22 April 1999 Edition
Derry marks 30 years since Devenny
By Deaglán O Coileáin
`Sammy Devenny' - two words. Like `Bloody Sunday'. `Francis Hughes'. `Long Kesh'. Two words, which have been in my vocabulary for a very long time. I have no recollection of where I first heard them, or who spoke them. What I do know is why they are important.
So did 500 other people who crammed into Pilot's Row community centre in Derry City on Monday night, 19 April - 30 years to the day since his death at the hands of the RUC.
A video presentation was the first element of the night. Sammy Devenny's daughter talking in black and white to John Hume in a 1969 RTE documentary. And for the first time I learned the particularly brutal details that made those two words, Sammy Devenny, so significant. The video also showed Hume talking to other locals at the time - yes, advising them not to talk to the RUC and not to hand over any evidence of their rampage!
Against a backdrop of a painting of Sammy Devenny by his daughter, his son Harry was determined and honest. ``To the people responsible, ours was just another Catholic house in the Bog. Once the door opened they didn't care who they hit. And the litany of lies, the showcase of inquiries, gave them the one thing that they've used ever since, a licence to kill.''
He continued: ``The RUC have proved right up to the present that they can't be reformed, they can't be reshuffled, they can't be given new uniforms, because they are never going to change. Nothing less than the disbandment of the RUC is acceptable.''
Paddy Harkin, another man beaten in the Devenny house with Sammy died on the anniversary of the attack, 19 April 1977, having lain in a coma for the previous four and a half months after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Harkin's son Noel said simply, ``These people can never be allowed to do these things again. they have to be disbanded.''
An impromptu history class developed at one stage as John McGuffin and Joe Quigley formerly of People's Democracy, along with Ivan Cooper, gave an account of the appalling manner in which information they collated naming four of the RUC officers, including Inspector Campbell, was ignored and buried by the subsequent inquiries. Ivan Cooper summed up the legacy of that experience well. ``Everytime I have looked at a member of the RUC in the years since, I think of what happened in the Devenny house that day.''
Also speaking were two Assembly members for Upper Bann, Sinn Fein's Dr. Dara O'Hagan and the SDLP's Brid Rodgers. Dara's ill-disguised emotion as she talked about how her friend Rosemary Nelson was murdered with the collusion and cover-up of the same force that murdered Sammy Devenny, spoke volumes of her integrity and strength.
Although her party is firmly behind the Good Friday Agreement, Brid Rodgers personally described the disbandment of the RUC as ``a very enticing concept.''
A beautiful presentation mirror was presented to the Devenny family at the end of the evening byt the organisers, The Friends Of `69. But they too deserve tribute. The atmosphere and the events of the evening were a poignant reminder of the past and a fitting pathway to the future. Two words that won't be forgotten - `Sammy Devenny'.
`Sammy Devenny' - two words. Like `Bloody Sunday'. `Francis Hughes'. `Long Kesh'. Two words, which have been in my vocabulary for a very long time. I have no recollection of where I first heard them, or who spoke them. What I do know is why they are important.
So did 500 other people who crammed into Pilot's Row community centre in Derry City on Monday night, 19 April - 30 years to the day since his death at the hands of the RUC.
A video presentation was the first element of the night. Sammy Devenny's daughter talking in black and white to John Hume in a 1969 RTE documentary. And for the first time I learned the particularly brutal details that made those two words, Sammy Devenny, so significant. The video also showed Hume talking to other locals at the time - yes, advising them not to talk to the RUC and not to hand over any evidence of their rampage!
Against a backdrop of a painting of Sammy Devenny by his daughter, his son Harry was determined and honest. ``To the people responsible, ours was just another Catholic house in the Bog. Once the door opened they didn't care who they hit. And the litany of lies, the showcase of inquiries, gave them the one thing that they've used ever since, a licence to kill.''
He continued: ``The RUC have proved right up to the present that they can't be reformed, they can't be reshuffled, they can't be given new uniforms, because they are never going to change. Nothing less than the disbandment of the RUC is acceptable.''
Paddy Harkin, another man beaten in the Devenny house with Sammy died on the anniversary of the attack, 19 April 1977, having lain in a coma for the previous four and a half months after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Harkin's son Noel said simply, ``These people can never be allowed to do these things again. they have to be disbanded.''
An impromptu history class developed at one stage as John McGuffin and Joe Quigley formerly of People's Democracy, along with Ivan Cooper, gave an account of the appalling manner in which information they collated naming four of the RUC officers, including Inspector Campbell, was ignored and buried by the subsequent inquiries. Ivan Cooper summed up the legacy of that experience well. ``Everytime I have looked at a member of the RUC in the years since, I think of what happened in the Devenny house that day.''
Also speaking were two Assembly members for Upper Bann, Sinn Fein's Dr. Dara O'Hagan and the SDLP's Brid Rodgers. Dara's ill-disguised emotion as she talked about how her friend Rosemary Nelson was murdered with the collusion and cover-up of the same force that murdered Sammy Devenny, spoke volumes of her integrity and strength.
Although her party is firmly behind the Good Friday Agreement, Brid Rodgers personally described the disbandment of the RUC as ``a very enticing concept.''
A beautiful presentation mirror was presented to the Devenny family at the end of the evening byt the organisers, The Friends Of `69. But they too deserve tribute. The atmosphere and the events of the evening were a poignant reminder of the past and a fitting pathway to the future. Two words that won't be forgotten - `Sammy Devenny'.