Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 5 mins.)
Two members of the Irish Parliament1 and four Dublin municipal Councillors2 accompanied Wheelock family members, neighbours and other campaigners in a march to Store Street Garda3 Station, where Terence Wheelock had received fatal injuries.
The event took place on the afternoon of Saturday 12th September and commenced with a rally outside the GPO. Despite the passing of an anti-Trump visit demonstration of reportedly 25,000 a little earlier, tens of supporters were present for the Wheelock protest.
Terence Wheelock was a young man of 20 years from a working-class area in Summerhill, in the north Dublin inner city in 2005. Leaving his home to purchase some paint brushes to decorate his room, he stopped to talk to some youths beside a recently-stolen car.
When a group of Gardaí arrived, the youths scattered, Terence among them, the Gardaí chasing and detaining four youths including Terence, bringing him to Store Street Garda station. When he left that station apparently some hours later, it was in a coma to the Mater Hospital.
He never recovered consciousness and died three-and-a-half months later.
According to the Wheelock family, the Gardaí who came to inform them of the young man’s whereabouts misinformed them of the location, therefore denying their ability to obtain Terence’s clothes or demand crime scene security of Terence’s cell, which was quickly redecorated.
OUTSIDE THE GPO ON SATURDAY
At the rally outside the iconic GPO building in Dublin’s O’Connell Street in the north city centre, one of Terence’s older brothers, Sammy, announced the purpose of the gathering to those present and the many curious passers-by, both resident and visiting.
Sammy took over as coordinator of the campaign for justice regarding Terence from an older brother, Larry, after the latter died of brain cancer in 2019.
Called first to speak was elected Dublin City Councillor Marie Sherlock, a member of the Labour Party, who commiserated with the Wheelock family on their loss and remarked on their persistence in the campaign over the years, vowing to continue supporting them until justice was achieved.
Less welcome to my ears and probably to at least some others were her words that she would ‘support the Gardaí’ and ‘the Minister for Justice’ in seeking an inquiry into the cause of Terence Wheelock’s death. ‘Support’ for the Gardaí was far from the tone of most campaign demands.
Next to speak was Daniel Ennis, until fairly recently an elected Dublin City Councillor of the Social Democrats party, which he now represents as a TD (elected representative to the Irish Parliament). Ennis spoke mainly as a resident of primarily a working-class area of Dublin city.
Sammy Wheelock also introduced Gemma Dunleavy, the petit rapper from Sheriff Street background on the north-eastern side of the city centre, who has highlighted the Terence Wheelock case in the past.
Dunleavy performed one of her pieces organised around numbers such as ‘Thirty-seven, the number of photographs taken of injuries on Terence’s body’ and ‘zero, the number of people held accountable for Terence’s death’.
After Dunleavy’s performance, Sammy Wheelock announced the intention to march to Store Street Garda station, detention location for two hours of his younger brother Terence in September 2005 before admission to the Mater Hospital in a coma, followed by death three-and-a-half months later.
Sammy also referred to the harassment by Gardaí of the Wheelock family wanting to intimidate them from campaigning.
The march, with banners and placards, proceeded along O’Connell Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, chanting call-and-answer: Say his name: Terence Wheelock! For Justice to be imposed, the guilty must be exposed! What do we Demand?Answers! When do we demand them? Now! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! Guilty: Garda!
Reaching the Liffey river that bisects the city, the march turned left along Eden Quay,4 then left at Butt Bridge, passing Liberty Hall5 and the monument to James Connolly.6 As they neared Store Street, Sammy pronounced it ‘one of the most corrupt Garda stations in Ireland.’
OUTSIDE THE GARDA STATION
Family relatives lined the steps of and with their backs to the Garda station, displaying the campaign’s placards and banners while supporters gathered facing them to listen to speakers.
Dublin City councillors Conor Reddy of the People Before Profit party, Madeleine Johannson (non-party) and Janice Boylan of the Sinn Féin party addressed the crowd, along with James O’Toole of Red Media and, for the second time, Daniel Ennis TD (Soc. Dems).
Reddy, Ennis and O’Brien all related their origins in working-class areas of Dublin and their familiarity with the hostile attitude of the authorities, especially the Gardaí, to the residents of those areas, particularly the youth. Reddy mentioned another family campaign around Garda violence.
James O’Toole referenced ‘the thin blue line’ used to describe the police and their defence of democracy but pointed out that people’s experience of that ‘blue line’ differed remarkably according to upon which side of the line they found themselves.
O’Toole pointed out that although people from working class areas tend to find themselves universally on the ‘wrong’ side of the ‘blue line’, at times, due to taking militant action, people normally on the ‘right’ side of that line can find themselves subjected to Garda violence.
Boylan, speaking briefly, apologised for her absence from the campaign heretofore but promised support for the future. Reddy spoke about the need for youth social provision, justice system diversion programs and drug prevention treatment facilities for young people.
Both Sammy and Robert Wheelock, another brother, spoke eloquently from their prepared speeches about the loss of their brother, the effect on their family and in particular on their mother, unable to be present for health reasons but who sent her thanks to those present.
The brothers spoke about the future that Terence never had a chance to experience and the loss also to the daughter he left behind. Both of them also pointed out that although their campaign sought justice in relation to Terence, it implied the need for justice across Irish society.
Sammy called Vera Lynch from Tallaght forward to speak about her own struggle for justice around the killing of her son Stephen Lynch by a hit-and-run driver but the Gardaí, who failed to investigate the crime with any rigour.
Speaking outside the Garda station, Lynch said her son, a father of three, had been knocked down by a car ten years ago and then reversed over but neither multiple phone calls attempting to speak to the investigating Garda nor an email to the Minister of Justice had achieved any result.
Sammy introduced Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin to sing Sammy’s lyrics of Summerhill, his song to the air of Spancil Hill.7 Ó Ceannabháin of the PBP party sang the song well, which was no surprise as he is a talented singer in the traditional sean-nós style, from a musical family from Connemara.
At conclusion of the song, Sammy led the crowd in a few more chants directed at the Gardaí, thanked all for their attendance and promised to keep pushing for an independent inquiry into the killing of Terence Wheelock and for measures to ensure no similar experience for anyone in future.
FOCAL SCOIR
The State’s defenders tend to hope that the grind of the passing years will sap the energy of campaigners or that they will die of ill-health, trauma or old age before any question arises of acknowledging guilt over the behaviour of those defenders and responsibility of the State itself.
In July this year Osgur Breatnach received from the High Court, after decades campaigning, a Certificate of Miscarriage of Justice for his 1978 Sallins Mail Train robbery conviction on the basis of a ‘confession’ obtained, Breatnach has always maintained, through Garda ‘Heavy Gang’ torture.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1Often incorrectly referred to as ‘the Dáil’ from the also incorrect official title of ‘Dáil Éireann’ (‘Parliament of Ireland’); it lost any claim to that title held since 1919 when in 1999 the State sponsored successfully an amendment to the Constitution of the State to abandon its claim to sovereignty over the Six Counties of the British colony. The two TDs included Paul Murphy, who was not one of the speakers.
2Including Ciaran Perry, non-party, who was present but did not address the crowd.
3An Garda Síochána is the official title of the police force of the Irish State, an officer of the force is a Garda (plural: Gardaí).
4Ironically this street was the scene of a fatal (to two workers) police (DMP) attack on a street rally of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union at the beginning of the Dublin Employers’ Lockout to break the ITGWU. Buildings along this street were damaged and partly demolished by British artillery during the repression of the 1916 Rising.
5Liberty Hall was the title of the HQ of the ITGWU which was demolished after artillery destruction in 1916; it is now the title of the successor to that union following a number of amalgamations leading to the creation of SIPTU which is a far cry from the militancy of even the post-1913 ITGWU.
6One of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, Commander of Dublin in the 1916 Rising, for which he was one of the 16 executed leaders of the 1916 Rising. Also a leading official of the ITGWU during the Lockout and in the union’s recovery. But also a leading revolutionary socialist, anti-imperialist, historian, author and songwriter.
7Written by Sammy as a tribute to his brother Larry who had founded and chaired the campaign in 2005 until his death in 2019 from brain cancer, Sammy donated the song for all proceeds to go to the Irish Cancer Society.
USEFUL LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Summerhill, Sammy’s lyrics sung by Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin: https://sammywheelockjr.bandcamp.com/track/summerhill
Previous Rebel Breeze articles on the Terence Wheelock campaign:
https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/08/26/protesting-death-of-youth-at-hands-of-garda/
Wikipedia entry (not thoroughly sanitised): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Wheelock
