Talk:Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

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"Apparently"?[edit]

Nobody disputes that Bernadette was nearly assassinated by loyalists, or more accurately that loyalist hitmen pulled the trigger. The "apparently" qualifier is unnecessary. As for the irony of her life being saved by the British Army, what's more ironic is that these soldiers-- apparently assigned to watch the McAliskey household-- were nowhere to be found when the loyalists were battering the family's door down with a sledgehammer.

British soldiers and the assassination attempt[edit]

There's a 'citation needed' tag on the article referring to McAliskey's house being staked out by British troops during the loyalist assassination attempt. I don't have a copy handy, so I can't put page references in, but 'The Dirty War' by Martin Dillon should do... --Aim Here 14:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC) Bold text[reply]

"a soldier ran to a neighbour's house, commandeered a car, and drove to the home of a councillor to telephone for help" Surely at least one of them had access to a field radio ???? 213.40.119.11 (talk) 20:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously not. While they "failed" to stop the UFF terrorists going to the house, it is a safe bet that if they had stopped and searched every visitor to the house someone would have complained of harassment.86.42.193.17 (talk) 12:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whould this help to clarify the issue, I mean what are the odds of both patrols radios being out of order at the same time?

On 16 January 1981, using sledgehammers, members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters smashed down the front door to their home and both she and her husband were shot a multiple of times. Despite being under observation by an undercover team of (SAS) paratroopers, no attempt was made to prevent the attack. Fortunately however, the culprits were apprehended as the left the house. Soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders arrived shortly thereafter, but neither they nor the paratroopers posessed working radios so there was a further delay while a soldier left the scene to find a working telephone to call for medical help. Despite this inexplicable delay both the McAliskey survived the assasination attempt and were subsequebtly transferred by helicoptor to hospital in Dungannon and then onto Musgrave Park Hospital Military Wing in Belfast. The three attackers, including Ray Smallwoods, captured by the army patrol, were subsequently jailed.

"Public Servant, Secret Agent: The elusive life and violent death of Airey",[1] By Paul Routledge

Dgharmon (talk) 02:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are recruited from the Greenock area which is noted for its sectarianism. Many of the soldiers would of been Catholics. Devlin personally thanked them for saving her life. 2.30.71.130 (talk) 23:42, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Portable radios of the era were very limited and could have been inhibited by the local terrain, time of day, solar activity or quality of batteries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.177.59 (talk) 16:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yabg2_QNuXIC&lpg=PT335&ots=BCAIMG1bsz&dq=16%20January%201981%20%22Bernadette%20McAliskey%22&pg=PT341#v=onepage&q=16%20January%201981%20%22Bernadette%20McAliskey%22&f=false

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 05:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

UDA or UFF[edit]

Weren't the UFF responsible for the shooting not the UDA ?jeanne (talk) 07:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Just in relation to that. The article says she was shot by the UFF and later that Ray Smallwoods was jailed for this attack, however Ray Smallwoods was involved with the UDA. There is nothing on his article to suggest a link to the UFF. Which was it? 

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.107.201 (talk) 17:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
UFF was the name UDA used when they committed terrorist actions.--Batmacumba (talk) 22:50, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

'Injured in shooting' section[edit]

Sorry, 213.1.216.74 - what you've included is against policy, specifically those on verifiability and neutral point of view. Such material would need to be properly sourced before it could be included. BastunBaStun not BaTsun 10:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture[edit]

Can we really not find a better picture than this? It would be better to have none at all. Richard75 (talk) 01:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

British?[edit]

In the Swedish wikipedia I changed the initial sentence "Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a British politician..." to "Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a Northern Ireland politician..." but this was promptly changed back to British... on the grounds that she indeed was a member of the British Parliament, and had sworn allegiance to the queen in order to be an MP. Leaving aside that she may no longer be a politician, could the British politician statement be said to be correct? I pointed out that if that is the case then saying that Dalai lama is a Chinese is also correct... /MC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.88.197 (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. Gob Lofa (talk) 12:00, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
More misleading behaviour, User:Gob Lofa. This section does not address categorisation. Why did you say see talk? AusLondonder (talk) 22:10, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We should go by what reliable sources say, and a quick Google search confirms that Irish or Northern Irish would both be preferable to British. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:19, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Barred from entering/deported from US[edit]

This edit recently changed a heading in the article from "Barred from entering from USA" to "Deported from USA". Given that McAliskey doesn't seem to have been living in the US but rather was refused entry and then returned to Ireland, I would have thought that the former was more appropriate, although it should be "the USA" rather than "from USA". Cordless Larry (talk) 12:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The edit was a restore to prior to edits that removed references to her deportation. She was not refused entry until she was in the US and then deported. Thus it would seem more descriptive to use deported given that she travelled to the USA and was then kicked out. Kernel Saunters (talk) 12:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No real sourcing on this. I apologize for the edit comments 'Catholic communist' - no true Catholic would drag themselves down to the level of the 'New Times' jokers. Where's the meat? Where's the reliable sources? 118.92.203.57 (talk) 20:35, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please mark any sources you do not feel are WP:RS. The danger of removing them is that it may be seen as vandalism. We also don't remove deadlink references but mark them. I noted this in my edit summary. Also please engage in dialogue here before repeating as edit wars can lead to a block. From my perspective your edit was flagged up as vandalism and I carefully checked the refs and they seemed OK. Widefox; talk 20:59, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I marked the sources. Other articles use Counterpunch, so feel free to remove that tag at any time. Widefox; talk 02:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Religion in the infobox[edit]

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This RfC was a response to certain individuals insisting that the previous RfCs did not apply to their favorite pages (schools, political parties, sports teams, computer operating systems, organized crime gangs...) and had a clear consensus that in all all infoboxes in all Wikipedia articles, without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the "Religion=" parameter of the infobox.

In this RfC, there was a clear consensus to remove the "religion=" and "denomination=" parameters from all infoboxes, not just the ones that call atheism/agnosticism a religion.

There have been four RfCs on this, and all four showed the same overwhelming consensus. All of the RfCs also concluded that you are free to put a section about religion in the body of the article, subject of course to our usual rules such as WP:V, WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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The key to New York[edit]

I'm explaining my edit at length because I have no information except the 3 inline refs. One of them implies that the section is incorrect, while the others are ambiguous. But perhaps the section is supported by another source someone knows, but is not yet listed. For now, I'm editing the section, cutting out a little info so that what remains complies with all 3 current sources and the previous edit. The last three sentences of the "US tour" section previously stated:

In New York, Mayor John Lindsay arranged a ceremony where he would present a key to the city of New York. However, Devlin, frustrated with conservative elements of the Irish-American community, had quietly already left to return to Northern Ireland. In her place, she sent Eamonn McCann, who on her behalf explained that she would be gifted the key to a representative from the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party, believing the freedom of New York should go to the American poor.

However the 1st of the 3 refs after this (Keenan-Thomson 2009 https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/fidel-castro-in-a-miniskirt-bernadette-devlins-first-us-tour/), while it does not specifically say she received the key in person, says

Back in Ireland, Eamonn McCann admonished her for accepting the key to New York from Mayor John Lindsay, an American Republican famed for his mismanagement of the city. She responded by sending the key to New York with McCann, who was on his way to America to do his own speaking tour. McCann presented it to Robert Bay of the Black Panthers ‘as a gesture of solidarity with the black liberation and revolutionary socialist movements in America’.

Surely, McCann would not have agreed to being sent to receive the key if he thought it was wrong. Also, why would he go back to NI at the end of the tour, then immediately go back again on his own tour? It seems more likely that Devlin or a 3rd person accepted the key, before McCann passed it to the BPs for her.

The next ref (Dooley 1998, which Google Books won't let me select to copy https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lI5TDscIjLcC&pg=PA66&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) is ambiguous, and could support either version. The 3rd ref (NYT 3 Mar 70, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/03/archives/irish-give-key-to-city-to-panthers-as-symbol.html too lengthy to quote here) is again ambiguous, the only oddity being that McCann had a mimeographed [photocopied] message from Devlin, slightly odd if they'd discussed it in person, particularly as fax machines didn't yet exist, so even if she wrote it after their meeting, and posted it to him, he would have a typed or handwritten original. But perhaps he felt it so important that he kept the original safe, and presented a photocopy. My amended version is:

In New York, Mayor John Lindsay arranged a ceremony to present Devlin with a key to the city of New York. Devlin, frustrated with conservative elements of the Irish-American community, left the tour to return to Northern Ireland and, believing the freedom of New York should go to the American poor, sent Eamonn McCann to gift the key on her behalf to a representative from the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party. Enginear (talk) 03:12, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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