THE NORTH’S Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness told yesterday of how he met Fr James Chesney shortly before his death but that he knew nothing of the allegations that the priest was one of the Claudy bombers.
Mr McGuinness said while he was in the IRA in Derry city in 1972 he did not know who carried out the attack and still didn’t know.
The Claudy bombing happened on July 31st, 1972, killing nine people and injuring over 30. It happened on the same day as Operation Motorman, a major British army manoeuvre to clear no-go areas in Derry.
It was viewed as a diversionary tactic by the IRA at the time, even though the IRA has never formally admitted it was responsible for the three car bombs that exploded in the south Co Derry village which is 10 miles from Derry city.
Last month the North’s Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson endorsed the allegation that at the time the RUC had high-level intelligence that Fr Chesney was one of the bombers.
He also reported how the RUC was in contact with former Northern secretary William Whitelaw and former Catholic primate Cardinal William Conway about the allegations and that Fr Chesney was transferred out of Derry to a parish in Donegal and that he was never arrested by police about the bombing.
The DUP MP for East Derry Gregory Campbell, several other politicians and some of the bereaved and injured in the Claudy attack, including Ulster Unionist Derry city councillor Mary Hamilton, have challenged Mr McGuinness to be forthcoming about the bombing.
In 2002 in an interview with BBC’s Spotlight programme Mr McGuinness said he never met Fr Chesney. But he said yesterday that shortly before Fr Chesney’s death from cancer in 1980 the priest asked to see him.
“When I met Fr Chesney . . . I was unaware at that time of the allegations against him,” he said.
“I was asked to visit him as someone who was dying and was a republican sympathiser. Sadly I have had many such meetings over the years. The Claudy attack or the IRA were not discussed in our conversation,” added Mr McGuinness.
“There was no discussion whatsoever about IRA actions of any description. It was basically a political discussion on his strong views that Ireland should be united,” he said.
“In 2002 I gave my statement to the BBC in good faith. It is only recently that in the controversy surrounding the publication of the ombudsman’s report and the allegations from RUC sources about Fr Chesney that I was reminded of my visit to him shortly before his death. That is the only contact I ever had with Fr Chesney,” he said.
Mr McGuinness said he was aware that there was a public perception that the IRA was behind the Claudy attack but that he didn’t know who was responsible. “I was in Derry city at the time of the move by the British army into the city and that was on the same day as the Claudy bomb,” he said.
“I was very angry when I heard that a number of bombs had exploded in Claudy and that innocent people had been killed and I think those people in Claudy are entitled to the truth,” he added.
He said the IRA in Derry city “played no part” in the bombing. He also met “two very senior members of the IRA in Dublin” at the time. “I asked was the IRA involved in the Claudy bomb and they told me no, and it has been a mystery ever since.”
Mr McGuinness said he was sympathetic to the view of the former Catholic bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, who expressed scepticism about whether the priest was implicated. The perception about the IRA and Fr Chesney could have arisen from information put out by the RUC, he suggested.