Free State Violence by Raymond Murray

commissioner’s chamber, from which he appears.

A Tribunal Hearing
    I wrote the following piece after appearing for the defence of Éamon Hannaway. It was published in Whitelaw’s Tribunals.
    The Tribunal and the Appeal Tribunal are held within the now great complex of the Long Kesh encampment. Yellow and black signs point to a special entrance towered over by a military post and guarding soldier. A shout from the soldier and a few accent misunderstandings before you realise that you have to wait. A soldier finally comes through a little door, checks your name and identity with his pad, and then disappears only to re-appear immediately to re-open the big gate and admit your car. Then you drive across a great waste-land surrounded by barbed wire and corrugated iron sheeting. To the right a worm-eaten cabbage patch catches your eye. It reminds you of your ‘T. S. Eliot schooldays’. The next entrance is blocked by two Kosangas bottles. A soldier removes them and now you are through to a place where there is a little bit more life. It even cheers you to have your car searched and go into a wooden hut where there is heat and light! It is still even pleasant to dump the contents of your pockets and be amiably ‘run over’ by a smiling soldier. You go out clutching your permit which is now as valuable as a ration book. The two women witnesses have clambered into a van with two policewomen; the separation of the sexes of course for searching. You get into your own van. The solicitor is there and two other witnesses, the mate and father of the accused. And there are other lawyers who are putting their trust in their academic distinctions for their case, a formidable battery of learned lawyers.
    The game we are playing is a different one. We know – the aunt, the girlfriend, father, mate, priest and solicitor – that our accused is an innocent man and we think that it will be a great compliment to the court to bring ourselves to it as human furnishings, because all the emphasis is on furnishing. One lawyer grunts in the van, ‘This court has all the incidentals down to the last detail. In fact half the courts in the country have not had the expense and detail of court trappings as this one has. It lacks only the essence of a court’. ‘But’, I remark, ‘how can judges and lawyers go through with this? Have they no professional shame?’ ‘My dear boy,’ he says, ‘they are Englishmen and you are a Hottentot’.
    And true enough, when we disembark and go in, one is amazed at the beauty of the Nissen hut interior, beautifully painted, carpeted, separate rooms for lawyers and witnesses.
    It is 10.30am. But it is an hour and more before any of us are called as witnesses. There has been much reminiscing about the beloved internee. His mate and girlfriend devour cigarettes. His aunt is womanly silent. I keep on building up their hopes, but not overdoing it. One poor internee was turned down at the first sitting of the appeal court the day before (and those who know him know how innocent and unfortunate he is). So today our lad stands a chance. Yesterday it was shown that the appeal isn’t just a formality by not releasing the internee. Today just might be the day it isn’t a formality by granting a release. But if our lad is released, even in this buffoon court, none of us are going to argue, because he will be going to his home that was lonely without him and his girlfriend will now plan her marriage. His mate will no longer go around like a lost dog. His father and aunt have prayed for fifteen months and have suffered. The father keeps mumbling of his release, ‘I can’t see it’. I try to reassure him.
    Two policewomen and a policeman sit at the other end of the waiting-room. There is just that difference hanging in the air but it doesn’t prevent an odd loud groan from the witnesses on the injustice of internment. There was a time in