by Ken Wharton
One former UDR soldier told the author:
I worked 8 hours a day as a farm labourer, usually getting home around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. A quick wash and then into my uniform and off to the barracks. We would have a briefing before going out on patrol or to set up a snap VCP. I would often not be home until gone midnight. It would be dark, but I would still have to check likely ambush points around my house and garden. Afterwards, I would fall into bed after making sure that my service-issue weapon was under my pillow and everywhere locked up. My alarm would go off at around 5 a.m. and then it was back to the farm. I was literally spending my days and nights as a walking dead; all of us were, we were just so bloody tired.
Another explained how, when travelling in the back of a Land Rover, seeing miles after mile of tarmac and white lines, the hypnosis effect made him believe that they had stopped the vehicle and he had to be physically restrained from getting out of what he thought was a stationary vehicle.
The dangers facing these men were not simply the prosaic accidents, as a total of 129 UDR soldiers – female as well as male – were killed by Republican paramilitaries while off-duty. The attack locations took various forms: at work or to and from work; at home or journeys to and from home; even while shopping or visiting relatives. One part-time soldier – Corporal William McKee – was shot and killed by PIRA gunmen as he drove a school bus with several children on board. A former UDR soldier – James Gibson – was also killed by the IRA as he drove a school bus. One part-time soldier – Staff Sergeant Bobby Lennox – who worked as a postman, was lured to a remote farmhouse with a package that PIRA personnel had posted; as he arrived, gunmen shot him dead. Another postman – Sergeant Jock Eaglesham – was shot by a PIRA gunman as he delivered letters on his regular route. Glen Espie, a plumber with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, was twice lured to houses on the pretext of working, being shot and wounded by PIRA gunmen. For a member of the UDR, it was more dangerous to be off-duty than actually carrying out military duties. Thanks to an army of IRA dickers – supporters who would report Security Force movements and tactics – as well as myriad sympathisers and even disaffected neighbours, there was never a shortage of people prepared to betray the existence of a part-time soldier to the Provisionals.
This author has identified 1,369 members of the military – Army, RAF and Royal Navy – male and female, full and part-time, as well as former members killed due to past association, who died in or as a consequence of the Troubles. That most august of bodies, the Northern Ireland Veterans’ Association (NIVA), while using slightly different criteria and parameters, set the figure in excess of 1,500. The figure that is often used by certain naïve journalists, Wikipedia addicts as well as the British Ministry of Defence is 722. This figure denigrates the efforts, sacrifice and contribution of the other personnel who died in or as a consequence of the Troubles; the old adage applies: if they hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have died.
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* See NIVA figures below.
CHAPTER 3
THE RISE OF THE PROVISIONAL IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY
The Provisional IRA (PIRA) began to emerge in the weeks and days before December 1969, some four months after the start of the troubles. Many younger members of the Republican paramilitaries lamented the inertia of the IRA’s Old Guard, and what they perceived as a pusillanimous response to sectarian attacks. The ‘young Turks’, comprising men such as Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes in Belfast and Martin McGuinness in Londonderry’s Bogside, epitomised the new brand of Irish Republicanism; they seemed to view this recrudescence of sectarian violence purely as opportunistic – the cataclysm to finally driving the British into the sea and a realisation of their dream of a united Ireland. These men were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past IRA; they were more militant, more ruthless and more determined to win, whatever the cost. At an IRA Special Army Convention (SAC) held in Dublin on 28 December 1969, the IRA split into two factions; the majority stayed with the ‘Official IRA’ (OIRA) with the minority forming the ‘Provisional IRA’.
The split was best characterised as acrimonious, at times very confused, with life-long friends, even family members, joining different wings. Initially, neither wing had a name or a title; Republicans simply referred to the warring factions as IRA Brady (Provisionals) and IRA Goulding (Officials). They were also known as ‘Pinnies’ and ‘Stickies’, respectively; see Chapter 1 for an explanation. Martin McGuinness, a Londonderry barman from the Creggan estate who would eventually rise to become the most powerful man in the Provisionals, was caught out by the split. Apparently unaware that there had been a schism, he initially sided with the Officials before crossing over to the more militant Provisionals. Although many observers of the paramilitary scene were caught unawares at first, it soon became very clear that the leadership of PIRA needed the stage to themselves and were prepared to use whatever chicanery was available to them so as to discredit the OIRA. There are later examples of tactics that they employed in 1972, such as the engineering of Bloody Sunday and the murder of Ranger William Best. The murder of the off-duty Creggan soldier was carried out by the Officials but they were manoeuvred into it by the Provisionals.
Another fine example was the Falls Road curfew of July 1970. The Provisionals had been agitating for some time, making the place lawless, attacking both the RUC as well as the British Army in incidents involving arms and explosives. PIRA secretly and very cleverly moved their arms and personnel out of the Falls area, acutely aware that the Officials would be trapped when and if the inevitable occurred, as it did when 3,000 soldiers flooded the area and closed down the entire Falls. The loss of weaponry and personnel for the Officials created an arms gap with the Provisionals that was never closed, nor probably could have been. Chicanery and manoeuvrability gave the Provisionals the upper hand inside Ulster that they never lost.
There was intermittent feuding between the two wings, notably in 1971 when a local Provisional, Alec Crowe, was ‘arrested’ by armed OIRA men and taken to a local Official’s pub – the Cracked Cup on Balkan Street. Charlie Hughes, PIRA Officer Commanding (OC) of the area, was alerted by family member Brendan – of whom we shall hear more later – and the local unit was sent out fully armed. He ordered that the OIRA’s two local pubs – the Cracked Cup and the appropriately named Burning Embers – were to be burned down. Aware that their rivals were coming, OIRA members ambushed them in Leeson Street in full view of passing British Army patrols.
An OIRA unit opened fire on their rivals, including Charlie Hughes, killing him and wounding Billy McKee and Proinsias MacAirt; it is thought that the OIRA man responsible was Joe McCann, who was himself thought responsible for killing Lance Corporal Robert Bankier of the Royal Green Jackets in the Markets area of Belfast in February 1971. With an unerring inevitability, McCann was killed by soldiers from the Parachute Regiment in April the following year. The OIRA lost a lot of support in Belfast as Charlie Hughes was seen as a popular man; whilst the feuding was sporadic, the incident at the two pubs was one of the last major flare-ups between the two wings. The Officials would eventually split into another separate organisation – the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) – which again would divide into the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation (IPLO). Later still, the IPLO would subsequently divide also.
Undoubtedly these men saw themselves as patriots, prepared to fight a guerrilla war against the British, believing that their fellow Catholics would rally behind them. Somewhat misguidedly, they also believed that working-class Protestants, who had suffered proportionately the same social hardships and iniquities, would rise with them. In the period 1969–2019 there has not been a single shred of evidence that this would ever be the case, with most Protestants never swaying from their goal of remaining inside the United Kingdom. Recent statistics, moreover, have shown that a sizeable number of Roman Catholics are also content with their lot as citizens of the UK. It is likely though that they are persuaded to do so for
financial reasons – state pensions, National Health Service and free education – rather than the strictly emotional motivations of the Protestant community.
At what stage the Provisionals (PIRA) began to attract sociopaths, psychopaths, wife-beaters, paedophiles and plain old-fashioned thugs for which they became renowned is open to question. Indeed, Gerry Adams’ own brother and father were exposed as paedophiles, with the former PIRA commander and Sinn Féin President’s brother serving a prison sentence for raping his own daughter. It is the opinion of this author that Mr Adams attempted to cover up this most despicable of sexual crimes. The author was told by a former informer that a Creggan gunman was so sexually excited by the act of murder that he felt compelled to masturbate after shooting a victim. The Provisionals’ own internal affairs team – the infamous ‘nutting squad’ led by a man who may indeed have been a British agent, Freddie Scappaticci – used the most appalling methods of torture and interrogation, previously witnessed only in the Middle Ages and medieval times and in third world Islamic terror states. This subject will be dealt with at a later stage in this book.
Initially, the Provisionals sought to portray themselves as ‘freedom-fighters’ and brave ‘urban guerrillas’, but this was purely for the benefit of the Irish American market, who would shortly buy their stories of ‘British Army brutality’ and ‘State-sponsored murder gangs’. The birth of NORAID (Irish Northern Aid Committee) in the Irish émigré communities on the US eastern seaboard, and in places such as Chicago and Philadelphia, gave PIRA the continuity and guarantee of funds to buy arms and explosives; this ensured a steady supply of money to PIRA coffers. They appealed romantically to these ‘sons of Ireland’ who were third, fourth and even fifth generations of emigrants from the ‘auld sod’. It registered deeply into the very psyches of decent people who considered themselves ‘American’. Their US supporters were somehow inspired to hate the English; they didn’t know why, they just knew that they did. Stories of the Irish potato famine and of violent evictions of Irish farmers from their homes by absentee English landlords in the previous centuries were enough to have them reaching into their pockets for cash. They would rush like Pavlov’s dogs at the sound of the rattling of NORAID’s collection tins, programmed to dig deep for the ‘folks back home’.
The Provisionals could also claim the possibly ill-informed support over the years of several high-profile US celebrities; actors such as Martin Sheen and Rose McGowan have made comments that might be interpreted as showing sympathy with Irish Republicanism. Over the course of the Troubles, many on-the-run (OTR) Provisionals fled to the USA, where they were sure of a warm welcome from both their fellow Irish but also from State officials who viewed the British with a bitter mistrust. Many observers expressed not a little surprise that the United States of America allowed OTRs to use their country as little more than a terrorist haven. Great Britain rather romantically views the USA as their closest ally, claiming to enjoy a ‘special relationship’ with their cousins on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It would appear that the ‘special relationship’ exists only in the minds of the British, which has tended to be resurrected only at times of American self-interest, such as going to war at their side in Iraq and in Afghanistan. What other ‘ally’ would allow their Supreme Court to block the extradition of convicted terrorists, murderers and bombers, claiming that their crimes were ‘political’? What other friend would allow the naming of streets in their honour, as they did with M60 killer Joe Doherty, or allow them to be feted as celebrities, being given freedom, food and shelter, even jobs?
The first leaders of the Provisionals following the December 1969 split were Seán Mac Stíofáin (until 1972) and Joe Cahill (until 1973); it was under their leadership that some of the most appalling acts of terror were committed. Cathal Goulding was Chief of Staff of the Official IRA; while with his approval there would be unofficial links between the two terror groups, each side began to treat the other with caution and suspicion. Soon there would be an internecine struggle, with deaths on both sides.
Seán Mac Stíofáin was born John Edward Drayton Stephenson in Leytonstone, London, in 1928. His father was English, working in the legal profession, his mother was an Ulster Protestant from the Newtownards Road area of East Belfast. He later chose to use the Gaelic version of his name, claiming that his mother had instilled into him: ‘I’m Irish, therefore you’re Irish; don’t forget it.’ He joined the pre-Troubles IRA in the early 1950s, famously taking part in a raid on an Army barracks in Essex, where several Bren guns, Lee–Enfields and other materiel was stolen. It turned out to be a comedy of errors, giving rise to the illusion that the Irish were merely loveable rogues with red hair and wide grins, but lacking in the grey matter; their getaway van was so loaded down with stolen weapons that it crawled along the road, a queue of furious, honking drivers stuck behind it. Mac Stíofáin was arrested and served eight years behind bars, where he met Cathal Goulding, later a bitter rival, who taught him Gaelic and a hatred of the English.
After leaving England, he and his Irish wife settled in Dublin, remaining active in Irish Republican groups. He was appointed IRA Director of Intelligence in 1966, but although still serving with Goulding, he became increasingly estranged from his former friend, at the time gaining more and more support among the more militant and immediate action members. The IRA’s failures in August and September 1969 was to his advantage as he was able to distance himself from the ‘Old Guard’, appealing at the same time to the likes of Adams and Hughes. Immediately after the split in December 1969, he joined Dáithí Ó Conaill and Seamus Twomey, together with others, establishing the Provisional Army Council. Goulding never forgave Mac Stíofáin, referring to him contemptuously as ‘... that English Irishman’. However, the split was complete, and the militants commenced what they have referred to as ‘the long war’, which was at the time an inflexible policy of bombing the British out of Ulster.
They embarked on a series of determined but indiscriminate bombings with a twofold purpose: to terrorise their enemies and bring about the destruction of the Northern Ireland economy. Their so-called ‘economic warfare’ would make Protestant businesses crumble, end investment from British capital by making them uninsurable, while at the same time terrorising shoppers out of the city centres. Killing soldiers and policemen, on- and off-duty, again was a double-edged sword: it would lower morale and recruitment to the Security Forces (SF) as well as sickening the British public into putting their own government under pressure to quit the country. Their policy was one of utter ruthlessness, with a series of no-warning bombing attacks in Belfast – later on, in the very heart of the British economy: London – as well as in places such as Londonderry, Newry and Strabane. There was no quarter given, although by the same token, they were quick to complain about the so-called ‘shoot-to-kill’ tactics employed by the British Army and by the RUC. They later targeted members of the newly formed Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), attacking them at home, at shops, pubs and restaurants, at work or on the journey between home and their places of full-time employment, giving no quarter. They complained bitterly at what they saw as unfairness when their own gunmen were shot and killed by the SF, maintaining that they had rights as ‘prisoners of war’. While they demanded the protection of the Geneva Convention, they were not prepared to reciprocate. The mother of a dead PIRA Volunteer gunned down by the RUC complained: ‘He was my boy, but they shot him down like a dog; they never gave him the chance to surrender.’ The dead man was known to have killed an off-duty policeman at his home as he played with his children.
Fire crews tackling a blaze caused by an IRA bomb in Queen Street, Belfast, in 1977.
Ruthlessness and hypocrisy were their watchwords; but when one of their Volunteers was killed, they had a steady stream of replacements wishing to die for their dream of a united Ireland. A team of song-writers, ready to proclaim a new martyr for Ireland, was seemingly on standby to pen their latest song, aimed at both recruitment at home and for Ir
ish American consumption 3,000 miles away.
Gerry Adams – at the time of writing preparing to stand down as President of Sinn Féin (which used the flag of convenience: the political wing of PIRA) – was, at the onset of the Troubles, a barman in West Belfast. In 1967, at the age of 19, he joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Campaign (NICRA), later claiming that the events in and around Divis Street had radicalised him. He joined Sinn Féin and Fianna Éireann, the IRA’s youth wing. By 1971, although he has always claimed that he was never a member of PIRA, he became the commander of ‘D’ Company* on the Ballymurphy Estate. He was arrested in 1971 but released in 1972 so that he could attend secret talks in Chelsea with representatives of the British Government, including the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw. He later became the Provisionals’ Chief of Staff. According to a fellow PIRA member, the late Brendan Hughes, he was the brains behind the ‘Bloody Friday’ outrages** when more than twenty bombs exploded without warning in Belfast city centre on 21 July 1972.
In the intervening years, he appears to have led a charmed life, with several former soldiers telling the author that they had him in their sights on many occasions but were always told that he was to be left alone. One former soldier in a conversation with the author had this to say:
I did three tours in the 70s, being variously based in Springfield Road, Vere Foster School and finally at one of your haunts: North Howard Street Mill. As you know, I was an officer and regularly attended meetings of the Int Cell. The bearded one’s name came up an awful lot, but we were always told: ‘Tell your chaps to leave him alone!’ No explanation was ever given, but we all thought that he got away with murder.