Father Mc Manus Responds to Blogger Delevan’s Distortions Was Not” Scathing” Towards Mc Cartneys

Posted By: March 29, 2013

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, a Richard Delevan telephoned from Dublin and left a message on the voice-mail of the Irish National Caucus, saying he was writing for The Evening Herald in Dublin, and that he wanted to talk to me about the proposed visit of the Mc Cartney sisters to Washington.I called him back.

He told me that he wanted to speak to me ” as I was a long-time respected leader in the Irish-American community”. That set off a little alarm bell in my mind, which I stilled just in case the man was being gracious.

I told him there was deep and profound sympathy among Irish-Americans for the Mc Cartney family, and absolute revulsion at the savage murder of poor RobertŠ and I described the murder as ” one of the very worst of all the many murders”.

I then told him I was very sensitive to the call of one of Robert’s sisters that their dead brother not be treated as” a political football”. And I kept stressing that Irish-Americans wanted justice for the Mc Cartney family. Mr. Delevan, however, kept pushing to know what repercussions the Mc Cartney U.S. visit would have on Sinn Fein and I kept insisting the issue was justice for the Mc Cartney family.

He then said he was not the one who was claiming that the Mc Cartney visit would affect Sinn Fein, but that one of the sisters had declared that they were going to America to straighten out Irish-Americans about the real nature of Sinn Fein. My response was as follows: If the objective is to get justice for the Mc Cartney family, then all decent Irish-Americans will support it. In my opinion, however, it would be a great disservice to Robert’s cause if the campaign were turned into yet another campaign to hurt Sinn FeinŠ that it would be a great mistake, and that, as a matter of fact, it would not workŠ that Gerry Adams had the trust of Irish-Americans and was hugely respected”.

Ironically, when we were finished I asked, ” have you got what you wanted?” Mr. Delevan replied he had and thanked me for very frankly and directly answering his questions.

Mr.Delevan would later write up his report ( http://richarddelevan.blogspot.com).
I had not realized he was a Blogger, as he had not told me. He did, however tell me that because The Evening Herald was not up on the Web he could not email me a copy of the article but that he would mail me a hard copy of his article as it appeared in The Evening Herald).

In his Blogg report, Mr. Delevan said I was ” particularly scathing” towards the Mc Cartney family.
How in God’s name could he possibly say that? For over 30 years I have often been attacked in the media for speaking up for justice and peace in Ireland (that, of course, goes with the territory). But I ‘ve rarely been falsely reported or misrepresented by a professional journalist, — even by the most hostile.
Mr. Delevan falsely reported and falsely distorted my position, which is one of total and profound sympathy for the Mc Cartney family and a deep desire to see justice for Robert. He as done exactly what one of Robert’s sister begged not to be done. He has used poor Robert as ” a political football”. God forgive him for that.