McCartney sisters may emigrate
Sunday October 07 2007
Two of Robert McCartney's sisters, Catherine and Paula, are planning to leave Belfast so that their families will not become targets of the IRA figures involved in the murder.
It has also emerged that most of the killers have been quietly re-integrated into Sinn Fein, which now shares power in Northern Ireland.
Catherine confirmed yesterday that she and her sister are "thinking about" emigrating. She has already been offered a teaching job in Western Australia and Paula is considering moving to Spain.
Their three other sisters, Clare, Gemma and Donna, and Robert's partner, Brigeen Hagans, who all have young families, are so far not considering emigration.
Paula and Catherine, who have led the campaign for Robert's killers to be brought to justice, were appalled to learn recently that one of the key suspects in the murder was given a well-paid 'community development' job after being interviewed by two members of Sinn Fein, both of whom were also in the bar the night their brother was stabbed to death by members of the IRA.
Despite the family's pleas, none of the large group of Sinn Fein members -- believed to be between 60 to 70 -- who were in Magennis's bar on the night of the murder has ever made a statement to the police.
Sinn Fein has been quietly reinstating figures who were in the bar that night and who it claimed to have expelled. Several now hold well-paid 'community' jobs in organisations controlled by Sinn Fein in working-class Catholic areas of Belfast.
The key suspect recently given a 'development' job in the community sector is barely literate and has no qualifications, despite the fact, Catherine said, that the job requires development analysis and report writing skills. The appointment has also angered local people whose children have gone through university and are unable to get such jobs. Despite the fact that the IRA-man has no qualifications and left school early with limited reading and writing skills, he is now earning a higher public salary than a school teacher.
The man, who served a prison sentence for IRA firearms offences, was "officer commanding" of the IRA in the Markets area where the McCartney's lived. According to witnesses he had a dispute with Robert McCartney's friend Brendan Devine and as he walked away he signalled to other IRA-men in the bar that the two were to be taken out and stabbed.
According to witnesses who spoke to the McCartney family, the man drew his finger across his throat as he walked away.
The IRA gang present then took carving knives from the pub kitchen and dragged the two outside and into a side street where both were repeatedly stabbed and beaten with sewer rods by up to nine men. Brendan Devine survived having had his throat slashed and suffering a wound from his lower abdomen to the tip of his chest. Robert was pronounced dead shortly after reaching hospital.
The murder was one of around 40 committed by the IRA during the so-called "peace process", which ultimately resulted in Sinn Fein going into power at Stormont with the DUP after "recognising" the PSNI and agreeing to serve on the North's Policing Board.
During their campaign, the McCartneys gave assistance to the family of Dubliner Joseph Rafferty, who was also murdered in April 2005 by an IRA-man doubling as a Sinn Fein election worker. Again, as in the case of Robert, Sinn Fein members who knew what happened refused to co-operate with gardai.
Catherine McCartney said she and her family could not be sure whether they or their children would be targeted by republicans angered at their campaign.
