John Taylor is attempting to blacken the good names of the victims of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre online again by insinuating they were not innocent in the atrocity which claimed the lives of 15 civilians including women and 2 children on 4th December 1971.
As readers of this website know, before we had buried our loved ones, the British state buried the truth about the McGurk's Bar Massacre. John Taylor had his bit part in the attempt to criminalize the innocent civilians murdered in the attack by British extremists.
Taylor’s disinformation began the day after the Loyalist explosion, but it continues to this day.
Today’s slur began with an anonymous Twitter user tweeting last night:
“This fine evening I’m thinking of the innocent people murdered in the McGurks Bar Massacre. I’m also thinking of your disgusting lies you told. As you go to your pit this night I hope your conscience gets the better of you and you apologise soon before you meet your maker. TICK TOCK.”
Taylor replied:
“You claim they were innocent!!”
I responded:
“Taylor still attempting to sully the good names of the victims of the #McGurks Bar Massacre. We've long asked him whether he was a patsy or a liar. Unless he can prove what he insinuates about our loved ones, he should keep his unfounded lies to himself.”
Another family member was upset and tweeted:
“My great granny's husband was innocent.”
Taylor responded:
“No court made that decision.”
This is an obviously ludicrous assertion. Unless Taylor means that only the Irish Catholic victims of the McGurk's Bar Massacre had to prove their innocence in court, could you imagine a society with a legal starting point that all or any victims of our conflict were guilty and may have deserved their murder until courts ruled they were innocent. This is nonsense and dangerous but follows a long history of Taylor’s attempts to criminalize our loved ones and his failure to apologise over the years. This failure is then compounded each time by his subsequent doubling-down on his previous vile statements.
Continued below...
In 2018, he tweeted:
“I have never had any evidence that the [UVF] was involved in the McGurks Bar bomb. It was a drinking hole for IRA sympathisers who have subsequently carried out a political campaign to place the blame on the UVF. I have never received evidence to support this.”
A UVF man confessed to being a member of the bomb gang and subsequently served a life sentence for the mass murder.
Historic investigators recorded that British Army Intelligence and RUC did not consider the pub an IRA pub – it was known locally as a well-run establishment for older clientele that did not allow discussions about politics or religion in the place. The sort of pub for a punt and a pint with a swear box on the counter.
The records in British Army files in the immediate aftermath of the bombing support this. At 2128 hours (9:28pm), around 42 minutes after explosion, the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment Fusiliers (2 RRF) informed 39 Brigade Headquarters [link]:
“Owner of pub a moderate RC [Roman Catholic] unlikely to have allowed people to use it as a mtg [meeting] place. Bar close to Gem Bar which is a [REDACTED].”
The Gem Bar was targeted by the British Army as a haunt of the local Official IRA. The Gem Bar was also the original target of the bombers of McGurk's Bar. Two nights before that, the Gem Bar was the target of the British Army.
Taylor and the McGurk's Bar Disinformation
John Taylor was Minister of State for Home Affairs at the time of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and its subsequent cover-up when he parroted the disinformation about the atrocity in its immediate aftermath.
He was quoted from the 5th December in the Irish Independent on 6th December 1971:
“I personally would be very surprised if this was the start of a Protestant backlash. The evidence at the moment is that the Protestant community are facing up to the IRA campaign in a very responsible manner and are quite prepared to leave the initiative to the politicians and the security forces. I would dismiss the idea that it was the Protestants.”
The Birmingham Post quoted him on the 6th too:
“One is absolutely horrified that there are people in Ireland – whether from Northern Ireland or the Republic – that are prepared to kill fellow Irishmen in this manner.”
On 7th December 1971, he told Stormont:
“There have been conflicting theories about the cause of this explosion and one has seen displayed again the unfortunate fact that in Northern Ireland people believe exactly what they want to believe and nothing more. The plain fact is that the evidence of the forensic experts supports the theory that the explosion took place within the confines of the wall.”
What Taylor did not tell Stormont and the public – or what he was not told – was that a British Army bomb disposal expert informed Brigade Headquarters and then Headquarters Northern Ireland that:
“ATO [Ammunition Technical Officer] is convinced bomb was placed in entranceway on ground floor. The area is cratered and clearly was the seat of the explosion.”
This placed the seat of the explosion outside the main bar and in the enclosed hallway - the exact place a young witness saw the UVF plant the bomb. The British armed forces knew that the bar was attacked.
This crucial evidence was suppressed, marked “NOT FOR PR”. It lay hidden from the public till I found it in 2018. The British state then tried to undermine the young witness to the mass murder.
In the same files, we discovered that the origin of the heinous McGurk’s Bar lies lay with a secret agreement between the infamous Brigadier Frank Kitson and the RUC. The 39 Brigade Commander’s Diary recorded an order from the Brigade Commander (Kitson) just over 4 hours after the McGurk’s Bar explosion:
“RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have a line on it – NI should deal with them”.
We also proved that the RUC deliberately misinformed the Northern Irish government at a Joint Security Committee (JSC) meeting on 16th December 1971 which included none other than John Taylor. The Chief Constable and his Head of Special Branch presented the lies in an RUC report to the JSC:
“Circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members at least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities. Intelligence indicates that the bomb was destined for use elsewhere in the city.”
We have repeatedly challenged the police to substantiate these lies or admit that the police fabricated them.
Similarly goes for Taylor who has yet to account properly for the disinformation he parroted in the aftermath of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. Either he was a patsy or a liar.
Either the British armed forces deliberately lied to Taylor and used him as a mouthpiece for their disinformation (and I examined this in The Plot To Deceive Two Governments); or he knew he was lying but still makes the statements he does. If it is the former, Taylor at any time over the last 15 years [at least] could have held his hands up and simply said that the British armed forces and/or his secretariat misinformed him of the facts or hid facts from him.
Instead, he continually attempts to besmirch the good names of the victims of the atrocity. This most recent slur occurs just weeks before the 53rd anniversary of the mass murder and cover-up, and just days after the burial of another McGurk’s Bar campaigner.
His baseless slurs will do nothing but retraumatize the families once again at a particularly difficult time for them. That’s a measure of him and will form only part of his toxic legacy in the history of the sectarian statelet.
So, unless he can put up, Taylor should shut up.
In the meantime, I have asked Alpha Media Group which is [part-]owned and chaired by Taylor if its Board and editorial teams across the North of Ireland share the baseless views of its Chair regarding the innocence of the victims of the McGurk's Bar Massacre.
Further Reading
Academic author, Dr John O'Neill, engaged with Taylor on these issues in 2017 and wrote this excellent article: The McGurk's Bar Deception - Q & A with John Taylor
You can read more about Taylor's bile and bigotry in this news gallery.
Irish News: John Taylor Faces Criticism After Appearing to Question "Innocence" of McGurk's Bar Massacre
