Some thoughts on the life and death of Pat Finucane

For almost as long as I can remember, Pat Finucane was shunned by the bulk of the Irish media; he was contagious it was said, toxic even, and any journalist who associated with him risked the label ‘Provo fellow traveller’, a career threatening tag to be sure.

But risks like that are what journalists are paid to take and no-one was more eager to do that than myself, caring dangerously little what other reporters or editors thought or whispered to each other over late night pints.

In those days there was almost a class split in the choice of legal representation, not least in the IRA. Leaders like Gerry Adams had the late, great ‘Paddy’ PJ McGrory – a friend and long time confidante of Charlie Haughey no less – arguing their case in court when necessary, while the IRA rank and file had to settle for Pat Finucane and junior colleagues from his firm.

Get close to PJ McGrory, and, so it was hinted darkly, you might come close, almost to Army Council thinking, someone on long and close terms with Gerry Adams; less so Pat Finucane. The truth was that when you met, it was he peppering the reporter with questions. Nonetheless no lawyer knew the heart and soul of the Provo rank and file better than he. He was also a very sharp advocate to have on your side.

So it was that in the late 1980’s, I decided to make contact with Pat. We agreed that we would meet in an hotel bar on the Antrim Road, usually on a Monday evening, once a month or so, where we would chew the fat and enjoy a pint or two. That was a deliberate choice. Bars in pricey joints like hotels, even on the Antrim Road, were most frequented at the weekend, but on a Monday or Tuesday night you’d likely have the bar to yourselves, free of prying eyes and flapping ears.

But it was hard when you met Pat to avoid the thought that the man was living on the edge. The RUC hated him and Loyalists despised him; sometimes, when meeting him, you knew that the man sipping a drink with you was on a limited life span. And so it transpired.

When the news came that he had been shot dead by the UDA, the only surprise was that it hadn’t happened long before. The RUC loathed him and there is no doubt in my mind that quietly, many a policeman cheered when the news came that he had been killed.

The part of the Pat Finucane story that has never really been told is that played by media in his killing.

In a very real sense, some members of the media were effectively complicit in his death. The Christmas before he was killed saw myself and another reporter having Christmas lunch with the UDA commander for the Shankill Road area and the memory of the conversation is burned deep in my memory.

The UDA man brought up the subject of Pat Finucane’s alleged role as a ‘Provo fellow traveller’, and he told us what had happened very recently when the UDA’s leading killer had been arrested. The UDA gunman may have expected a rough time from the police interrogators but that is not what happened.

Instead he was brought into an interrogation room where the detectives, all Special Branch men, berated the gunman for picking innocent Catholics to kill when there were targets like Pat Finucane, Paddy McGrory and Oliver Kelly – all defence lawyers whose whose deaths they said would inflict real damage on the Provos. Within a fortnight Pat Finucane was dead.

Not for the first occasion in my time as a journalist I was faced with a dilemma when I heard about the threat to the lawyers; should I warn the lawyers or stay silent? When, to my horror, I heard my lunch companion tell the UDA chief that Pat Finucane was indeed a Provo, there was no choice; to stay silent would effectively make me guilty of murder. So I chose to warn them. I went to Paddy McGrory, who I knew best, and he contacted Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach, who, I was told, took the appropriate action – or so I was assured.

But it was not enough to save Pat Finucane.

So who killed him? The UDA, who pulled the trigger; the RUC who pointed the gunmen in his direction or those in the media who quietly approved Pat Finucane’s assassination? The answer, sadly, is all three.