Book review: A Force for Justice – the Maurice McCabe Story

Bren­dan Ogle:  ‘The Final Ver­dict’ edi­tion of Michael Clifford’s book A Force for Jus­tice – the Mau­rice McCabe Sto­ry is jaw-drop­ping. Through­out its 370 pages, Clif­ford paints a pic­ture of the dread­ful Ire­land we all fear exists, but had hoped doesn’t.

It does.

If you think you know the full details of the sus­tained abuse of Mau­rice McCabe from news clips and head­lines, you don’t. The com­plete dys­func­tion of the police force in Cavan/Monaghan and beyond is described in great detail in the book.

Drunk Gar­dai turn­ing up at sui­cide scenes, sex­u­al assaults by bul­lies on a bus going un-inves­ti­gat­ed, the sav­age beat­ing of a female taxi dri­ver by a beast who was allowed to go on to com­mit mur­der, patrons of a night club being run over in a car park, oh yes, and piss put in a vine­gar bot­tle in a fish and chip shop.

All of these extreme acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty were mis­man­aged by Gar­dai, and Mau­rice McCabe was hav­ing none of it. And when he spoke out to high­light it, as he was duty bound to do? Gar­da man­age­ment were hav­ing none of him.

But worse than that. Much worse. For twelve full years McCabe became an ene­my with­in a force behav­ing like a pri­vate club where inter­nal cri­tique was to be shut down. The whistle­blow­er him­self, and his wife and fam­i­ly, were bru­talised by col­leagues, super­vi­sors, senior man­age­ment up to Com­mis­sion­er lev­el, and polit­i­cal over­seers up to min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el.

The media played its part too. Before McCabe’s sheer stub­born­ness final­ly pre­vailed in 2018, there were dis­gust­ing exam­ples of a num­ber of media per­son­nel and out­lets engag­ing in the vil­i­fi­ca­tion of McCabe. Famil­iar tricks of spin, selec­tive leaks, whis­per­ing cam­paigns and oth­er tac­tics were used strate­gi­cal­ly at key times and in per­ni­cious ways, as the state insid­ers in the media came to the aid of that bro­ken state in tar­get­ing a thor­ough­ly decent man. Shame on them.

But it’s not all bad. Heroes emerge. And hero­ines. First­ly, McCabe’s wife Lor­raine is a true hero and it seems that with­out her Mau­rice would have gone under. And what sort of Ire­land would we be left with then?

John Wil­son was one of the col­leagues help­ing Mau­rice, and him­self com­ing under attack for doing so. And then we have Clare Daly, Joan Collins, Mick Wal­lace and John McGuin­ness. These politi­cians and their actions give the lie to those who believe that we have no good and hon­ourable politi­cians in Ire­land. We have.

Michael Clif­ford, the author, has him­self played a superb role in the entire process. Thanks to jour­nal­ists like him all might not yet be lost for hopes of more hon­our and prin­ci­ple – as well as skill and inves­tiga­tive rigour – among our jour­nal­ists and the out­lets for which they write and work. Clifford’s book is superb and his actions inspir­ing. And beyond the RTE News­room Katie Han­non, with her rig­or­ous inves­ti­ga­tion of these issues, is anoth­er one who stands out from the rest.

And last­ly there is Mau­rice McCabe him­self. In Ire­land 2018 we saw a Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion while McCabe await­ed the out­come and deserved vin­di­ca­tion of the Dis­clo­sures Tri­bunal. Some of the can­di­dates in that elec­tion were less than inspir­ing, and the less said about some of the would-be can­di­dates the bet­ter.

Mau­rice McCabe has every­thing a coun­try like this should want in a future Pres­i­dent. A mod­el cit­i­zen, a man of hon­our, prin­ci­ple, decen­cy and deter­mi­na­tion. He is one of the most inspir­ing peo­ple in our state and those qual­i­ties are added to by his humil­i­ty and down­right ‘ordi­nar­i­ness’.

But the com­bi­na­tion is tru­ly extra­or­di­nary. Maybe some­day Mau­rice McCabe will think about such a role for him­self. If that ever hap­pens I’d knock doors for him until my shoe leather was worn out.

ENDS