was acting on inside information) got the
right men when volunteers wiped out the ‘Cairo Squad’ – the foremost
undercover British spies in Dublin – in November 1920. He also gives an
example where Foster omits to use a damning quote by a brigade major
about the burning of civilian homes. He takes Hart to task over his
presentation of the IRA attack at Kilmichael when 16 auxiliaries and
two volunteers were killed.
The British falsely alleged that their
soldiers had been wounded, surrendered and then shot multiple times,
and that their bodies had been hacked and mutilated and then rifled for
personal valuables, including clothes. While Hart does not support the
accusations of mutilation he, according to Murphy, places his
confidence in the ‘official report’ in order to query IRA Commandant
Tom Barry’s account of events (“lies and evasions”) and to claim that
the attack “turned into a massacre”.
British and newspaper reports deceived many people at the time, not
just the British public or people abroad but some people in Ireland
also. However, to have modern historians and journalists regurgitate
these lies – in my opinion, for contemporary political motives – is
something to which we need to be alert. Murphy – one of a regrettably
small number of historians who vigilantly scrutinise the way
revisionists use or abuse historical documents and sources – has done
us all a valuable service by publishing this work.
The Origins and Organisation of British Propaganda in Ireland 1920 by Brian P Murphy can be ordered through Spinwatch |
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