Sam Smyth: Playboy priest was able to get away with murder

The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman's report (above) reveals how Claudy bomber Fr Chesney (inset) was protected by the authorities and the church

Sam Smyth

August 25 2010 04:44 AM

THE story of the playboy priest with the matinee-idol good looks and the murderous secrets has never been fully explored or explained.

A lot of people got away with murder in Northern Ireland. Few, however, managed to do so with the knowledge of so many in positions of authority.

Fr James Chesney died of cancer in 1980, eight years after his alleged central role in killing nine innocent civilians.

According to security sources, he had been the Provisional IRA's quartermaster and director of operations in south Derry.

The priest had raced along the country roads of Co Derry in his sports car and cash registers 'kerchinged' all day every Sunday in his parish near Desertmartin.

Traffic jams formed after the grannies had left the £1,000 bingo afternoon sessions and as younger folk arrived for the dance in the evening.

As curate in Cullion, the smallest parish in the county, the young priest from a wealthy family often played poker all night.

SDLP MP and civil rights campaigner Ivan Cooper described Fr Chesney as "dark and strikingly handsome, an extremely magnetic and engaging man".

But the apparently untouchable curate helped plan the bombing of Claudy and later provided crucial alibis for the other bombers.

Why was the prime suspect for one of the most coldly calculated mass murders in the blood-soaked history of the Provisional IRA never even questioned?

The atrocity for which the Provos have never admitted responsibility and in which Fr Chesney vehemently denied any involvement sundered the quiet village seven months after Derry's Bloody Sunday in 1972.

It was a shocking crime in the most violent year of the Troubles, when nearly 500 died as Northern Ireland teetered on the brink of sectarian civil war.

About a month after the bombing, on July 31, 1972, it was common knowledge around Derry and Belfast that a 'Provo priest' was involved in the Claudy bombings.

The governments in London and Dublin, police on both sides of the Border and the Roman Catholic cardinal in Armagh had strong suspicions about the charismatic curate in Cullion.

The person who would have known most intimately about Fr Chesney's involvement was the Provisional IRA commander in Derry, Martin McGuinness.

After the bombing in Claudy, the RUC had strong intelligence that Fr Chesney was a senior Provo who had helped to plan the atrocity.

There was no witness evidence and inconclusive forensic evidence of explosives in Fr Chesney's car would not have been sufficient to successfully prosecute him.

In the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday, the nationalist and republican people in Northern Ireland were deeply suspicious of, and hostile to, the security forces.

The priest vehemently denied any IRA involvement and the RUC were extremely reluctant to risk the wrath that would follow a failed prosecution of a Catholic priest.

The dilemma was presented to the British secretary of state Willie Whitelaw, who met the Catholic primate Cardinal Conway on December 5, 1972.

Apparently, Cardinal Conway was aware of the suspicions about Fr Chesney even before the British minister told him about the curate's outrageous behaviour.

The then Bishop of Derry, Neil Farren, instructed Fr Chesney to answer the allegations regarding his links to the Provisional IRA.

Bishop Edward Daly was also at the meeting and he later said that Fr Chesney "utterly, unequivocally and vehemently" denied any involvement with either the IRA or the bombing of Claudy.

However, Fr Chesney did say that he had very strong republican sympathies, according to Bishop Daly. It was decided to appoint him curate in Malin Head.

Removed to one of the most northerly peninsulas in Donegal, Fr Chesney still continued to cross the Border back into Northern Ireland.

Even after traces of explosives had been found in his car, Fr Chesney was not arrested, although the RUC believed he was "quartermaster and director of operations of the south Derry Provisional IRA".

According to a report published by the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland yesterday, intelligence linked Fr Chesney to the Claudy bombing in which nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, were killed.

Why was he never questioned by the RUC? Why was he allowed to move to Donegal? Why was permitted to make frequent cross-border trips without hindrance?

The 26-page report by Ombudsman Al Hutchinson explains how Fr Chesney was allowed to ignore justice and operate above the law after secretary of state Whitelaw had met Cardinal Conway.

But it doesn't satisfactorily explain why.

Maybe the arrest of a priest and the absence of evidence that could convict him would have pushed Northern Ireland even closer to all-out civil war.

Loyalist paramilitaries would almost certainly have used public suspicions about Fr Chesney to make Catholic priests "legitimate targets" for murder.

But the report concludes that the RUC was guilty of a "collusive act" by acquiescing to a deal between the British government and the Catholic Church to move Fr Chesney to the Republic. It adds that the decision "failed those who were murdered, injured or bereaved" in the bombing

The tale of the playboy priest is a gripping but sickening story of vainglorious and perverted patriotism. And everyone involved, from governments to church, to paramilitary bombers, to police is indelibly stained by the shame.

ssmyth@independent.ie