‘We were Sinn Fein's friends in America, the people they could count on — until they wanted to change their image ... but I've no regrets'
For almost two decades, he was the public face of the IRA in the US. New York lawyer Martin Galvin was regarded as so dangerous by the authorities here that he was prohibited from entering the UK.
In August 1984 he defied the ban to appear at an anti-internment rally in west Belfast.
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Norman Tebbit, forgiveness and my father, the IRA bomber
Norman Tebbit, who died this week at the age of 94, embodied a sterner Britain. His political career was remarkable but it paled in comparison with his unyielding love for his wife Margaret, whom he wheeled through life for four decades after the IRA's Brighton bomb paralysed her body in 1984. Tebbit never forgave those who nearly killed him and left his beloved wife in pain for the rest of her days. My dad met Tebbit several times, earning his 'hero of the week' nod in his Sun column for exposing the IRA My father, Sean O'Callaghan, was an IRA bomber who turned against his comrades and, in doing so, saved countless lives. He thwarted a bomb plot in 1983 aimed at Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Yet his early sins – planting bombs, plotting murders – haunted him to his grave. Tebbit's death stirred something deep, not just in me but in the regulars of my Oxfordshire pub who trickled in after news of his death emerged on Tuesday, their voices thick with memories of Tebbit. It stirred thoughts of forgiveness – or its absence – and what that word demands of us. My dad met Tebbit several times, earning his 'hero of the week' nod in his Sun column for exposing the IRA. Tebbit respected him, not least for his refusal to soften his edges. But could a man like my father ever find redemption in the eyes of someone like Tebbit, who had paid such a terrible price for the IRA's campaign of terror? In 1974, my father helped kill Eva Martin, the first Greenfinch, female Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier, who died in the 'Troubles', and murdered RUC detective Peter Flanagan. Until his dying day, these events shadowed him. Yet he sought redemption with fierce resolve, handing himself into the police in 1988 to face his past. He confessed to murders and other felonies in Britain and Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to all and was sentenced to 539 years in prison. He was released in 1996 after being granted the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by Queen Elizabeth II having served seven years. My father's road was brutal, but he achieved what few do. He knew his worth, understood his flaws, and faced them unflinchingly. Despite his guilt, I am proud to be his son. He pursued redemption with a single-minded ferocity that consumed him, body and soul. He risked his life, his freedom, living as a hunted man to warn authorities, thwart attacks, and dismantle the IRA's machinery of death. Each act was a plea for atonement, a brick laid on a road towards a destination he never felt he reached. His drive tore through our family like a storm – years of fear, fractured bonds, lives upended by his choice to stand against terror. Yet many forgave him. To police, victims' families, even strangers, he was a living testament to redemption through action, a man who bled for his amends. Still, he never forgave himself, his guilt a shadow he couldn't outrun. Tebbit, too, carried a debt, not of guilt but of loyalty to his wife and principle. He never forgave the IRA, nor did he pretend to. Forgiveness, he seemed to say, must be earned through deeds, not words. Contrast this with others who've faced terror's scars. Jo Berry, whose father Sir Anthony Berry was murdered in the Brighton bombing, forgave Patrick Magee, the bomber. She built a dialogue with him, seeking understanding over retribution. Gordon Wilson, whose daughter Marie was murdered in the 1987 Enniskillen bombing, forgave the IRA publicly, his voice breaking with Christian charity. Their acts of forgiveness were noble, even saintly, but they jar in my taproom, where regulars – carpenters, farmers, old soldiers – judge a man by his actions. Magee's 'regret' for murdering Berry feels like a hollow sham. You regret spilling milk, not murder. His vague contrition, peddled, it would seem, in order to pose as a commentator on peace and reconciliation, exploits Berry's overwhelming grief – a raw, fathomless wound he's gaslighted for his own gain. Unlike my father, who surrendered everything to save others, Magee offers no genuine sacrifice, no deeds to match his words. Redemption demands action – prison served, lives saved, remorse proven – not empty platitudes. Tebbit's life was a testament to love forged in adversity. He cared for Margaret without pity or fanfare, his devotion a quiet rebuke to a world that mistakes sentiment for strength. In my pub, where stories of loss and loyalty flow as freely as the ale, his example resonates. A regular, Mick, told me of his brother, killed in Belfast in 1982. 'No one's said sorry,' he growled, 'so why should I let it go?' His words echo Tebbit's resolve: forgiveness without accountability is surrender. My father, too, understood this. His meetings with Tebbit, though private, were marked by mutual respect – not for shared views, but for shared clarity. Neither believed in absolution without cost. Britain's soul, like its pubs, thrives on honesty, not platitudes. Labour's recent follies – surrendering Chagos, ceding fishing grounds – show a government too eager to appease, too quick to forgive slights against our sovereignty. Tebbit would have scorned such weakness. His Britain demanded respect, not apologies. So, as I stack crates and scrub taps, I raise a quiet toast to Tebbit. Forgiveness is no salve unless it's earned through remorse, restitution, and action. My father knew it, sacrificing all for redemption, forgiven by many but not himself. Mick knows it, nursing his pint and his pain. In this pub, where truth is poured as freely as beer, we know it too. Tebbit's legacy, like a well-pulled pint, is clear, strong, and unyielding. Let's not water it down.
Spectator
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Why Ross Greer would be good for the Scottish Green party
Ross Greer is for Palestine, trans rights and riling up the Daily Express, making him the ideal candidate to lead the Scottish Greens. At an event in Glasgow today, the West Scotland MSP put himself forward as a successor to Patrick Harvie, who is standing down after 17 years at the helm of the environmentalist party that occasionally takes an interest in the environment. Under Harvie's leadership, the Greens have prioritised cultural and identity politics over economics and ecology, helping to push the Gender Recognition Reform Bill through Holyrood and press for free bus travel for asylum seekers (an idea pinched by the SNP-run Scottish government). The pragmatic radicalism on offer from Ross Greer is a wiser course to take Harvie and co-leader Lorna Slater became the first Green ministers in British history when they joined Nicola Sturgeon's devolved administration in its final two years. The alliance was not politically productive (the gender bill was blocked by Westminster and a bottle recycling scheme came to nothing) and it ended badly (Harvie and Slater were abruptly booted by Sturgeon's successor, Humza Yousaf) but the exercise proved the Greens could misgovern just as well as any other party. Greer cut his teeth working on the Yes Scotland campaign during the 2014 independence referendum. Since entering Holyrood in 2016, he has made a name for himself as a gammon-baiting, woker-than-thou, omnicause progressive, with a lanyard for every occasion and every liberation. He's fond of the Soviet anthem, the chant 'We're selling the Falklands when Thatcher dies' and taking his Scottish parliament oath with a raised fist. He calls Churchill a 'white supremacist' and 'mass murderer', his dream dinner date is the IRA revolutionary Michael Collins, and he recently tried to remove all references to 'His Majesty' in Scottish public bodies and legislation. In other words, he's adorable. However, despite Greer's gift for leftist posturing, he has earned himself the enmity of a faction known as the Glasgow group: Green councillors and activists who reckon the far-left party could be a lot farther left. Greer understands that an ideological lurch would kill the golden goose. The Greens have a growing voter base of young, urban, precariously middle-income graduates to supplement their more traditional support among the comfortably retired, the guilty affluent, and assorted cranks. This Deliveroo-Waitrose alliance is essential to the party's development and, on current polling, will give them their best result yet at next year's Holyrood elections. That is unless they trash all the work they've done and cascade down a purity spiral, narrowing their own ranks and pushing away hyper-progressive, theoretically social democratic voters who identify with the Greens' culturally leftish messaging but would suffer materially from meaningfully socialist fiscal policies. At his launch, Greer stressed the importance of being more than 'a party of protest' and while he hammered home the need to tax the 'super rich', he struck a more nuanced note when questioned on raising additional revenue from higher earners. In common with most other parties in British politics today, the Greens are economic populists and have settled on wealth taxation as a way of costing expensive policies (e.g. universal free bus travel) without having to confront hard questions about income tax. Telling the electorate the brutal truth, that if they want quality public services taxes on basic and middle-earners will have to rise, would go down like a dose of strychnine on the doorstep. Keeping their voter coalition together requires the Greens to stick to Zohran Mamdani-style vibes-based progressivism. They need to make a great deal of noise about taking on the rich and powerful but pursue a melange of populist fiscal reforms and high-status social policies that might inconvenience the rich and powerful here and there and will definitely upset the traditional-minded among their number. One thing these policies certainly will not do is alter the fundamentals of the economy in a decisively egalitarian direction. People vote Green for one of two reasons: to prove that they're good people or to stick it to those they resent. The principal business of a Scottish Green leader is to maintain and, with any luck, expand these electoral blocs. Sharper ideological definition is likely to have the opposite effect, which is why the pragmatic radicalism on offer from Ross Greer is a wiser course to take. Skelp the super-rich but keep the middle earners and modestly wealthy on board by selling them leftist vibes at centrist prices.
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3 days ago
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Féile representative tells council ‘no complaints' received over pro-IRA chants at festival
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