by Kevin Fulton
‘Right, I’m off,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘got a very busy schedule.’ He didn’t say goodbye as he strode out of the door.
It was now Patsy’s turn to speak. ‘From now on, don’t go on jobs like this with a rifle. And there’s no need to turn up armed to the teeth like the cavalry. Go in with one handgun and one baton. If the man about to be punished puts up a fight, one good whack of the baton should do the trick. Break his collarbone and the fucker will be in no mood to fight you.’
With that, the meeting ended. Everyone went their separate ways to resume their lives of terror. I couldn’t help but wonder what the Morley family would be told. It was the first time I had dealt with the IRA leadership. I thought I had a measure of just how heartless that leadership could be. I was wrong. They could be far, far worse, as I found out later that year.
On 24 October 1990, the Provisional IRA launched one of its most despicable and cowardly attacks. It is said that I played a key role in the attack, something which, for legal reasons, I deny.
I knew something big was imminent. Days earlier, I’d been instructed to buy waterproof trousers and a waterproof jacket – a classic signal. Waterproofs were the standard uniform for a major job as they ensured no forensic evidence was left at the crime scene. I was then issued with a Webley .38 gun. I braced myself for the call.
It came that Wednesday, mid-evening. I was summoned to a house on the Derrybeg Estate. When I arrived, I was told to get across the road right away, as the unit was going out on a job that very instant. Fuck, I thought to myself, as I hurried across the road, what have they got planned now?
Waiting for me inside the door of the house was a lowly volunteer called David. ‘Come on,’ said David and I followed him to his car. We hopped in and headed down Rathfriland Road. I asked David what was going on.
‘Dunno,’ said David, ‘we’ve to hijack a car and drive it to a garage on the edge of town. A few of the boys are waiting for us there. Seems the fucker who owns the garage is selling petrol to the peelers.’
We pulled in at some playing fields about two miles outside Newry. David knocked off the headlights. It was a cold, clear night, the stars peering down at us like a million cats’ eyes.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ I said to David. ‘Have we been told nothing at all?’
‘No, but Fergus is in on it,’ said David. He was referring to the newly promoted OC in Newry.
‘Who else?’ I asked.
‘Patrick’ said David.
He didn’t see me wearily lift my eyes to those stars. Patrick was a big-mouthed hooligan, the very type the IRA could do without but seemed to attract in droves.
‘That’s it. That’s all we know?’ I asked, trying desperately to detect anything solid.
‘That’s all I know, anyways,’ said David, climbing out of the car. ‘Come on, we’d best get on with it.’
On our way to the roadside, I picked up a plastic bin. By now, I knew the drill as far as hijacking a car went. We waited in the dark until a set of car headlights shimmered white in the distance. I held the bin lengthways against my chest and waited. The car was seventy yards away when I hurled the bin out on to the road. The car slowed down quickly. David stepped out, pointed his gun at the windscreen and made sure the car stopped fully.
The man offered no resistance. He scrambled out of the car, his hands outstretched pleadingly, repeating the mantra, ‘No problem, fellas. No problem at all.’ The driver had already planted his hands firmly on his head when David nodded towards the playing fields. Off he walked, not daring to turn around, David behind him with his gun pointed at his back, poised in case our man made a run for it. You had to keep an eye on the really compliant ones, the ones who gave you no lip. Their compliance normally meant they weren’t panicking but were thinking straight. Plotting.
‘Put him on the ground,’ I called, ‘face down.’ The last thing I wanted was our man making a dash for it, young David in hot pursuit, firing bullets.
When they disappeared from view, I surveyed the star-pricked sky and helped myself to a good gulp of air. I’d a bad feeling about all this. I hated not knowing. If it was all hush hush, then it was bound to be something truly horrific.
I psyched myself up with a ‘Right, get on with it’. I climbed into the car, spun it around and drove back to Newry, and to whatever fate awaited me there.
The garage forecourt is deserted when I knock off the headlights and roll in silently. It looks like a classic family-run business – two petrol pumps, a little shop and a car showroom fronting a good-sized home. After a few minutes, a van with an Irish number plate pulls up on the edge of the forecourt – hijacked, no doubt. I recognise a chap called Fergus in the passenger seat, Patrick driving and the outline of a third figure squatting in the back.
I walk over to the passenger window and ask Fergus what our orders are.
‘We’ve to secure the house,’ says Fergus, ‘then take the man of the house with us for a drive.’
I nod at Philip in the back. I ignore Patrick. I know he is chomping at the bit, desperate for action. He’d like nothing better than to go charging into the house, booting through doors, shouting and scaring everyone to death.
‘Let me handle all the talking,’ I say to Fergus.
‘Fine,’ he says and I can feel Patrick’s resentful glare.
Experience has taught me that keeping everyone calm is absolutely crucial to a smooth operation. The sight of masked men with guns is normally enough to make your average family compliant. There really is no need for all that bawling and gun-waving. When masked men start shouting and waving guns about, panic gets the better of people. If hostages panic, gunmen panic. When gunmen panic, people die.
‘OK,’ I whisper, as we creep up to the front door, ‘everybody nice and calm.’
I give the doorknocker a good workout. The sharp metal cracks echo loudly across the forecourt. Finally, the door opens. I push past a startled teenage boy into a sitting room. Fergus comes in next. He takes the arm of the young man who answered the door and leads him inside.
A woman in her late fifties sits in an armchair, facing the TV but looking at me. On the couch, a teenage boy and girl look up sharply.
‘Sit down,’ I instruct the young lad who answered the door. ‘Right, is this everyone?’ I say brightly, as if I’m about to start dishing out prizes.
‘There’s my husband. He’s upstairs in bed,’ she gasps. ‘He’s not at all well.’
Patrick slips off upstairs to get him. It’s best in these situations to keep everyone together in one place.
‘Listen,’ I say, ‘just relax and stay calm. We’ve no beef with you people.’ To illustrate the point, I slip the gun into my jacket pocket.
‘We need your help,’ I go on. ‘We’re from the Irish Republican Army. One of our men has been injured out on the road. We need a car to take him to hospital.’
‘No problem,’ they say in unison.
‘Take these, take these,’ says the young man on the sofa, flourishing a set of car keys our way.
Now the mother pipes up. ‘I’ll show you where the keys are to all the cars in the showroom, if you like. You can help yourselves.’
Next thing, a man appears at the bottom of the stairs in a dressing gown, Patrick behind him. The man looks in an awful state, hunched and gaunt and almost yellow.
‘Where are you taking him?’ says the mother, alarmed.
‘Settle down,’ I say. ‘This gentleman’s going to help us get a car out of the showroom, that’s all.’
‘Look, let one of us do it,’ says the teenage girl, already on her feet.
I’m taken aback by her apparent fearlessness. The last thing I need now is a bolshie woman.
‘Sit down,’ says Fergus sharply.
‘Look,’ says the mother, ‘my husband is dying of cancer. He really isn’t well at all. He shouldn’t be out of bed.’
I survey their faces to see if they’re having me on. They aren’t. I look a
t the man. He’s panting and slightly delirious. He’s seriously ill. There really is no two ways about it.
Jesus Christ, I hear myself muttering. Nobody had mentioned any of this.
‘Come on,’ says Fergus, nodding to the poor man.
‘Where are you taking him?’ the mother shrieks. ‘He’s dying, for Chrissakes!’
‘We’re just taking a car,’ I say calmly. ‘We’re bringing him back, then one of us will stay with you for a few hours.’
They seem reassured by this. Fergus and I follow the old man out the front door. He’s barely able to walk. As he feebly pads across the forecourt, I feel a lump in my throat. I try not to think about my own father in such a situation, a noble old man being ordered about by a bunch of young thugs.
I help the old man over to the hijacked car and into the back seat. Before I can stop him, Patrick has slid in alongside him. He insists on blindfolding the poor old devil, and presses a gun into his ribs. I feel a surge of fury. I desperately want to admonish Patrick – ‘For fuck’s sake, what can this poor bastard do to us?’ – but I hold my tongue. It will have to wait for later.
I drive back to the playing fields in the hijacked car, Patrick and the old man in the back, Fergus behind us in the van. As I wheel into the playing fields, the headlights pick out David standing over the driver of the hijacked car, who’s prostrate on the ground. I feel strangely gratified to see that David has taken my advice. If I could contribute nothing else positive to this dreadful operation, at least I’m eliminating fuck-ups that could lead to needless injury or death. Fergus joins us in the car. It’s now David’s job to take the driver of the hijacked car back to the house where the dying man’s family is being held. It’s always a good idea to keep all your hostages together in one place.
Fergus tells me to drive to the town of Omeath across the border. As the old man wheezes and groans in the back, we drive on in silence. We feel embarrassed. Besides, it might sound selfish, but I’m busy wondering what the hell we do in the event of the old fellow keeling over on us there and then. Now that would be a problem.
Fergus directs me around the streets of Omeath until we pull up outside a bungalow. ‘Hang on here,’ he says, and strides inside purposefully. Seconds later, he emerges with someone called Johnny, a bomb-making graduate.
‘Follow us,’ says Johnny, and we do, along the winding back roads around Carlingford Bay, through black trees, water glistening silver under bright moonlight. The beauty seems inappropriate, an ill-judged accessory to whatever horrific end awaits this sorry figure crumpled in the back seat, wheezing and groaning.
Johnny and Fergus turn left into a well-known beauty spot. I follow. The roads around here are a favoured spot for dumping bodies. Christ, I think to myself, they’re going to shoot him.
I pull up. ‘Right, get him out of the car,’ comes the barked order.
The old fellow gingerly crawls out and staggers about, still blindfolded.
‘Walk this way,’ comes a voice, and off he sets on unsteady feet.
I follow the old man into the amenity area. Waiting for him, dramatically silhouetted against the moonlight, stand ten men with guns. Christ, I think, this is a bit over-the-top.
The armed men have their hoods pulled up, so Patrick and myself follow suit. After a lot of hushed chatter, Fergus comes over to us. ‘We’ve to go back to Derrybeg,’ he says.
I don’t need to be told twice. I don’t care to witness whatever grotesque pageant is about to be played out here. I can’t bear to watch his emaciated frame stumbling about for another second.
Once back on the road, I turn to Fergus in the passenger seat. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘I can’t really say,’ says Fergus, trying not to look like he hasn’t the faintest idea.
‘Could we not have just blown up his garage?’ I say.
Silence.
We get back to the house in Derrybeg for midnight. The rule is we all stay together until told otherwise. This is to ensure that any mole amongst us wouldn’t have the chance to sneak off and alert the security forces. There’s nothing anyone can do but wait. The night drags. We don’t talk about the old man any more.
At about five in the morning, an almighty bang nearly lifts the roof off the house. Even Fergus looks stunned. We try to figure out how this bomb might be connected to our handiwork the night before. It just doesn’t make sense. In the end, we assume that the bombing’s a separate attack, probably on the tax office. Then the call comes through. We can all go home. The two incidents must have been connected, but how?
I found out next morning. Over the following two days, the full extent of this heinous IRA operation was revealed. The man I had helped to abduct was one of three Catholic civilians forcibly taken from their homes by the IRA that night. In each case, the man was forced into the driver’s seat of a van loaded with one tonne of explosives and given instructions to drive towards British army targets. The captives had been turned into the IRA’s latest and most contemptible weapon: human bombs. The three men, strangers to one another, had in common only the fact that they were regarded as collaborators by the IRA because of their employment or business dealings with the security forces.
The three vans were closely followed by cars filled with IRA gunmen. They served as tails to ensure that their unwilling drivers followed their instructions. As well as carrying guns, each tail car carried a remote-control detonator to set off the explosives. As an extra precaution, the doors to the vans had been booby-trapped. If a driver tried to make a run for it, he would go up with his load.
The first human bomb was forty-two-year-old Patsy Gillespie from Derry. The target was a British army/RUC checkpoint on the outskirts of the city. Patsy Gillespie got there at about a quarter past four. As he slowed to stop, the IRA escort peeled off and sped away. At that moment, the van blew up. The explosion was powerful enough to flatten the checkpoint’s concrete-block fortification and severely damage twenty nearby homes. Five British soldiers were killed, five more injured. Patsy Gillespie died instantly. He was a father of four and a cook for the British army.
The second human bomb was the man I had helped to abduct. Colman McAvoy was sixty-five and a father of six who occasionally serviced vehicles for the RUC. He drove the van to a checkpoint in Killeen, just outside Newry, on the main Dublin to Belfast road. This is the border’s busiest checkpoint. Most traffic going to or from the Irish Republic comes through it. At five in the morning, it was deserted except for soldiers and RUC officers. However, the IRA men tailing McAvoy were in for a surprise.
Johnny was a ruthless IRA operative who would think nothing of planting a bomb that might kill civilians, or of shooting a policeman, a British soldier or an informant in cold blood. Even Johnny couldn’t stand the sight of this sick old man, wheezing and spluttering, driving to a certain death. Johnny told him to pull up at the checkpoint, unwind the window and exit the van that way. ‘Run like fuck and do not look back,’ he told me was his specific instruction.
McAvoy drove to the checkpoint as instructed, unwound the window and scrabbled out. A British soldier told him to move his van but, having escaped certain death once, McAvoy wasn’t keen to go back. ‘There’s a bomb in the van,’ he shouted, over and over.
‘Get back and move the van,’ the soldier shouted.
When McAvoy refused to budge, the soldier grabbed him and started dragging him back to the van. God only knows what must have been going through McAvoy’s mind. The explosives went off, killing the British soldier and injuring fourteen of his colleagues. Human bomb McAvoy suffered a broken leg.
The third human bomb was forty-two-year-old Gerry Kelly, who lived with his wife and child in Omagh town. He was abducted from his home by masked men, strapped into a van full of explosive and ordered to get as close as possible to the British army barracks in Omagh. Gerry did what he was told. ‘The sweat was dribbling down my face. All sorts of things were going through my mind. I thought this was it,’ he told a newspaper
after the event.
Kelly survived because the explosives failed to go off. He had been targeted because he worked as a mechanic at a local British army facility.
In all, seven people died and thirty-six people were injured as a result of that night’s human-bomb attacks. Even the battle-scarred people of Northern Ireland were shocked.
I felt disgusted that we’d failed to stop these ‘human bombs’ attacks. I had to balance the death of that soldier by saving more lives. I wanted to use my position in the Provisional IRA actively to prevent someone from being murdered. If I could save more lives than I helped to take, then my role as a special agent would be worthwhile and justifiable. It might sound simplistic, but this was the only way I could logically navigate my way through the madness of this Dirty War. Of course, I never lost sight of the risks to myself. I knew that to compromise my own position within the IRA was to bring about certain death. Despite that, I felt a moral duty to take more risks.
After all, if it all went wrong, I knew my handlers would pull me out.
Thanks to my meteoric ascent within the IRA, opportunities to save lives and ensnare leading IRA people soon started to present themselves. I grasped them with relish. We owed it to Colman McAvoy, and to my fellow British soldier who’d been slaughtered at Killeen.
The outcry that greeted the human-bomb campaign did little to sate the IRA’s appetite for slaughtering so-called legitimate civilian targets. Anyone working for or supplying a service to the security services in any capacity was seen as fair game. In twisted IRA logic, Catholic building labourers and Catholic milkmen and Catholic toilet cleaners now obstructed their pre-destined, God-given right to a United Ireland.
And so one IRA unit’s next mission was to try to shoot building workers reconstructing the Ardmore police station on the Armagh Road in Newry. A team of four had been hand picked for the task. It is said that they were led by me.