Over on Stratagem-O’Toole, there is some concern about the naming of a public park in the name of Raymond McCreesh, a hunger striker who died in 1981. While not necessarily argreeing with the point, I certainly see that unionists would be angry.
We are…….and I dont apologise for making this point…..yet again reliving the 1960s. Maybe it is a case of Tragedy and/or Farce. The point has been made on Slugger that there are streets in the memory of Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, (genocidal anti-Irish figures) in Belfast…I suppose there comes a time when nobody actually thinks of Oliver Cromwell. And what percentage of people actually know who Ireton was?
Of course we all know that it is the Holyland in South Belfast…..but how many strangers actually realise that Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street are no accident.
Nor was the Kashmir Road, Bombay Street, Cawnpore Street and the rest of the “Indian” streets around Clonard. And just how many people ever realised the Crimean connexion in the streets in the Lower Falls area……Balaclava, Inkerman, Sevastapol, Raglan, Odessa to name but a few.
Sooner or later people dont even know who Lady Dixon Park was named for. Or the Dunville Park. And I suspect in fifty years time, there will be few people who actually see the historic significance of Raymond McCreesh.
After the “flegs” issue with (to me at least) a nod to the 1964 in Divis Street…I wonder is the “names” issue going to be the next. In the 1960s, a new city was built between Lurgan and Portadown ….much to the chagrin of people who lived in those towns and indeed historic villages such as Waringstown, Bleary, Dollinstown and Aghagallon. Controversially but typically of the “old” Unionist Party…the new city was named….Craigavon, honouring Lord Craigavon, a founding father of unionism and indeed Norn Iron.
To be frank, nobody in Lurgan and Portadown actually refers to Craigavon except as a shopping centre and a series of mostly (but not all) sink estates. Few in Lurgan and Portadown actually use “Craigavon” in their address. So……if people get worked up about “new” names in 2012…..at what point do we just accept that there is no point in changing.
In other words how many people under 40 know or care who “Lord” Craigavon was?. Or indeed Raymond McCreesh? If unionists are within their rights to question “Raymond McCreesh Park” are nationalists within their rights to question “Craigavon”? No point letsgetalongerists saying that this ship has sailed.
If the past 24 hours has shown anything, it is the fact that too many letsgetalongerists have been walking around with blinkers…seduced by MTV Awards, Titanic, Open Golf and G8 Summit. Wake up and smell the toxic atmosphere.
And while I am on the subject …..dont let me mention “Derry-Londonderry” (and I have a feeling the choreography is in place to accept that name).
Did I mention the 1960s? We have been here before. There was even a song. Alas I cant find it on youtube but it was (probably) by the Go Lucky Four and issued thru the Emerald label in Smithfield in Belfast.
Called “The Bridge”, it satirised the building and phoney secrecy surrounding a new road bridge over the River Lagan.
Apologies for any unintentional copyrite infringement. I have searched thru Google and cannot find anyone to whom I should attribute this chorus.
“Is it Carson, Wolfe Tone Lagan Bridge? Somebody called it Paul* ……I think that we’d be better off if we had no bridge at all”.
(*Paul is a reference to the “new” Pope and the popularity of that name among Catholics).
Plus ca change……and all that.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
This probably seemed like a good idea ten years ago, and it probably still does to people in Barrs Hill. But it’s likely the guy killed way more than that poor unfortunate ‘sectarian double killer’ who also took his own life: http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/22152.
We got endless headlines on that for days and weeks even. The people these guys killed have families and relatives who were affected by their actions and those of their organisations.
“…who also took his own life”.
I would hardly call Raymond McCreesh’s death a case of taking his own life. Poor choice of words there, Mick.
The evidence for his alleged status as a “sectarian killer” is highly debatable, stemming as it does from the HET’s claims about the forensic history of the assault rifle he was captured with.
Otherwise I have some sympathy with your point about the naming of the park. It is indeed perhaps too soon for such things. Especially when one thinks of so many families for whom the grief still abides.
But respect and due regard is a two-way street. It cannot always be Nationalists or Republicans bending over backwards to “accommodate” the British Unionist minority when one perceives very little coming the other way.
Interesting post FJH as I too have lived in one of the sink estates there.
I took a little jaunt over to Bullshit Mountain to see the outrage and I note how Ulick is as always showing the inconsistencies in the views of many.
Was he a killer? Indeed. Was he fighting for a noble cause? Indeed.
A Sheamais,
It is certainly debatable. He had no convictions for murder (there are remarkable few against the south Armagh brigade, so it’s par for the course down that way.
But the gun he was picked up with was linked to a lot of killings. There’s no debate that the Kingsmills shooting was mass murder. Even the Provos would not own it at the time, it was so shameful.
The people who always come to my mine are the victims rather than the perpetrators. My sympathies lie with the McErleans, not the Hunters of this world. I’ve seen the results of their work and see nothing praiseworthy in it, however tragic their eventual ends.
As for the naming of the park I think it says a lot about the evils of prohibition. I’m pretty sure it is fine with locals, but it’s not the message Newry wants to be sending out about its future. It’s sits poorly with all the learned submissions about the importance of creating a great environment at the City Hall in Belfast.
Newry is a far different town to the one that saw some pretty nasty action back in the 70s and 80s, and one with a potentially bright future. To do that it needs to encourage talent back, Protestant talent ‘in a measc’.
My feeling is that that sheer struggle to get the name officially recognised became the object of its own mission and took on a significance out of all proportion.
McCreesh had no local association to the area that I know of. But the local Sinn Fein Cumman owed him and his fellow hunger strikers a huge debt of gratitude for giving their project a serious political valence (something which is ignored or not recognised by some of the Republican critics of the way that Hunger Strike was handled).
This was the payback to his memory and to his family.
Yet judging from the photos, the council might have been better working out how to maintain the facility in a decent state than rowing over a name. There’s something depressingly dismal about it all.
Let’s not fall out over the taking of his own life thing. I understand exactly where you’re coming from on that, I just don’t see it that way.
The RUC / PSNI / HET may claim that their forensic examinations and cross-comparisons link the weapon to a number of attacks but that does mean Raymond McCreesh was linked to them. The idea that individual Volunteers had their own “favourite” weapons or that a particular Active Service Unit had one arsenal of weapons for its exclusive use is a media myth. During the 1970s many weapons were pooled and several Volunteers or Units would have had access to them. Materials such as assault rifles passed through many hands over a period of many years.
All that said the events at Kingsmill, the deliberate premeditated slaying of civilians, was a war crime. The fact that it was a direct response to the murderous attacks on the Reavey and O’Dowd families or that it temporarily deterred more attacks is no excuse. The individuals responsible, members of the Irish Republican Army acting outside its structures, were guilty of criminal acts and should have been disciplined for such. If Raymond McCreesh was involved in the murders I certainly would have no truck with any memorials of any description to him but no evidence has been produced to prove involvement unless you wish to take the rumours spread by the odious Willie Frazier and co. as proof.
I do not.
Again, I agree with you about the children’s playground. The wrong monument at the wrong time. Something more fitting should have been chosen, if required at all.
I agree with most of that. I’m just not inclined to give the ‘army’ a bye ball on it. I do buy your superior argument the gun is no proof in and of itself.
But there’s no proof it was not officially sanctioned or that anyone inside the army ever paid a price for that particular crime, war or otherwise.
As for the park, it just demonstrates how in-turned politics has become in Newry. It’s a stupid remnant of an old, long outdated turfwar.
And, frankly, an embarrassment to Irish nationalism more broadly.
My understanding is that there were no instructions from the Army leadership as a body to carry out the ambush or any official sanction from the top down. The decision to carry out the operation seems to have come locally after many heated debates and quite quickly despite all the claims about “weeks of planning”. However there is still a great deal of mystery about the events, as you are aware, not helped by the internal confusions and obfuscations in the aftermath.
Nevertheless some sort of an acknowledgement and official apology is long overdue. It is the very least that can be offered to the families of the murdered.
Like lots of stuff around the past, I am not sure I really care enough to want to know or hear from people who have only recently agreed they or their people might have had something to do with it.
If they lied before, they will lie again. Apologies, whether from state or anti state actors are worth the paper they are not written on.
Everyone has secrets and one way of dealing with that situation is to shut about the past as the primary playground of politics, administer care to all regardless of status, and get on with the future.
What I do care about though is the taunting of victims. And that’s subject to current political leadership’s control. I see no sign of a commitment to do anything about that.
Sorry, ‘not worth the paper’ etc..