Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism by Michael Burleigh

Author:Michael Burleigh
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Political Ideologies, Political Freedom & Security, General, Political Science, World, Terrorism, History
ISBN: 9780061173868
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-03-09T06:08:47+00:00

III DELIVERING CHAOS

If all Irish terrorists were psychopathic criminals like Murphy, there would be no demonstrable ebb and flow to the violence, or shifts in how it was used vis-a-vis other forms of political activity. In fact, many people joined terrorist organisations because they had direct personal experience of injustice or were witnesses to it. Eamon Collins came from a farming family in Crossmaglen, a republican stronghold on the North-South border. His politically pragmatic father raised and traded cattle and bloodstock. His mother was the pious Catholic, responsible for planting in Collins’s heart the tear-jerking myths of Irish republican history, and a tension between rebel violence and Christian turning of the other cheek. He had low-level contacts with the IRA, took part in civil rights riots, sold republican papers, and, after odd jobs in the civil service in London, went to Queen’s University in Belfast to read law.

On vacation at home, Collins came back to the farm late at night after having drinks with schoolfriends. As he wandered down the lane, British paratroops emerged from the bushes, shouting ‘Get your fucking hands up, don’t you fucking move. Don’t you fucking move.’ This was followed with ‘Get your arms out. Spread your fucking legs, you cunt.’ They then proceeded to beat him with rifle butts, while kicking him with heavy combat boots: ‘Get your fucking hands on your head, you Irish cunt.’ The soldiers dragged him into the house, pinning him down with the aid of a self-loading rifle shoved into his mouth, which broke some teeth. His guard remarked: ‘I’d blow your brains out for tuppence, you rotten Irish cunt.’ While his mother screamed hysterically, Collins, his father and brother were arrested, and beaten with rifle butts as they lay on the floor of the Land Rovers that drove them away. Collins was forced to sing ‘The Sash’ with soldiers marking time by hitting him on the back. After a frightening spell in the army’s Bessborough barracks, the three were turned over to the RUC. They were eventually released when forensic scientists determined that the ‘explosives’ a sniffer dog had detected in the father’s car came from spilled creosote used to stain a fence. Collins explained the psychological effects of this mistreatment: ‘I would feel a surge of rage whose power unbalanced me: I would sit alone in my room and think with pleasure of blowing off the heads of those para scum.’ He became more and more involved in activities designed to support the H-Block prisoners in the Maze. After a lengthy induction period, he joined the PIRA, attending lectures in Dundalk and receiving the organisation’s Green Book. This gave the history of the organisation, its military rules and advice on how to resist deep interrogation—the army euphemism for a rough time.

Collins worked as a PIRA intelligence officer under the guise of his day job of Customs and Excise officer in Newry, where he inspected the papers of lorry drivers coming across the border. In his spare time, he was first tenor in the Cloughmore Male Voice Choir.

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