Book review: Denial and delusion reign when corruption and collusion is allowed

'Shooting Crows' tells the story of journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffery fight to bring justice to the families of the Loughinisland massacre in 1984

Trevor Birney has worked tirelessly to uncover the truth behind British government protection for cold-blooded killers.

• Shooting Crows: Mass Murder, State Collusion and Press Freedom 
• Trevor Birney
• Merrion Books, pb €19.99 

It’s 33 years since what was to have been our ground-breaking Beef Tribunal shattered whatever faith many Irish people had struggled to retain in official Ireland. 

Three years and legal fees of €54m later only one person was charged — journalist Susan O’Keeffe who was prosecuted for protecting sources.

A few weeks before the Beef Tribunal report was published in July, 1994, a massacre took place in the happy, sleepy Down village of Loughinisland. 

On June 18, 1994 three Ulster Volunteer Force killers went to The Heights Bar and randomly murdered six innocent locals while they watched Ireland play Italy in the World Cup.

That matter is alive in Northern Ireland’s courts though it would be foolish to imagine, even at this very late stage, that the alleged killers — widely identified — are before the courts.

Just as our legal system was used against Susan O’Keeffe, the full weight of the North’s legal batteries was, as late as May, ranged against journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffery over leaked material used in their seminal 2017 documentary No Stone Left Unturned.

Had that action succeeded, and even if strands of it are ongoing, those men, their families and employees too, would have been ruined professionally, financially and probably emotionally too.

The bigger-picture consequences would have been even more dispiriting. 

Had they been convicted it would indicate that the dark, bigoted forces, paramilitary or official, that made the North such a toxic entity still have the whip hand.

Shooting Crows tells the story of the excellent No Stone Left Unturned but with the addendum of current courtroom efforts of the PSNI and their all-too-pliant British colleagues to break Birney and McCaffery so the undeniable collusion between the RUC, and later the PSNI and loyalist terrorists might remain in the shadows.

Indeed, the collusion outlined here is so very poisonous that you might wonder if the RUC Special Branch was part of the UVF or the UFF rather than the other way around. 

This cancer, just one of many in the North’s Dirty War, reaches to the top of the British political establishment argues Birney so it is entirely predictable that the full weight of institutional Britain has been brought to bear on them. Same as it ever was then.

There are myriad examples of this collusion, one that reached a high watermark in Loughinisland as one of the UVF trio is believed to have been a police mole and therefore untouchable. 

It is also suggested that the police had prior knowledge of the attack but did not intervene. 

It is also shown that the RUC knew of the arms smuggling operation after a South African deal that led to so many murders — at least 60 — including the Heights Bar six, but they looked the other way. 

Murderous collusion writ large. Incredibly, the wife of the zealot who killed the six people in the bar wrote to a local politician confirming that her husband was the killer but nothing of any consequence happened.

Collusion was exacerbated by half-hearted investigations, especially the report from the first Police Ombudsman, Canadian Al Hutchinson. 

His judgement that there was no collusion was laughable and even his own staff distanced themselves from his findings. 

Hutchinson had to resign and the report of his successor, Dr Michael Maguire, left no doubt about how the RUC/PSNI encouraged and identified targets for Loyalist terrorists.

Shooting Crows and No Stone Left Unturned (easily found on YouTube) are powerful, exemplary efforts to ensure that conflict is, at last, consigned to history. 

Now, if official Britain can find the gumption to tell most of the truth and act accordingly, then that objective might be realised. 

Unfortunately, the indications are that that moment has not yet arrived. 

Denial and delusion, corruption and collusion stand where there should be openness and contrition despite the brave work of Birney and McCaffery — and the great patience and perseverance of the Loughinisland families.

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