Protestant View

The Claudy Cover-up

Claudy is the village in County Londonderry where, without warning, the IRA detonated three car-bombs on 31 July 1972, resulting in the deaths of nine people. This became the "forgotten atrocity", and we now know why it did not receive the publicity given to similar incidents over the years of terrorist activity. The shameful cover-up would have been exposed if investigative journalists had shown more interest in discovering the perpetrators of this murderous attack. Now, with the release of the relevant Government papers under the 30-year rule, it is revealed that a Roman Catholic priest, who was also a member of the IRA, was known at the time to have played a prominent role in its planning and execution. Yet he was neither arrested, questioned nor charged!

Why? Because William Whitelaw, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and Cardinal Conway, then head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, agreed to cover up his involvement. It was expedient for both of them to act in this manner but their conduct was, by any righteous standard, deceitful, immoral and infamous. Conway transferred his priest across the border and Whitelaw proceeded to carry out his further duties of office, presumably without a qualm of conscience, and at the end of the day, he was rewarded with a Viscountship! Both of them have now entered eternity - as has also the priest who had blood on his hands - to hand in their account to Him who judges righteously. None of them lived long enough in this world to see their conduct exposed, and more will no doubt be revealed if the call for a judicial inquiry is, as we hope, heeded.

The greatest and final exposure lies ahead. "Reason", wrote Robert Shaw, "infers a future judgment from the state of things in this world. Here we take for granted these two fundamental principles of religion - the being of God, and His providence in the government of the world. All who acknowledge these truths must, and do, believe that God is infinitely just and righteous, infinitely wise and holy, infinitely good and merciful; and that he cannot be otherwise. From this it necessarily results that it must be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. But the most superficial view of the present state of things is sufficient to convince us that God does not, in this world, dispense prosperity only to the good and adversity only to the evil: 'There be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous'. The promiscuous dispensations of providence have perplexed the minds of men in every age, and tried the faith of the children of God. But reason rightly exercised would lead us to the conclusion that, upon the supposition of the being and providence of God, there must be a day coming when these things will be brought under review, and when a wide and visible difference shall be made between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not."