Victims and survivors tour Rockland County, Philadelphia, Washington DC and New York City, presenting the film ‘No Stone Unturned’ facilitating discussions on the themes of the State policy of collusion.
Victims and survivors of the Loughinisland atrocity will travel to America at the beginning of March to inform the Irish American community and politicians as to the crisis which is currently afflicting the political institutions generally and victims of the Troubles, personally.
The Good Friday Agreement which is 20 years old in April, is currently in tatters with intransigence to equality and parity of esteem for the nationalist identity the core reasoning for this. From the perspective of victims and survivors of state violence, the despair which afflicts the homes of thousands is personified by Clare and Emma Rogan. The Loughinisland families are representative of too many families who are persistently denied access to justice.
The British Government have failed to implement the legal architecture which had been previously politically agreed at the Stormont House and Fresh Start Agreements, which has created a justice vacuum. In the absence of a Historical Investigations Unit, the replacement for the failed HET, the inability of the Police Ombudsman to publish any further reports in accordance with his statutory duty under s62 of the Police Act 1998, and the failure to accede to the request by the Lord Chief Justice for funds to resource legacy inquests, Britain’s compliance with its internationally binding legal obligations under article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, was in tatters.
This Justice vacuum has led to families taking to the streets, in a mass expression of frustration with a March for Truth on Sunday 25th February. The Loughinisland families have joined with the Ballymurphy Massacre Committee, the McGurks Bar Commemoration Committee, the Springhill Massacre Group, the Kellys Bar Campaign and the New Lodge Six Time for Truth Campaign, to appeal to the wider community for solidarity to demonstrate the depth of civic anger at this failure to protect the interests and needs of victims.
Clare and Emma Rogan will be joined by their solicitor Niall Murphy on a tour from Rockland County, Philadelphia, Washington DC and New York City, presenting the film ‘No Stone Unturned’ facilitating discussions on the themes of the State policy of collusion, addressed in the film.
Read more: Chief suspects in Loughinisland massacre named for first time in new documentary
The families are proud to have had the benefit of the expertise of the film makers Alex Gibney, Trevor Birney and Eimhear O’Neill, who worked to present such a sensitive yet compelling film on their most personal life experience. Clare and Emma, have both publicly recorded the privilege and responsibility that they feel, as they consider that the film’s narrative is representative for the hopes, ambitions, anger and frustrations of so many other victim and survivors of trauma.
Whereas the film had an exceptional reception at the Irish cinema, having premiered at the New York Film Festival in September 2017, the families ambition with the film project, has been to use the film as a tool to prosecute the facts pertaining to their loss to as many people as possible. The families have presented the film with discussion and debate at Parliaments of Dáil Eireann, Westminster, Stormont and Strasbourg. In this vein, the families are grateful U.S Representative Richie Neal for the time he has taken to ensure that the film will be shown at Capitol Hill in Washington DC, on Monday 5th March. The families are further grateful to Sean Pender of the AOH, Owen Rodgers, Fr Sean McManus, the Irish American Unity Conference, the Rockland County Community, the Brehon Law Society and Irish Screen America for their assistance in co-ordinating a busy and productive schedule of viewings to complement the Capitol Hill screening.
No Stone Unturned
Investigative documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney—best known for 2008’s Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and at least a dozen others—turns his sights on the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, a cold case that remains an open wound in the Irish peace process. The families of the victims—who were murdered while watching the World Cup in their local pub—were promised justice, but 20 years later they still didn’t know who killed their loved ones. Gibney uncovers a web of secrecy, lies, and corruption that so often results when the powerful insist they are acting for the greater good. The documentary exposes how senior elements of the British State actively colluded with an extra judicial loyalist killer gang, for one of the worst sectarian atrocities of the Troubles. This is the film that the British establishment do not want you to see.
Itinerary
- Friday 2nd March, Rockland County
7.30pm - Hibernian House, 28 Railroad Avenue, Pearl River, NY
Doors open at 7pm - All are welcome
- Saturday 3rd March, Philadelphia
7pm - AOH Division 39, 7229 Tulip Street, Philadelphia PA 19135
- Monday 5th March, Washington DC
7pm - Capitol Visitors Center, 1E Capitol Street, NE, Washington DC 20003
- Tuesday 6th March, Manhattan
7.30pm - Cantor Theatre, NYU, 36E 8th Street, New York, NY 10003 (between 5th Avenue and Broadway). This screening is hosted by Irish Screen America. Admission by ticket via Eventbrite.
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