Rushlight Points Of View 
Historical Fact V’s Fiction
A Reader’s Response To “Out And About With Rushlight”
Joe, I apologise in advance for the length of this ‘post’ but it is one which I have been moved to make having read your fascinating and candid attempts to uncover and share with your readers, the hidden history of this land.
I recently decided to go ‘out and about’ and visit some of the places of interest which you have written about here on your website. I’ve driven through or past some of these small villages and sites many times previously - shamefully oblivious to the crimes against humanity that were committed there. Thanks to you Joe, and your own tireless efforts to shed the light of truth on our dark and sorrowful history I, and hopefully many others, have been informed and enlightened as to the reality of what actually took place in certain parts of County Antrim. Events which served no purpose but to degrade Irish people and displace them from the homes they had built on rich and fertile Irish soil.
Influenced by your own recollections, I went to Carmavy and also to the lush beauty of the countryside at Ballynure and Ballyeaston. Standing in the silence of the small graveyard at Carmavy, one can easily bring to mind the cruel and barbaric actions that were inflicted upon an unsuspecting people by Arthur Chichester and his army.
Picture in your mind the men, the fathers who could not protect their families from the black hearted yeomen. Picture the women, the mothers who could only watch in horror as their husbands and children were brutalised and killed before their gaze. If you listen with your heart as you stand in those places, you can almost hear their screams; their pleas for mercy. No mercy was shown. Picture the aftermath - the desolation, the realisation that you have been stripped of everything you once owned, everything you held dear; forcefully evicted and ejected as an object having no value or use.
How did they survive? What was it that caused the embers of resilience to grow into a burning flame of sheer determination and defiance? The English may have broken their bones, but they failed to break their spirit!
In our own recent battles to address the British invasion which continues today, we have taken great pride in holding up the heroic efforts of those we hail as our patriot dead as an example of how we too must persevere in the face of opposition and defy those who wish to oppress. We commemorate historical events which have been deemed ‘worthy’ of remembrance. Yet we have no little plaques on walls, no iconic memorials in place to honour those who gave so much so long ago. Are the events which happened under the bloodied hand of Arthur Chichester so unimportant that we simply choose to ignore them? Or are we ashamed to acknowledge what REALLY happened under the British?
Joe, you have rightly described what happened as “Ethnic Cleansing”; today, such actions would cause international outrage. Many incidents of this nature which took place throughout Europe and beyond are remembered with a sense of horror yet here in our own land, the majority are ignorant of our own history. These events have been overlooked and brushed aside - why?
What purpose is served in presenting a history which is swathed in a cloak of grey silk? The ‘greying’ of our history serves no one. Today grey is seen as something bland or boring but there is nothing boring or bland about the history you have brought to light Joe. Too many important and vital details have been left out of our history books or watered down by those who are unable to deal with the historical facts. The past is not to be lived in but it is to be learned from. How can we learn if we are only given half truths and diluted accounts of our history?
I find myself asking a question: Is Joe Graham the only historian passionate enough about the events which have shaped this land and the people on it; is he the only historian willing to stand up and tell us the truth? I’m not anybody of consequence Joe, just an ordinary citizen who happens to love this land and one who WANTS to know the real truth. I commend you in your own efforts to reclaim our history and share it with us - warts and all.
A Nation That Does Not Remember Its Dead Does Not Deserve Freedom
Within a few miles, as the crow flies, from the City of Belfast lies a site, Carmavy, where a brutal atrocity took place and yet few, if any, other than Rushlight Readers, know of it, it is a well buried secret. During the prelude to the Ulster Plantation raging English and Scottish Armies tore through the Antrim Plateau killing and burning all that stood before them.
The Irish Catholics of the townland ran for safety to their local chapel, which was cannon balled with them inside, set on fire and the walls toppled on top of them. Those who survived ran to the rocky mountain region which we now call Hannahstown. The land was cleared for planters from Scotland and England to take ’ownership’ of the lush farmlands of the fleeing natives, and so it remains to this day. The site the old Irish Catholic graveyard and Chapel lay in ruins for a couple of generations, those Catholics who had loved ones buried in the graveyard were forbidden under sentence of death not to visit or attempt to bury any more of their families at the grave yard. Eventually the Carmavy grave yard was levelled and the new local protestants took to burying their dead at the cemetery,(left) there is evidence that the stones of the Chapel were used to built some of the big crypts. No modern person could take offence all these years later at the fact that planter families took to burying their dead in the old cemetery, but what I do find offensive is that no trace of those people previously buried there or indeed the people massacred in the old Chapel exists today, not even a small memorial recalls those poor souls. Even in America the native people , the Indians, are being allowed that respect, the government there are bending over backwards in an attempt to redress the moral injustice done to the sites of the ancient dead, and America was not famous for its respect to minorities in the past, it seems nothing changes here and yet sadly they would have us believe that every one’s heritage and culture is respected here, that is a lie , either a lie or they are ignorant of the fact that within fifteen miles of Belfast there are at least ten more sites like Carmavy.. those poor Martyr’s lie in unmarked graves. I call on Sinn Fein and the SDLP parties at Stormont to redress this immediately as part of their Equality and Parity of Esteem agenda. I will also here remind readers that such things were part of the Civil Rights Demands, if things are not redressed then we are still second class citizens.
McGurk's Bar Massacre ..36 Years on Still No Justice
A chara,The 4th December is the 36th anniversary of the fifteen innocents who lost their lives in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. The atrocity was the first bloody indication of how Britain, in collusion with her loyalist terrorists, was to wage its dirty war against Irish men, women and children in the northeast of Ireland. The road, thenceforth, led directly to Bloody Sunday and beyond, to a long war that cut a swathe through two generations.With no hope of British authorities seriously re-examining what was a British military operation carried out by their UVF counter-gang, our campaign for truth will continue at least until a fully independent, internationally recognized and public investigation with powers of subpoena is convened. To commemorate the deaths of those we lost in McGurk’s and to celebrate their lives and the lives of those who survived, the families invite you to visit our campaign website at www.themcgurksbarmassacre.com. We would be particularly grateful if you would record any personal recollections or thoughts considering that time or the massacre’s context, for potential inclusion in our site. Indeed, you or members of your family may even have known people who got caught up in the bombing. Therefore, you can help us personalize each and every page in the victims’ memory by contacting us via the website above. We very much appreciate your time and effort.To those of you who have visited the website already and to those who have lent messages of support, we extend our heartfelt thanks. It is because of people like you that the site has had over 80,000 hits this past year from across the globe, is enriched each week and will continue to grow. Is mise le meas, Ciarán Mac Airt, grandson of Kitty Irvine