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LOYALIST GUNMAN AND convicted murderer Michael Stone opened an art exhibition in Belfast last month while on temporary day release.
Stone, who has been convicted of killing six people and is currently approaching the end of a 30-year jail sentence, opened the two-day exhibition along with his wife on 9 July at the Reach Project in the east of the city.
The exhibition, entitled Milestones, was held in aid of charity according to Reach (which describes itself as a non-judgemental organisation aimed at delivering on the hopes of the PUL – Protestant Unionist Loyalist – community), with all proceeds going to sufferers of muscular dystrophy.
The opening of the exhibition was also attended by a number of high-profile unionists -including the grand secretary of the Orange Order Mervyn Gibson, former DUP representative Sammy Douglas, and DUP councillor George Dorrian.
Stone infamously murdered three people when single-handedly attacking a Republican funeral in 1988. However, he also killed three others and was accused of plotting the murder of many more.
Victims
One of Stone’s victims was 37-year-old bread-server Dermot Hackett, shot dead in his van by Stone in May 1987, whose brother Roddy has spoken out against the prison authorities for not informing his family that Stone had been released.
Such day releases are common as long-term prisoners come to the end of their sentences – Stone is entitled to one such day every four weeks.
The Northern prison service meanwhile expects affected people to register for a specific scheme before they will receive information regarding temporary releases.
“We should have been notified,” Roddy Hackett told the BBC.
“I would hate to think that some of my immediate family happened to walk up the street in Belfast and see him walking towards them,” he said.
I think it would be an awful shock for them, especially Dermot’s family. It is only right that they should have let us know.
Stone is no stranger to haphazard, ‘artistic’ behaviour. In 2006 he stormed the Northern Assembly at Stormont armed with knives, a gun, and several explosive devices.
He subsequently claimed that the act had been ‘performance art’. That argument failed to stop him from being returned to prison after he was initially freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
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So the grand secretary of the Orange Lodge attends this exhibition by a mass murderer yet the OO states it will be at least a generation before they will meet with anyone from Sinn Fein (even though it’s already been a generation since the IRA campaign ended). Good to see consistent, and utterly non-sectarian, policy there, Mervyn!
@Michael Allen: Pat O Connell is entitled to his opinion as are you. Didn’t SF TDs collect Gerry McCabe’s murderers from prison.
@Michael Allen: and I’d say there is a lot of cork people that don’t a flying crap what he has on his van. There is more important things in life than getting worked up about these things. Live in the present and not in the past. We all have family or friends working in the UK/Canada/Australia should we be appalled at them too for paying taxes to Queen etc
@Patrick O Connell: who the feck is Patrick O’Connell?
@Michael Allen: so we should all live in the past, people that are looking for irish unification think that when this happens all the unionist/loyalist are going to abandon their traditions. they are not going to do that. it needs to be dealt with through education and reconcilation. SF and DUP have Northern Ireland at its worst since the Peace Process began. Anyone that saw the program about John Hume saw a man that had a vision and brought about peace. todays politicians in NI are nothing compared to Hume.
@Patrick O Connell: Patrick, I’d take your stated desire for people to stop living in the past a bit more seriously if you hadn’t only minutes earlier dragged up (for the umpteenth time) the name of Jerry McCabe.
@Patrick O Connell: your are a hypocrite, you give out about people living in the past, but you are well able to bring up the past when it suits you .
Orange order in attendance with man who murdered innocent people!
Orange order…
@Gearoid Mag Lennain: unionist politicians too!!
@Gearoid Mag Lennain: Pass up the chance of meeting one of their idols? Never, never, never.
I took The Black Cabs Tour of Belfast twice. The tours are driven and guided by former prisoners during the troubles from both sides of the divide. They have a mutual agreement whereby they each can cross into the others territory to facilitate their trade. I took the tour from both the republican and loyalist perspective to gain a balanced perspective.
One of the common elements I found was regret that as younger men they had been used by their more powerful seniors and had spent years behind bars as a consequence. Many were involved in bringing their own communities forward into the peace process and now make a living from tourism. Many have also made great friends with their colleagues on the other side who they once would have killed given the chance. It was a profound experience.
I see no such change or evolution in the mind of Stone. His artwork suggests he has in no way mellowed with age, if fact there is possibly even more determination.
He himself is not the greatest danger but what he represents and how young angry men today may be inspired to follow him and view him as an icon is.
@David McShite: I dunno – I think the the LGBT+ Lion is a major step forward.
@David McShite: they have an agreement that they can cross into the other’s territory. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.
This guy was the main man in an dreadful episode in Northern Ireland when all hell broke loose in a short period. Throwing grenades at a funeral killing and maiming many people. Let him paint in jail. Although in the south he would be out years ago.
@Bill Clear: out? He’d be a TD! He’s pure trash though.
@Bill Clear: he was out years ago but he preferred life inside
@Michael Allen: aye. Who was driving the white van waiting for him on the M1 that day which had to leave hurriedly and why were there no police or soldiers surrounding the funerals as there had been at every single Republican funeral for years. It was a set up.
Performance art my ring
Art.? graphic cartoons at best ugly, propaganda posters
The orange order and loyalism get their power from the uneducated poor. soccer teams are an example of how easily lead they are on both sides.
Martin Dillon, author of The Shankill Butchers, Killer in Clown Town, & The Dirty War wrote a great book about Stone, called Stone Cold. It’s well worth a read, as are all hid books.
@Mickey Amoko: read it years ago. Fantastic book. Stone is a very dangerous individual and will always be a threat.
The real challenge for unification is going to be dealing with individuals like this.
It will be difficult but worth it.
@Ooby Dooby: The way you deal with guys like these is to lock them up.
Michael Stone is a nutcase, pure and simple. He hates Catholics because his mother, Mary O’Sillivan, was a catholic from Kerry, who disappeared from his life when he was a young child. Stone has 8 kids who want nothing to do with seriously messed up individual. All in all, it makes sense that fellow basket cases, the Orange Order and DUP, stand loyalty by his side.
@Ryan Donal: Stone also spent a lot of his childhood in Kincora boys home. I’m not one bit defending his psychopathy, however it might go some way to explaining how he turned out.
@Ryan Donal: There were a lot worse than him though. The media played a big part in painting this picture of him. But actually he wasn’t simply a Catholic hating psycho. He could have killed scores at Milltown cemetery had he so wanted, but his aim was to take out Adams and McGuinness. Which was fair enough.
@Adrian: Lenny Murphy, Sam McAlistair, Bates and co were probably the creme de la creme of loyalist psychos.
@Ryan Donal: aye. All the one sow’s litter. See
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/archive/the-troubles-gallery-40-years-of-conflict-in-northern-ireland-from-the-belfast-telegraph-archives-29947576.html
Orange Order, Clergy, Unionist MPs, Trade unions, UVF, UDA and RUC all together.
@Larry Doherty: @Ryan Donal: aye. All the one sow’s litter. See
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/archive/the-troubles-gallery-40-years-of-conflict-in-northern-ireland-from-the-belfast-telegraph-archives-29947576.html
Photo No 49/242
Orange Order, Clergy, Unionist MPs, Trade unions, UVF, UDA and RUC all together.
Only up there would they celebrate a murder,depending on your religious preferences…
@Dave Walsh: Whatever about Mr. Stones attempt at “art” I remember his various murders very well. I’m shocked that someone so violent, who has committed such violent crimes can paint a few tacky images and be allowed out so early on a 30 year sentence.
man that haircut, … in anther context he’d have a confederate flag and a southern drawl
Martin Dillon, author of The Shankill Buthers, Killer in Clown Town, & The Dirty War wrote a great book about Stone, called Stone Cold. It’s well worth a read, as are all hid books.
Loyalist filth!
His so called art is pathetic, he has no talent whatsoever!
A deranged murderer with no morals!
Disgusting piece of garbage, a piece of thrash that should have been dumped with the hazardous materials.
as others have said – Michael stone is a sectarian serial murderer
How long will he last on the outside?Not long with any luck.
This guy is a serious psychopath………
Remember when he was feted on the Late Late.. Chap is demented and dangerous and guilty of mass murder. Being released into society is only going to end in tears. Chap was helped/used by the British government in their war against the IRA. The war they couldn’t win.
@Jamie McCormack: Hatred does that to people, at the end all they have is hatred to comfort them as they get older, they become hatred and when that happens then what they are is killed off by that emotion. The cancer of the soul.
@TamuMassif2019: that’s cold.
All I see is paintings of sectarian hatred?
MAKE ART, NOT WAR!
@John Mc Dermott: war occurs, art results. art inspires war, circle complete.
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