15th May 1977 - Northen Ireland 'A terrible deed was born'

Captain Robert Nairac RIP

31st August 1948-15th May 1977

On the night of 15^th May 1977, Captain Robert Nairac, a young officer in the Grenadier Guards and seconded to the SAS in Northern Ireland, was working undercover in a well known IRA pub in the Three Steps bar in Drumintee, close to the borders of the Republic.

Despite having the right appearance and accent, Nairac was under suspicion and, as he left at 11.30pm, a group of five men detained him in the car park. Robert Nairac was no stranger to danger; he was capable, strong and confident and it took a hard and bloody fight before he could be subdued and bundled into a car.

He was taken to an unknown place, deep in the countryside and he must have known then that his fate was sealed. The Provisional IRA then formally came into the picture having been alerted by one of the five thugs. What then took place can only be surmised but what is certain is that Captain Nairac was tortured most terribly before being brutally murdered.

His body has never been recovered and the PIRA has never offered any information as to its whereabouts. His family must grieve ever more deeply knowing that they cannot mourn for him at a graveside.

Several members of the ‘Provos’ have been put on trial but the evidence against them has never been enough for a conviction.

Robert Nairac came from an English Catholic family and had a brilliant career ahead of him. His death was a blow to all decent folk but the English Catholic population felt it most keenly; we knew we had lost one of our own. As for the IRA, they never had much of the badge of honour about them, any scrap of a decent element died when Michael Collins was murdered by his fellow countrymen.

Sadly, it was funds from Irish Americans that kept the savage IRA afloat for so long (any IRA links with the Socialist based Irish Republican Brotherhood being conveniently ignored). The IRA spread their poison around the world training and being trained by The Shining Path thugs, Gaddaffi’s henchmen and, of course, ironically, Al Qaeda.

Captain Nairac was posthumously awarded the George Cross in February 1979, his citation reads:-

On the night of 14/15 May 1977 Captain Nairac was abducted from a village in South Armagh by at least seven men. Despite his fierce resistance he was overpowered and taken across the border into the nearby Republic of Ireland where he was subjected to a succession of exceptionally savage assaults in an attempt to extract information which would have put other lives and future operations at serious risk. These efforts to break Captain Nairac's will failed entirely. Weakened as he was in strength-though not in spirit-by the brutality, he yet made repeated and spirited attempts to escape, but on each occasion was eventually overpowered by the weight of the numbers against him. After several hours in the hands of his captors Captain Nairac was callously murdered by a gunman of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who had been summoned to the scene. His assassin subsequently said 'He never told us anything'.
Captain Nairac's exceptional courage and acts of the greatest heroism in circumstances of extreme peril showed devotion to duty and personal courage second to none.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord

and let perpetual light shine upon him,

may he rest in peace. Amen

CATHOLIC CHURCH'S TOP PR MAN RETIRES!

Yes, it is finally time for this great man to file his pen and put away his various means of communication. At the ripe old age of 84 he deserves a well earned rest, he has, after all, given most of his working life to promoting the Catholic Church through the media.
A famous orator he also held post as MP representing the folk of Northern Ireland, he has led the Democratic Unionist Party and last year he was made a peer becoming Baron Bannside.

Photo: BBC
Farewell Dr Ian Paisley - 'the bitter orange'

Ian Richard Kirk (honestly, you couldn't make it up) Paisley has, for as long as I can remember, slagged off the Catholic Faith, the Holy Father and all things emanating from Rome. And, in so doing he has created a wave of sympathy for Catholicism and, in particular, for the Catholics of  Northern Ireland. During a session of the European Parliament he famously interrupted proceedings shouting that "Pope John Paul II is the Antichrist" - he also referred frequently to the church and the Holy Father as "the Whore of Babylon".

Paisley has  presented such a bigoted and sectarian viewpoint that he has pushed people's opinions into the opposite (Catholic) camp. For all of that, I find him a rather interesting figure. He actually commenced his theological studies in South Wales at what is now the Evangelical Theological College ( a very grim place - I know, I've been inside it and was greatly relieved to get out alive).
His Doctorate credentials came from a US Baptist College (obviously a hard anti Catholic one down South) and he very quickly established his own church and brand of Prebyterianism once back in Belfast.

On the occasion of Pope JP II's visit to Great Britain the HF met with the Presbyterian Church's top honcho in Scotland and gave him his blessing.
This enraged Paisley who immediately set up a group of supporters along the Papal route all holding banners stating: "All those blessed by this man will burn in hell". Legend has it that, as the Popemobile drew level with this group, the Holy Father extended his hand to them and gave them his blessing!

But Ian Paisley really has a dark background. I recall watching the infamous televised Oxford Union debate back in the 60s when Paisley produced a consecrated host from his pocket and ground it underfoot. All Catholics watching must have taken a deep intake of breath at that point, one can only pray that the host was not, in fact, consecrated.

He appeared to mellow somewhat with age but I suspect that someone with his level of bigotry would always carry it under the surface.

He leaves behind him, a son, also an Ian and also a politician.