Henry McDonald: A moving song about those who were Disappeared by the IRA

But the subject matter of the song this man sings is far from pastoral.

Although the actual location for the start of this film is Murlough Bay near Dundrum it is there to remind us of a dark deed committed at another coastal idyll further south along the eastern seaboard — Templetown Beach, Co Louth where Jean McConville’s body was found by a dog walker in August 2003.

Jean was abducted in Divis Flats by a 12-strong IRA unit three weeks before Christmas 1972. The 37-year-old mother of ten stood accused without any trial, judge, jury or appeal of being an informer as well as tending to a wounded British soldier in the West Belfast flats complex.

She was dragged away from her children, forced into a car, driven across the border and then murdered in Louth before her body was buried in secret on that beach.

The widow’s fate became one of the first and arguably most infamous cases of the Disappeared, mainly victims of the Provisional IRA who were kidnapped, interrogated, shot dead and covertly buried during the Troubles.

The IRA was responsible for 14 of the Disappeared, the INLA hid the body of Newry school-teacher Seamus Ruddy in Paris and North Down loyalists connected through family ties to the Red Hand Commando were behind the murder and secret burial of Lisa Dorrian, 25, in 2005.

As well as Lisa at least three of the Disappeared’s remains have yet to be recovered. They are IRA member Joe Lyskey, Co Tyrone teenager Columba McVeigh and SAS Captain Robert Nairac.

‘Vanished Into Air’ is an attempt by the musicians and film makers not just to remind the world about what were essentially war crimes but also that four are still missing presumed dead and the terrible plight of their loved ones unable to give these victims a Christian burial.

This mournful, moving tune should also act as a foil to all the doublespeak from some republican spokespersons who set themselves up as champions of truth, justice, human rights and demand that everyone else except them be held to account for the crimes of Troubles past.

It is worth remembering too that whenever you hear outcry from this same camp against the proposed amnesty for all conflict-related crimes in the British government’s Troubles legacy plan that the perpetrators of these disappearances already have their own special amnesty.

At the very end of the ‘Vanished Into Air’ video the film makers reproduce a message on screen from the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, the cross border body tasked with searching for the bodies of the Disappeared.

The ICLVR appeal for help in finding those still missing includes some reassurance for those behind these war crimes. “All information given is treated as privileged and can only be used for the purposes of locating the bodies of the disappeared.”

In other words, any intelligence to pin-point where the remains are buried cannot be used in prosecutions, which is AKA an amnesty.

The song was composed and produced by a hybrid of old Ulster punk rockers known as the ‘Sacred Heart of Bontempi’.

The group is comprised of founding members of ‘Ruefrex’ and ‘Shock Treatment’. Paul Burgess, ‘Ruefrex’s’ drummer and song writer sings the lyrics on ‘Vanished Into Air’ while lead guitarist and backing vocalist is Davy McLarnon from ‘Shock Treatment’.

Burgess and McLarnon are also seen performing inside a house preserved in the décor of the late 60s and early 70s with an old fashioned black and silver radio transistor, sub-psychedelic patterned wallpaper, garish seventies style lamps and blockish furniture. The artists said they wanted to recreate the atmosphere of homes the Disappeared would have lived in at the time and in Jean McConville’s case the flat where she was dragged out from.

The lyrics they sing capture the deep wounding sense of loss the Disappeared’s children, mothers, fathers, siblings and loved ones endured down through the decades when the missing were once a forgotten footnote from the Troubles.

One of the most poignant verses alludes to Jean McConville’s abduction:

‘You never heard them coming up the stairs,

In dressing gown they caught you unawares

We never knew just how and why you vanished into air.

You never heard them coming up the stairs,

Can you hear our prayers?’

It is entirely apposite that ‘Vanished Into Air’ has been released just before Christmas, around the 49th anniversary of Jean McConville’s disappearance, at a time of year when families think back to those loved ones no longer with them. Given that all proceeds of the tune for sale across all major music platforms from Apple Music to Spotify will be sent to victims’ organisations it is surely the must buy charity recording of Christmas 2021 in Northern Ireland.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVm-dxalU6I&t=125s

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