The British State and the 6 County Bit of Ireland – Hilary Benn’s Three Cover-Ups Are Protecting State Killers
Hilary Benn is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is very busy, scrambling to protect state killers.
Appalling vistas have come to the surface.
Three major scandals will not go away, public pressure is building up.
Number 1, The murder of Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Chairperson Sean Brown in 1997
The Sean Brown case is extraordinary – Hillary Benn is covering up the involvement of 25 people connected to British intelligence in a case that dates back to 1997. Let that sink in.
Campaigners for Sean Brown are very clear on what they want. We are well used to British government cover-ups in Ireland, and are even more used to Dublin governments bowing, scraping, and capitulating to Westminster diktats.
So, it is notable that Simon Harris – Dublin government Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) has grasped this cover-up must end. This news report is very telling :
The family of Sean Brown say they had a “very positive” meeting with Tánaiste Simon Harris in Government Buildings this evening, and they left him in “no doubt” about their ongoing campaign for a public inquiry into his murder.
Mr Brown was chairman of Bellaghy Wolfe Tones GAA in south Derry and was locking up the gates of the club when he was assaulted, abducted and murdered by a loyalist gang in May 1997.
The 61-year-old father of six was taken to a remote country lane outside Randalstown and shot six times.
Speaking after the meeting today, which last more than an hour, Mr Brown’s daughter Siobhan said the Tánaiste had been “very empathetic” about their father’s case.
She said: “We have made it known what we need.”
Source :
Tánaiste Simon Harris Supports campaign of Sean Brown’s Family – RTÉ News Report
On May 18 many thousands walked in a March for Truth to the GAA Club where Sean Brown was murdered in 1997. The significance of this is captured well in the following editorial published in one of the main 6 County newspapers, the Irish News :
It’s about time you listened to the people on this, Mr Benn
Irish News Editorial, May 19 2025
THE symbolism surrounding the Walk For Truth, in support of the family of Sean Brown, which drew an enormous and hugely dignified attendance in Co Derry on Friday night, was overwhelming in every way.
GAA members and people from across Ireland assembled at St Mary’s Church in Bellaghy before making the short journey to Páirc Seán de Brún, the home of the village’s Wolfe Tones GAC.
Most of the participants wore the colours of their own clubs, at the request of the Brown family, as they highlighted the irrefutable case for a public inquiry into a murder which by any standards continues to have massive implications.
“Most of the participants wore the colours of their own clubs, at the request of the Brown family, as they highlighted the irrefutable case for a public inquiry into a murder which by any standards continues to have massive implications
Mr Brown, was aged 61, the chairman of Wolfe Tones GAC and a hugely respected figure in his area, when he was abducted by the Loyalist Volunteer Force as he locked the gates of the club on May 12 1997.
He was beaten and forced into the back of his own car before it was driven in a convoy a distance of some ten miles, along a route which went past Toome RUC station, to a secluded laneway near Randalstown where he was shot dead.
No one has ever been convicted of involvement in the outrage, and appallingly prolonged attempts to establish the full circumstances have been repeatedly frustrated by the British authorities over the last 28 years.
A court was told last year more than 25 people, including state agents, had been linked by intelligence material to Mr Brown’s murder, and a coroner ruled an inquest could not continue due to vital material being withheld on the grounds of what was said to be “national security.”
In a landmark decision, judges at the Court of Appeal in Belfast declared that the British government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry was illegal, through an order set to take effect on June 2 2025, which the secretary of state Hillary Benn is appealing against to the Supreme Court in London It always needs to be stressed that every murder in the course of the Troubles was entirely wrong and capable only of causing grief and bitterness on an enormous scale, regardless of the background.
However, when firm evidence is established that the state may have played a role in the assassination of one of its own citizens, then, even allowing for the way in which the British government has persistently mishandled the complexities of the legacy debate, it is impossible to see how a public inquiry can be avoided.
Mr Brown’s courageous widow, Bridie, now aged 87, has already waited too long for justice, and Mr Benn needs to listen to the powerful message sent out by the gathering in Bellaghy on Friday.
Source :
“It’s About Time You Listened to the People on This, Mr Benn” Irish News (Belfast) May 19 2025
Number 2, Unsolved 1970’s Crimes – Lost Boys of Belfast and the Kincora Child Abuse Scandal
Here are carefully chosen recent words of Belfast journalist Suzanne Breen, Belfast Telegraph political correspondent and a frequent contributor to BBC NI politics programmes :
“Chris Moore says William McGrath worked for MI5, and it’s even possible that he was planted in the children’s home as part of an intelligence-gathering operation. The journalist makes a compelling case that MI5 — at the very least — knew about what was happening and kept quiet.
Shamefully, there has been no adequate inquiry into Kincora. Some files have been destroyed, while others have been locked away by the British government to 2065 and 2085.
The most marginalised and vulnerable children were raped by powerful men, allegedly including King Charles’ grand uncle.
The building at the centre of the scandal was demolished three years ago, but the cover up of the crimes committed behind its walls continues.It is long past the time that the full truth was told about what happened in the house of horrors.”
Number 3, The death of British Informer Denis Donaldson in 2006
This Irish News (May 21) story carries a statement issued by Jane Donaldson, a daughter of Denis Donaldson. No further comment is necessary.
Denis Donaldson’s Daughter says father ‘thrown to wolves’ while Stakeknife ‘carefully sheltered’ by British and republicans
Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, May 21st, 2025
A DAUGHTER of murdered informer Denis Donaldson has highlighted the difference in approach shown to her father and British agent Stakeknife by state forces and republicans.
The former Sinn Féin official was shot dead in April 2016 at a remote cottage in Co Donegal after being exposed as an MI5 agent.
The deadly attack was later claimed by the now defunct Real IRA, although Mr Donaldson’s family has branded the admission “bogus”.
Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is currently suing the BBC in a Dublin court over claims broadcast in 2016 that he ordered the killing of Mr Donaldson.
Mr Donaldson was thrust into the public spotlight in 2002 when an alleged IRA spy-ring was exposed at Stormont.
The controversy, dubbed ‘Stormontgate’, resulted in the collapse of the fledgling administration.
As the peace process evolved he played a central role as part of Sinn Féin’s backroom team.
West Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, a former commander of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit (ISU), was named as Stakeknife in 2003.
Double Standards
Denis Donaldson was shot dead in Co Donegal
Also known as the ‘nutting squad’, the ISU was responsible for hunting down and killing informers.
After initially denying he was an agent, Scappaticci later moved to England and is said to have died in April 2023.
In a statement on Tuesday, his daughter Jane Donaldson repeated her family’s dismissal of the Real IRA claim.
“It has been speculated that some republicans and some in state agencies shared a common contempt for the fate of my father,” she said.
“However, my family has made it publicly known that we never accepted the bogus claim of responsibility, which lacks all credibility, by a single Real IRA source in 2009.”
A 2022 Police Ombudsman’s report found no evidence of PSNI involvement or collusion in the murder, although Marie Anderson said the force had been guilty of a “corporate failure”.
Corporate Failure
“So far, all that we have proven through the Police Ombudsman, is the ‘corporate failure’ by British state agencies to protect my father’s life,” Ms Donaldson said.
“On the other hand, it is now a matter of public record that before my father was exposed, the identity of the British Agent Stakeknife had been protected by a number of common interests.”
Ms Donaldson contrasted the treatment of her father to that of Stakeknife.
“As I wrote last year, while my father was subsequently thrown to the wolves, agent Stakeknife had – for some time – been carefully sheltered in west Belfast by British security agencies and by republicans, before being publicly defended and then quietly shepherded away to safety in England,” she said.
“None of those involved have accounted for that.
“The full truth has still to emerge about the conspiracy surrounding my father’s exposure and murder.”
Ms Donaldson said that although references have been made to members of her family in the ongoing legal case in Dublin, her family “are not a party to those proceedings”
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
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