50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Fifty years ago this weekend, Bloody Sunday became a defining moment in Northern Ireland’s three-decade-long conflict. On January 30, 1972, British troops killed 14 unarmed Catholic civilians (13 died immediately, and one later from injuries) ending hopes in the Nationalist community the British army were anything other than an occupying force. The incident is covered in detail in British journalist Peter Taylor’s excellent Brits: the War against the IRA, the third book in his trilogy on the war. The first, Provos, told the story from the nationalist side, the second Loyalists told story of Protestant unionism, while Brits takes the army perspective.

The book chronicles Britain’s involvement and intelligence operation during the 30 year conflict. The army’s secret undercover surveillance unit in the province, 14 Intelligence Company, known as the Detachment, or “Det”, played a major role in bringing the IRA to the negotiation table. Using technology, surveillance and undercover operators, the “Det” almost crippled the IRA by the 1990s and made them realise that only a political settlement could end the war.

Northern Ireland was created by Westminster’s Government of Ireland Act 1920. Ireland was divided into two parts each with its own home rule government. The north was a Protestant state for a Protestant people. A boundary was drawn around Ulster but with three large Catholic majority counties (Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan) removed. Discrimination was endemic in the new state. Derry council was gerrymandered so 14,000 Catholic voters elected eight councillors while 9000 Protestant voters elected 12. Harland & Wolff, builders of the Titanic, employed 10,000 workers on its Belfast dockyards but only 400 were Catholic. Northern Ireland had a Protestant-dominated parliament at Stormont while Westminster devoted just two hours a year discussing Northern Irish issues.

Decades of Catholic resentment blew up in the rebellion year of 1968. New charismatic leaders like Bernadette Devlin and John Hume demanded change and universal civil rights. Suspicious Protestants saw the civil rights movement as an IRA front. TV news brought pictures of police baton charging civil rights marches confirming Catholic belief the Royal Ulster Constabulary was a sectarian force. Violence grew in Derry. The Protestant Apprentice Boys march in August 1969 caused a full scale riot lasting three days. With the situation deteriorating, the First Battalion of the Prince of Wales Own Regiment of Yorkshire was drafted in, the first deployment of troops on the street.

They were welcomed by Catholics who believed the army would stop police violence. But as the Derry situation calmed, large-scale sectarian violence broke out in Belfast, with vicious street fights between nationalists and police, and nationalists and loyalists. The IRA shot dead policeman Herbert Roy. The RUC shot dead three Catholics as loyalist mobs torched Catholic houses in streets they shared. After several days, police called in the army. Troops needed to buy maps of Belfast at the airport. Most soldiers saw their mission as stopping Protestants from burning Catholic homes.

The IRA was in turmoil. While some members fought in the riots, the official line was to steer clear of the trouble having declared a ceasefire. Graffiti appeared saying “IRA – I Ran Away”. A new group, the Provisional IRA (“Provos”) split off and re-affirmed the right to achieve a united Ireland by violent means.

The army’s uneasy peace between Catholic and Protestant communities was destroyed by the marching season. At Easter 1970 Orangemen marched past the Catholic Belfast community of Ballymurphy. A two-hour full scale riot ensued. Confused soldiers stood hapless in the middle. Expecting the riot to continue the following day, the army decided on a show of force. They arrived in armoured cars loaded with rifles, riot shields and CS gas. Catholics redirected missiles to this new enemy and the army hit back with CS gas. With rioting continuing all night, the army baton-charged and Protestants followed in their wake, confirming Catholic suspicions the army was on their side. Army leader General Sir Ian Freeland admitted to a “get tough” policy. The Ballymurphy riots were the real starting point of the war. The Provos had an identifiable enemy.

On June 27, they sprang into action after another Belfast Protestant march. Missiles were exchanged and the IRA killed three Protestants. They fought a gun battle that night in East Belfast and killed two more. They now claimed to be the defenders of Catholic areas. The new Tory government in Westminster imposed a 35-hour curfew in the Falls while the army conducted house-to-house searches. While the military objective was successful and discovered a hoard of weapons, the IRA won the hearts and minds of occupants who saw the British Army as the enemy.

In February 1971 British land forces commander Major-General Anthony Farrar-Hockley, went on TV and named the leaders of the IRA as Billy McKee, Frank Card, Leo Martin and Liam and Kevin Hannaway. The “named and shamed” men went into hiding. The day after, the IRA shot its first British soldier, Gunner Robert Curtis from Newcastle. Stormont Premier James Chichester-Clark declared Northern Ireland was at war with the IRA. The IRA shot three more soldiers. They were off-duty, wearing civilian clothes and drinking at a bar, invited to a party and then shot on a lonely road.

By August 1971, 10 soldiers were dead and the IRA launched over 300 explosions. The government looked at new solutions. They spruced up an old army depot used to store trucks at “Long Kesh” outside Belfast and turned it into an internment camp. Operation Demetrius was put into place to swoop through Nationalist areas in a dawn raid. Dustbin lids banged through the city as women warned the men the army was coming. The army arrested 341 republican suspects but no loyalists. The last vestige of even-handedness was shattered.

Some internees were tortured. They were guinea pigs of “the Five Techniques” imported from the Army’s experience in counter-insurgency, learned from North Korea. They involved making suspects stand against a wall with arms spread-eagled for hours, placing hoods over their heads to produce sensory deprivation, subjecting them to continuous disorienting “white noise”, and depriving them of sleep and food. Although the techniques were successful, internment wasn’t – most IRA leaders evaded the search.

The death toll soared. The IRA killed two people and the army killed 16. The army ended no-go areas in Belfast but they still existed in Derry. The IRA had 29 barricades, 16 impassable to one-ton armoured vehicles. Despite Protestant outrage, the army maintained a policy of containment. The army looked for a way to penetrate hostile areas and restore “the rule of law”. The excuse was an anti-internment march planned for Sunday January 30, 1972. Around 20,000 people marched into Derry but were blocked from city council buildings. Marchers threw missiles and the army fought back. By the end of the day 13 unarmed Catholics were dead and another was dying. The Widgery Report exonerated the soldiers’ actions in a whitewash. Tony Blair instituted the Saville Inquiry in 1998 and after the report was published in 2010 prime minister David Cameron apologised. He acknowledged paratroopers had fired the first shot, had fired on fleeing unarmed civilians, and had shot and killed one man who was already wounded.

Bloody Sunday was a huge Provos propaganda victory giving them moral authority to fight their war. It also ended the Protestant regime. In March 1972 Britain suspended Stormont and introduced Direct Rule. The IRA exploded its first car bomb in Belfast, a 112kg bomb which killed seven people in Donegall Street and injured 150. Yet they conducted talks. Gerry Adams was released from internment and he and fellow IRA man David O’Connell met British intelligence officers in June. There followed a second meeting in London between IRA president Sean MacStiofain (Englishman John Stephenson), and newly appointed Northern Ireland secretary Willie Whitelaw. The meeting was an impasse and the IRA re-intensified its campaign.

On “Bloody Friday” July 21, the IRA planted 22 bombs in Belfast and killed nine people. The army began an intelligence operation to get under the IRA’s skin. They ran a bogus service known as “Four Square laundry”. Its drivers went around republican areas returning washing to its clients. While the laundry was genuine, other activities weren’t. Clothes were tested forensically for traces of explosives. The operation was undone when the IRA “turned over” an informer. They ambushed the van and killed the driver. The army needed more sophisticated techniques to break the IRA.

The Det was established as a hand-picked elite. There were three detachments, in Belfast, Derry and Armagh. They relied on paid informers from the Nationalist community. The IRA was in crisis in 1973 as improved relations with Irish police saw the arrest of leaders MacStiofain, Martin McGuinness, Martin Meehan and John Kelly. The IRA moved the war to England, exploding two car bombs in London after which one person died from a heart attack. The Det had its first major victory arresting three leaders; Gerry Adams, Brendan Hughes and Tom Cahill in an IRA safe house. Hughes escaped from prison wrapped up in a mattress left out for rubbish. He returned incognito to Belfast where he directed IRA operations until Det surveillance nabbed him again.

The Irish and British governments met in December 1973 in Sunningdale, Berkshire and created a power-sharing executive for the North. The new government came into place in 1974 but was opposed by Protestant hardliners. Workers in the province’s economy and public utilities organised a general strike under the banner of the Ulster Workers Council. They manned barricades, intimidated opponents and shut down the power grid. Prime Minister Harold Wilson vilified the strikers on TV which hardened attitudes. Three days later the executive resigned and Direct Rule was re-introduced. The Sunningdale agreement was destroyed.

MI6 appointed a new man in Northern Ireland, Michael Oatley who would become a key, though unrecognised, figure. Oatley made contact with IRA leadership. One contact was called a “pipe” which linked with new IRA leader Ruari O’Bradaigh. Through the pipe, the British got indications the Provos wanted to talk.

The pressure was building as the UVF stepped up their anti-republican campaign. On May 17, 1974, they planted rush hour car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan which exploded without warning. They killed 33 people and injured 160 others, the worst atrocity of the war. The IRA bombed two pubs in Guildford, Surrey used by off-duty soldiers. Four soldiers and a civilian were killed. They bombed two pubs in Birmingham killing 21 and injuring 182. Under a new Prevention of Terrorism Act suspects could be held for seven days and “exclusion orders” could keep people out of mainland Britain.

The IRA Active Service Unit caused havoc, bombing indiscriminate targets and causing terror in London. They killed Guinness Book of Records founder and outspoken IRA critic Ross McWhirter. They were caught in the Balcombe St siege which lasted six days before they surrendered. The four gang members were released in the Good Friday agreement in 1998.

Harold Wilson sent in the SAS in a blaze of publicity in 1976. Their actions were immediately controversial as they kept a covert observation post on the Irish side of the border. Eight SAS officers in two cars were arrested by Irish police, British authorities calling it a “map reading error”. They shot Patrick Duffy, an unarmed IRA man in his own home, with a dozen bullets. The IRA called them the “Special Assassination Squad” because of their “shoot to kill” policy.

On August 27, 1979, the IRA struck two devastating blows. They blew up the Queen’s cousin, Earl Mountbatten on a boat near his Sligo holiday home. A few hours later two massive explosions at Warrenpoint, County Down killed 18 soldiers, including 16 members of the Parachute Regiment 2nd battalion, the regiment’s biggest loss since Arnhem in World War II.

In 1976 Labour revoked the political status of IRA prisoners and they were treated as ordinary criminals in the newly constructed H Blocks of the Maze Prison. The prisoners launched a “dirty protest” refusing to wear prison issue clothes and they smeared the cell walls with excrement.

By 1979, Margaret Thatcher was in power and refused to deal with IRA demands. Prisoners launched a hunger strike which ended without a deal then a second hunger strike in which ten prisoners died. Bobby Sands, the first to die, was elected MP in a by-election on the 40th day of his strike. The result gave the IRA new political impetus it exploited in the following decades and 100,000 people attended Sands’ funeral. The IRA called off the strike after it did not change Thatcher’s mind. Within a few years they got all their demands.

In October 1982, three RUC officers were killed in a bomb when called to investigate a suspicious hayshed. The shed was under surveillance by M15 but officers didn’t spot the bomb. An informer named two IRA men responsible and they and another man were shot dead by police who were exonerated in court for “bringing three IRA men to the final court of justice”. After intelligence forces shot an innocent 16-year-old at the same hayshed, John Stalker, Manchester’s deputy Chief Constable was brought in to investigate the shoot-to-kill policy. He wanted to see the hayshed tape but was denied access. He was removed from the inquiry due to his association with a Manchester businessman Kevin Taylor who was erroneously thought to be a criminal. Though Stalker’s replacement recommended charges be brought, Attorney-General Sir Patrick Mayhew said there would be no prosecutions “in the national interest”. The prospect of MI5 officers in the dock was avoided.

Throughout the eighties, the Det continued their stranglehold on operations. The IRA moved action to Britain where the intelligence network wasn’t as strong. But the Provos were changing. In 1981 Danny Morrison told a Sinn Fein conference they would seize power “with a ballot box in one hand and the Armalite in the other”. The ballot box eventually ousted the Armalite. Adams, McGuinness and Morrison won seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982. Sinn Fein took 10pc of the vote while nationalist rivals the SDLP took 18.1pc.

In 1984, the IRA had its highest profile hit with the Brighton bombing. The ruling Tories were staying at the Grand Hotel for their annual conference. The IRA planted a 9kg bomb which exploded during the night collapsing four floors of the hotel. Five party members were killed including MP Sir Anthony Berry. Thatcher narrowly survived and received an eight minute ovation at the morning conference. The IRA issued a chilling message, “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always”. After astonishing detective work, the bomb was traced to Patrick Magee who was arrested in Glasgow ten months later. Magee was also released in the Good Friday Agreement gaining a doctorate in Irish studies on how Gerald Seymour, Tom Clancy and others fictionalised the conflict.

In Loughgall the SAS killed an IRA unit about to hit a RUC station and also killed three IRA men in Gibraltar. At their funeral in Belfast, Loyalist gunman Michael Stone opened fire and killed three mourners. TV journalists investigated the Gibraltar deaths and concluded the three had been shot with their hands up. ITV showed the program despite Thatcher’s fury.

The IRA received a boost in the late 1980s, when Libya’s Gaddafy donated four shipments of armaments including surface-to-air missiles and Semtex high explosive. In 1988 at Ballygawley, the IRA detonated a Semtex bomb which killed eight soldiers. Home Secretary Douglas Hurd announced new restrictions to prevent broadcasters from transmitting voices of members of banned organisations. Broadcasters lip-synched interviews using actors. One double of Gerry Adams made a small fortune. The restrictions were abandoned in 1994 as the IRA looked to peaceful alternatives.

Gerry Adams won the seat of West Belfast in 1983 and increased his majority in 1987. In 1988 he held discussions with the SDLP’s John Hume which agreed on a goal of “self determination”. The fall of the Berlin Wall gave the impression Northern Ireland might be one of the last unsolved problems. The IRA kept up the military pressure. During the 1991 Gulf War, they fired three mortars at Downing Street, one landing in the backyard of Number Ten during a cabinet meeting. In 1992, they killed eight Protestant workmen in a landmine explosion. But the bomb with the largest economic impact was the Baltic exchange in the City of London. Three people were killed including a 15-year-old schoolgirl. The bomb caused £800 million damage, eclipsing by £200 million the entire damage of the conflict to date. If repeated, it raised the prospect of devastating the British economy. The British sent coded messages to the IRA that if they were prepared to call off the violence, anything was possible. Through the early 1990s, there were talks and bombs in equal measure. In 1993, Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds agreed on a Downing Street Declaration which insisted Britain had no interest in Northern Ireland but would only agree to a united Ireland if the majority of its citizens so wished.

In August 1994, the IRA announced a ceasefire. Protestant paramilitaries followed suit. Talks bogged down on the thorny issue of “decommissioning”, what should happen to IRA guns. But it was progress. 1995 was the first year in a quarter of a century where no security force members were killed. In February 1996, the IRA bombed London’s Canary Wharf killing two in protest at “British intransigence”. They launched further assaults on the mainland before the 1997 election including a threat that cancelled the Aintree Grand National.

Tony Blair’s landslide win in that election gave the peace process new impetus. He offered talks and the IRA re-established a ceasefire in July 1997. At Easter 1998, Blair forced through the Good Friday Agreement where all parties agreed to share power in a devolved assembly. IRA extremists were unhappy and splintered off. The “Real” IRA, exploded a bomb in Omagh causing the single largest casualty list of the entire conflict in Northern lreland, with 29 dead and 300 injured. No one was charged for the bombing.

But Omagh strengthened the resolve of the Good Friday Agreement participants. Prisoners from both sides were released. The decommissioning argument put the assembly on hold. An independent commission on policing led by Chris Patten recommended a new police authority to replace the RUC. Arguments raged until 9/11 threw a spanner in the works. Nationalists were worried US President Bush would put the IRA back on his terror list. Three IRA suspects were arrested in Colombia on charges of conspiring with rebel group FARC. Despite this, they were now the leading Nationalist party in Northern Ireland after the June 2001 election. In October 2001, the IRA announced it had started the process to “put its weapons beyond commission”.

Northern Ireland has inched its way towards peace despite setbacks. Hatred remains strong in working class communities but a strong desire to put the region first was obvious when it was among the few parts of the UK to vote down Brexit. For now they have the best of both worlds, part of the United Kingdom, and part of the EU through the Northern Ireland Protocol. Bloody Sunday will never be forgotten as a time of terror, but the prospects for the province’s future remain positive while peace continues.

Antietam: America’s bloodiest day

Mathew Brady’s photo of the dead at Antietam’s Bloody Lane.

September 17, 1862 was a brutal day for America. The Civil War had been raging for over a year and the Union had long ceased hoping for a quick victory. While they had the upper hand in the Western Theatre, things were grim in the East. In the last days of August a two-day engagement at Centreville, Virginia known as Second Bull Run (Second Manassas in the South), had seen the Confederates drive the Union forces back in a rabble towards Washington. General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, fresh from driving General George McClellan’s Federal Army of the Potomac away from Richmond after the Seven Days Battles, had another major victory this time over Major-General John Pope and his Federal Army of Virginia.

A near-panicked president Lincoln now ordered McClellan to assume command of Washington’s defences and use his organisational talents to restore the Armies of Virginia and the Potomac, which he consolidated by September 5. The previous day Lee’s army began crossing the Potomac into Maryland on a counter-offensive to take the war to the north. Lee wanted to keep up momentum and had two political motivations. Firstly he wanted gauge rebel support in Maryland while other Confederate generals held similar hopes for Kentucky in the west. Secondly he hoped success in the north would ensure European recognition of the Confederacy as a legitimate nation.

Part of his plan was to detach six divisions under General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson to take the Federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry on the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. That would allow the army continue towards Harrisburg, Pennsylvania threatening Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington. Lee was gambling on Union chaos after the Second Manassas campaign and he also knew McClellan was naturally a cautious commander, having served together in the Mexican war of the 1840s. Lee’s Special Order 191 detailed his plans and general intentions.

On September 12 federal troops camping in ground recently used by Daniel Harvey Hill’s confederate division stumbled on a copy of Special Order 191 wrapped in cigar leaves. By that afternoon McClellan had it and was presented with the opportunity to destroy Lee’s army while it was split up. He immediately ordered his army to break through two passes in the South Mountain range through Crampton’s Gap and Turner’s Gap (as well as Turner’s subsidiary Fox’s Gap). But he failed to order a night march and the Army did not get to the passes until the morning of September 14.

By then Lee knew his plans were breached, informed by spies in McClellan’s command. Lee ordered an immediate withdrawal south of the Potomac and instructed General Longstreet’s army to support DH Hill at South Mountain. McClellan ordered General Franklin’s VI Corp to take Crampton’s Gap while the main army would take the pass 12 miles north at Fox Gap. Franklin faced fierce resistance but took the pass that afternoon. However he advanced no further discouraged by the arrival of fresh rebel troops.

DH Hill’s men defended Turner’s Gap against the main assault determined to split the Confederate forces between Longstreet at Hagerstown and Jackson at Harper’s Ferry. Again the defenders kept the Union pinned down with Burnside unwilling to advance while he gauged Confederate strength. The tide turned after Brigadier General George Meade’s men arrived around 1.30pm but backed up again, the rebels held on till late afternoon. Only after dark did the Confederates withdraw leaving the pass in the hands of the Union. But McCllelan had failed to press home the advantage of his Special Order 191 information. Stonewall had taken Harper’s Ferry and the Army of Northern Virginia was still together near Sharpsburg. Lee set up defensive positions on the Antietam Creek on September 16. It was a risky position, backed up on the Potomac with no place to withdraw.

McClellan had the larger army and envisioned an echelon assault, applying pressure in different parts of the line in turn, before a final assault on a new line that had been stretched by sending troops to other sectors. That was the plan for September 17, though it was hampered by failures of communication on the day. The right flank was first to the fray, led by General Joseph Hooker. His pickets made contact with the enemy late on September 16 and skirmished through the night.

The advance began at dawn with the objective the higher ground beyond the Dunker Church. Hooker could see enemy soldiers ahead of him hiding in a cornfield with their bayonets glinting in the sun. Hooker’s position told Lee where the first blow would fall and he planned his defence accordingly. McClellan’s failure to put pressure along the entire line allowed Lee to move his pieces wherever they were needed on the day. Brigadier General John Hood’s shock Texas troops were ordered to drive Hooker’s men from the cornfield. Here was the first serious number of casualties as federal gunners shelled the cornfield and gave advancing rebels canister at close range. Hood’s assault stabilised the Confederate position. Hooker wrote in his report: “It was never my fortune to witness a more dismal battlefield.” Hooker was shot in the foot and had to retire. McClellan called forward Major General Edwin “Bull” Sumner’s troops to support the attack on the church and the West Woods. But the defence was holding on against piecemeal attacks. Serious fighting on the left front ended in impasse around 1pm and attention moved to other parts of the battlefield.

The second phase was along a sunken farm lane behind Dunker Church defended by DH Hill’s division. Fighting here was so intense it became known as Bloody Lane. Hill’s division was still recovering from South Mountain but the sunken lane was a naturally strong defensive position. French and Richardson’s Union divisions attacked the lane from around 9.30am but made no headway. The Union soldiers could not see the lane until right upon it. Brigadier-General Nathan Kimball noted the narrow road “washed by water, forming a natural rifle pit between my line and a large cornfield” where he found the enemy “in great force”.

Among the attacking forces were Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade. Meagher deployed his 69th New York to right connecting with French’s force followed by his 29th Massechusetts, 63rd New York and 88th New York (“Mrs Meagher Own” regiment). They advanced within “paces of the enemy” but were forced back by intense rifle fire. “On coming into this close and fatal contact with the enemy the officers and men of the Brigade waved their swords and hats and gave the heartiest cheers for their general George B McCllelan and the Army of the Potomac,” Meagher later wrote. But it was carnage, the Irish Brigade was smashed to pieces and sent to the rear. After three and a half hours of battle, the Union finally flanked the road and took 300 prisoners. Fierce fighting continued in a nearby orchard but both sides were exhausted and the second phase concluded around 1pm.

The third and final phase of the battle took place at an Antietam Creek crossing that would become known as Burnside Bridge. McClellan wanted Burnside to cross the bridge at the same time as earlier engagements to drive the right of Lee’s Army beyond Sharpsburg to cut off a retreat across the Potomac. McClellan gave the order at 8am but Burnside, who was bitter at losing part of his command, claimed it had a rider “to await further orders before making the attack”. An annoyed McClellan sent his inspector general over to Burnside to carry out the order. Burnside said the unambiguous order did not arrive until 10am. That made him two hours late to take advantage of fierce fighting elsewhere. The bridge was difficult to cross, protected by “rifle pits and breastworks” and repeated attempts failed. When finally on the far bank, Burnside needed time to sort out his formations and distribute fresh ammunition. His forces crossed the bridge at 1pm and were in Sharpsburg by 3pm. Though late, he might still have taken Sharpsburg but for the arrival of AP Hill’s Light Division fresh from their victory at Harper’s Ferry. Hill’s report read they arrived “not a moment too soon” and they stabilised the defence. The third and final phase of the battle ended in another stalemate.

On the afternoon of September 18, Lee began withdrawing his forces across the Potomac at Shepherdstown West Virginia. There was no pursuit and the Maryland campaign was over. Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the conflict. The Union had 12,410 casualties including 2108 dead, 9549 wounded and 753 missing. The rebels had 13,724 casualties including 2700 dead, 9024 wounded and 13,724. The combined total of 26,134 was smaller than Gettysburg but that took place over three days.

McClellan’s battlefield caution and leadership communication failures had prevented the Union from taking a decisive victory while Lee had fought a brilliant defensive campaign using all his available resources to maximum effect. Yet McClellan had saved Washington and coupled with the halting of the Confederates in Kentucky at Perryville, Antietam constituted a turning point. Maryland had not risen for the Confederacy. While the war dragged on for another two years, Lincoln used the battles to make the Emancipation Declaration public to free all slaves in the Confederacy. The war was now explicitly about ending slavery and with it any hope of the South getting legitimacy among the European powers.

APT10 at Brisbane’s GOMA

Brisbane doesn’t often conform to its geographical type as a sub-tropical city of the Asia Pacific region. More usually comfortable in its white European cultural skin, the city occasionally slips out of its British veneer and like an overripe mango, reveals itself in all its humid glory. An example happens every three years with the Asia Pacific Triennial art exhibition at Brisbane’s wonderful Gallery of Modern Art overlooking the river. The latest incarnation is APT10 which means it has been going 30 years and I’ve been to quite a few of them over that time. I have always enjoyed the scale and scope of the exercise. The latest one is no different featuring 150 artists and collectives from 30 countries.

This piece by Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican visual artist Alia Farid greets people arriving at the exhibition. “In Lieu of What Was” (2019) has five oversized containers representing change in water storage in West Asia. There is a plastic bottle, a Kuwaiti water tower, a copper pitcher (jarrah), a day pot (heb) and a zamzamiyah, an earthenware container used to carry holy water from ZamZam well at Mecca. From the sacred to the mundane, Farid asks what technology will be used next.

First Nation perspectives feature strongly in APT10 including this piece from the Seleka International Art Society Initiative. From Tonga, the group has a collaborative approach to shaping environments through art. Called Hifo ki’Olunga which means “get down to the top” it features a suspended house (fale) clad in woven coconut fronds (pola). Inside are seven works of art including an arrangement of 200 greyscale paintings on barkcloth.

This work called Uwe ke lani, Ola ka honua is Hawaiian for “when the heaven weeps, the earth lives”. Hawaiian artist Kaili Chun examines how Honululu has been impacted by urbanisation. In this installation she uses stainless steel cables to represent the light on falling rain as it is caught by slanting sunlight. Integrated into its fabric is water collected by Indigenous Australians encased in glass capsules which connect into the cables. Chun’s practice acknowledges First Nations custodianship of land, sea and sky, the connections between all life, and the sacred quality of water in her own culture.

Fijian expatriate Salote Tawale’s work No Location is a large-scale raft inspired by the 15-metre long HMS No Come Back, a traditional bilibili watercraft she saw as a child in a museum in Suva. Now based in Melbourne, Tawale saw the boat as a perfect metaphor for someone shuttled between two countries. The bamboo craft is fitted out for a long journey including cooking utensils and solar panels.

Manila artist Archie Oclos addresses Philippines social issues in his murals, especially the plight of Indigenous people. “Immigrants of Own Nation” depicts people from all over the islands painted on rice sacks branded with the National Food Authority, an organisation implicated in numerous corruption scandals.

Aluaiy Pulidan is from a noble family of the Paiwan tribe in southern Taiwan. In 2009 her village was destroyed by Typhoon Morakot and the population had to relocate. Pulidan led workshops to reconnect with their culture. She winds strands of found fabric into cords then looped into concentric circles. The designs are metaphors for her community’s effort to survive displacement.

Indonesian Bagus Pandega’s A Diasporic Mythology combines plants and musical and electronic instruments “exploring histories of exchange”. Tea plants are connected through MDI sprouts which are instruments that translates biodata into music following notation Pandega developed from interviews with musicians. These trigger solenoid drivers with a rotating motor on the instruments, allowed the score to be played.

This is a representation from Ngari Isaac’s “day” masks of the Urumat people of East New Britain. The Urumat conduct elaborate day and night ceremonies featuring performance objects and masks. There are five daytime masks celebrate achievements such as harvest time and the launch of new enterprises. Next door is the night-time fire ceremony space which immerse the viewer in the sights and sounds of the Urumat.

One of the most striking and politically charged pieces is Gordon Hookey’s MURRILAND series of historical paintings. Hookey’s Murri perspective on Australian history is inspired by Congolese artist Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu’s depiction of his country’s brutal colonial past. Hookey pulls no punches with strong language showing the history of derogatory slurs reflecting Indigenous lived experience while also celebrating black heroes such as Dundalli and Eddie Gilbert.

Vietnamese artist Phi Phi Oanh works in a time-honoured lacquer technique applying tree sap in layers inlaid with wooden objects and polished to create a hard luminous surface. The Chinese introduced lacquering to Vietnam in the 15th century and there were further innovations in the French colonial era. Oanh’s “Fissio” asks whether the cultural tradition has survived Vietnam’s economic and cultural transformations of the 20th and 21st century.

Chia-Wei Tsu from Taiwan created “Stones and Elephants” in 2019. The installation contains wallpaper, a two-channel video and a a real-time online searching program. It depicts two colonial episodes in Malacca, firstly during the 19th century of the British East India company when commandant Sir William Farquhar hired a shaman to round up elephants. The second depicts the destruction of a fortress by the Dutch to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French. Tsu invited a modern-day shaman to narrate the video.

Farquhar appears in a second Hsu piece entitled Black and White – Malayan Tapir (2018). Farquhar and his Penang-based supervisor Thomas Stamford Raffles both competed to gather zoological and botanical artifacts. Farquhar hired a Chinese painter who was the first to document the Malayan peninsul tapir to science. Tsu presents a zookeeper’s talk as a hi-tech video documenting the story, showing how information and images of the natural world are displayed 200 years later.

APT10 is free and continues until April 25, 2022.

Back again amid the beauty of Norfolk Island

I’ve just spent another blissful two weeks on Norfolk Island, my fifth visit in the past two and a bit years. Having explored most of its charms (plus that of neighbouring Phillip Island) on previous visits, this time it was all about relaxing at a time of year when the days are long, the weather is delightful and the island’s coral beach, Emily Bay (seen above) is packed with locals and tourists enjoying its charms.

As the name suggests, the Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla) is a native species, and is easily the most common tree on the island. However it is not a true pine but a species of conifer. These spectacular trees attracted James Cook when he arrived in 1774, thinking they would make a good source for ships’ masts. However the British settlement that followed him found it was not resilient enough leaving Britain to rely on Russia and the Baltic states for supply in the remainder of the era of sail.

Norfolk Island rose three million years ago from a submarine ridge linking New Caledonia with New Zealand and was originally much larger. Pounding waves have steadily eroded the landscape carving out basalt sea stacks, and creating a safe place for seabirds beyond land predators. This photo was taken from Captain Cook lookout, near where Cook landed on the island’s north coast. Five of the northern islands have been named: Moo-oo (not shown, named for the cyperus lucidus moo-oo grass that grows there), Green Pool (named for its permanent water supply), Cathedral Rock, Elephant Rock and Bird Rock.

Bird Rock viewpoint (with Elephant Rock in the foreground) is a vigorous 2km up and down walk from Captain Cook along the Bridle Track with great sea views along the way, the largest Norfolk Island pines on the island, and plenty of bird life. Bird Rock is home to hundreds of birds such as wedge-tailed shearwaters (night fliers known as ghost birds for their moaning calls), masked boobies, red-tailed tropicbirds, sooty terns and black noddies. Bird Rock is the only place left on Norfolk where the Christinus guentheri gecko survives. Better known as the Lord Howe island gecko where it also survives (as well as Phillip Island) it is considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

A blissful spot on the east coast is One Hundred Acres Reserve. It is not part of the national park but grazing stock have been excluded from the reserve for 140 years and it remains free of woody weeds spread by cattle like cherry guava. The reserve is the primary breeding place for black noddies and shearwater muttonbirds also nest in exposed cliff top locations.

The black noddy also known as the white-capped noddy (Anous minutus) is a seabird from the family Laridae. These birds were called “noddies” because of the behaviour of both sexes as they constantly dip their heads during their breeding display. They are tolerant of humans to the extent that they can be picked up off the nest. Hence the genus name Anous is ancient Greek for “stupid” or “foolish” (analogous to the naming of the “booby” – Spanish for stupid – as both birds are easy to capture).

Part of our daily routine was a walk from Emily Bay to the Flagstaff on top of the hill. There are 200 steps up the 60m hill and it provides a view of Kingston’s harbour from the top. Arthur Phillip’s instructions for the First Fleet settlement of New South Wales included a directive that Norfolk Island was to be settled and secured as soon as possible after landing at Botany Bay. HMS Supply, with Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, settlers, and convicts, arrived at Kingston on March 2, 1788. The site had fresh water and low, flat ground as well as relatively safe anchorage.

The colonists cleared the thick undergrowth near the shore and built shelters and storehouses in the months after landing. By end 1788 the town at Sydney Bay, as King named it, consisted of thatched and weatherboard buildings on either side of a clearing that ran from the foot of Mount George (Flagstaff Hill) to the sea. They cleared areas around the town and in Arthur’s Vale at the head of the swamp, for crops and livestock. In 1789 they cut channels to drain the swamp behind the settlement allowing better access to the interior and providing ground for cultivation.

On March 19, 1790 First Fleet flagship HMS Sirius was wrecked on the reef (marked by a plaque above) while attempting to anchor off Kingston. Its crew and passengers were forced to remain on the island while King left the settlement on the HMS Supply leaving Major Ross of the Royal Marines in command to proclaim martial law. Starving settlers survived on sparse rations and by eating ground nesting birds, which they named the Providence Petrel, and their eggs.

On King’s return in 1791 they build a jail and began burning lime needed to make mortar and plastic. King also built a more permanent Government House fortified with a palisade fence. However it was abandoned after the first settlement ended in 1814. In 1824 the British reopened the island as a peniteniary for the worst of the worst, ”the doubly damned” and a new government house was built on the same site a year later.

A convict uprising in 1826 resulted in four deaths and the later execution of two convicts in Sydney. In 1833 after a series of murders, authorities decided accused prisoners should be tried on Norfolk Island and three prisoners were executed. Hard labour included work in gangs generally and in the Crankmill and quarries. An official report described convicts working from dawn to dusk in building and agriculture. Another mutiny took place in January 1834 and nine convicts died and 13 more were found guilty and executed. The arrival of Major Joseph Anderson in 1834 heralded considerable changes what became Kingston (The change of name was gradual). Much of its appearance today is due to Anderson’s tenure. Anderson directed the construction of the Commissariat Store, the New Military Barracks and in 1836 commenced work on a New Gaol based on the radiating-wing principle, five wings all visible to the centre.

In 1856 the island was handed over to the Pitcairn Islanders after the penal colony was closed. The Pitcairners were the descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty and Tahitian women. Mutiny leader Fletcher Christian and most of the mutineers were murdered on Pitcairn, but their descendents survived. The community remained isolated until 1808 when it was visited by American whalers. By the mid 1800s the community were devout Christians and had outgrown the island. As part of the settlement process 20 hectares of land away from Kingston were allotted to each household.

In the early days the new settlers lived in the 1840s former officers’ houses at Military Row (now Quality Row). Number 11 Quality Row was the first to be built. Originally intended to be the Protestant clergyman’s home, it eventually became the Catholic priest’s home. The building is an outstanding example of Georgian architecture. It now houses Norfolk Island Regional Council administration, archives and meeting rooms. The annex contains change rooms for the adjacent sports field.

Bird life on Norfolk is always enchanting. This is one of a family of white-faced herons that live near the golf course end of the bay. Known as “harnsers” in the other Norfolk (the county in England) they are properly called Egretta novaehollandiae which as the name suggests is common in Australia and across the wider Australasian region. The white-faced heron is highly flexible and uses a wide variety of habitats featuring shallow water. It has been increasing its range in Australia and is now the most abundant heron in New Zealand. It was first reported there in 1868, first reported as a breeding species in 1941, and has increased expansively since the 1960s, now found throughout both islands.

The island’s emblematic bird is the green parrot or Norfolk parakeet (Cyanoramphus cookii). This endangered species used to live across Norfolk before humans arrived in the 1780s but after extensive clearing of trees and introduction of feral predators, fewer than 50 individuals remained by the 1970s. While land clearing has ceased, competition for suitable nesting sites with introduced species such as rosellas and common starlings is fierce, and predation from rats and cats remains a threat. In recent years, the population has responded well to recovery activities, now expanding beyond the borders of the Norfolk Island National Park on the northern side of the island.

The national park is also home to Norfolk’s Second World War heritage. The island was an important airbase and refuelling station for service personnel between Australia, New Zealand and the Solomons. The island was considered strategically important due to the cable station which linked Australia and New Zealand. A small New Zealand unit of infantry and artillery called N Force garrisoned the island between October 1942 and February 1944. At its peak N Force consisted of 1488 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. W. Barry (no relation). Ultimately the island proved too far from the theatre of war and was abandoned leaving behind a few relics from the radar station.

A more modern addition to the national park is this CSIRO water measuring equipment. Though the island gets good rainfall, drought is not unknown. The Norfolk Island water resources assessment project looks to improve water security. The equipment traps additional water for exposed forest sites by intercepting water droplets from passing clouds in a process known as cloud interception. Norfolk Island will need more innovative solutions like this as it deals with 21st century problems of climate change.