Let Us Bury Our Dead with Dignity

Last week on 23 January, the Republican Movement in Derry, and across Ireland suffered a great loss with the Covid-19 death of Eamonn ‘Peggy’ McCourt.  Peggy, a former IRA Volunteer and ex-POW, helped build Sinn Féin in Derry and did Trojan work with the Derry Graves Association and was an administrator on the Blanketmen/Women 76-81 Facebook group page.  Peggy’s entire life was devoted to his family, community and to the struggle for freedom and justice in Ireland. Therefore, it is understandable and natural that the people of Derry would want to pay their final respects to a man who devoted so much to his community.

As surely as night follows day, the gutter press and media ‘personalities’ such as Stephen Nolan latched onto Peggy’s funeral, exhibiting their own unique brand of faux outrage.  Of course, and even more shamefully, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP, even took a break from “Stopping Boris and Brexit” to lambast the McCourt family and other mourners on his Twitter account, labelling them a “clique” and ignoring their grief.

This is a stark reminder of the weeks of bluster that followed the funeral of Bobby Storey in June. Covid-19 has become the new flag of convenience for the usual suspects to do what they do best, demonise Republicans.

This systemic targeting of Republican funerals is nothing new; indeed, it has been a key component of the British criminalisation policy for decades.

This year we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Hunger Strikes of 1980/81 and the fight for political status as republican POWs in the H Blocks and Armagh Prison combatted Britain’s criminalisation policy, we should remember that while the frontline of this struggle was in the prisons, where ten men would die on Hunger Strike, the British attempts to criminalise these men did not stop at their deaths.

The British army and RUC attack on the cortege of Volunteer Joe McDonnell, firing live ammunition and plastic bullets at mourners, was the opening salvo in a campaign that saw savage attacks on republican mourners.

Republican funerals became a battleground for the legitimacy of struggle.

This strategy remained a staple of British policy through the 80s and 90s, most infamously surrounding the funerals of Volunteers Mairéad Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage who had been executed by the SAS in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988.

In this instance, in one of the most blatant acts of collusion, their funerals were attacked by UDA gunman Michael Stone. Three people died and up to 60 were wounded in Stone’s gun and grenade attack and of the dead one was IRA Volunteer Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh. Also killed were mourners Thomas McErlean and John Murray.

A subsequent attack on MacBrádaigh’s funeral by undercover British soldiers, which led to their capture and execution by the IRA, highlighted the consequences of the British strategy.

That republican funerals were ‘fair game’ was underscored by the media.

When reporting on the funerals of Volunteers Willie Flaming and Danny Doherty in Derry ITN referred to the Creggan estate as a ‘ghetto’, where support for the IRA is ‘undisputed’.  This language is designed to create an image that support for the IRA was marginalised and confined to small, deprived pockets.  

And focusing on the IRA firing party the news reporter says ’then came a chilling display of fire power’.

Yet the attacks by baton wielding RUC squads on mourners outside the Fleming family home, shown in the same footage, were described only as a ‘clashes’ between the RUC and mourners.  

The objective here is to justify the assault of mourners and the intimidation of bereft families. It contrives to create a perception that funerals were not a fitting tribute to fallen comrades, but little more than an act of aggression.

COVID-19 has become a flag of convenience under which the media can target Republicans and the funerals of our comrades. The false anger over alleged non-compliance is easily exposed when compared the lack of scrutiny of John Hume’s funeral or that that of Orangeman and Boyne Bridge Defender Herby Hutton, where their social media pages boasted that, ‘restrictions did not prevent people gathering for the funeral of Herby Hutton’.  

Bias in the media surrounding COVID-19 is nothing new. Many of the featured feel-good segments on BBC News and UTV News featuring community spirit such as care for the elderly etc. occur in Unionist areas while stories of people allegedly flouting restrictions are reserved mainly for Republican funerals.  

With a recent LucidTalk opinion poll placing Sinn Féin on 24%, while the DUP languishes on 19%, we should expect further vilification of Republican funerals and commemorations in the British and Free State media outlets.

They do not let our patriot dead rest in peace, they do not allow their families space in which to grieve. Criminalisation has not gone away, it never has, it targets our patriot dead and their families. Be under no illusion, when COVID-19 is a thing of the past, the attacks on Republicans will remain an issue of the present.   

Le Naoise Ó Faoláin