Mags GarganA prominent Belfast priest has said that internment, which is commemorated by marches in the North this month, effectively marked the end of British rule in Northern Ireland because it facilitated torture.
Internment was a British army operation in the North in August 1971, when 342 Catholics suspected of being involved with the IRA were imprisoned without trial.
Fr Des Wilson told The Irish Catholic that internment could only be described as “torture”. “People who arranged internment in Northern Ireland knew perfectly well that imprisonment without trial would lead to torture and this marked the beginning of the end of British rule,” he said. “Whether you wanted it or not, or liked it or not, the fact is that the result of that kind of behaviour is you stop ruling.”
He said the revelations of what happened during internment, such as people being thrown from helicopters near ground level after being told they were high in the air, “appalled people” and was the “final nail in the coffin”.
“It was a horrible time where you had military vehicles on the streets and you knew that some of your neighbours were going to disappear, and this was accompanied by practices that frightened the life out of people. It led to greater instability and insecurity in the population,” he said.
Meanwhile, a book by civil rights campaigners Msgr Raymond Murray and Msgr Denis Faul, which revealed the full story of the ‘Hooded Men’, has been reprinted to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of one of the men. Sean McKenna, who died in 1974, was one of 14 Catholic men who claim they were tortured by the British government after the introduction of internment.
Their case was referred to the European Court of Human Rights last year.
The launch will take place at Teach Na nDaoine Family Resource Centre, Mullaghmatt, Monaghan on August 22 at 6.30pm.