1 Tuesday, 13th January 2004
2 (9.35 am)
3 Pira 18, Sworn
4 Questioned by MR CLARKE
5 LORD SAVILLE: I see Mr Frankson has already pointed you in
6 my direction, I will say to you what I say to all the
7 witnesses: I am the Chairman. The questions will come
8 from the barristers, the people in front of me. Could
9 I ask you to keep close to that microphone on your desk
10 so we can all hear what you have to say.
11 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen APIRA 18.1, please.
12 You appear in this statement, under a code, PIRA 18.
13 I understand that you no longer desire to be anonymous
14 for the purpose of these proceedings; is that right?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. What is your name?
17 A. William Joseph Anderson.
18 Q. Are the contents of this, your statement, true to the
19 best of your knowledge and belief?
20 A. They are.
21 Q. Everybody here has had the opportunity of reading it, so
22 what I am going to do is to pick up questions that arise
23 from portions of it. Could we highlight, please,
24 paragraphs 1 to 3. You tell us in the first paragraph,
25 that on Bloody Sunday you were just 18 and you were
1 a member of the Creggan unit of the Provisional IRA,
2 although on the day you were serving a six-week
3 suspension from the movement, and you say that you had
4 joined the Provisionals shortly after internment,
5 in August 1971, at the age of 17; is that right?
6 A. That is correct.
7 Q. You say that you were attached to the Creggan unit. Was
8 it called a unit or was it called a company or was it
9 called something else?
10 A. My recollection would be Creggan company.
11 Q. Within the Creggan company were there a number of
12 sections?
13 A. There was.
14 Q. Can you remember how many there were?
15 A. I remember two.
16 Q. Two. Were they of about six people each or were there
17 more?
18 A. Maybe four to six people.
19 Q. Four to six. Does that mean that the whole of the
20 Creggan company only numbered something between eight
21 and 12 people altogether?
22 A. I would say 15 people maybe.
23 Q. The Creggan company was one of the companies; what were
24 the others?
25 A. There was a company in the Bogside and Brandywell.
1 Q. Was there a company anywhere else?
2 A. Not that I was aware of, no.
3 Q. Had you ever been a member of the Fianna?
4 A. Never, no.
5 Q. Did you have any contact with the Fianna?
6 A. Never, no.
7 Q. You describe, in paragraphs 1 and 2, how you and another
8 volunteer had been suspended prior to 30th January 1972
9 for stealing and burning a van that belonged to the
10 Official IRA, and you explain in paragraph 2 that the
11 two of you had got it into your heads that the Officials
12 were jeopardising your security at the house you were,
13 in the Creggan, by parking their van there and as
14 a result one night you drove it away and burnt it and
15 that led to your suspension.
16 Can I ask you this: is that something that the
17 Provisional IRA did of its own bat as it were, or was
18 there a complaint from the Officials or how did it come
19 about that you were suspended for burning an Officials'
20 van?
21 A. My recollection at the time was we were arrested
22 standing at the burning van, you know, by members of the
23 Creggan unit.
24 Q. By members of the --
25 A. By members of the Creggan unit.
1 Q. Why was it any concern of theirs that you burnt a van
2 belonging to the Officials?
3 A. Well, sir, you just could not go around burning vans,
4 you know what I mean.
5 Q. Was the friend who was suspended with you in the Creggan
6 unit as well?
7 A. He was.
8 Q. Is he still alive?
9 A. He is.
10 Q. Do you know whether he has given evidence to this
11 Inquiry?
12 A. I do not think so, no.
13 Q. Is he still in Londonderry?
14 A. He is.
15 Q. You say in paragraph 3 that as a result of your
16 suspension you were not privy to the activities of the
17 Provisionals on the day. Did you hear before the day or
18 on the day itself from other volunteers in the Creggan
19 section what was going to happen so far as the
20 Provisional IRA was concerned on the day?
21 A. No, I did not, no.
22 Q. Could we have on the screen paragraphs 4 and 5 on this
23 page. You say in paragraph 4 that every Saturday there
24 was a riot with the rioters varying between ten and 200.
25 You describe, in paragraph 5, how the first time that
1 you saw anybody shot was on the Saturday before
2 Bloody Sunday when you were in the Bogside with friends,
3 Danny McLaughlin, Bernard McDaid and Peter Robson when
4 there was a riot going on about 100 to 150 yards away
5 from where you were.
6 You say that you were standing at Abbey Street
7 looking east towards Rossville Street at a point that
8 you have marked as A on the map that is attached to your
9 statement, heard a shot ring out and which you knew was
10 a live round and looked round and saw a man holding his
11 right shoulder with his left-hand and a wee trickle of
12 blood coming out from between his fingers, he standing
13 at the back of the Grandstand Bar.
14 Could we have a look, please, at APIRA 18.11, which
15 is the map attached to your statement. You have put the
16 point where you were as point A?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is that right, just at the junction of Abbey Street and
19 the roadway above Kells Walk, and point B, the point
20 where you saw the man who had been shot in the shoulder
21 where I have marked on the screen; is that right?
22 A. That is correct.
23 Q. When you saw the man who had been shot, was he alone?
24 A. He was.
25 Q. You think, as I understand, that he was coming towards
1 you; is that right?
2 A. Yes, he was heading in our direction, yes.
3 Q. Had he already been shot by the time that you saw him?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Is this Peter McLaughlin?
6 A. This is Peter McLaughlin, yes.
7 Q. Can we come over the page to APIRA 18.2, the first two
8 paragraphs, please. You describe how, when you saw he
9 had been shot, you started to run towards him. He tried
10 to speak but was so shocked that he could not get his
11 words out and then his legs seemed to give way and he
12 started to slide down a door he was leaning against.
13 You describe how you all crouched round him and
14 tried to lift him up and then another shot rang out and
15 Peter Robson fell down, having been shot in the back as
16 he was bending over Peter McLaughlin, and you recall
17 thinking that if Peter Robson had not been bending over
18 sheltering you, the shot would have hit you in the head.
19 The Tribunal has had some written evidence from
20 Peter McLaughlin that confirms much of what you say, but
21 could we have on the screen AM351.3. Could we simply
22 have where the manuscript markings are on the map.
23 Could we have on the screen APIRA 18.11.
24 I do not wish to spend too much time on this because
25 we are not investigating the events of the previous
1 Saturday, but Peter McLaughlin, the man who was shot,
2 has said in his statement that he was shot when he was
3 facing east at the point that he has marked as A on the
4 map on the left-hand side. You describe seeing him at
5 the point that you have marked at B. Is it possible
6 that he had been shot where he describes and had somehow
7 made his way down to where you saw him at B?
8 A. Yes, sir, that is possible, yes.
9 Q. There is a further complication. Could we take out
10 APIRA 18.11 and substitute for it AR37.2. What is on
11 the right-hand side is a map which is attached to the
12 statement to this Tribunal of Peter Robson, the other
13 man who was shot. He has described seeing a man
14 throwing a nail bomb at the point that he has marked as
15 A on his map. He then describes walking over and
16 talking to some friends at point B, hearing a shot,
17 looking behind him and seeing Peter McLaughlin fall to
18 the ground and then going to help him and himself being
19 shot, but he has put the spot where the two of them were
20 shot as point C, that is to say almost in Abbey Street
21 itself.
22 How clear are you about the location of where you
23 saw Peter Robson shot?
24 A. Sir, I am fairly certain, sir.
25 Q. That is at the spot B that is in the map attached to
1 your statement?
2 A. The back of the Grandstand Bar.
3 Q. May we come, please, back to APIRA 18.2 down to
4 paragraph 7 from the top. You describe how you had to
5 get the two of them to hospital and you looked across
6 the car park in the Columbcille Court area, saw somebody
7 getting into a Volkswagen, shouted for them:
8 "...to come across and help us."
9 At this stage the rioters started to come towards
10 you from Rossville Street and you managed to get both
11 Peter Robson and Peter McLaughlin into the car to be
12 driven to safety.
13 Do you know where they were driven to?
14 A. No, sir.
15 Q. You describe how you went back to the house in the
16 Creggan where you were staying and were physically sick
17 at what you had seen.
18 Could we come, please, to paragraphs 8 and 9 at the
19 bottom of this page where you deal with the events of
20 the day itself.
21 You say that your first memory is of marching down
22 William Street with Danny McLaughlin, who was your best
23 mate and seeing some soldiers on the Presbyterian
24 Church, who people were slagging off and sticking their
25 fingers at.
1 Then you describe, in paragraph 10, reaching the
2 corner of William Street and Chamberlain Street where
3 there was a riot going on, stone-throwing, bottles
4 et cetera, Army retaliating with rubber bullets. You
5 then say that two people approached you saying that they
6 had got a gas canister which they wanted to throw at the
7 Army and asking you and Danny to help them and you say
8 that it may have been two friends who approached you or
9 it may have been people who recognised you as being in
10 the movement, you just cannot remember which; is that
11 still the position?
12 A. That is still the position, yes.
13 Q. Would you have been somebody who was known to be
14 a member of the movement?
15 A. To some people maybe, you know.
16 Q. You say that the two of you decided to help the two lads
17 who had approached you. Could we have the rest of
18 paragraph 11, please. You then describe how you went
19 down Chamberlain Street, turned into and up either
20 Harvey Street or High Street, then turned north into
21 Waterloo Street and when you reached the point which you
22 have marked C on the map, threw the gas canister west
23 down William Street towards the soldiers at barrier 14.
24 Could we have back on the screen APIRA 18.11. The
25 route that you have described involves going down
1 Chamberlain Street and then either going up High Street
2 or Harvey Street, let us just assume it is High Street
3 for the moment; then down Waterloo Street and throwing
4 the canister at the point that you have marked as C.
5 How sure are you that you took that route?
6 A. Well, sir, it is a memory I have been carrying in my
7 head this past 32 years, you know.
8 Q. Can I tell you why I question whether your recollection
9 is right on that: we know from a whole lot of evidence,
10 not only that there was a barrier there which has been
11 marked on this plan as barrier 14, but also that there
12 was an Army barrier in Waterloo Street somewhere around
13 there, it may not be exact, but actually in the street
14 down which you would have to have gone in order to get
15 to point C.
16 Do you have any recollection of going through an
17 Army barrier?
18 A. No, sir.
19 Q. Another reason for wondering whether your recollection
20 is right is that not only would you have had to have
21 passed a barrier with soldiers in Waterloo Street, but
22 probably by this time the space in the east end of
23 William Street from barrier 14 up to Waterloo Place is
24 likely, according to the photographs, to have been
25 teaming with soldiers and policemen of one form or
1 another.
2 I should also tell you this: there is a body of
3 evidence that the Tribunal has received that a gas
4 canister was, indeed, thrown at barrier 14 and that it
5 was thrown at a time when a water cannon was either
6 being used or about to be used. We know that a water
7 cannon, a large vehicle with a hose pipe on the top of
8 it effectively, came up to the barrier on two occasions
9 and shot its load of water at the people who were
10 rioting in William Street.
11 The evidence the Tribunal has received is that,
12 I think on the first occasion when that happened,
13 somebody lobbed a gas canister, apparently from this
14 side, that is to say the west side of the barrier, over
15 the barrier as a result of which the water cannon had to
16 draw back because the people in it were affected by gas.
17 Do you have a recollection of seeing a water cannon?
18 A. No, sir.
19 Q. Is it possible that with the passage of time you have
20 accurately remembered that you lobbed a gas canister,
21 but have not accurately remembered where you lobbed it
22 from?
23 A. No, sir, my recollection is going down Waterloo Street.
24 Q. Do you have any recollection of there being soldiers
25 around you at the time when you lobbed it?
1 A. Sir, if I had seen soldiers in Waterloo Street, we would
2 have thrown the gas canister at them, you know.
3 Q. Did you see what was the effect of the gas canister?
4 A. No, sir, we did not wait to see, we just threw it round
5 the corner and run up the street again.
6 Q. Who were you throwing it at?
7 A. The British Army.
8 Q. Did it go off?
9 A. We do not know. We did not wait to see the effects.
10 Q. Can we come, please, back to APIRA 18.3, paragraphs 12
11 and 13. You describe in paragraph 12 how you then went
12 back into the rioting crowd at the corner of
13 William Street and Chamberlain Street and joined in the
14 throwing of stones. You describe how the Army used gas
15 against the rioters and you say that all of a sudden
16 there was a rush of people running west up
17 William Street away from the barricade.
18 Do you know what it was that caused the people to
19 run west up William Street away from the barricade?
20 A. No, sir.
21 Q. Sorry?
22 A. No, sir.
23 Q. Do you have any recollection of seeing a water cannon
24 being used ever?
25 A. Seeing a water cannon used ever?
1 Q. On this day?
2 A. No, sir.
3 Q. You describe running with the crowd west up
4 William Street and as you did so, seeing Army vehicles
5 coming south down Little James Street in front of you,
6 in what you thought to be a pincer movement.
7 I would like to ask you whether you can recall how
8 filled with people William Street was at this time.
9 I am going to show you some photographs to illustrate my
10 question. Could we have on the screen P375. This is
11 a photograph that was taken at a very early stage in the
12 day and you can see that there is a huge press of people
13 in front of the Army barrier, which is here; we can see
14 where the two Army vehicles are.
15 Can we have that on the left-hand side of the
16 screen. Can we have on the right-hand side of the
17 screen P385. This is a photograph taken further west
18 along William Street, that is to say closer to the
19 junction between William Street and Rossville Street and
20 we can see that there are still quite a few people, but
21 the whole street is not packed with people and there are
22 subsequent photographs that show even less in number.
23 Can you recall how packed or otherwise
24 William Street was when you ran back the way that you
25 had come?
1 A. I remember running up William Street with people in
2 front of me, but still observing Army vehicles moving
3 in, you know.
4 Q. Can you recall whether it was packed as we see in the
5 photograph on the left, P375, or as it were half-full as
6 we see in the photograph on the right?
7 A. Sir, I would say roughly 100 people, more.
8 Q. May we then come, please, to paragraphs 13 and 14 on
9 APIRA 18.4. You describe how you ran from
10 William Street on to the wasteground through the lane
11 that you have marked as point D, which we know, amongst
12 other names, as Macari's Lane, then ran as fast as you
13 could south down the wasteground towards the car park,
14 having seen the Army vehicles come into the Bogside,
15 aiming for the Rossville Flats.
16 You say at this point you still had not heard any
17 live firing at all. You also say that you were aiming
18 for the Rossville Flats because the Army had never come
19 as far south as the barricades in the Bogside.
20 In your experience before Bloody Sunday, how far
21 into the Bogside had the Army come?
22 A. Usually the corner of Rossville Street, you know.
23 Q. The corner of Rossville Street and William Street?
24 A. Corner of Rossville Street/William Street, they might
25 make an odd baton charge in, 30, 40 yards, you know.
1 Q. You then describe running south through the car park
2 towards the gap between blocks 1 and 2 and being carried
3 through the alleyway by a mass of people and almost
4 lifted off your feet and at that point hearing live SLR
5 rounds for the first time, the shots seeming to come
6 from directly behind you.
7 Did you turn and look behind you to see what was
8 happening?
9 A. No, sir.
10 Q. Do you remember, obviously not exactly, but
11 approximately how many rounds you heard fired when you
12 first heard live fire?
13 A. Two, possibly three just, you know.
14 Q. You describe then going through the gap, veering left
15 and running towards the flats in Joseph Place, the steps
16 which come down from Fahan Street East.
17 Could we then have paragraphs 15 and 16 on the page.
18 You describe how somehow you ended up in the
19 northernmost flat of Joseph Place and when you got into
20 the flat there were a couple of girls from Belfast,
21 screaming at the top of their voices.
22 Did you know the people whose flat this was?
23 A. No, sir, no.
24 Q. It was just somewhere to take shelter; is that right?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. Apart from the girls from Belfast, were there other
2 people taking shelter in this flat?
3 A. Yes, I believe so, yes.
4 Q. You describe how these girls were screaming that there
5 was a priest in Rossville Street waving a white hanky
6 and that the soldiers were going to shoot the priest.
7 Can you help us as to how long approximately you were in
8 the flat for?
9 A. No, sir, I cannot recall.
10 Q. The reason that I ask is simply to try and work out the
11 timing. We know from a whole mass of evidence that the
12 troops came into the Bogside and you describe the very
13 beginning of their coming into the Bogside. We also
14 know that at a later stage there was indeed a priest in
15 Rossville Street waving a white hanky and that may well
16 have been the priest that the girls from Belfast were
17 screaming about, but we also know that there was
18 something of an interval between the troops coming in
19 and the priest waving a white hanky, it may have been
20 five minutes, it may have been ten minutes.
21 Is it possible that you were in the flat for five or
22 ten minutes?
23 A. Very possible, sir. What I do remember is, when I was
24 in the flat, that there was still a lot of shooting
25 going on outside and I would not even look out the
1 window, you know.
2 Q. You describe how the screaming from the girls started to
3 freak you out so that even though the shooting was still
4 going on, you left Joseph Place and headed towards the
5 Bog and ended up in Blucher Street. You say you do not
6 know how exactly you got there, you just remember
7 standing at the bookies on Blucher Street with a crowd
8 of about 40 or 50 people, seeing a man with his cheek
9 missing coming towards you.
10 Can I draw your attention to two passages in your
11 statement. You say here in this paragraph 15 that we
12 are looking at:
13 "I do not know how I got to Blucher Street ... but I
14 cannot see myself whilst the shooting was ongoing
15 running straight across Rossville Street through
16 Lisfannon Park."
17 If we could turn over the page, APIRA 18.5, and
18 highlight the first paragraph, in a later sentence you
19 say:
20 "I cannot recall the route that I took from
21 Blucher Street back to the Bogside, but I believe that
22 I ran through Lisfannon Park. The shooting had stopped
23 by this time."
24 You appear there to be saying things which may be
25 slightly contradictory. Do you recall when you left the
1 house and made your way to Blucher Street whether
2 shooting had stopped or whether it was still continuing?
3 A. Sir, by the time I got to Blucher Street, I believe the
4 shooting had stopped, yes.
5 Q. As you made your way to Blucher Street, do you recall
6 whether the shooting was continuing?
7 A. No, sir.
8 Q. Do you mean it was not or you do not recall one way or
9 the other?
10 A. No, I do not recall one way or the other.
11 Q. Could we have on the screen, please, Q2. You left the
12 house at the top of Joseph Place. You ended up in
13 Blucher Street which is on the left-hand side of the map
14 as we see it. Why did you go to Blucher Street as
15 opposed to anywhere else?
16 A. I do not know, sir, you know. I do not know.
17 Q. You remember ending up near the bookies, is that a place
18 where people used to congregate?
19 A. I do not know, sir, I was just heading out of the
20 Bogside, you know.
21 Q. You must, in order to get there, somehow have crossed
22 Rossville Street and either gone up Fahan Street or the
23 Old Bog Road or through Lisfannon Park or something of
24 that kind. Do you have any recollection of looking up
25 Rossville Street as you made your way to Blucher Street?
1 A. No, sir.
2 Q. Am I right in thinking that you did not, on the day, see
3 anybody shot or apparently shot?
4 A. Not until that time, no.
5 Q. You got to Blucher Street and saw the man with his cheek
6 missing coming towards you. Could we have on the screen
7 APIRA 18.10. You tell us people made that man lie on
8 the ground. This is the photograph of the man in
9 question. The Tribunal has heard evidence from that
10 man, who is Michael Quinn. Did you know him at the
11 time?
12 A. No, sir, no.
13 Q. Did you discover then or thereafter how he had come to
14 be shot?
15 A. No, sir, it seemed pretty obvious, his cheek was
16 missing, you know.
17 Q. Yes. I meant the circumstances in which --
18 A. Sorry, no.
19 Q. May we go back, please, to paragraphs 15 and 16 on APIRA
20 18.4. You describe in the last sentences of
21 paragraph 15 how there was a lot of talk amongst people
22 around that people in the Bogside had been shot and at
23 this point you remember that your younger brother, who
24 was only about 14, was also on the march and you got it
25 into your head that you needed to go and find him, and
1 therefore made your way back down to the Bogside.
2 May we come, please, to the next page down to
3 paragraph 17. You describe how there came a time when
4 you ran up the alleyway which is between Abbey Park and
5 Glenfada Park South, saw a crowd outside what you
6 believed was Mr Rogan's house, which is the end house
7 that you have marked on the map as point F and when you
8 were standing with a crowd, a man called you into the
9 house and you say if this was Mr Rogan's house:
10 "I suppose it could have been him."
11 Should we understand from that that you did not know
12 at the time the identity of the man who called you into
13 the house?
14 A. Yes, sir, that is right.
15 Q. You say that he asked you to see if you could tell him
16 who the injured people in his house were. You describe
17 seeing Mickey Kelly whom you knew well being carried
18 into the house and --
19 A. Sorry, sir, being carried out of the house.
20 Q. Being carried out of the house, sorry, I beg your
21 pardon, being carried out of the house and going into
22 the living room and seeing a boy lying face down on the
23 floor who you believe was Jim Wray but who you did not
24 know at the time.
25 Was there anybody else in the house?
1 A. Yes, sir, there were other people in the house, yes.
2 Q. Was there anybody else in the house who was wounded or
3 killed?
4 A. No, sir, no.
5 Q. So you were able to identify Mickey Kelly, but no-one
6 else?
7 A. That is right.
8 Q. You then describe leaving the house and seeing over to
9 your left, at the foot of some steps, a crowd around
10 a body with people saying that he had had a heart
11 attack. You say you have been shown photographs of this
12 scene:
13 "But I am not in them."
14 Could I show you one of those photographs to see if
15 we are talking about the same thing. Could we have on
16 the screen, please, P701. Mr Rogan's house is the one
17 on the corner. Is that the sort of scene that you saw?
18 A. It looks a different angle, you know, but, yes, that
19 would be the scene.
20 Q. I will show you another photograph. May we have P696.
21 This is a photograph of the Knight of Malta attempting
22 to apply resuscitation technique. Does that ring
23 a bell, that photograph?
24 A. Sir, I just remember seeing a body and a crowd round
25 a body, you know.
1 Q. But in the approximate position shown by these
2 photographs?
3 A. Sir, the point I remember he was lying on steps, you
4 know.
5 Q. May we come back, please, to APIRA 18.5, paragraphs 18
6 to the end. You describe going across somehow to the
7 south of Block 1 of the flats and seeing two bodies,
8 both of which were covered up, one of whom was
9 Hugh Gilmore, and you could tell that it was him by his
10 turned-up jeans, and around the corner at a point that
11 you have marked G on your map, you saw the body of
12 Barney McGuigan covered with the civil rights banner.
13 But you then say that, despite some photographs that
14 you had seen, you are fairly sure in your own mind that
15 you saw two bodies and they were both at the point that
16 you have marked H on the map.
17 Could we have on the screen APIRA 18.11. The point
18 that you have marked H on the map is, as I understand
19 it -- tell me if I have misunderstood it -- practically
20 at the door of the southern end of Block 1?
21 A. Yes, sir.
22 Q. Do you still have a recollection of the two bodies being
23 in that position?
24 A. Yes, sir. Yes.
25 Q. Could we have on the screen, but can we have it only for
1 the witness and for the Tribunal and the lawyers,
2 photograph P728. This is one of many photographs that
3 show Hugh Gilmore; his body has not yet been covered
4 there, but we can see him and we can also see the
5 turned-up trousers and Barney McGuigan, whose body has
6 not been covered up at this stage, in the immediate
7 foreground.
8 Allowing for the fact that when you saw them, the
9 bodies were covered up, does that bring back any
10 recollection of the scene that you saw?
11 A. No, sir, no.
12 Q. You still think what you saw was round the corner?
13 A. What I -- what sticks in my head, sir, is two bodies
14 lying at the front door of the flats and the body of
15 Mr McGuigan lying round the other side of the flat with
16 the civil rights banner over him.
17 Q. You recollect Mr McGuigan's body being round the corner
18 and Mr Gilmore's being by the door of the flats and
19 another body being near Mr Gilmore?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Do you know whose that body was?
22 A. No, sir.
23 Q. Did you see what happened to any of the three bodies you
24 speak of?
25 A. No, sir, no.
1 Q. May we come back, please, to paragraphs 19 and 20 on
2 APIRA 18.5. You say that some time later you saw what
3 you describe as "my section leader/company OC"; which do
4 you mean? You have told us that there were, to the best
5 of your recollection, a couple of sections in the
6 Creggan company. Was the man you saw the leader of your
7 section or the OC of the company or was he, indeed,
8 both?
9 A. No, sir, I now believe that it was my section leader,
10 sir.
11 Q. You say that he was standing around and had a look of
12 total disbelief. You asked him "What about my
13 suspension?" and he simply said to you "See us after the
14 funerals," as a result of which you knew that the
15 suspension had been lifted as there were now other
16 things to worry about and do.
17 Did you gather what he had been doing that day?
18 A. Probably at the march like everybody else, you know.
19 Q. Did he describe anything else that had happened or that
20 he had seen?
21 A. No, sir, no.
22 Q. You then describe how you went back to the Creggan and
23 stayed at your friend's house, and you say that you did
24 not see any people shot on that day although you saw
25 plenty of bodies. You say you did not see anybody with
1 guns on the day; is that right?
2 A. That is correct.
3 Q. Did you actually see any soldier firing or attempting to
4 fire?
5 A. No, sir, no.
6 Q. May we come over the page, please, to paragraphs 23 to
7 the end. You say in paragraph 23 that you knew a lot of
8 Official IRA members. When you say "a lot," can you
9 tell us approximately how many that means; are you
10 talking about three, seven, 10, 15?
11 A. Six or seven.
12 Q. Were they your age?
13 A. A few of them, yes.
14 Q. Do you have any idea how many members of the Official
15 IRA there were in this city on 30th January 1972?
16 A. No, sir, no.
17 Q. You say in the next sentence:
18 "I do not know now why I decided to join the Provos
19 as opposed to the Officials."
20 That is right, is it, you cannot recall why you made
21 that choice?
22 A. Yes, that is right, yes.
23 Q. You describe in a later paragraph how you came to join
24 the movement by approaching a well-known Republican and
25 asking him if you could put your names forward to help
1 out the movement. He was, presumably, a Provisional?
2 A. He was.
3 Q. Did you approach him because you knew him and that was
4 why you joined the Provisionals or how did it come
5 about?
6 A. That is correct, sir, yes.
7 Q. What, he was somebody you knew and therefore you
8 approached him?
9 A. I knew he was a member of the Provisional IRA, yes.
10 Q. You then refer in paragraph 24 to the structure of the
11 Provisionals in Derry on 30th January, about which
12 I have already asked you some questions. You say that
13 the companies, that is to say the Creggan company and
14 the Brandywell/Bogside company " ... did not really
15 interact at all ..."
16 Did you know the identity of everybody who was in
17 your own company, the Creggan company?
18 A. Most of them, sir, yes, most of them.
19 Q. Presumably you knew everybody in your own section?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What about the Bogside company; did you know most of
22 them?
23 A. No, sir, no.
24 Q. Did you know any of them?
25 A. Sir, just maybe a few leading Republicans, you know.
1 Q. What about the command staff; did you know who they
2 were?
3 A. No, sir.
4 Q. What, none of them?
5 A. Sir, the way I seen it was senior Republicans held
6 senior positions in the movement, you know.
7 Q. I am sure they did, but did you know who were the senior
8 Republicans who held senior positions in the movement in
9 this city on 30th January?
10 A. Sir, I knew senior Republicans, but I did not know what
11 position they held.
12 Q. You say in paragraph 25 that you do not know precisely
13 the number of volunteers in the Provisionals on
14 30th January 1972, but you believe that there were
15 approximately 30 or 40 volunteers at that time.
16 Were there ever meetings at which all the volunteers
17 in the movement attended?
18 A. No, sir, no.
19 Q. You say in paragraph 26 that you do not know what
20 weaponry the Provisionals had on 30th January, either
21 where it was kept or the extent of it because you had
22 very little to do with guns.
23 Were you aware whether or not, on 30th January, any
24 of the members of the movement were issued with guns for
25 any purpose?
1 A. On 30th January?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. No, sir, no.
4 Q. We have heard from a number of different members of the
5 movement that there were patrols in the Creggan with
6 volunteers to whom some weapons were issued. Were you
7 aware on the day that that was happening?
8 A. No, sir, no.
9 Q. Can we come, please, to paragraph 28 on APIRA 18.7. You
10 say that you cannot comment on any activity of the
11 Provisionals on 30th January because you were suspended,
12 but you believe that if there had been any activity
13 carried out by your section or planned for your section,
14 you would have been told by one of your volunteer
15 friends.
16 Did you talk with your volunteer friends on or after
17 the day about what they had done on the day?
18 A. No, sir, no.
19 Q. What, not at all?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Did you not ask them what had happened to them or what
22 they had seen?
23 A. Sir, I was suspended at the time.
24 Q. I know that you were, but that does not stop you talking
25 to your friends about what they had done?
1 A. No, sir, I do not recall talking to them, no.
2 Q. Could we come, please, to paragraph 31. You say:
3 "I do not know anything about the shootings that are
4 reputed to have taken place on the day towards the
5 Army."
6 Did you ever become aware as to whether the
7 Officials had engaged with the Army on Bloody Sunday?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. Can we come over the page, please, to paragraph 33. You
10 say in that paragraph that you knew Paddy Ward by sight,
11 he being a couple of years younger than you. Did you
12 know him on Bloody Sunday either to be a leader of or
13 a member of the Fianna?
14 A. No, sir, no.
15 Q. Do you mean by that that you do not know whether he was
16 or was not or that you know that he was not?
17 A. I did not know he was involved in anything, you know.
18 Q. Did you see him on Bloody Sunday?
19 A. I did not, no.
20 Q. Did you ever know what he did on Bloody Sunday or
21 discussed with him what he might have done on
22 Bloody Sunday?
23 A. I did not, no.
24 Q. After the day was over, was there ever any discussion in
25 the movement of which you were aware as to what had gone
1 wrong, what had happened on the day?
2 A. No, sir, no.
3 MR CLARKE: Thank you, those are my questions.
4 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
5 MR GLASGOW: Mr Anderson, may I also thank you for giving
6 your name, I am sure you will appreciate it makes it
7 very much easier for the interested parties to ask you
8 sensible questions, I thank you for that. Mine is
9 Glasgow and I represent many of the soldiers.
10 A very few matters for you in addition to what you
11 have already been asked, if I may.
12 Can I ask you about the Saturday before
13 Bloody Sunday when you witnessed the shooting of your
14 two friends?
15 A. One friend, sir.
16 Q. Sorry, did you know them both?
17 A. I did not know Peter McLaughlin at the time, no, just by
18 sight.
19 Q. I am sorry, it was Mr Robson you knew?
20 A. Mr Robson.
21 Q. I should have said one friend, forgive me.
22 Were you aware of the fact that Mr Robson had been
23 quite close to a man who had thrown a nail bomb before
24 he was shot or did you only learn that afterwards?
25 A. No, sir.
1 Q. You did not know it at the time?
2 A. I was not aware of that at all, no, sir.
3 Q. You did not mention it in your statement. I am not
4 suggesting you did. You had not been with him when he
5 had been asked to get out of the way of the man throwing
6 a nail bomb?
7 A. Yes, sir, I had been with him and I do not recall any
8 nail bomb, you know.
9 Q. Is it possible that that happened at a time when he was
10 separate from you? I should explain why I ask the
11 question: it seems very unlikely that Mr Robson would
12 talk about a man throwing a nail bomb close to him
13 unless that actually happened?
14 A. Sir, Mr Robson was along with me on the day, you know
15 what I mean and the nail bomb, I do not recall any nail
16 bomb, no.
17 Q. Could we look, then, very quickly -- I stress I am not
18 criticising you for this at all, Mr Anderson, it may be
19 a matter of recollection but it may be important leading
20 up to the circumstances in which these two young men
21 were shot. I take it very shortly because that is not
22 primarily what this Inquiry is concerned with.
23 Mr Robson has given this Tribunal a one-page statement
24 which we have at AR37.1, could we look at it together,
25 please.
1 Mr Clarke has already told you that the area where
2 he was and where he was shot is very broadly the same as
3 the one that you give, the area just south of
4 William Street, between Abbey Street and what I think
5 was known as Aggro Corner; that is right. Could we look
6 at paragraphs 2 and 3 together because, having said that
7 he had gone out that day to buy a pair of trousers for
8 his uncle's funeral he says in paragraphs 2 and 3 that
9 he decided to cut through a piece of wasteground and he
10 marks the building that was very close to Aggro Corner.
11 As he turned into this area he saw a man who was about
12 to throw a nail bomb.
13 "He shouted at me to get out of the way."
14 Then I am going on with paragraph 3, very shortly,
15 he therefore walked through a derelict building and when
16 he came out on the Kells Walk, Columbcille Court side,
17 the bomb had been thrown and the smoke was still around.
18 I was suggesting to you it is very unlikely that he
19 made that up, but if that is a reasonably accurate
20 account of what happened, you were not with him at that
21 time; is that right, or is this all complete news to
22 you?
23 A. This is completely different to my -- my recollection of
24 the day, yes.
25 Q. Do you think it is possible, again I stress him not
1 being critical of you at all or of him. Do you think it
2 is possible with the passage of time, that over 30 years
3 you have simply forgotten the circumstances that led up
4 to what was, on any view, a very frightening incident?
5 A. No, sir.
6 Q. You do not?
7 A. No, sir, I believe that at that time, if there had have
8 been a nail bomb thrown and a shot been fired by the
9 Army, I would have understood why the Army fired the
10 shot.
11 Q. Yes, I stress, it does not appear from Mr Robson's
12 account as if the two incidents were very close in time,
13 certainly not a nail bomb and a shot immediately
14 afterwards because he describes himself as going through
15 a building and then seeing somebody shot and then
16 helping them, in much the same way you describe shortly
17 afterwards.
18 The only matter upon which I was asking if you could
19 help the Tribunal was whether you had any knowledge
20 yourself of the build-up to the incident in the sort of
21 way Mr Robson describes it?
22 A. No, sir.
23 Q. It does not ring any bells at all?
24 A. No, sir.
25 Q. Your recollection, Mr Anderson, is that the shot would
1 have come from the Embassy Ballroom?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. Is that just a sensible piece of assumption on your part
4 because you knew that that was where soldiers, snipers
5 were located from time to time or did you have any
6 specific reason for thinking that this shot came from
7 the Embassy?
8 A. Well, sir, they had an observation post on the top of
9 the Embassy building.
10 Q. Yes, the Tribunal has been told a lot about that. We
11 accept that, you are right. Was it just putting two and
12 two together sensibly in that way?
13 A. No, sir, at the time when Mr McLaughlin was shot at the
14 back of the Grandstand Bar, when we went, when we went
15 to lift him up, another shot rang out. Well it left,
16 there was three of us pinned against a garage door and
17 two people on the deck, right.
18 Q. Yes?
19 A. And when we sort of put our head out like that there,
20 the Embassy building came into view from our left.
21 Q. You would have to go some way from the bar before you
22 could see the Embassy building, would you not?
23 A. No, sir, not at the back. We were against a garage --
24 Q. May I show you a photograph, it may be misleading, we
25 have done our best with them, they are not perfect.
1 Unfortunately it is not a good photograph, it was taken
2 with an ordinary camera on Bloody Sunday. We have
3 a view at P245, Mr Anderson, which is a photograph taken
4 by somebody who happened to be on the Embassy Ballroom
5 for a very different purpose. By coincidence it happens
6 to be looking in the same sort of direction as the area
7 you have been describing?
8 A. Sir, that is William Street we are looking at.
9 Q. Yes, we see, of course, the building in the background
10 is on the far side of Abbey Street; is it not?
11 A. To the left.
12 Q. Yes, that is where we are looking?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. May I have control, please. What Mr Robson was
15 describing was having come out of these buildings
16 because a man had thrown a nail bomb from the front of
17 those and that he, accordingly, Mr Robson, had run
18 through the back of these buildings into the area which
19 would be out of sight of this shot behind the building
20 at the bottom of that second blue arrow and then moving
21 away down towards Abbey Street and being shot. My only
22 suggestion to you, Mr Anderson, if you can help, is that
23 if he was shot from the Embassy Ballroom, it must have
24 been somewhere closer towards the front of
25 William Street perhaps in the laundry wasteground or
1 somewhere rather closer to where the man had thrown the
2 nail bomb from, but you cannot help as to that?
3 A. Maybe that is where Mr McLaughlin was shot.
4 Q. But not Mr Robson?
5 A. Not Mr Robson, no.
6 Q. Despite those questions, it does not bring any
7 recollection back to you at all of a nail bomb having
8 been thrown?
9 A. (Witness shaking head)
10 Q. Even some minutes before this shooting took place?
11 A. No, sir, I have not, no.
12 Q. Very well, I will leave it and move on to Bloody Sunday
13 itself. Could you help the Tribunal a little more,
14 Mr Anderson, with the people who were with you on the
15 march. Can you now remember anybody other than
16 Mr McLaughlin, that is Danny McLaughlin; is it not?
17 A. Danny McLaughlin, yes.
18 Q. Do you remember anybody else who was with you?
19 A. No, sir, just me and my friend, Danny McLaughlin.
20 Q. Again, the reason why I ask is because the Tribunal had
21 some evidence from a lot of other witnesses, including
22 a John O'Laughlin who said he was with you. Does that
23 bring back any memory?
24 A. Sir, I do not even know the name.
25 Q. He said -- it may only be a matter of recollection --
1 that he was with a John Quigley, a Patrick Deeley and
2 Willy Anderson?
3 A. No, sir.
4 Q. It does not ring any bell at all?
5 A. No, sir.
6 Q. Does also the name McMenamin mean anything to you
7 because he also said he was with you on the march.
8 Again, I wholly accept he may be mistaken after this
9 length of time?
10 A. No, sir.
11 Q. Mr McMenamin tried to help the Tribunal, no-one
12 suggested he was not doing his best as I am not doing
13 with you, with a photograph we have at P840, would you
14 please look at that with us. Ignore other people's
15 suggestions and just look at the faces yourself, do you
16 see yourself there?
17 A. I do, yes.
18 Q. Is the man close to you, just behind your left shoulder,
19 your friend, Mr Danny McLaughlin?
20 A. He is, yes.
21 Q. Is there anybody else you could help the Tribunal with
22 there, or is it just the two of you two friends
23 together?
24 A. Just the two of us.
25 Q. That does not bring back any memory of the people whose
1 names I gave you?
2 A. No, sir, no.
3 Q. Could I ask you one more matter, please, about what
4 happened when you got to the riot that was taking place
5 in William Street at the barrier that we have been
6 calling barrier 14. When you got to that riot,
7 Mr Anderson, was there a time when you were in front of
8 the barrier with the rioters looking at the Army behind
9 the barricade?
10 A. No, sir, I was not actually up at the barrier, no.
11 Q. You left that area and went into Chamberlain Street and
12 High Street fairly soon after you arrived?
13 A. I was, I was back, just beyond Chamberlain Street, yes.
14 Q. Yes. I will not repeat the questions that you have
15 already been asked, but I should make plain that I too
16 suggest to you that you must be mistaken, and I mean
17 that, just your recollection is mistaken about having
18 gone all the way round to Waterloo Place because on
19 Bloody Sunday you simply could not have got there, there
20 would have been too many soldiers in the way, you
21 understand the suggestion that Mr Clarke and I are
22 putting to you?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Is it possible, Mr Anderson, that you threw the gas
25 canister which you very candidly admitted lighting and
1 throwing --
2 A. No, sir, I did not admit that, no. I did not admit --
3 Q. You did not?
4 A. No, no, I did not, no.
5 Q. I am sorry, I mistook you. You showed somebody else how
6 to do it?
7 A. I was explaining to Eversheds how it would work if a gas
8 canister failed to explode, you know what I mean, or you
9 could ignite one and re-use it, that is what I was
10 explaining.
11 Q. The one you saw on Bloody Sunday and the one that
12 somebody showed you on Bloody Sunday was, was used and
13 thrown at the Army?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. It does not matter, I am not criticising you, did you
16 not throw it yourself?
17 A. No, sir.
18 Q. But somebody with you did?
19 A. Sir, it was two fellas approached us with it, you know
20 what I mean, to go and give them a hand. I am surmising
21 one of them threw it, you know.
22 Q. Can you now help us with their names; do you remember
23 who they were?
24 A. I do not know who they were, no.
25 Q. Were you actually with them when they threw it?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And your recollection, even if I am respectfully
3 suggesting to you it must be mistaken, is that the
4 throwing was done from Waterloo Place?
5 A. Yes, sir.
6 Q. That is still your recollection?
7 A. Yes, sir.
8 Q. The question I am asking is simply location: is it not
9 possible that that was actually done from somewhere
10 between Waterloo Place, where I am suggesting you could
11 not have got to and High Street where we all accept you
12 could have been?
13 A. No, sir.
14 Q. Could it have been thrown from High Street?
15 A. No, sir. If soldiers had have been on Waterloo Street,
16 we would have gassed the soldiers in Waterloo Street.
17 Q. The Tribunal has actually seen photographs, I do not
18 think they would help, of a gas canister with gas coming
19 out under a water cannon in William Street.
20 A. Right.
21 Q. I am sure that is at least one of the gas canisters that
22 was thrown. The only question I am asking your help
23 over is whether or not it might have been thrown from
24 High Street and not Waterloo Place?
25 A. I am sorry, I do not know how many gas canisters was
1 threw on the day, you know what I mean, but I know we
2 threw one, you know.
3 Q. You were never, after the gas canister was thrown, you
4 were never on the rioting side of the barrier to see
5 what happened after it was thrown, were you?
6 A. No, sir, we just run up Waterloo Street, down
7 High Street, back ...
8 Q. You never went back and joined the riot?
9 A. Back into the crowd, sir.
10 Q. But you never saw the water cannon?
11 A. No.
12 Q. And your belief that the Army fired or threw gas back is
13 simply because you became aware of the fact that there
14 was gas generally in the area?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Again, no criticism, Mr Anderson, the Tribunal has been
17 given a lot of evidence about gas having been fired from
18 barrier 12, which was actually in Little James Street
19 fairly close by?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Would you accept it is possible that the gas that you
22 believed had been thrown from William Street had in fact
23 been thrown from Little James Street?
24 A. It is possible.
25 Q. But you were not there to see it thrown, you just saw
1 the results or felt the results?
2 A. In Little James Street?
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. Yes, I was not near Little James Street, no.
5 Q. It would be usual for people who wanted to throw any
6 kind of explosive device, not a stone or a bar, but
7 a gas canister or a nail bomb or a petrol bomb or
8 anything like that, they would normally be thrown from
9 a concealed position if possible?
10 A. Yes, that is right, yes.
11 Q. And it was quite usual for them to be thrown actually
12 over walls or actually over houses in order to get at
13 soldiers who were behind them?
14 A. Yes, that is possible.
15 Q. That was not unusual?
16 A. Yes, yes, yes.
17 Q. You could, if you got into the area between
18 William Street and High Street, you could have thrown
19 such a device either over the houses or over the walls
20 of what was left of the burnt-out houses there?
21 A. Yes, that is possible, it could be done like that, yes.
22 Q. Again the Tribunal has a number of photographs, but one
23 that illustrates that area from the air that may help is
24 P235, would you please look at that with us together.
25 To get your bearings, Mr Anderson, this is
1 William Street coming down there. Although this is not
2 Bloody Sunday, the barrier that was erected on
3 Bloody Sunday was approximately in the position where
4 a group of people, I think policemen on this photograph,
5 are standing at the head of the yellow arrow; do you
6 see?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Your recollection is of seeing the crowd in front of
9 that barrier and going down Chamberlain Street and along
10 High Street, along the back, there?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. What I was suggesting to you is that it would not be
13 unusual, even if your recollection does not agree with
14 it on this occasion, for people to get into the area
15 behind the houses that we see along the front and,
16 indeed, the old cinema which was completely burnt-out
17 and there was only the wall left, it would be quite
18 usual for people who wanted to throw any kind of an
19 explosive device, even a petrol bomb, to get into that
20 kind of position and throw it either over a house or
21 over a wall, that was quite common?
22 A. Yes, yes, it could be done like that, yes.
23 Q. Your belief remains that is not what happened with those
24 who threw the gas on Bloody Sunday?
25 A. No, sir, my belief is we went down Waterloo Street.
1 Q. Thank you. When you saw -- I am coming to later on
2 Bloody Sunday, Mr Anderson -- the man you are now fairly
3 sure was your section leader later in the day, can you
4 remember any of the conversation you had with him, of
5 course not word for word, but the sort of things you
6 spoke about?
7 A. Just about me suspension, you know, from the movement,
8 what was going to be done about it, you know.
9 Q. Because you had not been given any orders or
10 instructions, even though suspended, as to what you
11 should or should not do on Bloody Sunday?
12 A. Because I was feeling angry, sir, and because I was
13 feeling, you know, shocked.
14 Q. I thanked you sincerely for giving your own name. Is
15 there any reason why you should not give the name of
16 your section leader to the Tribunal, I am not asking for
17 you to give it in public, would you not be prepared at
18 least to give it to the Tribunal?
19 A. No, sir.
20 Q. No. May I press that a little with you,
21 Mr Anderson: you of course are no longer in the
22 movement?
23 A. That is correct.
24 Q. Is your suggestion that some of the people whose names
25 you know might still be in the movement or is it simply
1 that you want to leave it to them to make their own
2 minds up?
3 A. I think it is up to their own conscience, you know, to
4 come forward.
5 Q. That is, of course, a matter for the Tribunal. But you
6 are not suggesting, are you, that at this date for
7 people who have long since left the IRA, there is any
8 danger to them being named, it is simply a matter for
9 their consciences?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. That is the true position?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. That would apply to any men whose names you remember in
14 the unit that you were in in the Creggan, but whom you
15 would prefer not to name unless the Tribunal ordered you
16 to; that is the position in respect of all of them?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You are not suggesting that any of them for any reason
19 you know would be under any danger, it is simply
20 a question of what you describe as a matter of
21 conscience for each of them?
22 A. Conscience, yes.
23 Q. Could I ask you one matter, please, about the evidence
24 you gave to the Tribunal about weapons. It might help
25 you, Mr Anderson, if you saw what you said. It is at
1 paragraph 27 which we have at the top of your statement
2 at 18.7, APIRA 18.2. What you actually say there,
3 Mr Anderson, is that:
4 "Before Bloody Sunday we would not have been able to
5 get hold of weapons very easily, but would have had to
6 ask our section leader."
7 Were there occasions before Bloody Sunday -- I am
8 not going to ask you about what happened with the
9 weapons -- were there occasions when you did have to ask
10 for weapons or did ask for them; you see the question
11 I am asking? You say it would not have been very easy
12 and you would have had to ask?
13 A. Sir, everything, everything I would be asking, I would
14 have had to go through my section leader.
15 Q. It may look like a very pedantic lawyer's question, I am
16 sorry, what you say is:
17 "Before Bloody Sunday we would not have been able to
18 get hold of weapons very easily."
19 I am accepting you are telling the truth about that,
20 you go on to say:
21 "But would have asked our section leader."
22 All I am asking, Mr Anderson, having said I will not
23 ask you what happened with them: were there occasions
24 before Bloody Sunday when you had had to ask for
25 a weapon?
1 A. No, sir, I cannot recall, no.
2 Q. You cannot recall any. You see why I asked the
3 question, it is simply the way the statement has been
4 written. You do not remember any occasion when you did
5 ask for a weapon?
6 A. No, sir.
7 Q. What you do remember is that they were in very short
8 supply?
9 A. Yes, sir, yes.
10 Q. They were looked after very carefully indeed?
11 A. Yes, sir.
12 Q. If a weapon was used, very, very strenuous efforts were
13 made to recover it and ensure that it was taken to
14 safety after it had been used?
15 A. Yes, sir.
16 Q. That is right?
17 A. Yes, I would agree with that, yes.
18 Q. It was not unusual, perhaps understandable that members
19 of the crowd and others would assist in the recovery of
20 a weapon if necessary after it had been used?
21 A. Pardon, members of a --
22 Q. If a weapon was used, other people around the area would
23 be expected and would help in ensuring that it was
24 recovered; you would not want the weapon to fall into
25 the hands of the Army?
1 A. Sir, I would have thought at that time people would have
2 been pretty afraid of weapons, you know, the ordinary
3 public, like, would have been afraid of weapons, you
4 know.
5 Q. There would have been occasions, would there not, when
6 people who would not have been involved in the firing
7 itself would have helped in getting a weapon away?
8 A. Other members of the movement?
9 Q. Maybe members of the movement or maybe simply
10 sympathetic bystanders who had not been themselves
11 involved in the shooting, did that happen?
12 A. I would not know that, sir, no. I would not know that.
13 Q. You would believe that anybody who assisted in helping
14 to get a weapon away would have been a member of the
15 movement or very close to it?
16 A. Pre-Bloody Sunday weapons would have been tightly
17 controlled and the public would have had very little
18 dealing with them, if they had any at all, you know.
19 Q. It would have been up to members of the movement to
20 ensure that weapons were retrieved and got away from the
21 area of any shooting?
22 A. Yes, sir.
23 Q. But it was not uncommon, Mr Anderson, for weapons to be
24 handled and got away from an area of shooting by people
25 other than the gunman himself?
1 A. I would not know about that, sir.
2 Q. You would not know. You have no knowledge of any
3 paramilitary shooting at any time during Bloody Sunday?
4 A. No.
5 Q. The reason I ask, like Mr Clarke, is that there has been
6 some evidence of some civilian gunmen who fired at
7 various stages during the afternoon. You probably heard
8 about those matters generally, have you, even as
9 a result of this Inquiry?
10 A. Not really, sir, just, just through Eversheds, you know.
11 Q. They asked you whether you had any knowledge of them?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And you said you did not have any knowledge yourself of
14 any of those shootings?
15 A. No knowledge whatsoever.
16 Q. Again, I ask this question as uncritically as I asked
17 the others: if in fact you had known of an IRA gunman
18 who had fired, you would not have been willing to talk
19 about that, would you?
20 A. No, sir.
21 MR GLASGOW: That is very frank. Thank you very much.
22 Questioned by MR MOSS
23 MR MOSS: Mr Anderson, my name is Moss, I appear also on
24 behalf of a number of soldiers.
25 You told Mr Clarke, the first gentleman who asked
1 you questions, that you did not know why you went to
2 Blucher Street on the day. Was that the truth?
3 A. Why I went to Blucher Street?
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. Just getting out of the Bogside.
6 Q. This Tribunal has heard evidence that there was a shop
7 on Blucher Street called Mr Toye's shop. That has been
8 described by others as being a focal point in the area.
9 Was that the reason that you were going to
10 Blucher Street?
11 A. No, sir, just to get out of the Bogside, to get out of
12 Rossville Street.
13 Q. Vinny Coyle's house was very nearby, in Lisfannon Park;
14 was that the reason that you were going to
15 Blucher Street?
16 A. No, sir, just to get out of the Bogside.
17 Q. When you were in Blucher Street, did you see any other
18 members of the Provisional IRA?
19 A. No, sir.
20 Q. Did you see any members of the Official IRA?
21 A. No, sir.
22 Q. Could we have on the screen, please, AOIRA 1.2 and could
23 the bottom few paragraphs be highlighted, please.
24 Mr Anderson, these are interview notes between a Sunday
25 Times journalist and a member of the Official IRA who
1 describes himself as being in the Creggan unit of the
2 IRA, and you have seen there in the interview notes, he
3 talks about this Official IRA member going into Cable
4 Street, which of course is the street next to
5 Blucher Street, meeting OIRA 3. Again I cannot give you
6 the names, but OIRA 3 has told us that he was the
7 commanding officer at the time of the Official IRA, and
8 then in the next paragraph this IRA man headed for the
9 far corner of Blucher Street. Pausing there, is it
10 a coincidence that the Official IRA were in
11 Blucher Street as well and that is where you headed for?
12 A. Probably, yes.
13 Q. To find another of his Glenfada guys still with
14 a weapon. You still say that you did not see any
15 members of the Official IRA in Blucher Street?
16 A. No, sir, I do not recall, no.
17 Q. And you saw nobody with a weapon?
18 A. Definitely not, no.
19 Q. Mr Glasgow has asked you the question, would you tell
20 the Tribunal if you did see a member of the Official IRA
21 in Blucher Street with a weapon on Bloody Sunday?
22 A. Yes, I would, yes.
23 MR MALONEY: Sir, before the witness leaves the Tribunal,
24 may I make an application on behalf of Mr Ward to ask
25 him a very limited number of questions?
1 LORD SAVILLE: You can certainly make an application. On
2 what basis do you suggest you should ask questions of
3 this witness?
4 MR MALONEY: If the Tribunal could look at APIRA 18.8,
5 paragraphs 33 and 37. As to paragraph 33, the matters
6 I would wish to ask this witness which go to the
7 question of whether my client's evidence has been so
8 false that the Tribunal could infer that it was
9 deliberately misleading which as I understand it is the
10 issue that I am here to address.
11 This witness specifically in those paragraphs
12 addresses my client's evidence. He refutes or attempts
13 to refute my client's suggestions as to the role of the
14 Fianna and the extent of their access to munitions and
15 at paragraph 37 he criticises, on what I shall put to
16 him if I am allowed is a false basis, my client's
17 description of the plan that the Fianna were engaged in
18 on the day.
19 I would also wish to ask him -- this is in relation
20 to the evidence of the next witness -- about the
21 question of whether there were two Fiannas,
22 a Provisional Fianna and an Official Fianna.
23 I have very limited questions on those matters, but
24 in my respectful submission, they have been included by
25 the witness in his statement and put before the Tribunal
1 for the purpose of not merely contradicting my client's
2 evidence, but of suggesting that he is utterly false and
3 it is proper, I would submit, for me to be entitled to
4 ask a few questions on the topics I have outlined.
5 LORD SAVILLE: Yes. (Pause). No, we are not persuaded. As
6 you have been informed, it seems to us there is a very
7 sharp distinction between a witness who gives testimony
8 that could be said to be inconsistent with the testimony
9 given by Mr Ward and a witness who says things to the
10 effect that Mr Ward has come to this Tribunal
11 deliberately to lie to it.
12 We find nothing in the evidence of Mr Anderson that
13 supports the latter proposition. He does say things
14 that would appear to be inconsistent with your client's
15 account, but to our minds that does not justify
16 questioning on behalf of Mr Ward any more than it would
17 justify questioning on behalf of anybody else whose
18 evidence is not the same as Mr Anderson's.
19 MR MALONEY: Thank you, sir.
20 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Clarke, do you have any further questions?
21 Questioned by MR CLARKE
22 MR CLARKE: Could we have on the screen, please, page 41 of
23 today's transcript. If you could look, please, at
24 line 13, you were asked this:
25 "Question: You were never, after the gas canister
1 was thrown, you were never on the rioting side of the
2 barrier to see what happened after it was thrown, were
3 you?
4 "Answer: No, sir, we just run up Waterloo Street,
5 down High Street.
6 "Question: You never saw the water cannon?
7 "Answer: No."
8 It may be a slip of the tongue or the method of
9 expression, but having drawn your attention to that
10 answer could we have back on the screen APIRA 18.3,
11 paragraphs 11 and 12. What you said in paragraph 11
12 was:
13 "When we reached the point marked C ... we threw the
14 gas canister west down William Street towards the
15 soldiers at barrier 14."
16 Then in paragraph 12 you said:
17 "I then went back into the rioting crowd at the
18 corner of William Street and Chamberlain Street and
19 joined in the throwing of stones."
20 I had understood from that that after you had, or
21 one of you had thrown the gas canister from
22 Waterloo Street, you retraced your steps so that you
23 came back in front of the barrier, on the west side of
24 the barrier at the corner of William Street and
25 Chamberlain Street and then joined in the riot; is that
1 right?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 MR CLARKE: Thank you.
4 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Anderson, it is the Chairman again, if you
5 look across to your right. Thank you very much indeed
6 for coming here to give evidence to us. Thank you.
7 Mr Clarke, we will rise for a few moments before we
8 have Mr Liddy.
9 MR CLARKE: Yes, sir.
10 (11.00 am)
11 (A short break)
12 (11.30 am)
13 MR DERMOT LIDDY, sworn
14 Questioned by MS MCGAHEY
15 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Liddy, I say this to all the witnesses, so
16 I will say it to you: I am the Chairman. The questions
17 will come in the main from the barristers in front of
18 me. Could you pull the microphone close to you so that
19 we can all hear what you have to say.
20 MS McGAHEY: Sir, before I ask the witness any questions,
21 may I please deal with two matters, the first concerns
22 the witness list for tomorrow.
23 The first witness tomorrow morning will be
24 Mary McCourt, AM501. She will be followed by PIRA 1 and
25 then by Denis McFeely.
1 The second matter concerns documents relevant to
2 this witness. There are three documents in which his
3 name is currently redacted, but can now be unredacted
4 and the parties should be aware of those. May we have
5 on the screen first, please, AM505.2, the bottom of the
6 page. This is the witness statement of Patsy Moore who
7 gave evidence just before Christmas. He says:
8 "I was not in the Fianna by the time of
9 Bloody Sunday and had not been organising a group for at
10 least a year. I understand that Paddy Ward has
11 described a leadership hierarchy in the Fianna, but this
12 is not what I remember. I remember being a co-leader
13 with... "
14 The name that appears there should be the name of
15 Mr Dermot Liddy.
16 Secondly, may we have on the screen, please,
17 INT1.42. Mr Liddy's name appears in a number of places
18 on this document. In the second line the document
19 reads:
20 "Somebody asked me to join. He was then recruiting
21 officer."
22 The next sentence then reads:
23 "Dermot Liddy, Creggan Terrace, was OC."
24 We cannot make out the next set of initials.
25 In the next paragraph the first sentence reads:
1 "I attended meetings at Dermot Liddy's house."
2 Further down:
3 "They had information about George Ruddell and Liddy
4 said he had seen higher authority."
5 At the bottom of that paragraph:
6 "He asked Dermot Liddy to get him higher authority
7 from the IRA."
8 A. (Witness laughing)
9 Q. Finally, may we have on the screen, please, INT1.176,
10 the middle of the page:
11 "We used to meet in Dermot Liddy's house in Creggan
12 Terrace."
13 Mr Liddy, I am sorry you had to sit there while
14 I did that. Do you have with you, please, a copy of the
15 statement that you made to this Inquiry and signed on
16 8th January this year?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Are the contents of that statement true to the best of
19 your knowledge and belief?
20 A. Yes, true.
21 Q. Everybody here has had a chance to read your statement
22 so I am only going to ask you about certain parts of it.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. I want to ask you first of all about your involvement in
25 the Fianna.
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And the involvement of certain other people.
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. First of all I would like to ask you to look, please, at
5 paragraph 12 of your statement which will come up on the
6 screen in front of you. You say there:
7 "I confirm that I was the OC of the Fianna. I was
8 elected by the members and after my election, I was sent
9 to Dublin who ratified my appointment."
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Were you an ordinary member of the Fianna before you
12 became its OC?
13 A. No, if you refer to my statement, what the Fianna was
14 formed for was a counter against the Red Caps who had
15 formed clubs, and people with Republican sympathies that
16 did not want the youth of the city to be involved with
17 the British Army. So people with Republican sympathies
18 came together and asked to join, to form -- there were
19 no Fianna at that particular time in Derry and to form
20 the Fianna for young boys from the age of eight until
21 the age of 18.
22 Q. So did you become the OC when it formed?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You say that you were sent to Dublin?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. Was your appointment ratified by the leaders of the
2 Official Republican Movement?
3 A. No. Na Fianna ireann is a 32-county organisation. It
4 has its own hierarchy, its own chief scout, its own
5 chief -- I do not want to get into basics, but it was
6 the complete, and when I was elected in Derry I had to
7 go down and they confirmed, they confirmed that I had
8 the authority.
9 Q. Who was it who confirmed that you had the authority?
10 A. The headquarter staff of na Fianna ireann in Dublin.
11 Q. You go on in this paragraph --
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. -- to say:
14 "People with Republican sympathies and backgrounds
15 sent their sons to the Fianna ..."
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Can I stop there. Can you see the document clearly on
18 the screen?
19 A. Yes, I can see it, yes.
20 Q. Would you agree that the Fianna was a Republican
21 organisation?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Later in your statement you say that Patsy Moore helped
24 with the Fianna and taught drill?
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. Did he ever hold an official post within the Fianna?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Did he join it at the same time as you did?
4 A. No.
5 Q. He came along later?
6 A. He came -- as a senior citizen, Patrick was much older
7 than we were, an organiser, of course we had to have
8 older people to help us.
9 Q. He described his role when he gave evidence to the
10 Inquiry, as being that of a scout master; would you
11 agree with that?
12 A. Yes, certainly, like (indistinguishable) boy scouts.
13 Q. He also, in his statement, as you have seen, named you
14 as his co-leader?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. When he gave oral evidence in person to the Inquiry he
17 said that he was in charge and that his co-leader,
18 although he did not give a name, was junior to him; is
19 he wrong about that?
20 A. Are you referring to Patsy Moore?
21 Q. Yes.
22 A. Yes, Patsy would, Patsy would -- senior, yes, Patsy
23 would be sort of a -- we would look up to him, we would
24 sort of heed his advice.
25 Q. He described his co-leader as being one of the boys, not
1 an adult, but in fact you were in your early 30s in
2 1971, 1972; were you not?
3 A. My dear lady, in any youth organisation, of course you
4 must have adults. You must have them to teach them, to
5 show them the way. Of course there were adults involved
6 in the Fianna, Patsy Moore -- I was one.
7 Q. Can I ask you about your history of involvement with the
8 Fianna. Could we go to paragraph 20, please, of your
9 statement. You talk about what Patsy Moore says about
10 the use of explosives and firearms. Could we go over
11 the page, please. What you say is that in 1970/1971
12 your role in the Fianna became less active because of
13 your job, and you recommended that Gerry O'Hara should
14 take over most of your role?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And he became the assistant OC?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. When --
19 MR TOOHEY: Ms McGahey, there is something in the
20 transcript, I think the name Patsy Moore appears on the
21 transcript in relation to paragraph 20 of the statement.
22 MS McGAHEY: Thank you, sir, it should be Patrick Ward.
23 When did Gerry O'Hara become the assistant OC?
24 A. That would be in 19 -- when I joined -- I, I got a job
25 at Ulster Bus in 1970 -- early 1970. Now, this Inquiry
1 must understand that the Fianna ireann were an open
2 organisation; there was a flux, there were movement
3 between people leaving, people joining, people leaving,
4 people joining.
5 Q. It was an illegal organisation; was it not?
6 A. Yes. It was not an illegal organisation, my dear lady,
7 it was quite legal.
8 Q. Did you remain with the title of OC?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Up until January 1972?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. So at the time of Bloody Sunday were you still the OC?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. In early 1972 what level of involvement did you still
15 have with the Fianna?
16 A. What involvement did I have?
17 Q. Yes.
18 A. Advisory capacity.
19 Q. Whom did you advise?
20 A. Whom?
21 Q. Who did you talk to in the Fianna?
22 A. To Gerry O'Hara.
23 Q. Did he tell you what the Fianna was doing?
24 A. Of course. Of course, anything -- it is hard -- in
25 those days it was hard to hide anything in Derry, right,
1 and, as I said, we were quite open about it. We
2 discussed things like we would discuss a football match
3 or something like that.
4 Q. How much did you see Mr O'Hara?
5 A. Not, not on a regular basis. Not on a regular basis,
6 that is, with my duties working and things like that
7 there, might not have seen him for about a week or two.
8 Q. As far as you can remember every week or two, were you
9 kept up to date with what the Fianna was doing?
10 A. Of course, yes, I was interested.
11 Q. Do you remember whether Patsy Moore was still involved
12 in January 1972?
13 A. Patsy, as far as I can recall Mr Moore, a fine
14 gentleman, was, after the Fianna got off its feet sort
15 of, up and running, right, Patsy lost interest; Patsy,
16 Patsy was not involved in it any more; he sort of lost
17 interest. He probably had other interests and,
18 a married man with a family, he probably had to look
19 after them, but not in the day-to-day basis, probably --
20 probably lost interest.
21 Q. By January 1972 was he involved at all?
22 A. No.
23 Q. I would like to ask you now a bit more about the
24 activities of the Fianna. As you may know Gerry O'Hara
25 has giving evidence in person to the Inquiry as well as
1 giving a statement and he said there was a loose link
2 between what he described as the Official Fianna and the
3 Official IRA; would you agree with that?
4 A. (Indistinguishable) or, no. Na Fianna ireann were an
5 autonomous organisation. Yes, they had Republican
6 leanings but I do not think, as far as I can recall, any
7 involvement that any member -- any member of the IRA
8 ever addressed any meetings of na Fianna ireann, it
9 just was not possible.
10 Q. What Mr O'Hara said was that Fianna members were boys
11 with aspirations to join the Official IRA.
12 A. No.
13 Q. Do you think that is right? Did some members of the
14 Fianna go on to join the Official IRA?
15 A. Was I a member of the IRA?
16 Q. No, did any member of the Fianna go on to join the
17 Official IRA?
18 A. That was -- I am afraid I cannot comment on that. When
19 they reached the age of 18, what they did was of no
20 concern of na Fianna ireann. They went out on to life,
21 they went out to face life as young men. What they did
22 was no concern of na Fianna.
23 Q. I am not going to ask you to give any names. Did you
24 ever hear that any one of your former Fianna boys had
25 become involved in the IRA?
1 A. My dear lady, I would not want to know that information.
2 Q. What Mr O'Hara said was that Fianna boys hung around on
3 the fringes of the Official IRA and did chores when they
4 were required. He gave examples of making door-to-door
5 collections or selling papers. Did Fianna members do
6 that sort of thing?
7 A. My recollection, as I said in my statement, that na
8 Fianna ireann, although Republican, had no dealings
9 with the IRA. If, when they reached 18, they could join
10 whatever they wanted; they were not bullied or they were
11 not told or they were not pressured into -- they did
12 what they wanted to do, they were men, they were no
13 longer boys. My God, you could join the British Army
14 when you were 18.
15 Q. Could I ask you to look at a sentence in paragraph 18 of
16 your statement at AL11.4, please. In that paragraph you
17 say:
18 "I was very clear with the leaders of the
19 Provisional and Official IRA that they 'lay off' my lads
20 until they were 18."
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Did anybody first of all from the Provisional IRA make
23 any approaches to your boys?
24 A. No. No, they were not allowed -- they were not allowed
25 to be involved. I would not have accepted the position
1 as OC of the Fianna if there were any involvement either
2 by the Officials or the Provisional IRA because it was
3 not done. I was not -- please give me a bit of grace,
4 I was a mature man, married, I was not going to train
5 16, 15, 14-year-old boys in the use of explosives or
6 firearms. Please give me a bit of credence.
7 Q. So why did you tell the Provisional and Official IRA
8 leaders that they must lay off your lads?
9 A. Senior members between -- again, my dear lady, the
10 Republican movement in Derry were not -- was not a big,
11 large -- they were not thousands, as a matter of fact
12 they were a couple of hundred, right. Everybody knew
13 everybody because we were members of the Republican
14 family, right, so you knew who senior Republican figures
15 were and you put down that statement, you put it down:
16 "You do not involve -- I do not want you boys
17 getting involved with my boys."
18 Simple as that.
19 Q. Did any of those senior Republican figures ever suggest
20 that some of your boys should get involved with their
21 boys?
22 A. (Laughing) Senior members of the IRA, would you -- would
23 this Inquiry accept that they would use 14, 15,
24 16-year-old boys? I do not think so.
25 Q. I would like to ask you now to look at some of the
1 intelligence material that has been provided. They are
2 documents you have seen before. I would like to ask you
3 first to look at INT1.42. Could we have the top half of
4 the document first, please. This is a document provided
5 by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It is a note
6 made by the RUC of an interview with somebody who claims
7 to have been a member of the Fianna and although the
8 date has been removed, it is an interview that is
9 recorded to have taken place in the early 1970s.
10 A. This statement here in front of me, I cannot,
11 I cannot -- who is it?
12 Q. The name of the speaker has been removed.
13 A. No. No, Republican revolution. What else?
14 Q. What I would like to ask you to do is to look at certain
15 parts of it and comment on it and see if you can help.
16 A. Whoever made that statement, my dear lady, whoever made
17 that statement, I do not know who did, whoever made that
18 statement, it is utter rubbish.
19 Q. One of the things that the speaker says is that you were
20 the OC; that is right, is it not?
21 A. Who?
22 Q. Although the version we have on the screen has a blank,
23 your name appears on it and I can show you a version
24 with your name on it if you like.
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. What it says is:
2 "In about 1971 I joined Fianna na hireann.
3 Somebody [blank] asked me to join. He was then
4 recruiting officer."
5 You see there is another blank immediately after the
6 words "recruiting officer," your name appears under that
7 blank and it says that you were the OC. So that is
8 right, is it not?
9 A. I was the OC, yes.
10 Q. Then it goes on to say:
11 "Patsy Moore was the adjutant."
12 Did Patsy Moore ever have the title of adjutant?
13 A. No. Patsy Moore was an organiser.
14 Q. Then the speaker seems to name Denis McFeely as being
15 a member of the Fianna. In your statement you have said
16 that he was not and that he was too old?
17 A. That is correct. Denis McFeely was not a member of
18 na Fianna ireann.
19 Q. Did he have any involvement with the Fianna that you can
20 remember?
21 A. Young Denis, none whatsoever, he was too old.
22 Q. You and Patsy Moore were both adults?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did Denis McFeely have any adult role within the Fianna?
25 A. No, you are leading into avenues of speculation here.
1 What Denis McFeely was at 18, he was in full-time
2 employment. Maybe he was not interested in the Fianna
3 activities. People looked on it as a boy scout
4 organisation: ho, ho, ho, out tying knots, erecting
5 tents, walking, hiking ...
6 Q. You do not remember him having any involvement at all
7 with any Fianna activities?
8 A. No, none whatsoever.
9 Q. Could we go on to the next paragraph, please. Again,
10 the top sentence of that paragraph there are two blanks,
11 but what the sentence says is:
12 "[That is the person giving the interview] attended
13 meetings at Dermot Liddy's house in Creggan Terrace."
14 You agree, do you not, that Fianna meetings did take
15 place in your house?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And the speaker says:
18 "We discussed republicanism or revolution."
19 Did you do that?
20 A. (Witness laughing) Rubbish.
21 Q. "We met every third Tuesday."
22 A. No.
23 Q. How often did you meet?
24 A. At that -- during the winter, especially during the
25 winter, now you must remember, I do not know if you have
1 any maps or anything, but Creggan Terrace where I lived
2 was only a two-up, two-down house. We had two rooms
3 downstairs and you could not swing the proverbial cat.
4 If you had four or five people into one room, it was
5 crowded.
6 Q. So how often did you meet?
7 A. We would meet maybe about once a month.
8 Q. The person giving the interview to the police goes on:
9 "Gerry O'Hara used to find out information about the
10 Army and police and he would also give us lectures. He
11 was trying to get information about Special Branch men
12 and their cars. He had about seven Special Branch men's
13 car numbers, they nearly all had COI or FOI in the
14 registration."
15 A. Rubbish.
16 Q. Can I ask you to think about that a little more because
17 when Gerry O'Hara gave evidence he said that he did try
18 to obtain information about cars and car numbers.
19 A. If he did, then it is unbeknownst to me.
20 Q. Were you aware of any Fianna members seeking to obtain
21 information about cars?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Gerry O'Hara said that that did happen and that the
24 information was passed on to members of the Official IRA
25 or the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association; can that be
1 right?
2 A. I had no dealings with that whatsoever. What individual
3 members of Fianna did was no concern of mine, outside na
4 Fianna activities, of course.
5 Q. The speaker is recorded as going on to say:
6 "They [that is the Fianna] had information about
7 George Ruddell."
8 Do you know who George Ruddell was?
9 A. I never knew, I never knew the person.
10 Q. Do you recognise the name?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Gerry O'Hara said the name was known to him as a member
13 of the RUC. Does that ring any bells?
14 A. No. No.
15 Q. The sentence continues:
16 "And Liddy said he had seen higher authority about
17 him [George Ruddell] and that something was going to be
18 done. Ruddell was supposed to be watching our movements
19 from the banking at the Essex factory."
20 A. No.
21 Q. Do you know anything about that at all?
22 A. (Witness shaking head)
23 Q. The document continues:
24 "O'Hara also got information about how to make the
25 brakes fail on Army lorries."
1 Mr O'Hara was asked about this and he said he knew
2 nothing about it. Do you know anything about --
3 A. No.
4 Q. "McFeely reported about watching a police jeep from
5 Fairview and he asked Dermot Liddy to get him higher
6 authority from the IRA to blow it up."
7 A. No.
8 Q. Do you know anything about that?
9 A. No, utter rubbish. Utter rubbish.
10 Q. Did Denis McFeely ever discuss with you any plan to take
11 action against the police?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Did you know Denis McFeely?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. How did you know him?
16 A. I met him at, as I have said, members -- people with
17 Republican leanings, you would meet him in a pub, talk,
18 discuss things that happened and came together and him
19 and I became friends.
20 Q. Did you and he ever belong to any Republican
21 organisation together?
22 A. Pardon?
23 Q. You and Mr McFeely, were you ever members of the same
24 Republican organisation?
25 A. To my knowledge, no.
1 Q. I would like to ask you to look at a little more of this
2 document, the bottom of the page the speaker is reported
3 to have said:
4 "I attended two long weekend training sessions at
5 Fahan, County Donegal. We travelled down in a minibus,
6 which was always driven by Patsy Moore. All the boys
7 I have mentioned attended. We trained in the use of
8 M1 carbine, SLR, Garrand and two Winchester Sports .303
9 rifle, Thompson SMG and .22 rifle. Patsy Moore showed
10 us how to strip and assemble the guns. We done marching
11 and climbing the mountains with the guns. There was
12 ammunition but we never got firing any. The guns were
13 kept in the IRA house at Fahan. [Blank] also gave us
14 training. This all took place in 1971."
15 A. Rubbish.
16 Q. Did any members of the Fianna ever go away on training
17 weekends?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Did they go away on camping weekends?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Not at all?
22 A. No, yes, positive. This, this statement -- whoever made
23 it -- it is a product of a sick mind.
24 Q. Did not your Fianna boys ever go on camp overnight?
25 A. No.
1 Q. They had learnt to put up tents and go hiking, had they
2 not?
3 A. I never -- as far as I can recollect we never, we never
4 went for weekends away anywhere. The furthest we ever
5 went was out to Grianan Fort and that was a day, a day
6 out just, we never spent a weekend or weeks in any -- at
7 any given site.
8 Q. Do you have any recollection of the boys going on
9 camping expeditions, where they walked from point to
10 point and vehicles, cars came with them bringing their
11 tents and they camped overnight and went on to the next
12 place --
13 A. No.
14 Q. -- and into Donegal?
15 A. No. (Witness shaking head)
16 Q. Looking at this document now, do you have any
17 recollection of knowing anything at all about training
18 sessions where Fianna boys used weapons?
19 A. For na Fianna training -- my God, no.
20 Q. The speaker goes on:
21 "About six weeks after I joined Fianna, I was asked
22 to join the IRA by Patsy Moore. I did not join."
23 A. Again, I refer to my statement, that you had to be 18
24 before you were accepted into membership of the IRA.
25 Q. Did you ever known of Patsy Moore encouraging anyone to
1 join the IRA?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Did you ever encourage any of your boys to join the IRA?
4 A. No, it was their, it was their, it was up to them as
5 individuals to do what they wished.
6 Q. Could I ask you to look at a different document, please,
7 INT1.333. This is another record of a police interview
8 although handwritten and so much harder to read. May we
9 have the bottom paragraph, please. The person being
10 interviewed is recorded as having said:
11 "It was the Official Fianna who stole the Army
12 uniforms from the cleaners. They were taken by
13 Gerry O'Hara, 19 to 20 years, Creggan, and Gerry Donaghy
14 who was shot on Bloody Sunday. Gerry O'Hara left the
15 Officials and is now in the Provos."
16 I would like to ask you first about the
17 title: Official Fianna. Did you ever become aware of
18 there being an Official Fianna and a Provisional Fianna?
19 A. No.
20 Q. We know from other evidence that Army uniforms were
21 stolen from a cleaners on 9th January 1972.
22 A. No, totally impossible.
23 Q. There is evidence that that happened. My question is,
24 as far as you know, were any members of the Fianna
25 involved?
1 A. Yes. They were not involved; they were not involved.
2 Q. Did you know anything about this? Did you know anything
3 about the theft of these uniforms?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Did you ever hear that Gerry Donaghy was involved --
6 A. No.
7 Q. -- in any thefts?
8 A. If, if you refer to my statement again, Gerry Donaghy
9 and the boys, what age, 15, 16. Do you think for one
10 moment, my dear girl, that senior members of the IRA
11 would use boys like that, young -- mere youths?
12 Q. I would like to ask you, please, to look at another
13 document, which is INT1.317. This is another RUC
14 document recording an interview that took place in the
15 early 1970s. Could we have the first half, please. The
16 person being interviewed seems to have given information
17 about how:
18 "... one could join the Fianna scouts (Official)."
19 He says:
20 "I went and seen Patsy Moore at his house. He said
21 I could join. I returned a second time to his house,
22 along with about seven or eight others, their names I do
23 not remember. He started talking about politics,
24 Wolfe Tone and such things. I left when he started
25 talking politics."
1 Did people join the Fianna by approaching
2 Patsy Moore?
3 A. No.
4 Q. How did they join the Fianna?
5 A. Patsy Moore lived in Creggan; I lived about a mile away,
6 down in Creggan Terrace. If Patsy Moore -- this
7 statement from Special Branch, that does not concern me.
8 Q. Did boys approach Patsy Moore to ask if they could join
9 the Fianna?
10 A. They did not approach me. I am not; I am not
11 Patsy Moore. I am not Patsy Moore. That statement,
12 Special Branch, they approached Patsy Moore, they did
13 not approach me.
14 Q. No, I am just asking whether you knew whether boys
15 approached Patsy Moore?
16 A. Was I there? I could not have been in two places at the
17 same time.
18 Q. How did boys join the Fianna then?
19 A. Pardon?
20 Q. How did boys join the Fianna?
21 A. They came and asked.
22 Q. Who did they ask?
23 A. They would have asked me as OC.
24 Q. Is it right that Patsy Moore gave talks on Irish
25 history?
1 A. Yes, the Fianna. The Fianna, I used to teach them Irish
2 history.
3 Q. The speaker is recorded as having gone on to say:
4 "A few months later I was told by Gerard Donaghy
5 (shot on Bloody Sunday) that there was a camp coming up.
6 [Blank] I lost contact with the scouts for a while then
7 and I was contacted by Gerard Donaghy who asked me to go
8 back again. Donaghy told me that they had been trained
9 in the use of arms when they were away at the camps
10 which were in the Limerick area."
11 I will come back to what Mr Donaghy did when he was
12 in Limerick a bit later on.
13 "Donaghy and I went up to an old house near Creggan
14 shops. There was a big man there and he said he was
15 a TO [I think that must be training officer] was or is
16 interned. There was about five to six others there. We
17 were instructed on the use of a Thompson sub-machine-gun
18 and a Sterling sub-machine-gun. We also done some
19 drill. Another boy gave a talk on politics. We
20 understood (someone] was the OC."
21 Do you know anything about Gerry Donaghy and others
22 being instructed on the use of machine-guns?
23 A. Again, I refer to my statement. He was a minor.
24 Q. This does not bring back any recollections at all?
25 A. None.
1 Q. The document continues:
2 "We were not allowed to have any arms."
3 That is consistent with what you remember, is it
4 not?
5 A. This is a Special Branch statement, maybe forced out of
6 someone. Why -- if, I would ask the Inquiry -- why
7 train young men, young boys in the use of arms when it
8 says here that we were not allowed to have any arms and
9 we were told to do intelligence work. Why train them in
10 the first place if you are not going to give them arms?
11 Q. Were the Fianna told to do intelligence work?
12 A. No.
13 Q. When Gerry O'Hara gave evidence, he was asked to look at
14 this passage as well and he said it was right, that the
15 Fianna did intelligence work and he was asked whether it
16 was accurate that people were on lookout for Army
17 patrols and he said that was right?
18 A. No.
19 Q. It is not?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Still staying with this document, I would like to ask
22 you about a completely different topic, which is a split
23 in the Fianna because the person who gave this interview
24 is recorded as saying:
25 "I got fed up with the Officials policy. When we
1 were out at night Martin McGuinness would come round in
2 a car and talk to us. He asked us to join the Provo
3 organisation. Pudger (Paddy O'Hagan) was with the
4 Officials at that time and he also left and many others
5 also. Paddy O'Hagan then started the Fianna ireann."
6 Do you remember your boys leaving the Fianna --
7 A. No.
8 Q. -- and joining a Provisional movement?
9 A. No. This, my dear lady, this is Special Branch
10 documents, maybe forced out of -- do not ask me the
11 reason why, but maybe forced out of a frightened
12 teenager who had foolishly made a statement and
13 Special Branch used that boy to declaim all people.
14 Q. When Gerry O'Hara gave evidence, he said that he was
15 a member of the Official Fianna at that time, the only
16 Fianna that existed and then in about October
17 or November of 1971, he and many other boys left the
18 Fianna and joined a new Provisional Fianna. Is he right
19 about that?
20 A. To my knowledge there was only one na Fianna in Derry,
21 that is, that is the only comment I can make.
22 Q. If you think back to the end of 1971, do you remember
23 a time when boys drifted away from your Fianna?
24 A. As I said, as I said they came and they went; they came
25 and they went. If they went elsewhere, they were not
1 a member of the Fianna.
2 Q. Do you remember ever having a discussion with Gerry
3 O'Hara?
4 A. No.
5 Q. About the fact that he was going to leave --
6 A. No.
7 Q. -- your Fianna?
8 A. No.
9 Q. And be a founder member of another one?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Sir, I am about to turn to a different topic.
12 LORD SAVILLE: It seems a convenient moment, Ms McGahey. We
13 will stop until 1 o'clock. Mr Liddy, if you look
14 across, the Chairman speaking, we will stop for lunch
15 now. Could you come back at 1 o'clock to continue your
16 evidence.
17 A. Yes.
18 LORD SAVILLE: As I say to all the witnesses whose evidence
19 goes over a break, please do not discuss the evidence
20 that you are giving with anybody until you have finished
21 giving it.
22 A. Of course not.
23 LORD SAVILLE: 1 o'clock.
24 (12.15 pm)
25 (The Short Adjournment)
1
2 (1.00 pm)
3 MS McGAHEY: Mr Liddy, I would like to ask you next a little
4 more about Gerry Donaghy. You have given some
5 information about him in your statement and you said
6 that he was a member of the Fianna.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Was he still a member on 30th January 1972?
9 A. Yes, I think so.
10 Q. Is it possible that he might have switched with Gerry
11 O'Hara and others to a Fianna organised by the
12 Provisional Republicans?
13 A. As I stated before my dear lady, as far as I was
14 concerned, there was only one Na Fianna.
15 Q. As far as you remember, did Gerry Donaghy ever leave
16 your Fianna?
17 A. No.
18 Q. You have referred in your statement to the fact that
19 Mr Donaghy went to the Republic in 1971 in order to
20 avoid trial?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. And that he went to Limerick?
23 A. Correct.
24 Q. Gerry O'Hara has said that he was one of the boys who
25 went to Limerick with Gerry Donaghy?
1 A. He probably did, I do not know.
2 Q. You say in your statement that Gerry Donaghy stayed with
3 a Republican family who found him a job?
4 A. I believe so, yes.
5 Q. Do you know what job he was doing?
6 A. I was not there in Limerick.
7 Q. Do you know?
8 A. I was not there.
9 Q. Do you know?
10 A. No.
11 Q. I would like to ask you to look at an extract from
12 a book called Tirghrá; have you heard of the book?
13 A. Heard of what?
14 Q. Tirghrá?
15 A. No.
16 Q. It is a book published by the Provisional Republican
17 movement to honour those Republicans who have died since
18 the beginning of the recent troubles, since 1968?
19 A. No, no.
20 Q. There is an entry for Gerry Donaghy in the book and
21 I would like to ask you to look at it. Could we have on
22 the screen, please, T475. The first paragraph just
23 gives a brief family history and it continues:
24 "He joined the Na Fianna ireann early in 1971 and
25 in April of that year he was arrested and charged with
1 riotous behaviour which then carried a mandatory
2 sentence of six months in prison. He had not been
3 involved in rioting and this trumped up arrest was
4 enough to convince Gerard to go full-time with
5 Republicanism."
6 A. That is quite correct, yes.
7 Q. You think that is quite right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. What do you think is meant by the words "going full-time
10 with Republicanism"?
11 A. This, again my dear, this is -- "Gerry had to go
12 full-time with Republicanism. He went on the run,
13 spending a lot of time in the south where he attended
14 training ..."
15 Can I go back to my earlier statement, at that
16 period of time, 1971, Gerry Donaghy would only have been
17 15 years of age.
18 Q. What do you think it meant, "he went full-time with
19 Republicanism"?
20 A. Do you mean to say he was paid? No way. What do you
21 mean by "full-time Republicanism"? What is a full-time
22 Republican?
23 Q. I was asking you whether, as somebody who knew him well,
24 and as his OC in the Fianna, you knew what it meant --
25 A. No.
1 Q. -- when the book says he went full-time with
2 Republicanism?
3 A. This, this is -- how could I explain it, to be
4 a Republican we are to believe in an ideal; if that
5 means full-time Republicanism, then so be it.
6 Q. The book continues:
7 "He went on the run" -- that is right, is it not --
8 "spending a lot of time in the south, where he attended
9 training camps."
10 Do you know anything about Gerry Donaghy attending
11 training camps while he was in the south?
12 A. Refer to my statement; he was too young.
13 Q. Did he ever tell you that he had been on a training
14 camp?
15 A. No.
16 Q. I would like to ask you to look again at an intelligence
17 document you saw this morning, INT1.317. Could we have
18 the bottom half, please. The person being interviewed
19 is apparently telling the police about a conversation he
20 had had with Gerry Donaghy. What he says is:
21 "Donaghy told me that they had been trained in the
22 use of arms when they were away at the camps which were
23 in the Limerick area."
24 A. Again, I refer to the Special Branch statement:
25 "Gerry Donaghy told me he had been trained in the
1 use of arms when they were away at the camps."
2 Q. Yes. What I am asking --
3 A. They were not allowed to have any arms. Does the
4 statement not contradict itself? Why train, why train
5 young men, why train young men of 15 in the use of arms
6 when they were -- excuse me, my -- when there were
7 plenty of adults willing to take up arms training?
8 Q. Did Gerry Donaghy ever tell you he had been trained in
9 the use of arms?
10 A. No, not to me.
11 Q. Did he ever tell you he had been on a training camp of
12 any sort to Limerick?
13 A. No, not to me.
14 Q. Gerry O'Hara gave evidence about this too. He said he
15 did go on training camps in Limerick and that he learnt
16 drill there?
17 A. Again, I cannot comment on that statement because I was
18 not in Limerick.
19 Q. Did Gerry Donaghy ever tell you that he had learnt drill
20 at a training camp in Limerick?
21 A. No.
22 Q. I would like to turn now to the time of Bloody Sunday
23 itself. You have said that you think you were still the
24 OC of the Fianna at that time?
25 A. No.
1 Q. No?
2 A. If you must, if you must understand, I had -- I was
3 married, right; I was married. I had no, I had no time
4 to be a full-time organiser within the Fianna, so that
5 is why you had deputies.
6 Q. Did you still have the title of OC at the time of
7 Bloody Sunday?
8 A. Shall we put it this way, it was an honorary title.
9 Q. And you have told us that Gerry O'Hara was keeping you
10 in touch every week or two weeks with what was going on?
11 A. I would meet Harry -- I would meet Gerry and the rest of
12 the boys on a social basis. I would meet them -- you
13 would meet them in the street and, of course, we knew
14 one another. We did not walk -- we did not ignore one
15 another.
16 Q. How many members of the Fianna were there, roughly,
17 in January 1972?
18 A. I cannot -- as I said, I had semi-retired, I cannot make
19 any comment on that, I do not know.
20 Q. As far as you are aware, did members of the Fianna,
21 in January 1972, ever have access to nail bombs?
22 A. Again, I refer to my statement, that Na Fianna, young
23 boys, and please, if this Inquiry, please -- young boys
24 were not trained.
25 Q. Did they have access to petrol bombs?
1 A. No. Again, how could I explain it, senior members of
2 the Republican movement would not have allowed 15- or
3 16-year-old boys to be trained in the use of weapons or
4 explosives.
5 Q. Petrol bombs were things anyone could make, were they
6 not?
7 A. That is a different subject.
8 Q. Were you aware of Fianna members ever throwing petrol
9 bombs at riots?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Did you, as OC, give any instructions to your Fianna as
12 to the way in which they should behave on Bloody Sunday?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. What instructions did you give?
15 A. That following the Civil Rights Association, that was
16 their day, that not me, not I, but maybe senior
17 Republicans will state to this Inquiry that all -- any
18 activity whatsoever from the, from the Republican
19 movement was -- nothing was to happen.
20 Now, if you look at the footage of the civil rights
21 movement on the march that day, there was only one
22 banner; there was no Na Fianna flags, there were no
23 tricolours.
24 Q. To whom did you give this instruction?
25 A. When I met the lads they said to me -- they were asking
1 "Are you going to the march on Sunday?" I says "of
2 course I am, I am going to go against -- it was against
3 internment," that unjust law, I was going to go to the
4 march. "Are you going?" "Yes". They were going as
5 individuals, not as members of the Fianna and I told
6 them to watch out, not to get involved in any riots.
7 That was the basis of Na Fianna, to try to train
8 young boys, not in arms or explosives, but to train
9 them, to give them an interest, give them some
10 self-esteem.
11 Q. You told them in essence that there should be no trouble
12 and that the march should be respected; is that right?
13 A. My dear lady, during the summer, from 1960 onwards,
14 there was always trouble in William Street.
15 Q. What you said was, you said there was to be no activity
16 whatsoever from the Republican movement, nothing was to
17 happen, you said that was the instruction that you gave?
18 A. It was just a piece of talk. The people knew. The
19 people did not want --
20 Q. What did you think members of the Fianna might do if
21 they were not instructed to stay peaceful?
22 A. I think they obeyed orders.
23 Q. Why was it necessary to give that order?
24 A. Whoever was OC --
25 Q. Why did it have to be given?
1 A. Why did it have to be given?
2 Q. Yes?
3 A. Again, not an instruction -- not as an order, but just
4 an instruction. Na Fianna, the thesis of Na Fianna was,
5 we are not a military, we were a scouting organisation.
6 We did not issue orders per se, we issued instructions.
7 Q. Did you think that your boys might go and riot if they
8 were not told not to?
9 A. I was voicing an opinion, I was warning them not to go
10 and riot.
11 Q. Could we look at your statement, please, AL11.2,
12 paragraph 8. You are talking there about seeing
13 Gerry Donaghy on the Friday before Bloody Sunday?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. If that was a Friday, it must have been 28th January?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And you warned him the Paras were due in Derry?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you warned him against getting involved in a riot
20 after the march?
21 A. Again, as I said, young Gerry had been in prison. It
22 was not a very pleasant experience. He was only 16 and
23 being, being involved in Na Fianna at that -- previous
24 to that, I did not want to see him go back to jail
25 again.
1 Q. Was he at your house for a Fianna meeting?
2 A. No, he called in to see me and my wife. He had just --
3 Gerry, if I may please the Tribunal, Gerry had been in
4 prison. He had not been released until
5 that December, December 1971. He had done his six
6 months. He did not know if I had moved out of the area
7 or not. I had been married. He came to see me, not as
8 a member of Na Fianna, but as a personal friend.
9 Q. Do you know what Gerry Donaghy did on the day of
10 30th January?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Do you know of any reason at all for which he might have
13 had nail bombs on him?
14 A. No.
15 Q. As far as you can remember, at the time of Bloody Sunday
16 was Gerry O'Hara still the OC, the assistant OC?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. His evidence is that by that time he had moved over to
19 the Provisional IRA -- Provisional Fianna --
20 A. If, if it was there, I did not know it.
21 Q. He said he had received instructions from the
22 Provisional IRA liaison officer that the Fianna were to
23 take no action on the day. Do you know anything at all
24 about that?
25 A. Again I refer to my statement. I have nothing to do
1 with the IRA and neither had Na Fianna.
2 Q. Lastly on this paragraph, you say that you remember
3 warning Gerry Donaghy about the Paras who were due in
4 Derry on the Sunday?
5 A. Warned?
6 Q. Yes. How did you come to learn that the
7 Parachute Regiment were going to be in Derry on the
8 Sunday?
9 A. The Paratroops, if I may tell the Inquiry, the 1st
10 Battalion of the Paratroop regiment were the resident
11 battalion in Belfast. The week previous, I think it was
12 that Saturday before, there was an anti-internment rally
13 at Magilligan beach; I think the resident battalion at
14 that period would have been the Royal Green Jackets, but
15 they withdrew the Royal Green Jackets and they put in
16 the 1st Para and again in my statement, the 1st Para,
17 the elite regiment of the British Army, they do not take
18 prisoners.
19 Q. The Inquiry does have evidence, you are right, the
20 Parachute Regiment were present at Magilligan on the
21 previous weekend?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. My question was, how did you come to learn that the
24 Paras were going to be present on 30th January?
25 A. The dogs on the street knew it.
1 Q. Lastly, you say that the dogs in the street knew about
2 the assurances that NICRA had sought from the Official
3 and Provisional IRA about -- that they should be
4 peaceful at the time of the march?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And you say you had no direct involvement in that?
7 A. There were no involvement. My dear lady, again I refer
8 to my statement, what the Provisionals or the Officials
9 did that day was no concern of mine, I had nothing to do
10 with them.
11 Q. Do you have any direct knowledge at all of assurances
12 being given --
13 A. No.
14 Q. Thank you very much, those are all my questions.
15 Questioned by MR MALONEY
16 MR MALONEY: My name is Patrick Maloney and I represent
17 Paddy Ward. If you have any difficulty in hearing my
18 questions, please let the witness service know and we
19 will do what we can to help you. Can you hear me?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. First of all, if I can say this to you: you probably
22 know this, Paddy Ward's evidence to this Tribunal has
23 been that on Bloody Sunday he was a member of an
24 organisation of boys who were associated with the
25 Provisional IRA and were receiving instructions from and
1 working with the Provisional IRA. Have you ever been
2 involved with any such body of boys as that?
3 A. You represent Mr Ward?
4 Q. I do.
5 A. Yes, and in the statement he said an organisation of
6 boys?
7 Q. An organisation of boys, young men, call it what you
8 will, teenagers, who worked with the Provisional IRA.
9 Have you ever been associated with such an organisation
10 as that?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Do you know whether there was such an organisation?
13 A. No.
14 Q. If you are told that at least three men who were active
15 Provisionals on that day: Mr McGuinness, Mr Dobbins,
16 Mr Anderson, have told us that there was such an
17 organisation, would you have any reason to differ from
18 that?
19 A. If they were, they were not Na Fianna.
20 Q. I am avoiding the word Na Fianna because I know you are
21 protecting the integrity of that word; you are
22 protecting that organisation, are you?
23 A. No, I never heard tell of it. Again I would tell the
24 Inquiry, I had nothing to do with either the Official or
25 the Provisional IRA.
1 Q. So you have no connection with any organisation of which
2 my client may have been a member on Bloody Sunday?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Can we go to your statement, please, AL11.4,
5 paragraph 16. You have said that you had no connection
6 with the Official IRA; is that right?
7 A. Correct.
8 Q. But you do admit that you were encouraged by senior
9 Official Republicans?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. To set up the Fianna movement?
12 A. Yes. My dear sir, this you must understand,
13 Republicans, the Republicans were active in the
14 political field. They contested, which is in the public
15 record, they contested -- in the 1966 general election,
16 the Republicans put forward a candidate, the late Neil
17 Gillespie. Therefore when I say senior Official
18 Republicans, I never mentioned IRA.
19 Q. Are you aware whether there was any association between
20 that body of political Republicans and the Official IRA?
21 A. You have to -- if I may address this to the Tribunal:
22 senior Republicans were out in the open, they were
23 sort -- agitating on social issues. Members of the IRA,
24 one did not know.
25 Q. At this time we call them Official Republicans but there
1 were no Provisional Republicans as such, at the time you
2 started the Fianna; is that correct? At the time we are
3 talking about, the split had not occurred, between the
4 Official movement and the Provisional movement?
5 A. When the Republican movement subdivided in 1970, I must
6 admit, yes, that some, some -- there was only one
7 Republican movement prior to 1970, maybe because of
8 personalities or something else --
9 Q. I do not mind --
10 A. Excuse me, sir, excuse me, they might have crossed over
11 what I have said, yes.
12 Q. Some boys who had been in your Fianna might have crossed
13 over?
14 A. Could have been, yes.
15 Q. Do you remember the Easter parades at that time were
16 a major event in the Republican calendar; were they not?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And the Fianna used to take part in the Easter parades
19 in uniform, marching in a military fashion; is that
20 correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Were you involved in the organisation of those parades?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Could we have M111.132, please. Could we have the
25 bottom right-hand quarter, please. What this says is
1 that in April 1970, the Provisionals held their own
2 Easter parade in Derry separate from the Officials and
3 it says that 80 members of Fianna ireann, both boys and
4 girls took part in the parade and a speaker called on
5 people to join the Fianna, she must mean the Provisional
6 Fianna, which she said had 140 members.
7 Do you remember that, that in April 1970, there were
8 two parades, an Official one and a Provisional one?
9 A. Again, again I refer to my statement. As far as I was
10 concerned, there was only one Na Fianna.
11 Q. So if people marched in the Provisional parade under the
12 Fianna banner, would they have been your Na Fianna or
13 would they have been some other organisation?
14 A. They were definitely not mine.
15 Q. Just to follow this through, could we go forward to
16 M111.135, the top left-hand quarter. Could you go down
17 to the end of the next paragraph, please, the word
18 Sinn Fein and up to the top of the page and enlarge. In
19 1971, again there were two parades; do you remember
20 that, that there were two parades in 1971?
21 A. I had lost -- again as I said, previous statements, in
22 my previous questions, at that particular time, 1971,
23 I was working; I was getting married.
24 Q. At that time you were working, you were married. By
25 Easter 1971, April or May, whenever -- April, whenever
1 it was, were you no longer active in the organisation of
2 Na Fianna?
3 A. Again, again, sir, I must admit, again, there was only
4 one Na Fianna.
5 Q. Your Fianna, I am trying to use the word Fianna only to
6 talk about the organisation with which you were
7 involved, so as to avoid any confusion.
8 So by Easter 1971, you had moved so far away from
9 Na Fianna ireann that you were not involved in the
10 organisation of its Easter parade; is that correct?
11 A. Correct.
12 Q. What it says here, I do not know if you can help us on
13 this, is that:
14 "Thirty Republican Youth, presumably Fianna, marched
15 with the Officials, but it says the Provisionals had
16 only six Fianna marching, this probably reflects the
17 fact that the movement was going further under ground as
18 it took the offensive."
19 Are you able to help us on whether that is correct
20 from your knowledge of young people at that time?
21 A. None -- no.
22 Q. Could we now have M111.110. You have been shown this
23 a few minutes ago by my friend and you said that its
24 account of Gerard Donaghy was accurate as far as you
25 could see; is that a fair summary?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. It says that he joined Na Fianna ireann -- this is the
3 second paragraph -- early in 1971 and in April of that
4 year he was arrested. So was he in the Na Fianna
5 ireann with you or not?
6 A. Was he --
7 Q. Was he in Na Fianna ireann when you were running it or
8 not?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. When? How could he have been?
11 A. Why? He was a member of Na Fianna ireann and they
12 were, but what this Inquiry must understand is what they
13 were doing, what they were doing in their own time had
14 nothing to do with Na Fianna.
15 Q. My question is slightly different from that. It is
16 simply this: if you had ceased to be directly involved
17 with Na Fianna ireann by April -- by the early part of
18 1971 and he did not join it until early 1971 and was
19 arrested in April, so he was only a member of it
20 between, shall we say, January and April, three months,
21 and that was the time when you had lost interest in the
22 organisation?
23 A. No, I did not say I lost interest, my dear sir, I said
24 I was not involved -- not radically involved in it, for
25 day-to-day running or for week-to-week running, but the
1 boys still knew who I was and the boys respected me for
2 it.
3 Q. It is agreed that between April 1971 and December 1971,
4 he would not have been playing an active part in
5 Na Fianna in Derry because for half of that time he was
6 in Limerick?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And the other half he was in prison?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And then you saw him. So from April 1971 you would have
11 had no contact with him through Na Fianna?
12 A. Again, I refer to, to those questions. I did not lose
13 contact. We had -- you must understand that I knew
14 these boys; I met them on the streets; they would have
15 told me what was going on. When I heard Gerry, when
16 I heard Gerry had gone to jail, I was not there; I was
17 told Gerry had come back and had handed himself over and
18 he had been sent to the mandatory six months.
19 Q. It also says in your statement -- I can take you to it
20 if you wish -- that your Na Fianna ireann did not have
21 activities in the winter; is that correct?
22 A. Correct.
23 Q. So in December 1971 and January 1972, you would not have
24 been having activities of your Na Fianna ireann?
25 A. No.
1 Q. If Gerry Donaghy had become involved with some youth
2 wing of the Provisionals at that time, would you have
3 known?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Can I ask this: did you know a young man called
6 Gerry Doherty?
7 A. Gerry?
8 Q. Doherty?
9 A. Gerry Doherty?
10 Q. Yes. Yes, who was to die shortly after Bloody Sunday;
11 did you know him?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Could we have T494, please. Could you blow up the
14 bottom right-hand corner, please:
15 "Gerard Doherty, Londonderry city. Official IRA,
16 Catholic, 16."
17 This is a book called "Lost Lives" which, as you
18 know, is a record of all those of whatever persuasion
19 who died during the troubles. This records this boy
20 died after a gun went off in his hand. He was found in
21 a disused dental surgery at Central Drive in Creggan
22 close to his home and was taken to hospital by a priest.
23 Could we have the next page, please?
24 A. I never knew --
25 Q. Could we blow up the top left-hand side. You lived in
1 the Creggan; did you not?
2 A. If, I again refer to my statement, what the IRA did or
3 did not do -- I was a member, I was a member of
4 Na Fianna and it is saddened -- it makes me sad to think
5 that a young boy of 16 had been shot.
6 Q. I am going to ask you this: this young boy of 16,
7 connected with the Official movement, lived in the
8 Creggan; were you living in the Creggan at that time?
9 A. No.
10 Q. You live in Creggan Avenue; is that right?
11 A. No.
12 Q. No. One moment, let me go to your statement. Creggan
13 Terrace, pardon me, Creggan Terrace?
14 A. Creggan Terrace.
15 Q. Were you living in Creggan Terrace?
16 A. I lived in Creggan Terrace, yes.
17 Q. Where is that in relation to the Creggan?
18 A. It would be about one mile from Creggan.
19 Q. Did you know this young man Gerry Doherty who was killed
20 in February 1972?
21 A. No, I did not.
22 Q. Does it surprise you to know that the Official IRA had
23 boys of 16 in it at that time who were being killed in
24 gunshot accidents?
25 A. I do not believe, I do not believe that senior members
1 would have been training 16-year-old boys. They
2 might -- someone might, conjecture, it is probably
3 conjecture, I was not there, but as I said at the time,
4 maybe the gun went off accidentally, I do not know, but
5 it had got nothing to do with Na Fianna, it had got
6 nothing to do with me --
7 Q. This young boy was not in Na Fianna with you?
8 A. Pardon?
9 Q. This young boy was not in Na Fianna with you?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Going back to your statement, AL11.2, paragraph 9. Here
12 you describe Gerry Donaghy as, you would never have
13 known him to throw nail bombs:
14 "He was a placid boy and a nice young man. He was
15 not boastful. He went to church. He did not drink or
16 smoke and was not aggressive. He was dedicated to his
17 sister. He loved his country and detested the Stormont
18 Government."
19 When you say he was "a placid boy and a nice young
20 man", I would just like to get at your definition of
21 that. He had been arrested for rioting; he had done six
22 months in prison and you were warning him not to get
23 involved with the Paras. Did you not believe that he
24 was a boy who would take part in a riot if he got the
25 chance?
1 A. Please, please, sir, do not -- "warning", using the word
2 "warning", I was advising him not to get involved in
3 riots because he had done six months in jail and, as
4 I have already explained to this Tribunal, six months in
5 jail for a young lad of 16 would not have been a very
6 pleasant experience. So be careful with the words you
7 use.
8 "Warned" like giving an order, I was as an adult to
9 a young boy, advising him not to get involved in riots
10 in case he would be picked up again and then sentenced
11 to a longer jail term.
12 Q. What I am wondering, Mr Liddy, is whether you are
13 telling this Tribunal now the truth as it was at that
14 time or whether you have allowed 30 years to colour your
15 recollection? Has Gerry Donaghy become a saint in your
16 mind over the last 30 years and not the boy he was?
17 A. My dear sir, you were there not on Bloody Sunday.
18 Q. No, I was not.
19 A. I was there. I was there. This has lived with me for
20 32 years. This has lived with me for 32 -- with the
21 people of Derry for 32 years. Now, at the time, at that
22 time you say how can I recollect all these fine details
23 and everything like that there. Of course I can. I am
24 not a senile old man.
25 Q. The reason I am asking you these questions is that
1 yesterday we saw a Mr Conal McFeely; do you know him?
2 A. Pardon?
3 Q. Conal McFeely. Do you know a man called Conal McFeely?
4 A. I did not know Connor.
5 Q. Conal.
6 A. I did not know him.
7 Q. He was with Gerry Donaghy that day and he described him
8 very differently, as a politically active young man who
9 was very ready to confront the British troops, would be
10 in the front row with a stone, if I can put words in his
11 mouth. Can you explain how the young man you describe
12 here could be described in that way by Mr Conal McFeely?
13 A. Mr McFeely has expressed his opinion, I have expressed
14 mine.
15 Q. Could we go to paragraph 23 of your statement, AL11.5,
16 paragraph 23. Does it help you, Mr Conal McFeely is the
17 brother of Mr Denis McFeely?
18 A. I found out later, yes, that he was a brother of Denis.
19 Q. But you did not know Conal?
20 A. Pardon?
21 Q. Did you know Conal?
22 A. No, no, no, no.
23 Q. You knew Denis. You say here:
24 "I have been asked whether Denis was a member of the
25 Fianna. He was not. He was too old and was in
1 full-time employment."
2 According to Denis McFeely's own statement on
3 Bloody Sunday he was 17, so that was not too old to be
4 a Fianna, was it?
5 A. I think Gerry -- I did not ask young Denis's age, but
6 I knew he was in full-time employment and I can state
7 categorically, he was not a member of Na Fianna ireann.
8 Q. You had been running Na Fianna for three years or so
9 before this time, since he was 14. In 1972 the
10 Fianna ireann that you were involved with had been
11 going for about three or four years, had it not, since
12 1968 or 1969?
13 A. 1969.
14 Q. Denis McFeely would then have been about 13, just the
15 right age to join Na Fianna?
16 A. Yes, he would have been around 14 years of age, yes.
17 Q. Could we go to AL11.6, 26.5. Here you speak of the
18 Fianna not getting involved in various activities; not
19 getting involved in hijacking or rioting. Just to be
20 clear, when you speak of the Fianna here and when you
21 speak of it in your statement, you are talking about
22 your organisation, are you not, not any Provisional
23 organisation?
24 A. My dear sir, as I said, Na Fianna, you must understand
25 what the Fianna was. We were not training young boys of
1 13, 14, 15 to organise riots or to go and hijack cars.
2 Now you must understand, sir, that where I was at, when
3 the young boys came down to my house, we discussed Irish
4 history; we discussed politics; I was imbuing in them
5 a sense of their Irish identity.
6 Now, if for one moment that this Tribunal would
7 think that when those young boys went home and their
8 mothers asked them, "What were you doing down in
9 Dermot's house tonight?" "Aah, Ma, Dermot told us to go
10 out and riot at the foot of William Street tomorrow
11 afternoon," it is utter nonsense.
12 Q. When you say:
13 "I cannot see the mothers of Derry lads allowing
14 their 13- or 14-year-old boys to be involved in
15 organising riots. I do not think this would have
16 happened."
17 It is right, is it not, that at that time a great
18 many 13 and 14-year-old Derry boys were involved in
19 riots?
20 A. Of course, it is common knowledge. The British Army
21 called them yobbos. At every -- every -- not every
22 afternoon, but especially at the weekend and they were
23 down -- the Army called it 'Aggro Corner', the young
24 boys would stone them. Of course, but are you trying to
25 imply to me that all these young boys were members of
1 Na Fianna ireann? I do not think so.
2 Q. Thank you very much, Mr Liddy, I have no further
3 questions for you.
4 Questioned by MR GLASGOW
5 MR GLASGOW: Mr Liddy, you can see me. My name is Glasgow
6 and I represent many of the soldiers.
7 A. Yes, I understand that.
8 Q. Could I ask you to help the Tribunal, if you can, with
9 one subject that you have not talked about, your
10 membership of the Civil Rights Association?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Do you remember that?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. It may help you to have the paragraph from your
15 statement in front of you, we have it as paragraph 26 of
16 AL11.6, and it will come up on the screen if you would
17 like to remind yourself. If we just look at
18 paragraph 26, it is where you deal with the answers you
19 gave when you were asked about your role in the Civil
20 Rights Association?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Taking it very shortly, Mr Liddy, you do not believe
23 that there was an Official Republican attempt to take
24 over or infiltrate the Civil Rights Association?
25 A. No.
1 Q. And one of the reasons that you give for that is that
2 men like Ivan Cooper would not have tolerated that?
3 A. Correct.
4 Q. That is all right?
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. The reason why I wanted to ask you to reflect on that is
7 that the Tribunal is either going to hear or read
8 a statement from a man who says that there was a policy
9 of the Official Republican and the Republican Clubs to
10 infiltrate the Derry Civil Rights Association. If that
11 is right, you do not agree with it?
12 A. I -- again, that is only an expressed opinion. I joined
13 the civil rights movement as an individual, as an
14 individual.
15 Q. You were clearly a prominent one and I accept that and
16 therefore I would like you just to see what Mr Aidan
17 Hegarty has to say, whether or not he says it on oath.
18 Do you remember Mr Aidan Hegarty, who describes himself
19 as "high up in the Official Republican movement"; does
20 it ring a bell?
21 A. No.
22 Q. You do not remember him?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Could we look at one paragraph of his statement which
25 may be read which we have at AH59.3, please,
1 paragraphs 10 and 11 -- I will summarise them. Perhaps
2 it has not got into the system yet. I can take it very
3 shortly, Mr Liddy. What this man, Mr Aidan Hegarty, who
4 is high up in the Official Republican Movement, says is
5 that the Republican Clubs had a policy of infiltration
6 and that is why he got involved with the Derry Civil
7 Rights Association. If that is right, that is complete
8 news to you; is it?
9 A. I was not privy to that information at all, no-one told
10 me; no-one forced me to join the civil rights, I joined
11 it of my own accord.
12 Q. You were not aware of any policy of infiltration by the
13 Official Republican Clubs or the IRA into that body?
14 A. My dear sir, refer again to my statement. The late
15 Brigid Bond and her husband, who was a leading light as
16 an unpaid social worker, who campaigned for the social
17 rights of the deprived people of Derry at that period of
18 time, who had been vehemently against the introduction
19 of internment.
20 Now, I do not think a woman of that intellectual
21 capability would allow any organisation to try -- to
22 take over.
23 Q. If Mr Aidan Hegarty is right and that he was
24 infiltrating that organisation in accordance with the
25 policy of the Republican Clubs, you think both you and
1 Mrs Bond would have been unaware of that?
2 A. I am not privy to that information. I am sure, I am
3 sure with her capabilities Brigid would have known.
4 Q. Could I ask you one specific matter about your lads'
5 involvement in violence which we have at AL11.4, please,
6 paragraph 18, Mr Liddy, you refer to the standing orders
7 appearing in the Green Book; do you remember that
8 paragraph?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. You can see it there, the standing orders appearing in
11 the Green Book made it clear that the lads were not to
12 join the Army until aged 18?
13 A. Correct.
14 Q. Were you personally aware of the Green Book; did you
15 read it and did you have a copy?
16 A. Again, I said, Derry is a very small place at that time,
17 right. We met people; people talked. Of course,
18 mention of the Green Book standing orders issued by
19 general headquarters in Dublin, that was a given fact,
20 but I never actually seen a copy.
21 Q. You only had it from what people had told you. That was
22 why I wanted to give you the opportunity to correct it,
23 because it may have been a mistake. The copy of the
24 Green Book that we have been given, the reference to the
25 note, but -- you can see it if you like, at G139.966 --
1 says that enlistment into the IRA was for all Irish men
2 of good character who had attained the age of 16. Were
3 you aware of that? If you look at paragraph 2(a), the
4 very first paragraph dealing with membership, you see
5 that; it would appear somebody misled you as to what the
6 Green Book said?
7 A. Excuse me, Mr Glasgow, I never seen, I never seen a copy
8 of the Green Book.
9 Q. The last matter, I wonder if you could help with,
10 Mr Liddy, you talk about people going to the Magilligan
11 march because they wanted to vent their anger. Why do
12 you say that; what do you think they wanted to do in
13 order to vent their anger at Magilligan?
14 A. Playing with words again. Playing with words again, my
15 dear Mr Glasgow. Vent their frustration.
16 Q. Your words were "vent their anger"; do you want to see
17 them?
18 A. Do you mean by anger --
19 Q. No, I wanted to know what you meant by anger, sir. We
20 will go to A11.3. I am not playing with words, I think
21 maybe you are. A11.3, paragraph 10, appears to say that
22 people had been marching against internment because
23 Magilligan was a holding centre before prisoners were
24 transferred to Long Kesh, but people wanted to "vent
25 their anger", I wanted to know what you meant by those
1 words?
2 A. Again, you are playing with words, my dear Mr Glasgow.
3 Q. Would you just answer my question?
4 A. Anger or frustration. If you use the word "anger", does
5 that mean to say that you are taking up physical force?
6 Q. What did you mean by its use?
7 A. If one is angry, one does not resort to picking up
8 a bottle and crashing one, I do not think so.
9 Q. What did you mean by use of the words "people wanting to
10 vent their anger when they went to Magilligan, thinking
11 they were going to face the Royal Anglians and
12 Coldstream Guards"?
13 A. Again, you play with words my dear Mr Glasgow.
14 Q. In that case, answer my question and we can stop.
15 A. Well, I address this Tribunal, when I used those words,
16 maybe because I was an uneducated Derry man, I did not
17 mean to say that, yes, we would attack. Do not be so
18 ridiculous.
19 Q. You were the OC of Na Fianna in 1960?
20 A. 1960?
21 Q. That is the first date when you started?
22 A. No, 1960?
23 Q. Yes.
24 A. 1960?
25 Q. Yes.
1 A. No.
2 Q. Did you not start in 1960?
3 A. Not 1960, no.
4 Q. When did you start?
5 A. 1969, late 1969.
6 Q. Were you aware that a young boy of 15 had been killed in
7 weapons training in 1960 in the Fianna?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Who was giving that training to the 15-year-old in
10 weapons resulting in his death at that time?
11 A. I presume it was the IRA.
12 Q. IRA instructing in Fianna at that time?
13 A. I did not state -- my dear -- again you play with words.
14 In 1960, in 1960. Was there a Na Fianna in 1960?
15 Q. You tell us there was, you tell us that was when it was
16 set up?
17 A. Is there, is there indisputable proof that there were Na
18 Fianna in 1960?
19 Q. That depends on whether this Tribunal regards anything
20 you say as proof. Never mind.
21 Questioned by MR MOSS
22 MR MOSS: Mr Liddy, my name is Moss, I appear on behalf of
23 a number of soldiers. I want to come back, please, to
24 the subject of the activities of what members of the
25 Fianna actually did. I am going to leave aside all of
1 the references in the information that has come from the
2 RUC as it was, so I am not going to take you to any of
3 the intelligence material at all; do you understand?
4 I am not going to ask you questions about interviews
5 with the Special Branch.
6 I do want to recap on three aspects of the evidence
7 this Tribunal has heard from members of the Republican
8 movement itself. Ms McGahey has touched on some of
9 these, so I will deal with it briefly. Mr Liddy, the
10 first matter that the Tribunal has heard about, is that
11 members of the Fianna did in fact collate intelligence
12 on such matters as car movements and that by late 1971,
13 early 1972, that in fact was being passed to somebody
14 who was described as a liaison officer, who was actually
15 a member of the Provisional IRA.
16 Mr Liddy, would you have permitted that to occur?
17 A. No.
18 Q. Secondly, this Tribunal has evidence that persons who
19 were at least affiliated to the Fianna stole Army
20 uniforms from a dry-cleaners and the Tribunal also has
21 information that those uniforms did come into the hands
22 and were distributed amongst the IRA. As OC, would you
23 have permitted such a thing to occur?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Finally, and thirdly, from Mr Dobbins, a witness to this
1 Inquiry, the Tribunal has heard that Fianna members, if
2 they had themselves found or got a dump for the IRA,
3 then Fianna members might have gone to that weapons
4 dump, got the weapons out of the dump and handed them to
5 waiting IRA members.
6 Again, Mr Liddy, as OC, would you have permitted
7 such a thing to occur?
8 A. My dear sir, if you must understand -- my God, young
9 boys, I wonder, I wonder do you understand, sir, the IRA
10 structure. There was only one person, there was only
11 one person, if, if these mystical dumps were about,
12 there was only one person who knew where they were and
13 that would be the quartermaster.
14 Q. Mr Liddy, I am afraid what I am putting to you is
15 information which comes directly from a member of the
16 Creggan IRA in evidence which he gave quite recently to
17 this Tribunal, so would you please answer my question;
18 is that something which you as OC --
19 A. He expressed his opinion, I can only express mine.
20 Q. Very well. I have put the three matters of --
21 A. As I said, these people --
22 Q. Mr Liddy, I have put those three matters of Fianna
23 activity of which the Tribunal has information. Whether
24 or not the Tribunal accepts that is the height of the
25 Fianna involvement at the time, those sort of matters
1 that I have put to you are very different, are they not,
2 to what you understood Fianna members were involved in?
3 A. Again, I can only state what I, what I did and what
4 I did not do. I have no knowledge, none whatsoever of
5 these so-called activities in Creggan or elsewhere;
6 I had no dealings with them whatsoever. That is
7 comments made by other people to this Tribunal, has got
8 nothing to do with what I have said, it is up to the
9 Tribunal.
10 Q. Mr Liddy, what I have to suggest to you is that those
11 activities which I have outlined, perhaps the bare
12 minimum of Fianna activities by late 1971, leaves this
13 Tribunal with two possibilities. The first possibility
14 is that you were entirely out of touch by late 1971 with
15 the realities of what the Fianna was doing and the
16 second possibility is that you are misleading the
17 Tribunal about what the Fianna was doing; which of those
18 is more likely?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Which is it; do you think you were out of touch, or are
21 you misleading the Tribunal about what the Fianna was
22 really doing?
23 A. As again, as again I must state, that in 1971, I was
24 working. To be associated with Na Fianna was not
25 a 24-hour job. I had a social life; we had social lives
1 to lead; we had work to go to; we were not living in
2 each other's pockets 24 hours a day and being what
3 I was, I knew these young men, young -- these young boys
4 in the course of going through the streets of Derry,
5 I would have met them and they would have told me
6 what -- "How are you doing", how is things?"
7 Q. Mr Liddy, in the light of that, perhaps one final
8 matter. If you want to see it I will put it up on the
9 screen for you, but in paragraph 32 of your statement,
10 you said that, like Mr Ward, you were not prepared to
11 name the members of the Fianna.
12 Can I ask you this: if what the Fianna was doing was
13 so innocent as learning to tie knots and learning about
14 Irish history, why is it that you will not tell this
15 Tribunal who was in your Fianna?
16 A. Like I said before, Na Fianna were in a state of flux.
17 People joined, young boys joined and got fed up and
18 left. They were not bullied; they were not told to
19 stay, come in or go in or do this or do that.
20 According -- my perspective of it was, the way I read
21 it, Na Fianna, maybe I was naive, but the way I read it
22 was, these boys come in -- do you want me to remember
23 each and every individual name?
24 Q. No. Mr Liddy, I do not think that is an answer to my
25 question either. I will ask you once more. The
1 question I asked you was: if all your Na Fianna was
2 doing was learning about Irish history, why is it that
3 you indicated in your statement that you were not
4 prepared to name any members of your Fianna?
5 A. Of course I will not. I did not -- I cannot remember
6 their names. The only names that I can remember are now
7 in the public domain, like Gerry O'Hara; like (God rest)
8 Gerry Donaghy; any other members of Na Fianna, you do
9 not expect me after this length of time to know where
10 they lived, what their Christian names were, where they
11 lived, I do not know, I do not know.
12 Q. Mr Liddy, does that reflect the reality? That you will
13 name those who have already come forward themselves, but
14 nobody else, is that the real position?
15 A. Pardon?
16 Q. Is the real position that you are prepared to name only
17 those people who have themselves come forward but nobody
18 else?
19 A. Again you are playing with words, sir, this -- I do not
20 know their names. After 32 years, it would be
21 totally -- if I could write out a list of names for this
22 Tribunal, it would be a load of rubbish because I cannot
23 remember. These boys have grown up to men; they are
24 married. I do not know where they have gone to. Some
25 of them are dead probably; I do not know, but do not
1 expect me to remember all their names and where they
2 live.
3 Q. Let us have a look at what you did say, Mr Liddy,
4 please, AL11.7, paragraph 32. You told the Tribunal,
5 you told Eversheds quite the opposite:
6 "Like him, like Mr Ward, I am not prepared to name
7 the members of the Fianna [I quote your words] but
8 I remember clearly who was in it in 1972."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Who is playing the games with words, Mr Liddy?
11 A. Those names, those names which I already have said that
12 come back to memory, your learned colleague has asked
13 me, after how many years, have I -- could I recollect
14 it. It is there; I do not know any other names, the
15 only names that I knew was brought out in front of this
16 Tribunal, was Gerry Donaghy, was Gerry O'Hara. It has
17 stirred up memories for me, but as regards anything
18 else, no, I cannot remember names. If I did I would
19 truthfully have taken an oath, I would truthfully tell
20 this Tribunal.
21 Questioned by MS McGAHEY
22 MS McGAHEY: Two matters, please. Mr Liddy, you were asked
23 by Mr Glasgow, who sits just in front of you, about the
24 Green Book.
25 A. Yes.
1 Q. The copy of the Green Book that the Inquiry has is
2 a Provisional IRA Green Book and we believe it dates
3 from about 1980. Information available to the Inquiry
4 suggests that the Provisional IRA first published
5 a Green Book in the late 1970s, maybe 1980. Was there
6 an Official IRA Green Book that existed at the time that
7 you were involved in the Fianna?
8 A. They would have had -- yes, that is the Green Book I was
9 referring to. They would have had it. Now, the rules
10 might have been changed over the years, I do not know.
11 I am not privy to that information. I never seen the
12 Green Book, I can only take what I was told, but in the
13 Green Book of those days, there was no, there was no
14 young boy under -- under the age of 18 allowed to join
15 the IRA.
16 Q. Are you sure that such a book existed in 1971 and 1972?
17 A. I, I sincerely believe that them rules did apply.
18 Q. Do you remember ever seeing a copy of it at any time?
19 A. No, I can honestly state I never seen it.
20 Q. Do you know even where the Inquiry might go to find
21 a copy of the Official IRA's Green Book?
22 A. If I could, yes. I never seen one; I never seen one.
23 As I said I heard about it, but I never seen it.
24 Q. Do you know who would hold one?
25 A. I do not know who wrote it.
1 Q. Did you have any links with the Official IRA in 1971 and
2 1972?
3 A. No. Again, as I said in my earlier statement, that
4 I had no -- Na Fianna ireann was an autonomous,
5 according to the way I read it, an autonomous
6 organisation. We had no links; we were not here
7 today -- Na Fianna today and IRA tomorrow, no.
8 Q. How did you know about the Green Book?
9 A. Pardon?
10 Q. How did you know about the Green Book?
11 A. It is common -- as I said again, Derry is a small town
12 in those days. Members of the Republican Movement who
13 were probably, and were, members of the IRA, I do not
14 know. I do not know, but people talk; people would talk
15 about things; discuss things with you.
16 Q. Was it just in general discussion that you learnt about
17 the existence of a Green Book?
18 A. It could have come up in part of a conversation, we are
19 talking about, we are talking about Irish history. Say
20 you met friends for a social evening and you were
21 talking about events and being, being Republican-minded,
22 if you met, if you met, if you met in a lounge bar along
23 with your girlfriends or with your wives, you would sit
24 down, you knew these people; you would talk, but not
25 discuss, not discuss -- like something, "did you see the
1 new book from -- did you read the new book from
2 DH Lawrence", something like that.
3 Q. After a discussion about a new book from DH Lawrence,
4 would you then turn to discuss the Green Book?
5 A. It is, it is what I stated before, it is my honest
6 opinion now, this is what I can only say from the heart.
7 My honest opinion was -- the way I read it was that no
8 member, no boys under 18 years of age was allowed to
9 join the IRA; that, that was the way I looked at it.
10 Q. Thank you. On another topic, you were asked by Mr Moss,
11 who sits behind Mr Glasgow, about evidence given to the
12 Tribunal by a man called Eddie Dobbins.
13 It is right that Eddie Dobbins did say that a Fianna
14 member might go to a weapons dump and take a weapon from
15 the dump and hand it to an IRA member. Mr Dobbins
16 though was a member of the Provisional IRA and he was
17 speaking about the activities of the Provisional Fianna.
18 Do you have any knowledge at all of the activities
19 of the Provisional Fianna?
20 A. None whatsoever.
21 Q. Thank you very much. Those are all my questions, sir.
22 LORD SAVILLE: Mr Liddy, it is the Chairman again, over to
23 your right. Thank you very much indeed for coming here
24 to give evidence to us, thank you.
25 Ms McGahey is the list for tomorrow as Mr Clarke
1 told us this morning?
2 MS McGAHEY: Yes, sir.
3 LORD SAVILLE: So far so good for tomorrow?
4 MS McGAHEY: Yes, sir. I am not sure what if anything
5 Mr Clarke said. The list, certainly when I gave it at
6 lunchtime when I first called Mr Liddy
7 was: Mary McCourt, PIRA 1 and Denis McFeely.
8 LORD SAVILLE: 9.30, please.
9 (2.15 pm)
10 (Proceedings adjourned until 9.30 am
11 on Wednesday, 14th January 2004)
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1 INDEX
2 PAGE
3 Pira 18, Sworn ............................... 1
4 Questioned by MR CLARKE ...................... 1
5 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 30
6 Questioned by MR MOSS ........................ 49
7 Questioned by MR CLARKE ...................... 53
8 MR DERMOT LIDDY, sworn ....................... 55
9 Questioned by MS MCGAHEY ..................... 55
10 Questioned by MR MALONEY ..................... 93
11 Questioned by MR GLASGOW ..................... 108
12 Questioned by MR MOSS ........................ 114
13 Questioned by MS McGAHEY ..................... 120
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25