The Funeral Murders

Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby

From the opening moments of acclaimed documentary-maker Vanessa Engle’s The Funeral Murders, it was clear that she was aware that saying the wrong word in a part of the world where one of the favourite catchphrases is “Whatever you say, say nothing” could get her into trouble.

“How much mess can I get myself into making this programme if I use the wrong word?” she asked a Belfast nationalist. “A terrible mess,” he answered with a wry smile. “Words mean everything here, even the words Northern Ireland.

People object to it. It’s the north of Ireland. Terminology is vital.”

If you’re still confused, what he meant was that where he lives is merely a compass point on the island of Ireland and not part of a separate state. Yes, I know, it’s still as clear as mud, but at least the current battle of words is infinitely more preferable to the murderous conflict revisited in this harrowing investigation of the events of one of the worst weeks of the 30 years in Ulster known rather euphemistically as ‘the Troubles’.

The hour-long film followed the chilling events that took place before, during and immediately after two Belfast funerals 30 years ago. When three members of the Provisional IRA, two men and a woman, were shot and killed by the SAS in Gibraltar while planning to bomb a British

Army parade, their bodies had to be flown to Dublin because baggage handlers airport at the refused Belfast to touch the coffins.

While one former policeman interviewed by Engle felt that the three wouldbe bombers got what they deserved, one of their relatives pointed out that they were unarmed at the time of their death and could have been arrested without any McCann, blood one being of the shed. dead The men, cousin described of Dan him as “a gentle giant”.

“A gentle paramilitary giant?” asks Engle, only to be told that the IRA prefers the word ‘volunteer’. “Yeah, but that makes you sound as if you work in the local charity shop,” replied the filmmaker – a brief moment of humour in an otherwise deeply depressing expose of the depths to which people can sink in a tribal conflict.

To the neutral outsider no one could sink much lower than Michael Stone, the man who attacked the mourners at the Belfast cemetery with grenades and bullets, killing three men and seriously injuring scores of women and children, yet one Loyalist leader recalled how, as a 12-year-old, he and his father jumped for joy when they heard news of the attack.

A former Scots soldier countered this by suggesting that one of the men Stone killed would have been awarded the Victoria Cross if he had exhibited the same level of bravery in a British uniform.

When, three days later, two British soldiers were dragged from their car, beaten, stripped and executed at the funeral of another of the SAS’s victims, another Scotsman, a nationalist sympathiser, was horrified at the conduct of the mob.

The Loyalist who had jumped for joy 30 years ago said: “If it had been two Republicans at a Loyalist funeral, they’d have got the same treatment.”

One would hope that young people on both sides of the divided society will do everything they can to avoid going down the same road as the previous generation but, as things stand, that may turn out to be a forlorn hope.

Further south in Ireland, presenters Giles Coren and Monica Galetti visited Ashford Castle in the village of Cong in another episode of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby. I have fond memories of this grand hotel. More than 30 years ago I played the part of ager the in hotel’s a French manfilm that included Fred Astaire in the cast. At the end of the first day’s shoot he asked me if I’d like to join him and his daughter and sonin-law for dinner. It was quite a surreal experience, but that’s enough namedropping for now. Originally built by the Normans as a bulwark against the Irish peasantry, the castle is now a luxury hotel that provides a Downton Abbey-like experience for wealthy tourists, with rooms ranging from £300 to £4,000 a night. It provides work for more than 400 local folk, who are only too happy to do a bit of bowing and scraping for the same sort of people that their antecedents fought tooth and nail to get rid of. One senior employee took Coren to see the skeletal remains of another grand mansion that had been burned out by Irish rebels in their struggle for independence and expressed the view that the said rebels had been misguided in their destruction of what he referred to as Ireland’s heritage. This is certainly a pragmatic view of Irish history, but not one shared by too many of his fellow citizens north of the border, I suspect.

“One would hope that young people on both sides of the divided society will do everything they can to avoid going down the same road as the previous generation”