The Intelligence War against the IRA

by Thomas Leahy

  Conclusion

  William Whitelaw had no interest in bringing the IRA into a political settlement after July 1972. His intention was to create a power-sharing settlement with constitutional parties, keeping Northern Ireland within the UK. At the same time, the security and intelligence services would try to reduce IRA activity to a level at which it could neither obstruct the power-sharing assembly nor influence British political policy on Northern Ireland.

  Once the power-sharing executive collapsed in May 1974, British government political policy radically shifted. Wilson, Rees and other ministers and civil servants wanted British withdrawal. They envisaged an agreement on Northern Irish independence between republicans, loyalists and others as possible. The idea of getting republicans and loyalists to agree to independence was not irrational. Key elements within the UDA leadership and some unionist politicians supported it. The Irish government reached a similar conclusion from their own conversations with loyalists during 1975. Some republican leaders also indicated that they might accept independence in the short term. Nonetheless, the Labour government rejected making a public or private declaration of intent to withdraw to republicans. They feared any declaration would provoke a loyalist uprising.96

  Whilst sections of the British state did not agree with an independent Northern Ireland, Wilson and Rees were in the most powerful positions influencing Northern Ireland policy. If they wanted independence, it is not clear what individuals within the army or other state institutions could do to oppose it. Ambiguity over British policy was intentional. It ensured that republicans would continue talks because of the incentive that ‘structures of disengagement’ might be put in place. References to withdrawal gave British intermediaries time to try to convince republicans to accept a six-county compromise. The evidence in this chapter suggests that Wilson’s Labour government continued to focus on using intelligence partly to find long-term solutions to the conflict. The Heath government took a different approach. They feared appearing weak against internal enemies in the UK. The continuation of IRA activity also made Heath’s government suspicious of republicans.97

  Nonetheless, both Whitelaw and Rees felt that erosion of the IRA’s military capacity was essential. For Whitelaw, the aim was to reduce IRA violence to help the power-sharing executive create political stability. For Rees, it was to reduce IRA violence and obtain a ceasefire in order to further encourage republicans to talk to loyalists. The use of agents and informers and surveillance was crucial. It enabled the security forces to directly target the IRA without antagonising the entire nationalist community via indiscriminate operations that might prevent political agreement between nationalists and unionists, or republicans and loyalists.

  5

  The Intelligence War: July 1972 to December 1975

  This chapter investigates the intelligence war’s effectiveness against each regional IRA group between July 1972 and December 1975. Whilst the Belfast IRA suffered some operational difficulties because of British intelligence’s efforts, the Derry City IRA, rural republican units and the cells operating in England had not been damaged to any considerable extent by 1975. It is true that deaths caused by the IRA had declined since 1972. But the republican movement had spread further across Northern Ireland and the borderlands of the Irish Republic. The IRA maintained a persistent campaign, for reasons explored. Northern Ireland remained politically unstable by 1975. My argument challenges the idea that the IRA called a prolonged ceasefire out of desperation.

  Various authors credit the intelligence war with influencing the IRA’s decision to call a prolonged ceasefire in 1975. Bew and Frampton emphasise multicausal factors encouraging an IRA ceasefire in 1975, including the British government’s indication to republicans that they might accept constitutional change. They suggest that a primary reason for the ceasefire was that ‘the British Army had made important advances in the intelligence war’. ‘The result’, they argue, ‘was that … republicans were under a great deal of pressure – especially in Belfast’.1 Ed Moloney believes that one alleged informer’s activities in Belfast were so damaging that they were pivotal in encouraging the IRA to call a ceasefire.2 This view is also present in some of the primary material. Kieran Conway, who worked for IRA General Headquarters at the time, was ‘strongly in favour of the truce’ partly because ‘of the reassessment that was taking place in London’. But Conway added: ‘a truce made tactical sense … Belfast, in which we knew the war would be won or lost, was … on its knees’.3 The British Army agrees that there had been ‘massive and sustained’ damage inflicted on the Belfast Brigade by 1975. Operation Banner even speculates that ‘the defeat of the insurgency might have [been possible and] led to the long-term neutralisation of the PIRA, before it became a skilled terrorist organization’.4 The key themes arising from these sources are that the intelligence war directly contributed to the IRA’s decision to ceasefire in 1975, and that the Belfast IRA spearheaded republican military efforts, meaning that their decline forced republicans into a ceasefire.5 In regard to the latter point, Tommy McKearney says that by 1975:

  [t]he Belfast Brigade … had suffered quite serious losses. That was quite influential because the Provisional IRA … was made up of 50 percent Belfast and 50 percent the rest … Therefore with the Belfast Brigade damaged, the Provisional IRA also understood itself to be damaged in terms of its capacity.6

  McKearney adds that the IRA leadership called a cessation because they believed that the British were ready to withdraw.7 McKearney was not a Belfast volunteer, and is therefore unlikely to overestimate the importance of that brigade. This chapter argues that whilst the intelligence war did damage the operational capacity of the Belfast IRA in this period, elsewhere the IRA was not restrained to any significant extent.

  Belfast

  Deaths of IRA ‘intended’ targets declined in Belfast from their height in 1972, when the IRA killed 53. There was a reduction to 24 in 1973, and to 12 in 1974.8 These statistics should be treated with caution. Reduced numbers of IRA killings are not necessarily evidence of decreasing IRA activity. The statistics for 1975 also includes the ceasefire period. Nevertheless, other evidence confirms a decrease in IRA activities in Belfast between July 1972 and December 1974. This decline partly resulted from the arrests of leading republicans. The security forces arrested Brendan Hughes and others in the summer of 1973. Hughes eventually escaped from Long Kesh but was rearrested in mid-1974.9 Gerry Bradley, a north Belfast volunteer, remembers the decline of the Belfast IRA’s Third Battalion. He recalls the arrests of two G Company leaders in autumn 1972. Later, in January 1974, British forces captured and interned Bradley.10 Hughes remembers Bradley’s Third Battalion almost being ‘wiped out’ by arrests in 1973.11 The British Army certainly felt that the Belfast IRA’s campaign was being contained by arrests: ‘[i]n March and April 1974 a total of 106 PIRA officers were arrested, including three successive OCs [Officer Commanding] of the Belfast Brigade. This was a major factor in the defeat of the 1974 summer bombing campaign.’ Operation Banner added: ‘[a]t one stage the active tour of duty of a PIRA officer from appointment to arrest was about four weeks.’12

  Current evidence suggests that agents and informers contributed to the gradual demise of the Belfast Brigade by 1975. One example comes from October 1972. The IRA attacked the Four Square Laundry service in Belfast. According to Cursey, a former MRF operative, these intelligence operations ‘[were] fully instrumental in the finding of hoards … of weapons and explosives’.13 It is not possible currently to verify his account; although as the covert laundry operation continued for many months, British intelligence obviously saw its value. Informers aided the laundry operation. They also led to its exposure.14 Various accounts allege that Seamus Wright ‘turned’ during interrogation at Palace Barracks in early 1972. Hughes and a range of authors claim that Wright asked to return from England to Belfast without the threat of execution. Hughes claims that the IRA agreed, provided Wright revealed everything. Hughes remembers �
�[w]e formally interrogated [Wright] and got the whole rundown on the Four Square Laundry situation’. In addition, Hughes alleges that Wright revealed the identities of other supposed informers involved, including Kevin McKee and Brian Palmer. According to Hughes, senior IRA commanders waited until they could strike at the various outlets of British intelligence. The day came on 2 October 1972. The IRA attacked the laundry van in the Twinbrook area, killing MRF operator Edward Stuart, the driver of the vehicle. ‘Jane’, who knocked on the doors to gather laundry, survived. The IRA also attacked the massage parlour and the office run by the MRF, but nobody was killed.15 The IRA disappeared Wright and McKee on the same day and only formally claimed responsibility for the disappearance in 1999. They killed Palmer in 1976. There is no evidence confirming whether or not Wright, McKee or Palmer were informers.16

  It is in the context of the discovery of the MRF in October 1972 that the Jean McConville ‘disappearing’ case of December 1972 should be considered. Originally from Protestant east Belfast, she was intimidated out of the area alongside her Catholic husband, who was a former member of the British Army. He died in January 1972. By that stage, Jean McConville had ten children living with her in the Divis Flats area of west Belfast. In December 1972, she was forcibly taken from her house by the IRA and was never seen again. The reasons why Jean McConville was disappeared is subject to continual debate and police investigations. The IRA admitted to ‘disappearing’ her in 1999, claiming she informed for the British Army.17 McConville’s children reject this accusation and say that the IRA targeted their mother for comforting a dying soldier. In 2006, Nuala O’Loan, the Police Ombudsman, issued a report stating that there was no evidence that McConville was an informer. The IRA rejected this report. Brendan Hughes claims that McConville was eventually killed for repeatedly informing.18 A member of the public found McConville’s body on a beach in County Louth in the Irish Republic in August 2003.19 Prosecutions may still emerge in her case following revelations by Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price in 2010 about who was allegedly involved in the killing.20

  The McConville case highlights that the Belfast IRA was alert to any talk of agents and informers after discovering the MRF operations in October 1972. Increasing arrests and weapons seizures in Belfast intensified IRA efforts to deal immediately with suspected agents or informers. This heightened vigilance continued into 1973. In November 1973, the body of fifteen-year-old Bernard Teggart was found near Bellevue Zoo in west Belfast. The IRA had shot Bernard Teggart. His sister says that Bernard had witnessed a hijacking of a lorry in west Belfast and told the IRA to leave the driver alone. Immediately afterwards, British soldiers arrived and arrested the IRA members. His family stress that Bernard had the mental age of an eight- or nine-year old, which made him act in the way he did. In 2004, the IRA admitted killing him and said that this act was ‘wrong’.21

  These killings support Hewitt’s opinion on part of the reason why governments use human intelligence. Alongside the damage done to paramilitary or insurgent groups by the work of actual informers, the paranoia and suspicion that revelations about one informer can create sow fear. Fearing further infiltration, there is the potential that armed groups can turn inwards or on the community that supports them.22 The evidence below, however, suggests that a range of factors in Belfast and elsewhere prevented rumours of informers from creating significant splits within IRA ranks and the republican community during the conflict.

  On 1 April 1999, the IRA admitted to ‘disappearing’ nine people during the Troubles.23 The IRA did not apologise for the killings because they believed that some of those disappeared ‘were members of [the IRA] who were executed for activities which put other personnel at risk or jeopardised the struggle’.24 They only apologised for the secret burial of those killed. In terms of the intelligence war before 1975, one name on the disappeared list stands out: Eamon Molloy. The IRA’s confession that they killed Molloy came as a ‘surprise’ to those campaigning for the discovery of the disappeared. They ‘had not heard of him before’. Lost Lives was not even able to ascertain when Molloy was killed during 1975.25 The IRA simply stated that Molloy was: ‘from Belfast, a member of the IRA … court-martialled in 1975 and found guilty of being an RUC informer’.26 They returned Molloy’s body in a coffin to a graveyard in Dundalk in May 1999.27

  Various sources, including Gerry Bradley who allegedly operated with Molloy in the 1970s, claim that Molloy became an informer in 1972. McKittrick et al., Moloney and Brian Feeney all present a similar account. They claim that Molloy’s initial dedication saw him promoted to quartermaster of the Belfast Brigade in the mid-1970s. This position increased his access to the organisation’s secrets and volunteers, since quartermasters knew where weapons were hidden, and would regularly meet various units to supply equipment. These sources say that Molloy proceeded to set up arrests and weapons seizures in Belfast.28 In 1999, an IRA source claimed that Molloy’s information had led to the arrests of ‘about 25 to 30 top men’. Bradley alleges that the Third Battalion’s weapon dumps lost ‘a lot of big stuff’ because of Molloy.29 Senior IRA personnel in Long Kesh believed that Molloy was informing in 1975, and the order was given to execute him.30 For Moloney, Molloy damaged the IRA ‘on such a scale that … his activities played a major role in forcing the IRA to call a cease-fire’.31 This chapter challenges this analysis.

  There are reasons unique to this period to explain why the Belfast IRA could have experienced damaging infiltration. The Belfast IRA’s battalion and company structure did make it prone to infiltration. Bradley and McKearney suggest that Belfast units at that time would typically consist of sixteen to twenty volunteers in each company. As the Third Battalion alone consisted of A to G Company, this means that there were approximately 100 volunteers in that battalion.32 In addition, Operation Banner estimates that there were around 1,600 active IRA volunteers by 1973. Since McKearney and McKeown state that Belfast accounted for 50 per cent of IRA volunteers, the Belfast Brigade had approximately 800 active volunteers by 1973. Increasing arrests and variations in commitment levels at times meant that this figure fluctuated.33

  For former Belfast republican prisoner Séanna Walsh, the trouble was that ‘[t]he structures of the early seventies … meant that everybody knew everything about everybody else’,34 because IRA units operated in large numbers around their own streets. For instance, Bradley’s G Company contained volunteers from Unity Flats and nearby New Lodge.35 Danny Morrison recalled the problems with this set-up:

  it was fairly easy for the British to discover … who carried out an IRA operation. If the IRA carried out an operation in Ballymurphy it was more likely to have been carried out by Ballymurphy men and women.36

  An agent or informer would have known most local people because of the tight-knit and small nature of republican working-class communities in the cities, especially following increasing segregation after sectarian disturbances in 1969. One agent or informer at a company, battalion or brigade level could potentially gather considerable information on their counterparts for British intelligence agencies.

  Feeney adds ‘[e]ven if there had not been many informers, men drank and talked and gossiped’. This ‘gossip’ increased the flow of information to the intelligence services, particularly in cities such as Belfast.37 Gossip at pubs and clubs in the cities was a particular challenge for the IRA. Unlike in the countryside, in Belfast there was no border to escape across if loose talk led to police or Army raids. Loose talk continued to cause security issues for the IRA after 1975. But it was particularly problematic before 1975 in Belfast and Derry because they had more active volunteers, meaning that there was a greater risk of ‘loose talk’ allowing an informer to set up arrests. The IRA certainly realised this was a problem. They issued an article entitled ‘Loose Talk Can Be Fatal’ in An Phoblacht in January 1974. This article was a response to the arrests of various republicans in Belfast in 1973. It warned: ‘[t]he informer is “the greatest listener”. What may seem insignificant to
you in the course of conversation may be the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle for the informer.’ Republicans were instructed to ‘stop and think before [speaking] on any “chancy” subject’. A final piece of advice was to be on the lookout for those in social situations who were ‘asking the questions’, and to report them to the republican movement.38

  Screening provided further information for the British forces by 1975. It involved the British Army picking up civilians for questioning at a local security forces base. Personality checks also occurred in and around pubs.39 Operation Banner believes that ‘[d]etaining individuals for a few hours to allow screening was useful, since some individuals were quite happy to pass information in privacy’.40 A former British soldier echoes this point: