• In Memory Of

    Kingsman EUSTACE EVERETT HANLEY
  • About NIVA

    Welcome to the website of the Northern Ireland Veterans Association (NIVA).

       
      NIVA is an internet based association (registered with COBSEO) with forum users and members all over the UK and abroad. Primarily for veterans of the Op Banner campaign from 1969 to 2007, be they ex or serving members of the UK armed forces, PSNI, NI fire/ambulance or prison services, we also particularly welcome relatives of the fallen.

       
      To register on the site as a forum user only, please **Click Here**. NB - for security reasons all applications are vetted and once admitted, permitted access to the open parts of the website/forum only. This is absolutely free to use.

        
    To join as a full or associate member of NIVA once registered on the forums, please follow the link in the downloads section of the site to download a membership application form which should be returned to the address shown together with payment and proof of service etc. All monies raised go towards the upkeep of the website and the organisation of NIVA's annual service of remembrance at the NMA in Alrewas. Full/associate members also gain admittance to the private areas of the website/forum where comrades can be assured of their personal security and enjoy all the banter and support you came to expect whilst serving the Crown. Additionally full members are invited to march with NIVA for Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph in London.

       
      If you have any queries please contact us at:

       
      The Northern Ireland Veterans Association
    PO Box 2208
    Gloucester
    GL3 9BZ

  • The NIVA News

    by Published on 14-05-2013 04:27 PM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from around the world
    Article Preview

    KEVIN MYERS - Irish Independent.

    FINALLY, finally, some sense has prevailed in the Army's relationship with the British army. The deployment of a handful of Army soldiers on a training mission in Mali with soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment, a full 90 years after the two armies went their separate ways, is a long overdue recognition of political, cultural and geographical realities. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Minister responsible is Jewish, and is therefore less beholden to the traditions of querulous deference to "republican" sensitivities, which has gravely undermined the willingness of our political classes to engage in any closer military co-operation with the British.
    ...
    by Published on 03-03-2013 10:09 AM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from Northern Ireland
    Article Preview

    By Ed Curran – Belfast Telegraph

    The terrible tragedy of Thomas Niedermayer and his family is a reminder that there are still two distinct groups of people living on this island – those involved in such barbarity and the vast majority who had nothing to do with it.

    Mr Niedermayer, as an RTE documentary revealed at the weekend, was kidnapped, pistol-whipped, murdered and his body buried in a shallow grave.

    He was chief executive of the Grundig factory in west Belfast, which employed 1,300 workers in the 1970s. He fell victim to one of his employees, Brian Keenan, then a trade union official, who also happened to be one of the most ruthless leaders of the IRA.

    Mr Niedermayer's body was not discovered until eight years after his death. The full extent of his family's suffering is now revealed.

    His widow committed suicide, walking into the sea at Greystone in County Wicklow, and his two daughters also took their own lives, in South Africa and Australia.

    Keenan went to his grave as a revered republican, mourned and saluted as one of the architects of the peace process. Only now do we learn of the gruesome role he played in Thomas Niedermayer's murder.
    ...
    by Published on 23-01-2013 11:37 AM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from Northern Ireland
    Article Preview

    By Lindy McDowell - Belfast Telegraph
    You watch that shameful scene on the news of a couple of yobs launching a railway sleeper at the legs of a police officer (in the name of "honouring the flag") and you think to yourself who would want to be a frontline cop in Belfast right now?

    Money wouldn't pay you.

    Yet, having said that, you can also understand how much justifiable pride those men and woman (and their families) must surely have in the truly remarkable and admirable job they do.

    All those of us who support the rule of law owe them all an enormous thanks.

    Whatever the arguments about overall police strategy, the officers facing down the rioters night after night have shown true, shining courage.

    Around a hundred have been injured since this carry on started. A scandalous, shameful statistic.
    ...
    by Published on 13-12-2012 01:41 PM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from Northern Ireland
    Article Preview

    By Ed Curran, Belfast Telegraph

    When Alex Maskey became the first Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Belfast, he invited me to lunch.
    On my way down Royal Avenue, I met a friend from South Africa and we walked together towards the City Hall. As he caught sight of the Union flag fluttering over the building, my friend expressed surprise: "I thought you told me the Lord Mayor was from Sinn Fein?"
    "That's right," I replied. "The fact that the flag is still there and a Shinner is in the Lord Mayor's parlour tells you how far politics have travelled."
    ...
    by Published on 02-11-2012 10:45 AM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from Northern Ireland
    Article Preview

    Two men are being held by police in connection with the murder of prison officer David Black in Northern Ireland - one of them a well-known republican.

    Colin Duffy, 44, and another man, aged 31, were arrested in the Lurgan area early this morning and have been taken to Antrim Serious Crime suite for questioning, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.

    Mr Black, 52, was gunned down on the M1 motorway early on Thursday as he drove to work at the top security Maghaberry jail near Lisburn, County Antrim.
    The father-of-two's car veered off the road and into a drainage ditch after the shots were fired. He was on a stretch of the motorway between Portadown and Lurgan - a dissident republican stronghold in County Armagh.
    ...
    by Published on 01-10-2012 09:03 PM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from the UK
    Article Preview

    Two children are thought to have been stabbed by their father before he took his own life, the BBC understands.

    Police believe the man was Michael Pedersen, from Surrey, who was found in Newton Stacey, Hampshire, with his children Ben, seven, and Freya, six. The children had already been found dead before their mother reported them missing on Sunday evening, police said.

    Mr Pedersen, 51, was an ex-serviceman who survived an IRA attack in London, a former colleague has told the BBC.
    ...
    by Published on 17-09-2012 07:51 PM
    1. Categories:
    2. News from Northern Ireland
    Article Preview

    Three men have appeared in court in Dublin charged with membership of an illegal organisation known as the Real IRA.

    They were arrested as part of an investigation into the funeral of leading Real IRA man Alan Ryan on Saturday 8 September.

    Ryan was shot dead in north Dublin on 3 September. Shots were fired over his coffin during the funeral and masked men and women were present. Fourteen other people who were arrested were released without charge.

    In court were 33-year-old Nathan Kinsella of Matt Talbot Court in Dublin, Darragh Evans, 23, of Grange Park Rise in Raheny and 22-year-old Vincent Ryan of Grange Avenue Drive in Donaghmede.

    They were remanded in custody to appear again before the court on Friday, 21 September.

    The Garda (police) staged a major operation around the funeral, but made no arrests over it on the day.
    ...