'Why is our family and our 87-year-old mother being treated with such contempt?'
Declan Bogue
THE LAST TIME Congress was held in Donegal, Jarlath Burns was a fresh-faced teenager, there as the Armagh youth delegate back when each county was encouraged to bring a representative in 1988.
Held in the Astoria Ballroom in Bundoran, it shows how far GAA Congress and society has changed.
Back then the room was a fog of pipe smoke, as the famously health-conscious Mick Loftus handed over the Presidency to John Dowling.
Before long, Burns was on the Armagh senior football team. And his first introduction to that life was to be collected by a legendary figure called John Martin who was responsible for ferrying the south Armagh players to and from training.
He had one golden rule: the car never stopped. Ever.
Martin being from Crossmaglen, he used to pick up Jim McConville first. McConville was a diminutive forward and with great glee would take the front seat and lock the door. After him, a succession of big men had to cram into the back seat, Burns, Benny Tierney and the hulking Martin McQuillan.
The three would act out a non-stop journey barging into each other. Oftentimes, there were displays of flatulence. The car windows never came down. Highbrow stuff, y’know.
One evening, Tierney grabbed Burns’ football boots – size 12 as you’re asking – and flung them over a hedge. Despite the pleas of Burns, Martin never stopped, reasoning that Burns was barely allowed to kick the ball anyway.
On several occasions, the car never made it to training. When their meeting point was scheduled for the north of the county, a succession of army checkpoints and threats to the nationalist population meant they frequently turned the car back and went home. It wasn’t uncommon for the south Armagh cars to arrive just as training was finishing.
You can only imagine the frustration the young men felt, effectively criminalised for having gear bags full of GAA equipment.
In 1997, Seán Brown was carrying out his duties as club chairman and locking up the gates of Bellaghy Wolfe Tones when he was abducted by a Loyalist gang, some of whom were allegedly state agents. He was murdered and dumped near Randalstown in Co Antrim. Nobody has been convicted or stood trial for it.
Last Friday night, Burns spoke to Congress. He noted how they were in Donegal, just across the border from Derry where Seán Brown was killed.
Then he mentioned Seán Farmer and Colm McCartney who were stopped at a bogus checkpoint in Armagh, on their way home from supporting Derry who were playing the All-Ireland semi-final in August, 1975.
He referenced that how on that very day, it had been 37 years since 23-year-old Aidan McAnespie was shot dead in Aughnacloy while walking towards a match for Aghaloo O’Neills against neighbouring club Killeeshil St Mary’s in the Jim Devlin Cup on the Tyrone/Monaghan border.
“Many more lives were threatened and taken, and our members and our property were considered cheap, and expendable. Scandalously we now know that this was done while those in authority either looked the other way or, worse still, facilitated murder and allowed atrocities to take place,” Burns said.
“ . . . Volunteerism is the energy that fuels the GAA, people who put others first, who think nothing of selfless acts like sending everyone else home to stay back and lock up the gates on their own.
“Two different High Court Judges, having reviewed all available evidence, in its original unredacted form, have come to the conclusion that the circumstances surrounding Seán Brown’s murder in Bellaghy merit a full statutory public inquiry.
“The dignity and determination that the Brown family have shown in the face of the obfuscation of the British Government and Northern Secretary is admirable.”
He then invited the Brown family, including Seán’s 87-year-old widow Bridie, to the top table of Congress, adding, “We as an Association are fully committed to supporting them on their journey and search for truth and justice for Seán.”
On the morning after Seán was taken, a policeman called to the home of the Browns to deliver the news. Seán’s daughter Clare was already crying, but the goading of the policeman is something she cannot forget after all these years as he repeatedly told her to stop.
Some 28 years later, Clare Brown, now Loughran, was invited to address Congress last Friday night.
What she said was chilling and heartbreaking. How she said it was forceful.
“His killing was an act of brutal violence, but what followed has been just as cruel,” she said.
“Decades of cover-ups, failed investigations, and deliberate obstruction of justice. For nearly 28 years, our family has fought tirelessly for the truth.
We have attended court over 57 times, only to have met with silence, excuses, and denials. The police investigations were a failure, an insult, and a cover-up for state collusion. From the inquest proceedings, which began in March of 2023, it became painfully clear that state agencies deliberately withheld critical evidence to prevent the truth from emerging.
“We know now that up to 25 suspects were involved in his killing, many of them state agents. The coroner formally urged the Secretary of State to convene a public inquiry, and even the Chief Constable of the PSNI has stated he would not oppose one. Taoiseach Michael Martin has also publicly supported calls for a full public inquiry.”
Where this momentum stops, is at the door of the Labour Government’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn.
As Clare explained, “And yet, instead of truth and accountability, we have been met with resistance. The Secretary of State has not only denied our family justice, but has actively appealed a High Court ruling that has called for a public inquiry.
“Why? Why is our family and our 87-year-old mother being treated with such contempt? What are they so desperate to hide? The outpouring of support from the GAA family has been a source of strength to us, to Jarlath [Burns], Brian McAvoy, Michael Geoghegan, and John Keenan, who have all stood with us in court, and to all of you who have led your voices to our cause.
“We are deeply grateful. The GAA is more than a sporting organisation. It is a community. A movement. A force for good. Tonight, I ask for your continued support.”
In the history of the GAA, this counts as one of the most important addresses to the floor. It concerns people not only murdered because of their involvement with the GAA, but their memory desecrated with cover-ups.
This stuff is deeply uncomfortable to read and think about.
Some might silently prefer if it wasn’t brought up at Congress at all. Others might not even feel the need for tact as Burns has been told to ‘keep politics out of the GAA’, as if offering support to the family of a murdered member of the GAA was in some way overtly political.
There is a temptation to think of cases such as these as happening ‘up there’, and therefore not relating to Ireland as a whole.
The GAA have not forgotten the Brown family. Nor have they forgotten many other families that have been bereaved in similar ways, with appalling miscarriages of justices to follow, all in order to save face.
For too long, these families have not had the support they deserved. Now, they have that support, and leadership.
Foireann
The 42
