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by Niall O'Dowd

Church, police covered up priest's role in IRA gang that killed nine in 1972 bombing

Posted on Monday, August 23, 2010 at 11:31 PM
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The Catholic Church in Northern Ireland has admitted that a priest was the leader of an IRA unit that exploded a bomb in 1972 that killed nine people, five Catholics and four Protestants including an eight -year-old girl. Thirty people were injured.

Police ombudsman (overseer) Al Hutchinson has verified that the Royal Ulster Constabulary the British government and the Catholic Church covered up for the priest, Father James Chesney (left) who was never charged and moved to a new parish.

Hutchinson revealed that the RUC at the time had top-grade intelligence that Chesney was a senior figure in the IRA unit that planted three car bombs in the County Derry village of Claudy in 1972.

The then Catholic primate of all Ireland , Cardinal William Conway, and the then Northern secretary William Whitelaw, were made aware by police of Father Chesney’s alleged involvement.

Chesney was subsequently moved to a parish in Co. Donegal but was never arrested or interviewed about the bombing or any other IRA activity. He passed away in 1980.

The cover up was discovered during a search through old cases by a Police Service of Northern Ireland investigator Sam Kinkaid.

Hutchinson has accepted the new documentation proves Kinkaid’s suggestion of a cover-up involving the RUC, the British state and the Catholic Church.

The current Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady has commented on the report today. Father Chesney was sent to to a Donegal parish under the jurisdiction of the late Bishop of Derry, Dr Neil Farren.

Bishop Edward Daly, was appointed to the diocese of Derry and Raphoe in the spring of 1974. Bishop Daly has also made a statement.

Kinkaid’s report showed that Cardinal Conway and an unnamed senior RUC officer were briefed on the attack right after the bombing.

As a result, Cardinal Conway held direct discussions with Northern Secretary William Whitelaw on the issue in December 1972, during which the Northern secretary made clear his knowledge and disgust at the priest’s involvement.

Conway was apparently worried that news of of Father Chesney’s involvement would allowed loyalist paramilitaries to declare all Catholic priests “legitimate targets”.

The IRA had attempted to issue a warning from nearby Dungiven, but were unable to do so because an earlier bomb had damaged the telephone exchange.

Standing outside the village hotel where the third device detonated, survivor Paul O'Kane recalls that day nearly 40 ago.


"There was absolute devastation," he told Sky News.

"It was like something you would see on the news now in Baghdad.

"There was smoke, there was a motorbike on fire, cars on fire, there were no windows left and there was nothing but moaning and groaning.”

Today Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, said: "For my part, on behalf of the government, I am profoundly sorry that Father Chesney was not properly investigated for his suspected involvement in this hideous crime, and that the victims and their families have been denied justice.

He added: "My anger at the actions of those responsible for the attack is matched in strength by my sorrow that the survivors of the atrocity and the relatives of the dead did not see those responsible brought to justice for their crimes.

"I recognise, of course, that all those involved in combating terrorism at the time were making decisions in exceptionally difficult circumstances and under extreme pressure."

In a joint statement Seán Brady, the archbishop of Armagh, and Séamus Hegarty, the Bishop of Derry, described the bombing as "an appalling crime", saying: "We accept the ombudsman's findings and conclusions."

They added: "Throughout the Troubles, the Catholic church, along with other churches in Northern Ireland, was constant in its condemnation of the evil of violence. It is therefore shocking that a priest should be suspected of involvement in such violence.

"This case should have been properly investigated and resolved during Father Chesney's lifetime. If there was sufficient evidence to link him to criminal activity, he should have been arrested and questioned at the earliest opportunity, like anyone else. We agree with the police ombudsman that the fact this did not happen failed those who were murdered, injured and bereaved in the bombings."


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21 Comments

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Watchman | Aug 26, 2010, 03:40 PM EDT
Yes, George, that sorts everything out. Well done.

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GeorgeDillon | Aug 26, 2010, 02:57 PM EDT
I think watchman is lying about his name. He's not Walter Ellis, he's Walter Mitty!

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Watchman | Aug 26, 2010, 05:47 AM EDT
Realist: Good advice. Thanks for that. I did go a bit over the top there. I was about to go to bed here in France (where I spend my summers) when I read GD's remarks. He's incredibly rude, unfair and foul-minded, but, as you suggest, he's not exactly a master of the dialectic. From now on, I shall ignore him and his ilk. But I shall look forward to your continuing analysis.

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Realist | Aug 26, 2010, 04:32 AM EDT
Watchman: I wouldn’t pay too much heed to GeorgeDillon here. For a start, he can scarcely string together a coherent sentence never mind an argument. From his ‘contributions’ to date it appears that anyone who forwards a differing opinion, poses questions he either can’t or won’t answer, or knows more than he does on the subject matter is “a hate-filled bigot”. In short, pretty much everyone. I see it all the time on this site: long on evasion & name calling, short on facts & straight talking….but then you know this already as, it has been ‘decided’, we are the same person….lol.

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Watchman | Aug 25, 2010, 05:56 PM EDT
George Dillon's serial abuse has gone beyond a joke. My real name is Walter Ellis. I am an Irishman who has lived and worked in Belfast, Dublin and Cork. I went on Civil Rights marches in the 1970s and reported for the Cork Examiner and the Irish Times on a host of terrorist outrages, Republican and Loyalist, including the bombing of Claudy. I was also the lifetime, though increasingly wary, friend of a leading hitman for the INLA. The Beginning of the End, my memoir of that relationship, was published by Random House in 2006 and sold well in Ireland. You can still buy it on Amazon. I have been arrested by the British Army in Belfast and by special Branch in England. Although a northern Prod, I will be in Donegal (Fr. Chesney's parish, as it happens), Dublin and Belfast next month visiting family and friends before returning to my home in Brooklyn. Who the hell are you, Dillon? What life have you led? How dare you call me a "sicko" and a "hate-filled bigot"? Oh, and by the way, I wasn't in Paris in 1944, but I was in Berlin and Bucharest in 1989 and in a dozen other hotspots round the world during a long career as a foreign correspondent. I'm the real deal. What about you?

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Realist | Aug 25, 2010, 05:23 PM EDT
GeorgeDillon: Lol....have you told on me to your mummy yet? Would you care to point out one thing I've written that's incorrect? My friend, nobody ever claimed responsibility for this bombing so I ask again, how do you know that the "idea apparently was to draw British troops away from nearby Derry City"? If you don't understand the question, I'd be happy to rephrase it in more pedestrian English.

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GeorgeDillon | Aug 25, 2010, 02:43 PM EDT
watchman: You really are a goof. Hancock's post pointed out how the Paras who killed 14 in Derry in 1972 had got away with it just as the IRA who killed 9 in Claudy the same year. In fact the commander of the Paras got an honor from the Queen of England for his day's work. Hancock's point was obvious to everyone except a hate-filled bigot like you and your alter ego.

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GeorgeDillon | Aug 25, 2010, 02:39 PM EDT
Realist-- Take your anti-Catholic bigotry somewhere else. There are loads of weird sites where Know Nothings like you still peddle hatred. As regards your query where the information on Motorman is available--look elsewhere on this site, you lazy loafer! Do the basic study you need in order to comment sensibly on an issue, or otherwise shut up. And watchman (is this another bigot, or just Realist wearing a different sheet?): your head count of bodies according to their religion is disgusting. I don't believe your story about being in Clady. next you'll be telling us you entered Paris with the Allies in 1944, or were in Dallas on Nov 22 1963. You're a fantasist--I suspect you were never in Derry in your life. But if you were, are you telling us you went around Claudy checking the religion of the victims? That makes you much worse than a Walter Mitty, you're a sicko--doing a sectarian body count.

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hancock | Aug 25, 2010, 11:43 AM EDT
No watchman just that he got away scot free with help from the English.

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barneyjo | Aug 25, 2010, 08:55 AM EDT
I dont understand the level of surprise at a fact that a man, who happens to have been a priest, would have in this case strong Republican Sympathies. Lets be honest, Clergy through the ages have bloodied their hands in various battlefields through the ages. Even in Ulster, it is well documented that the Rev WF Marshall the "Bard of Tyrone" stored munitions in the Presbetry at Aughnacloy County Tyrone on behalf of the UVF in the immediate aftermatn of the Ulster Gun Running on the ship Clyde Valley. I'm not saying there is any equivelance with Father Chesney's alleged involvement in Claudy. However the human condition is something that can grab anyone and spur them on to a given end.

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calculus | Aug 25, 2010, 07:41 AM EDT
Another grubby display from the catholic church.All the people shouting for a bloody Sunday enquiry have suddenly lost their voice.Marty Mc Guinness has developed amnesia.Shame on the irish Americans who financed trerrorism, the wheel came full circle on 9/11.Shame on the rotten catholioc church, much of what Paisley said was spot on.Ancient Order Of Hibernians have no words of wisdom to add?.

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Southernpride | Aug 25, 2010, 03:35 AM EDT
So their is IRA mass murderers, terrorists mixed in with the 90% of Catholic priests that are homosexuals and paedophiles.

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Watchman | Aug 25, 2010, 03:35 AM EDT
Hancock: you seem to be suggesting, no doubt playfully, that Fr Chesney – a mass murderer – was himself murdered by the Parachute Regiment. In fact, he died in Donegal, of cancer, in 1980. I wonder how his surviving parishoners feel these days about having received the sacraments from a child-killer who spent the last eight years of his life lying about his past. On the subject of the Provisionals trying to draw fire away from Derry, there is truth in this. However, the IRA has consistently lied about Claudy. To this day, it denies having committed the slaughter. Will the organisation's former leaders now admit that their active service unit, led by Chesney, was indeed responsible for what happened? Possibly. But I'm not holding my breath. Times have changed. But the past remains constant.

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hancock | Aug 24, 2010, 11:41 PM EDT
I guess that priest got the para treatment.

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Realist | Aug 24, 2010, 04:38 PM EDT
GeorgeDillon: Lol you sound like you're in tears. "Empty slurs"? What have I written that is incorrect? Were 70% of the Provisional IRA's victims not Protestant? Did the IRA not murder 342 Roman Catholics? I ask again, how do you know that the "idea apparently was to draw British troops away from nearby Derry City"? Now I suggest you dry your eyes and attempt some answers.

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