Northern Ireland Police collusion in 1972 bombing

I know, I tend to find somewhat obscure news stories, but there is a pretty shocking development coming out of the Northern Ireland's police ombudsman's office. His re-investigation into an IRA bombing in Claudy in 1972 found that the police colluded with a catholic priest to have the priest transferred to another county after they identified him as a suspect. The tensions at the time were such that they found that arresting a catholic priest at the time would have likely led to a full-on sectarian civil war.

I'm shocked that these revelations come to light 38 years after the fact. The fact that any religious figure, catholic or protestant could so pervert their responsibility as to plan to kill innocent people is shocking to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11061296

Sadder and more shocking is the fact that major funding for weapons for the IRA came from American Catholics...esp the Boston area. Those church sponsored bingo parties were a great cover for fund raising.
I always found it rather amusing when we justified going after Iraq because they funded terrorists. By the same token i guess England would have been well within their rights to lob a few bombs in the direction of Boston for their funding of the Irish terrorists.

whoosieme wrote:Sadder and more shocking is the fact that major funding for weapons for the IRA came from American Catholics...esp the Boston area. Those church sponsored bingo parties were a great cover for fund raising.
I always found it rather amusing when we justified going after Iraq because they funded terrorists. By the same token i guess England would have been well within their rights to lob a few bombs in the direction of Boston for their funding of the Irish terrorists.

I'd never heard that, was it overt? Meaning the people playing bingo knew they were funding weapons?

If they were Irish Catholics they sure as hell knew.......

whoosieme wrote:If they were Irish Catholics they sure as hell knew.......

I looked into it, from what I understand it was pretty isolated to Irish immigrant areas, rather than a broad brush across the catholic church.

That's wild stuff Pez.