When Dutchy Holland was sentenced to 20 years in November 1997 for dealing in cannabis, there was a murmur of protest from Hot Press. But there were few, if any, other media suggesting that the conviction was dodgy and the sentence well over the top.
Most Dublin journalists believed that Holland had murdered Veronica Guerin in June the previous year and reckoned him therefore undeserving of sympathy, even if a 20 stretch for a drugs rap seemed out of order.
Reaction to Holland’s release a couple of weeks back showed that there’s been little change in attitudes since.
The airwaves hummed with outrage at suggestions that Holland might appear on the Late, Late Show following his release from Portlaoise. One raised voice came from a chap I recall from nine years ago, on Dunphy’s Last Word on the day Holland was sentenced: then, he was hailing the wisdom of the Special Criminal Court (SCC) and denouncing those who suggested that the no-jury tribunal might no longer be needed now that the IRA ceasefire had been restored. (The SCC had been set up in the 1970s specifically to deal with a perceived threat to the State from the IRA.)
Had Holland been given a jury trial, the crime corr. told Dunphy, he would likely have walked free.
I remember thinking that that was probably right. A jury might well have acquitted Holland of the drugs charge – not because it had been nobbled but because the prosecution had fallen far short of removing reasonable doubt: its case consisted of an unsigned statement, repudiated by Holland, which he was alleged to have volunteered during questioning at Lucan garda station, together with the testimony of self-confessed drugs gangster Charlie Bowden, who had been given immunity in exchange for his evidence.
It is difficult to believe following the revelations at the Morris Tribunal (although you never do know) that a prosecution would be brought on such a basis today.
Convicted on dodgy evidence of dealing in drugs, Holland was sentenced, in effect, for a murder which he hadn’t been charged with: 67 now, he has never been convicted of a violent crime of any sort.
The media played a part in securing his conviction. A garda witness had said under privilege that she believed that Holland had been the trigger man in Ms. Guerin’s murder. Gung-ho reporters grabbed the reference with glee.
Thereafter, the first mention of Holland in virtually every news report carried the damning addendum, ‘the man gardai believe murdered Veronica Guerin.’
Journalists weren’t reporting the allegation that Holland had killed Ms. Guerin because they’d arrived at this conclusion. Rather, they arrived at this conclusion because it’s what they’d been reporting.
Plenty there for us all to ponder. But, far from using the occasion of Holland’s release for pause and reflection, many seem set on repeating the exercise.
Two Sundays ago (April 9th), a British broadsheet deployed Ms. Guerin’s brother to pronounce on ‘the wider battle against Ireland’s criminal gangs.’ Said Jimmy Guerin: ‘We have lost this war and that’s realised by the government.
All they can now do is contain, as opposed to smash it...The authorities missed a real opportunity because in 1996-97, if they had continued to make those resources available and kept the pressure on, the gardai could have smashed organised crime in this country.’
This is nonsense. The implicit assumption that Holland killed Ms. Guerin is just that –an assumption. What’s more, organised crime in Ireland, as elsewhere, mostly has to do with drugs.
And the war against drugs is not being lost because the government has allowed the pressure to drop but because the war against drugs is unwinnable.
If importing cannabis wasn’t a crime there’d be no criminals involved in the cannabis trade using violence to defend their patch; it’s likely Ms. Guerin would still be alive; and unlikely any of us would have heard of Mr. Holland.

Irish media may shy away from rational appraisal of the drugs issue, but the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) steps sideways up to the mark.
In a recent op-ed piece, George Melloan declared: “A good case can be made that US-sponsored efforts to eradicate coca crops in Latin America are winning converts among Latin peasants to the anti-American causes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Their friend Evo Morales was just elected president of Bolivia mainly by the peasant following he won by opposing a US-backed coca-eradication program...Mexico is being destabilized by drug gangs warring over access to the lucrative US market...
‘To the extent that authorities curtail supplies of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, the retail price of these substances goes up, making the trade immensely profitable –tax-free, of course. The more the US spends on interdiction, the more incentive it creates for taking the risk of running drugs.”
Melloan is a thoroughly reactionary neo-con, the sort of fellow you’d find Bono heaping praise on. But he can see what Dublin crime corrs. can’t –that harsh laws and tough cops don’t dent drugs crime.
The ever-reliable counterpunch.com reports that six out of seven members of the WSJ editorial board agree with Melloan, although the owners still balk at making decriminalisation the formal policy of the paper.  
Here, the best way to mark the memory of Veronica Guerin is to press on for the removal of the laws against drugs which helped provide the context for her killing.

There’ll never be another band from Derry like the Undertones. Partly because no Derry band would dare try. So we can take it there’s nothing contrived about the reminiscent ethic of The Q.
‘Remind you a bit of the Undertones,’ I remarked to Derry News’s resident rock guru Mark Burns at Sandino’s as Paul Connolly soared and swooped over thumping bass and singing guitars, ‘Flipping her opinions to suit her friends/Swapping her style to be in with the trends/Why does she wanna be a wannabee?’
“For fuck’s sake, don’t say that,” advised Burns, wisely.
I’d encountered The Q first when they arrived mob-handed in the SEA election headquarters last June, slapped down a CD and scarpered. Live, they are something else. The half dozen numbers they had time for at Sandino’s were delivered with disciplined precision which didn’t detract from the mandatory mayhem. Which is half the battle.
The Q comprise Connolly on vocals, Tomas Nicholl and Thomas Doherty on guitars, Rory Nicholl on drums and Barry Fahy on bass. They are a full-on retro blend of everything from the aforementioned to Rory Gallagher, the Stones, U2, the Clash, the Libertines. Bit of Buzzcocks in there, too, I think. Punk sound, sweet soul. Like they listen to good music all day, come out at night-time to play.
They have a handful of riff-rich sturdily-structured songs – ‘Armour Plated Porche’, ‘Flipping the Lid’, ‘Peppermint Pier’ – words by Porsche, music Tomas Nicholl – and are ready for the road. How far along it they can travel, I wouldn’t know since I never get it right. But did my head in, did my heart good, what’s to cavil at? Teenage kings, so hard to beat.