Tag: David Burke
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Learning to kill
Frank Kitson’s first overseas military assignment was to Germany, in 1946, with the rank of second lieutenant. He remained there for seven years. He found plenty of sport to occupy his spare time such as racing horses in Rhine Army competitions, trout fishing and ‘many wonderful opportunities for shooting … and by shooting I don’t…
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How Soldier F was named and why he is still being protected by the British Establishment.
David Cleary is the real name of Soldier F. He is the former lance corporal responsible for leading the cold-blooded and calculated murder spree committed by the EFGH unit of Support Company of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday. Maj. General Patrick MacLellan helped me when I was writing ‘Kitson’s Irish War‘. MacLellan passed away in…
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The Bloody Sunday Plot.
Introduction. The official position of the British Government relating to Bloody Sunday is based on the 2010 report of Lord Saville of Newdigate, i.e., that a group of paratroopers engaged in the massacre of thirteen innocent people in Derry, with a fourteenth dying later, for no reason. Unfortunately, Saville ignored or discounted substantial evidence indicating…
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Kitson, Afghanistan and Iraq.
By David Burke. 1. The counter-insurgency gurus. From 1970 to 1972, Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank Kitson served as Brigadier of 39 Brigade in Belfast. Some argue he damaged relations between the British government and the Nationalist community more than any other individual in the British Army. This website has many stories about Kitson, and…
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‘EFGH’
By David Burke. 1. ‘No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason, Soldier F is a protected species.’ In 2021, Colum Eastwood MP of the SDLP was named ‘Soldier F ’ in the House of Commons, under privilege. ‘Soldier F’ had faced murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday, which…
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Kitson’s Private Army.
By David Burke. Brigadier Frank Kitson ran the 39th Airborne Brigade area, i.e. Belfast, as if he were a mob boss with the city ashis patch. He let the paratroopers under his command run riot in that domain. Some of the more decent and honourable British Army officers were aghast at their excesses and asked…
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Lying like a trooper.
By David Burke. 1. Where was the ‘EFGH’ Unit of Support Company of 1 Para during the Ballymurphy Massacre? Internment began on 9 August 1971. By the 11th, ten people had been murdered by paratroopers in Ballymurphy. Decades later, the coroner who oversaw the inquest for the victims of the Ballymurphy massacre confirmed that…
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Natural Born Killer.
By David Burke. Brigadier (later General) Frank Edward Kitson was responsible for the Ballymurphy massacre. He was the Brigadier of 39 Brigade – that is to say he was the officer in charge of all British soldiers in Belfast during the Ballymurphy massacre. His accomplice was Colonel Derek Wilford, the then commander of 1 Para.…
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Mentioned in Despatches.
By David Burke. Internment – arrest and detention without trial – was introduced by the Stormont Government of Northern Ireland in August 1971. Hundreds of Nationalists were rounded up and detained. Members of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando were not targeted for arrest. The swoops were carried out by British troops including the…
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Missing UVF Bomb Massacre Files.
On 4 December 8:45 p.m., a UVF gang set out on a bombing mission. One of those involved was Robert James Campbell. The UVF bomb exploded outside a small pub in Belfast called McGurk’s, a cosy place where Catholics and Protestants from the same neighbourhood – all of whom knew each other well – met…
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McGurk’s Bar cover-up.
Tory PM Edward Heath concealed the identity of a paramilitary organisation which perpetrated a massacre in Belfast in 1971. He did so in the hope of acquiring the votes he needed to win a majority in the House of Commons to enable the UK to join the EEC, the forerunner of the EU. What he…
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Kitson’s foreknowledge of a third massacre.
New evidence has emerged about the UVF’s bombing of McGurk’s Bar in Belfast in December 1971. The explosion caused the entire structure of the premises to collapse, killing fifteen Catholic civilians – including two children – and wounding seventeen more. It was the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles. Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank…
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Reputations in tatters.
1. A David and Goliath battle involving the survivor of child rape. The Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal has tarnished, if not demolished, the reputations of an array of people, including politicians, who have tried to cover it up. (See section 8 below.) Some of them will be remembered by history for nothing…
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Misrepresenting Haughey’s relationship with the Provos.
The Irish Times promoted the Official IRA’s version of the Arms Crisis
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Best (and worst).
Dolphin Square VIP sex abuse. Dolphin Square was opened in London’s Pimlico in 1936. It soon became a magnet for all sorts of scandal and intrigue: espionage, political, sexual, not to mention mysterious deaths. ‘Scandal at Dolphin Square’ provides a riveting account of the lives of a rolling maul of fascinating and complex characters. As…
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‘Traitor King’.
By David Burke. Andrew Lownie will be known to many for the depth of his research into the life of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, especially the former’s abuse of boys in the Republic of Ireland. During his research into Mountbatten, Lownie tried, and failed, to gain access to Garda logs showing who had…
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Counterinsurgency war criminals.
The denial of justice for political gain. Next week will see the release of the long-awaited inquest report into the Ballymurphy massacre during which British soldiers killed and wounded a large number of unarmed civilians in Belfast. The atrocity took place after the introduction of internment in August of 1971. Adding insult to inqury, the…
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Ducking all the hard questions.
The print edition of Village magazine posed a number of questions to Des O’Malley about the Arms Crisis but he ignored them. They arose out of an article he had published in the Sunday Independent in September. He also used that article as a platform to attack recent research on the crisis without addressing any…
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Sean Haughey
By David Burke. Deputy Sean Haughey has repeated his request for the release of certain Garda files from the Department of Justice. There is a lot more to his question than readily meets the eye. In the late 1960s and 1970s C3 was the most secretive and sensitive department within an Garda Síochána. It provided…
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Captain James Kelly’s family phone was tapped
By David Burke. The family phone of Captain James Kelly and his wife Sheila, in Terenure, Dublin, was tapped by the gardai in 1970. Captain Kelly was one of the Arms Trial defendants who went on trial 50 years ago this week. He was acquitted. It is inconceivable that Mícheál Ó Móráin, who served as…
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Seán Haughey TD.
By Michael Smith. Justice Minister Helen McEntee has confirmed the existence of secret and “sensitive’” Garda files relating to the Arms Crisis. She did not rule out releasing them in “appropriate” circumstances. Her comments were made on Tuesday evening in response to Seán Haughey TD of Fianna Fáil who was asking her to confirm that…
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Smear sheet.
By David Burke. Introduction. The Arms Trial opened fifty years ago later this month, 22 September. It has since become clear that the prosecution was one of the most tainted episodes in modern Irish legal history and that, more than anyone else, the former Taoiseach Jack Lynch was responsible for the sham. The prosecution which…
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Vandalising history.
By David Burke. Introduction. The story of the Arms Crisis is a perfectly simple one. It only becomes complicated when the lies, fantasies and myths that engulfed it are entertained as if serious. Only two participants in the débacle told the full, accurate and unvarnished truth: Captain James Kelly and Colonel Michael Hefferon, both dutiful…
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Dick Walsh’s covert committee monitored OIRA media enemies. Future Irish Times Assistant editor put colleagues on lists.
By David Burke. THE OFFICIAL IRA AND OFFICIAL SINN FÉIN The IRA fractured in December 1969 into what became known as the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA. Sinn Féin split along the same lines the following month. Before the division, the IRA had been led by IRA veterans such as Cathal Goulding, who was…
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Irish Times fraud.
The Assistant Editor of the Irish Times distorted the truth about the Arms Crisis. He was a friend of both the chief of staff of the Official IRA and the Taoiseach, ‘Honest’ Jack Lynch. The Official IRA had a vested interest in manipulating the story. Over time, the journalist portrayed Lynch as the hapless victim…
