Whilst researching the murder of my grandmother, Kathleen Irvine, and 14 other innocent civilians in the McGurk’s Bar bombing in 1971, I came across a gut-wrenching document.
Of all of the buried documents which I have discovered and placed in the public domain, the contents of this particular document left me more deflated than the rest. It was a punch in the stomach.
I am conditioned to reading disinformation from British governmental, police, army and intelligence files regarding my grandmother and the other victims in McGurk’s Bar because it is I who sought and found them. The mountain of black propaganda which blames our innocent family members for the bombing and labelled them the terrorists may be upsetting but I expected no less from these authorities. After all, they created the pretext for the bombing so they were bound to develop it.
The outrageous commentary in this document did distress me though as it allegedly came from the lips of one of our own political representatives – Gerry Fitt.
Read more in Trope: Essays and Articles by Ciarán MacAirt. All proceeds from the sale of the Kindle e-book go to the charity, Paper Trail, which works with victims and survivors of the conflict in the North of Ireland.
