Engaging in a remote interview isn’t always the most convenient process, with technical issues often cropping up during the setup. Still, for Trevor Birney, a journalist, filmmaker, and author based in Belfast, these snafus were merely blips on the radar. This 57-year-old professional takes these hitches with a good-natured attitude, recognizing that his line of work often presents more serious concerns, such as the possibility of security risks during calls.
It’s become a light-hearted joke among northern journalists, Birney admits, suggesting that their communications might be monitored. Yet, he has recently been approached by individuals concerned about their calls’ safety. Although he cannot provide complete assurance against eavesdropping, the focus is always on legal conversation. Despite this, Birney notes the fear some people have about interacting with him through communication channels. And he admits the impact, stating that they are different people following August 31, 2018.
This particular date marks a significant and somber event in Birney’s life and is a crucial point in his new book, “Shooting Crows”. On this day, both he and colleague Barry McCaffrey were taken into custody by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), accused of leaking sensitive information about the notorious Loughinisland massacre that took place in June 1994. This horrific event, which saw six men gunned down at Heights Bar by UVF gunmen while watching a World Cup match, shook the nation during a time when the IRA was on the verge of a ceasefire.
As the investigation lingered, survivors and the victims’ families began to suspect a conspiracy between the security forces and the loyalist paramilitary group responsible for the killings. This suspicion was later confirmed in the 2017 documentary “No Stone Unturned”, produced by Birney and directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney. The documentary provided evidence, leaked to McCaffrey, exposing that officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the North’s police force at the time, were aware of the murderers’ identities.
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However, the duo remained untouched by the PSNI and shockingly, Birney became the target one early morning when police officers raided his family home which he shares with his spouse, Sheila, and their three girls. He was subsequently detained – an experience that still rankles him and is graphically described in his book.
“To be honest, I never even had the slightest inkling in, what one might call, my wildest dreams or even worst nightmares that the PSNI would target journalists and informants post the film release. I was astounded!” Birney comments regarding his arrest, which was ultimately quashed. He believes his arrest was due to pressure on the leaders of the PSNI from active and retired officers, although, he feels there were additional elements in the mix.
“I hypothesise that the PSNI aimed to intimidate Northern journalists by sending a clear message: expect reprisal action if you scrutinise legacy issues”, he reflects. (The term Shooting Crows, the title of his book, echoes comments made by a judge authorising the raid on Birney’s residence, who expressed concerns of possible deterrence.) “I am uneasy about potentially hundreds or even thousands of stories locked away in the PSNI files, never to be revealed. I sense there is a calculated strategy to keep these narratives concealed from kin”, he adds.
As a determined professional with an impressive work ethic, covered by a jovial and talkative exterior, Birney has dedicated his career to revealing those hidden stories. A seasoned newspaper and broadcasting journalist, he’s recognised as a film-maker and author, whose diverse projects have ranged from the polemic businessman Seán Quinn to the explosive Belfast rappers Kneecap. His latest book represents ten years’ relentless exploration of the Loughinisland murders.”
Delving into the harsh reality of violent occurrences, “Shooting Crows” pieces together a fast-paced story entwined with meticulous detail. The narrative unveils complex, sinister links between the perpetrators and those providing them with covert information. Some aspects of the narrative might be recognisable from “No Stone Unturned”, a work which identified a local UVF suspect as the primary shooter and subsequently informed us about his wife’s disclosure of his identity to the police. Astoundingly, the police never filed charges against either of them.
However, several unexpected developments, such as PSNI officials visiting the alleged primary shooter to enquire about any distress caused to him by the film, 24 years prior to Birney’s arrest, were heard. Such bizarre events evidently left a significant mark on Birney and his family’s life.
“My family has forever changed. From the expressions on my daughters’ faces, I can tell. Their view of Northern Ireland, as well as their life in Belfast, has been negatively affected as they were pushed into choosing sides. They felt an obligation to make a stand,” Birney explained.
Hailing from Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Birney was aware from his childhood of the multiple facets of a story, having grown up amidst the Troubles. Being one of three brothers, reared in a staunchly Protestant household, he had a mother who currently resides in Enniskillen and served the canteen of a Catholic school, and a recently deceased father employed by the power supply board who also worked as a part-time RUC officer. Birney remembers his father explaining that his service wasn’t driven by allegiance to the monarch or nation. It simply provided an extra income and perhaps, a sense of camaraderie, which his father relished. The father never spoke ill of other sects in Birney’s presence.
Birney’s interaction with Catholics initiated when he began playing for the local football team. This opportunity instilled in him the realisation of alternate viewpoints. “That was a gift given to us by Enniskillen. My parents supported us in our exploration and never saw a clash in this interaction,” reflects Birney.
Birney embarked on his career in journalism at age 17, when he commenced work for the local paper, the Impartial Reporter. By the time the 1990s rolled around, Birney was a significant presence in UTV’s Insight programme. Following the closure of the station’s current affairs segment in 2005, Birney established a television production enterprise, Below the Radar, and later launched a news platform, The Detail, where he came in contact with McCaffrey. According to Birney, they generated a diverse team of journalists and encouraged them to freely pursue their stories. This was how Barry initiated investigations into Loughinisland.
The connection with Gibney through the Loughinisland investigations, resulted in collaboration on a 2014 TV documentary about the murders, Ceasefire Massacre. Birney speaks highly of Gibney, an American film-maker hailed for his documentary productions like the Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, referring to him as “a master storyteller”. Inspired by Gibney’s sophisticated production techniques and persuasive factual narratives, Birney established another production company, Fine Point Films.
Among Birney’s most notable works is the spectacular 2022 RTÉ documentary series, sean daeffaefafafaefaefaefff Country, which chronicles the extraordinary ascension and downfall of entrepreneur Seán Quinn. As Birney recounts, he met Quinn at a critical time when Quinn was on the lookout for a willing listener who could narrate his saga. Perhaps due to Birney’s recent arrest, Quinn felt Birney was the right choice.
Birney, who hailed from the same hometown as Quinn, had been observing him since his newspaper days in Enniskillen. Quinn was a puzzling, influential character who left a significant impact on the local area. In his documentary, Birney explored not only Quinn’s shrewd growth of his vast commercial empire, but also how his unprecedented local affluence guaranteed community backing following his massive loss on shares in the ill-fated Anglo-Irish Bank. Birney cynically observed that Quinn, rather than remaining an industrial titan, assumed more of a tribal leader role, exacting total loyalty in exchange. Quinn considered himself the owner of everything, which in Birney’s view, probably gave rise to his darker side, as he believed that everyone was indebted to him.
In recent years, Birney has delved back into the complex history of the Troubles with his RTÉ film, Murder of a GAA Chairman, which centres on the tragic story of Sean Brown. Brown was tragically abducted and slain by loyalist terrorists while closing the GAA clubhouse in Bellaghy, Co Derry, in 1997. Brown was a close acquaintance of my late father, Seamus Heaney, who also appears in the documentary. Birney’s film earnestly tracks the tried and tested route of flawed probes and state agents serving as paramilitary suspects – essentially speaking, collusion, a topic that got Birney apprehended in 2018.
According to Birney, revisiting the topic was fraught with fear, “But once we meet the determined and dignified Brown family, all those fears simply vanish. There is often a vague idea of ‘collusion’ being flung around, but it becomes meaningful when grounded in personal experiences. The ordeal and injustice undergone by the Brown family at the hands of the [British] state are perfect examples.”
However, not all of Birney’s works revolve around grave matters. More recently, he has produced documentaries on various music stars, including the 1980s Los Angeles band the Go-Gos and American vocalist Cyndi Lauper, and is presently working on a film about Boy George. He has been instrumental in producing Kneecap, a renowned feature about the recognised Irish rap artists of the same name, and he’s also part of Saipan, an anticipated film on Roy Keane’s dramatic 2002 World Cup departure from the Ireland team, featuring Steve Coogan as manager Mick McCarthy.
Birney is particularly effusive when discussing these projects, lauding Kneecap’s English director Rich Peppiatt for his “bright and intelligent spark”, along with praising Éanna Hardwicke’s portrayal of Roy Keane: “As he started to embody the character, he began to intimidate me.” Despite his diverse range of work, Birney finds a common theme in all his projects.
“He insists that, similar to Kneecap, the perception of Saipan is likely to astonish numerous individuals as they will approach it with certain assumptions, only to have those perspectives transformed. Their role as journalists, he explains, is to enlighten, instruct, and entertain.
However, Birney cannot ignore the lingering presence of the Troubles, particularly collusion. With his book, Shooting Crows, he aims to illuminate the obscured aspects of the conflict in Northern Ireland. He can’t help but contemplate what his father would think about his findings, maintaining that his mother is convinced his father would have fully supported him. He is also acutely cogniscent of how life can be disrupted irrevocably in a fleeting moment.
Birney asserts emphatically, “I truly believe that if my father had somehow found himself in the wrong location at the wrong time, he could have been sacrificed to shield an informant that the RUC or MI5 wanted to safeguard and we’d be none the wiser.” This conviction is what fuels him. He maintains that a wealth of untold stories continue to exist on both sides of the conflict. To comprehend the situation entirely, one must know the identities of the people involved and how they managed to escape consequences. The novel, Shooting Crows by Trevor Birney, is available from Merrion Press.”