Double Agent: My Secret Life Undercover in the IRA

by Kevin Fulton

  Fuck, I thought, how do I get an introduction to one of these movers and shakers? I persevered with the Irish nights, convincing myself that somehow amid the drunken revelry I would locate the inner sanctum of the IRA in Newry. They were manic occasions, a bit like the Mafia gatherings I had seen in the movies. The gossip was rife – who was shagging who on the estates, whose kids were taking drugs, who had disappeared without trace, probably into the RUC’s new ‘supergrass’ scheme. Discretion was not on the agenda.

  However, as I soon discovered, genuine, hardcore IRA operatives would be careful to avoid events like the Irish nights, just as they would avoid high-profile IRA funerals or marches – anywhere where they could be covertly photographed or videoed by the security forces. Apparently, Eamon Collins was something of a maverick who had gone beyond caring, but any other genuine IRA activists went to great lengths to remain unknown to the police or to intelligence forces. The people attending these Irish nights were weekend rebels.

  And so the real thing proved elusive. I eventually discovered I had been searching in the wrong place. It was towards the end of 1982 when the loose-tongued loafers at the club put me in the picture. By now, the hunger strikes were over. Ten prisoners were dead and the popularity of the IRA was at an all-time high. Surely this was the optimum time for the Newry branch to induct eager new recruits. But, at this critical juncture in Republican history, the IRA in Newry was in total disarray.

  A highly effective four-man unit, which had wiped out my five army colleagues just outside Newry in May 1981, had disbanded en masse shortly afterwards as a result of an ongoing dispute with the leadership in Belfast. In the wake of the hunger strikes, the leadership was desperate to cash in on a fresh surge of sympathy for the IRA. A decision was made to dispatch operatives from Belfast to places like Newry to team up with the local units.

  The trouble was, most of these refugees from Belfast were ‘red lights’. That was the nickname given to IRA men who were known to the Crown forces – their presence in an area acted like a red light to police and the British army. Many had previous convictions for terrorism, and some were even escapees from the Maze Prison! Needless to say, local operatives who had gone to extraordinary lengths to remain unknown to the security forces did not want to operate alongside red lights from Belfast. Their cover would be blown in days. The Newry unit opted to dissolve rather than to subscribe to this ludicrous new directive. And so, despite the fact that the IRA was enjoying a surge in support, Newry had no active unit.

  Meanwhile, more Belfast red lights had decamped to Dundalk across the border in the Irish Republic, and so were safely beyond the long arm of British justice. With no unit in Newry, the fugitives in Dundalk were launching attacks in Newry and County Down and then scurrying back across the border to safety.

  Clearly, Dundalk was where I needed to start circulating.

  With a long tradition of playing reluctant host to fugitives from Northern Ireland, Dundalk is known as El Paso. As I was about to discover, comparisons with the lawless Mexican border town were alarmingly close to the mark. All IRA men ‘on the trot’ headed to Dundalk. They were easy to find, whiling away their days and nights in local bars, getting pissed, picking fights with locals and stealing other IRA men’s women. They acted more like an occupying force than a band of men on the run. If only those sold on the Republican ideals of Bobby Sands and the blanket men could see the flip side of the cause as presented by these ne’er-do-wells in the bars of Dundalk.

  I started making the seventeen-mile journey from Newry to Dundalk every evening, and hanging about in Republican bars like the Hogan Stand, the Dundalk Bar and Aidan’s Bar, and around the office of Erin Nua in Clanbrassil Street.

  Erin Nua literally translates as New Ireland, and was a Sinn Fein initiative to find work for former IRA prisoners. If you wanted a plumber or someone to fix your TV, Erin Nua would supply a former IRA prisoner to do the work for you at the going rate. In effect, it was a sort of Yellow Pages that allowed the more radical sections of suburbia to support the cause while gaining a vital service into the bargain. God only knows what happened when you complained about the standard of work.

  Yet again, mine was that strangely ubiquitous friendly face. I helped Erin Nua with a fund-raising raffle. I got to know the faces around the bars well enough to chat about football, the weather or the major news story of the moment. If I hadn’t been to one of the bars for a week or two, I’d get a gentle ‘ach, where’ve you been?’ Of course, behind my back they would be making phone calls, finding out exactly who I was and whether my story stood up to scrutiny.

  I told anyone who asked the same story. I joined the British army because I loved guns. I used the army to gain experience in weapons and explosives. I got kicked out after disobeying orders and drinking in a Republican bar in Berlin. I made a big deal about wanting to get out of the army anyhow as I was sick of being shat upon for being a Catholic. This still rankled with me and I held nothing but ill will for the British military. I let it be known I was a ‘lilywhite’ – I had no previous convictions and my family had no links to terrorists. Short of wearing a sandwich board saying ‘Perfect IRA Material’, I couldn’t have made it clearer that I was ripe for recruitment. I honestly expected to be asked to join at any time. I just had to bide my time. If only it had been that easy.

  Throughout 1983, I sipped on pints of Guinness in the lounge bars of Dundalk, a defiantly sober set of eyes and ears, looking and listening for titbits, which I would gleefully relay to Andy and Gerry. Again, it was mostly scandal about fallings out and illicit affairs – entertaining but hardly essential intelligence. Constantly they reminded me of my real mission: ‘You must become one of them.’

  The trouble was, after a year of trying, I felt no closer to my goal. I didn’t quite know how to go about it, and nor did my handlers. I sensed they were growing as frustrated as I was. I felt guilty taking £130 a week for supplying titbits. Clearly, I couldn’t walk up to known IRA men and announce that I wanted to join. They would smell a rat for sure. There was only one thing for it. I needed to show the IRA I was made of the right stuff. I needed credibility. I needed to initiate myself into the organisation.

  Other young lads keen to be recruited were out stoning British soldiers or hijacking vehicles and setting them alight. With my army experience, clearly this was not an option. If I got arrested hurling petrol bombs at British soldiers, my real story would surely leak out and I would be in grave danger. I decided I needed to carry out a ‘spectacular’ all on my own. I thought some sort of post-office robbery would do the trick. I asked Andy and Gerry to get me a gun. They refused point blank and told me to rule out doing anything illegal unless I got their permission first. They could sense I was itching for action. A week later, they helped me launch my first offensive against the British State.

  As usual, we met at our lay-by. Andy announced straight away that they had arrived at a plan. They drove me to the back end of Barcroft Park in Newry where the Dublin to Belfast rail line passes. Out we jumped, Gerry handing me a pair of gloves. ‘Put them on and open the boot,’ he said. Inside was a gallon can of Castrol GTX oil with a Tupperware box strapped to it. I picked it up, looked at my handlers in baffled amusement and followed them to a low wall at the edge of Barcroft Park. Over we climbed on to the railway tracks.

  ‘Sit that there on the line,’ said Andy, ‘and leave the rest to us.’

  A bomb-disposal team carried out a controlled explosion on my package. The rail line was shut for a week.

  I rang Andy after a few days, a bit worried. The IRA would be wondering who the fuck had carried this out. ‘They might be pissed off that some young lad did something without their prior consent,’ I said. ‘What if I’m pulled?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Andy. ‘How could they be pissed off at a young lad attacking the British State?’

  That put my mind at ease. That night at the bar, I told someone that I was the person who had put the bomb on the rai
l line. We’d a good laugh and soon everyone seemed to know. People I barely knew were coming up to me, saying, ‘Fair fucks to ya!’ Surely this showed I was made of the right stuff. Any day now, an invitation to volunteer would be forthcoming.

  It never came.

  My handlers decided it was best if I stuck to getting in with the big shots in Dundalk, men whose names were only whispered in Newry, such as a man who, for legal reasons, I must refer to simply as Niall.

  Niall had been on the trot since January 1983 after a gunfight with the RUC on the streets of Rostrevor in County Down. Niall won; two RUC men lost their lives. This double murder cemented Niall’s reputation as one of the most ruthless and effective IRA volunteers of the era, and there was no shortage of competition. Niall was still in his twenties. When I was introduced to him one night in the Dundalk Bar, he looked twice that age. I felt decidedly underwhelmed by this man – at least until he opened his mouth.

  ‘When I heard you’d been in the army,’ he said in his soft, Newry accent, ‘I was going to pull you.’

  I tried to suppress the terror rising inside me by laughing heartily. In that blood-curdling, freeze-framed instant, I realised I was the only one laughing. Niall was not amused. ‘I only went into it because I love guns,’ I said firmly. ‘And then they kicked me out.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Niall, making like he wouldn’t have checked this out well before deigning to meet me.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘dishonourable discharge. I was caught drinking in a Republican bar.’

  ‘So you like guns?’ said Niall, looking straight into my eyes and waiting for me to flinch.

  I didn’t.

  ‘I love them, yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ he said, a glint in his eye and a smirk on his face. This time we all laughed.

  Niall must have decided he was on a roll. ‘I hear you’ve a great interest in trains too?’ he said, and we all laughed hard at this one.

  That was it. Andy and Gerry were thrilled. ‘You’ve effected an introduction to one of the major players,’ said Andy. ‘This is a real breakthrough.’

  So now I could say hello to Niall in passing. Big deal, I remember thinking. He had been hostile and intimidating – I was hardly in a position to ask him if I could join his gang. ‘Keep plugging away,’ my handlers kept saying. ‘Slow burn. Eventually you’ll get in there. You’ll be one of them.’

  I wanted to short-circuit all this bullshit and get straight in. I mean, what was there to wait for? How did other people get in there? Surely they had to take a chance and tell someone they wanted in. Waiting around for an invite would take forever. I decided it was time to volunteer. One night, finally, my big chance came.

  I had heard the name mentioned, but I had never seen him around. To me, the man who was the IRA’s officer commanding in Dundalk had attained bogeyman status. This was the boss, the man with the clout to get me in. This was the man I had to meet. But how? I had no idea what he looked like, and it wasn’t the kind of question you asked around the bars of Dundalk. Then, one night, I was sitting at the bar of the Hogan Stand when a thick-set, black-haired man perched himself on a stool right beside me. The first thing I noticed was his Long Kesh belt – the distinctive buckle belts made by inmates of the notorious prison and worn with such pride around Dundalk. It was then that I noticed the engraving on the buckle. It was a nickname – a nickname that only one man had in Dundalk. I realised that this was the man I was looking for. This man must be the Provisional IRA’s Officer Commanding, Dundalk.

  Fuck me, it’s him, I almost said out loud. I couldn’t believe that I would find a man with so many enemies and so much to hide swanning around like this. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to run for my life.

  ‘How are ya?’ I said, to no response. Above us on a TV, a world-weary RTE reporter doled out details of a failed IRA mortar attack on an RUC station.

  Fuck it, I thought to myself, this is fate giving me a nudge. I’ve got to go for it.

  As casually but as clearly as I could, I said, ‘I tell you what, myself and a friend of mine wouldn’t mind joining the Provies.’

  I stared intently into the head of my beer. Silence. My cheeks felt hot. Thoughts rained through my mind like sparks. Would he laugh out loud? Would he call his friends over so they could have a good laugh as well? Maybe he’ll take offence and have me beaten up? They could drag me outside and give me a hiding right now. Who would argue? Maybe he’ll say nothing and just walk away, leaving me to dwell on it all night? Maybe he’ll mete out his punishment for this show of insolence some other time, when I’m not expecting it?

  I noticed he wasn’t offering to pay for his round of drinks. And the barman wasn’t asking. Effortlessly, he picked up five freshly filled glasses between two comically large hands. ‘Why don’t you and your friend come to the Erin Nua office tomorrow night?’ he said. ‘Ask for me.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ I babbled. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Say about half-seven,’ he said, before turning and strolling back to his corner.

  It was all I could do not to shout and punch the air. For three years now, I’d been trying to break into this most furtive of inner circles and I hadn’t got as far as the gatekeeper. Now I was on the threshold with the local top man ready to vouch for me. By tomorrow night, I’d have the inside track. Andy and Gerry would be absolutely thrilled. All their faith in me would be repaid – with interest. Kevin Fulton, secret agent, had made his first breakthrough.

  So, who was this friend? Adam, a local lad who felt bored by the prospects Newry had to offer, had said to me in passing that he’d love to join the IRA. I couldn’t wait to tell him about our personal invitation, and popped in to see him on my way home that night. We both pondered whether this was all too easy. Then we thought, Well how else are you supposed to volunteer, except by volunteering? Surely now initiation into the IRA was a foregone conclusion.

  The following evening, Adam and myself steeled ourselves with a quick whiskey. The short walk to the Erin Nua office seemed to take on an epic significance. I announced that we were expected to a bored face slumped at the reception desk.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘follow me,’ and we plodded behind him up some stairs.

  I kept soothing myself with one rhetorical question: ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘Wait in there,’ said the bored young man, pointing to a room on the right.

  We walked in. The room had no windows. This didn’t bode well. My heart was flailing like a threshing machine. My palms were slick wet, my throat powder dry. I wanted this over with. We hovered about wordlessly in the doom.

  A sudden bang and I jumped a foot in the air.

  ‘Get down on the ground. Down on the ground!’

  I turned to see a man in a balaclava waving a pistol an inch from my chin.

  ‘Get fucking down!’ he shouted, grabbing my shoulder with his free hand. I hit the deck.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I heard myself shout. I hadn’t had time to get scared. Besides, maybe this was a test. The British army loved tests. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ I shouted, ready to give this fucker a piece of my mind.

  Next thing more feet thundered in, screaming demonically. ‘Keep your fucking head down!’ and a hand rammed my face into the carpet. ‘Youse are fucking Brits,’ said another voice, and next thing there were hands all over me. My shoes were yanked off. Then my socks. Tape around my eyes, and now I was scared. I could hear Adam being dragged off. He was moaning with fear. I thought, I’m fucked if I’m going to moan.

  The belt of my trousers was undone and down came the trousers. I was starting to think the worst now. Why the fuck are they taking off my trousers? My shirt was ripped off and my hands taped together behind my back. I was rolled over on my back and a voice, all calm, said, ‘You’re a British soldier, and now you want to join the IRA? Is that the story?’

  It was the man I had tracked down in the bar.

 
‘Yeah, that’s the fucking story,’ I shouted.

  ‘Who knows you’re here?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘There’s a Garda strolling about outside. A Garda we know. You brought him here, didn’t you?’

  ‘Nobody knows I’m here, I haven’t told anybody.’

  ‘So why is there a Garda outside?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? Look, I came here so I could fucking work for you.’

  ‘Um, that’s the story, but I don’t believe a word. You’re both working for the Brits.’

  ‘I’m not. We’re not. Everyone knows I was kicked out of the army.’

  ‘Oh right,’ he said. ‘Well, we’re taking you to Crossmaglen right now. We’ve taken one of your former comrades hostage. A good-looking young fella he is too, eighteen years old. I want you to put a bullet in his head. OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ I spat, anger still carrying me along. ‘Take me there now and I’ll fucking do it.’ I suddenly noticed hands feeling my leg. ‘Get your fucking hands off me,’ I roared.

  ‘So why did you join the British army then?’ our interrogator asked, still spookily calm and in control, as if this scenario had been played out before him a hundred times.

  ‘I love guns,’ I panted, ‘guns and bombs and stuff like that. How else was I going to get my hands on some?’

  ‘I think you’re still working for them.’

  ‘No I am not,’ I said, calm now. If there was one thing army life taught me, it was never to show fear or panic. And, if this was a test, I was determined to pass it.

  Silence. Seconds heaved by. Some sort of decisive moment was arriving.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’m the senior officer in this area, and I hereby order your execution,’ he said.

  I freaked out. A surge of panic took hold of me. They’d done their homework. They’d found out. They had moles everywhere. This was it. ‘I want a proper hearing,’ I shouted. ‘I’m entitled to a proper hearing.’

  Suddenly, hands hauled me up off the floor and I was bouncing down the stairs. All the time, hands were pawing me all over, especially my leg. I fought the hands for all I was worth, screaming so that my throat burned.