At_Last

perpetrated on selected people of Ulster. The 'kidnapping' of McGuiness by the police, as it is usually called by his supporters, was precipitated when he came to the aid of his fiancee. But there was more to it than that, a much deeper prejudice against this poet and his fiancee. She was a way to get at him and he was a way to get at his father. Gavin's father, of similar name, was a Republican freedom fighter whose attacks on the 'Black & Tan bastards' were brutally effective, earning a name that translates "Death Ghost". Such English military quasi-police thugs as the Black and Tans, and worse, the Auxies, were brought to Ireland to suppress support for the republic. They terrified the people with raids into the villages, random violence, and outright looting. Many a hapless farmer was killed for merely being in his field when they passed, like buffalo shot from trains in the old American west. Any man who complained was branded an 'IRA conspirator'. Interestingly, these thugs, many fresh out of English jails, seldom encountered the real IRA. The exceptions were when they were attacked in reprisal for their crimes, by the IRA flying column. The Black & Tans went after easy prey. Victory over Irish 'criminals' was then heralded in English newspapers. A very effective propaganda ploy was to twist every IRA reprisal - for a Black and Tan or Auxie looting spree - into a Catholic attack on Protestants. The fact that some of the victims of IRA reprisals were royalist Catholics and that some of the IRA were Protestant Republicans, was routinely censured from the news. The actual nature of the reprisals was always simply Catholics were killing Protestants. Period. A 'two houses for a house' IRA policy followed in which for every Irish farm burned or invaded, two English or wealthy supporter houses would be destroyed. That worked rather well. The howling in the House of Lords was quite loud and sustained. The elder McGuinness died in his later years of complications of a wound received in one such reprisal. Young Gavin grew up on the stories of the injustices. However, rejecting violence, he never took up the quest beyond his writing. At this he excelled. Love for his father reflected in the emotional accuracy of the retellings of the old stories. Rich with such material, these accounts really angered the totally politicized police. Gavin's stories were compelling, memorized easily, and were, therefore, retold endlessly. The factual details were easily confirmed. In short, they were EFFECTIVE. Gavin's fiancee was beaten up by the police for merely entering a bake shop which 'was under surveillance as an IRA meeting place'. It wasn't. They knew who she was and were angry at her being a Protestant in "league with an IRA mouthpiece". When she protested of her treatment to officials, they jailed her, without any official charge, for "questioning". Clearly her incarceration was a cowardly jab at McGuinness Sr. and, more importantly, a warning to other Protestant girls to not consort with the Catholics. Gavin, seeking her release, was likewise held for questioning. No charges were ever stated for either of them. Later, this 'lapse of procedural detail' was to actually aid his invisibility as typical arrest records were never forwarded from the place of confinement to the county headquarters.

3