Irish America

Irish America

Brian Dooley

Campaign for Justice 50 Years On

By Brian Dooley
IA Newsletter, October 5, 2024

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Guildford Pub Bombs Continue to Haunt Victims and the British Criminal Justice System 50 years later.  Exactly 50 years ago, on Saturday night October 5, 1974, IRA bombs exploded in two pubs in the Surrey town of Guildford, south of London.  But despite a series of trials, appeals, an official inquiry and a coroners inquest, the full story of the attacks is still not … [Read more...] about Campaign for Justice 50 Years On

British Government Finally Grants
Finucane Family an Inquiry

By Brian Dooley
IA Newsletter, September 14, 2024

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Back in February 1989, George H.W. Bush had just succeeded Ronald Reagan as U.S. president. Margaret Thatcher was the British prime minister, and the conflict in Northern Ireland had another decade to run. Pat Finucane, a 39-year-old human rights lawyer living in Belfast, was shot dead in his home by members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) on 12 February of that year. … [Read more...] about

British Government Finally Grants
Finucane Family an Inquiry

Impunity and The Northern Ireland Conflict

By Brian Dooley
IA Newsletter July 6, 2024

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An international expert panel from Norway, Argentina, Israel, and Ireland has produced a monster piece of research on the British forces during the North of Ireland conflict that details impunity for torture, hundreds of killings, and many more in the context of collusion. Brian Dooley, Senior Advisor at Washington DC-based Human Rights First, and Honorary Professor of Practice … [Read more...] about Impunity and The Northern Ireland Conflict

Bloody Sunday’s Legacy

By Brian Dooley

June / July 2000

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On January 30, 1972 the British Army opened fire on civil rights marchers in Derry. Thirteen people were killed and 14 others were seriously injured. Note: This story was filed in March, 2000 when a new inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings, the Saville Inquiry was launched. Expected to last two years, it was 12 years before a report was filed. The wounded survivors … [Read more...] about Bloody Sunday’s Legacy

English or Irish?

By Brian Dooley, Contributor
October / November 2000

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My south London schoolmates and I struggled with our Irishness during the 1970s. Nearly all of us had Irish parents who had settled in England in the 1940s and 1950s, but we had been born and raised in London. Did that make us English or Irish? Most of us made regular summer trips to Ireland, looked Irish, even knew a few Irish words. Some of us just felt Irish – all our … [Read more...] about English or Irish?