The Intelligence War against the IRA

by Thomas Leahy

  Why had the intelligence war not disrupted the Derry City IRA to any significant extent by 1975? One explanation is that there was no Bloody Friday in Derry City. Admittedly, some nationalist civilians opposed certain IRA actions there. Barker refers to the bombing of a supermarket frequented by nationalists in June 1974.88 Yet many working-class republicans remained committed to the Provisionals in Derry City. Ó Dochartaigh believes that the IRA retained this support because of a hatred towards the RUC, anger over British Army interference in everyday life, and bitter memories of Bloody Sunday in Derry City.89 Barker remembers the hostility the RUC faced in republicans areas there: ‘[i]t would have been unusual to have carried out a patrol … without coming under attack from a hail of stones, bricks or other missiles’. Even during the ceasefire in 1975, Barker claims that ‘[o]ur patrols were still being attacked on a daily basis’.90 O’Doherty also recalls significant support for the IRA in working-class republican communities in Derry City. When returning to operations in January 1973, O’Doherty lived on the run as part of a small sniper team. He recalls: ‘I was introduced to various families whose doors were always open to the IRA’. The ‘silence’ of the local people was crucial, as the IRA ‘had to rely on the local people for everything’. It would have been possible to defeat the IRA there if local nationalists or republicans had turned against them. As O’Doherty suggests, ‘almost everyone who was interested would know within a very short time who the operators were’.91 Since O’Doherty was not arrested until he returned home in mid-1975 (which only happened because republican leaders told him it was safe to go back there) it is clear that local supporters remained loyal to the IRA. Conway found ‘care and support’ for the IRA in the Bogside and Creggan in the early 1970s.92 Some of the previous intelligence and security measures had radicalised a sizeable number of nationalists into supporting and sustaining the IRA’s campaign in the area up to 1975 and beyond.93

  The IRA also created a ‘smaller, tighter’ organisation in Derry City after Motorman, with only five or six on-the-run members operating in each area.94 Bryan Webster served with the British Army there in 1975, commanding the Eighth Infantry Brigade. He says that intelligence indicated that there were, at most, forty to fifty active IRA volunteers in Derry City by the mid-1970s.95 With a smaller number of members, the IRA was harder to apprehend. Even if caught, volunteers sent back to Derry City after Operation Motorman were unlikely to yield vital intelligence on the inner secrets of the Derry Brigade staff, since the latter were located in Donegal.96 Whilst the Garda might have arrested some leaders such as McGuinness, the Garda faced a range of difficulties when trying to arrest leading Derry City IRA volunteers in Donegal. These factors included that the border was vast and problematic to police, and that the Irish forces lacked adequate resources for surveillance and arrest operations.97 Furthermore, there was at least a minority level of support for Derry City IRA volunteers in Donegal; although Mulroe demonstrates that this support ebbed and flowed depending on the behaviour of republicans there and the threat posed by militant loyalists.98 Historical links between Derry and Donegal in terms of entertainment and trade created some sympathy for the IRA.99 And despite numerous checkpoints on the border, unapproved roads existed and could assist the Derry City IRA in escaping across the border following attacks.100 The border presented opportunities for Derry City volunteers to evade capture that were not available to Belfast volunteers.

  The Derry City IRA remained a formidable opponent in 1975. O’Doherty suggests that the Derry Brigade considered a ceasefire in autumn 1974 after some volunteers said they wanted ‘political progress’ and a ‘realistic deal with the British’. The other motivating factor was that living on the run ‘was really a mode of life that was acceptable [only] for a limited period’.101

  The IRA in Rural Localities

  In the countryside, the IRA’s campaign had gained momentum by 1975,102 despite the organisation’s killing of a few alleged agents and informers. Perhaps the most high-profile case is that of Columba McVeigh in County Tyrone. McVeigh was disappeared in November 1975. In 1999, the IRA admitted to disappearing him. The IRA accused McVeigh of being an agent. His family reject the accusations. His body has yet to be found.103 Elsewhere, the South Armagh IRA were allegedly involved in the kidnap and killing of Ivan Johnston in December 1973. Johnston was a former Special Branch officer, who left the force shortly before his death. The IRA kidnapped Johnston in Monaghan whilst he was at a customs post. His body was found the following day near Keady. The IRA claimed that Johnston had photographs of wanted men and that he admitted to spying. The RUC rejected these allegations.104 A similar killing took place in south Armagh in August 1975. The IRA said that they killed William Meaklin, a former RUC reservist, near Newtownhamilton because he was gathering intelligence. The RUC once more denied the accusations.105

  Numerous accounts detail Robert Nairac’s activities against the South Armagh IRA during this time. Details about his activities are shrouded in mystery, partly because the IRA disappeared him in May 1977. His body has never been found. The available accounts suggest that Nairac was a British Army liaison officer working alongside RUC Special Branch in the Armagh and south Down area from the early 1970s. George Clarke, a former RUC Special Branch officer at that time, recalls that Nairac wanted RUC Special Branch to share greater intelligence on IRA ‘players’. Furthermore, Clarke claims that Nairac went to Dundalk, where some on-the-run IRA members were hiding. The available sources claim Nairac frequently visited republican drinking outlets in south Armagh in civilian clothing. Accusations have been made that in order to gain access to republican bars, Nairac provided the IRA with information about other agents and security-force personnel. The forensic scientist tasked with finding the bodies of the disappeared found evidence that disproved these accusations.106 The IRA kidnapped and disappeared Nairac whilst he was undercover in a republican pub in south Armagh in May 1977. It does not appear that his activities impacted on the South Armagh IRA before his death in 1977. Harnden reveals a document created by Nairac about intelligence operations against the South Armagh IRA. He comments that the intelligence gathered there was of poor quality.107

  Permanent and snap vehicle checkpoints gathered intelligence on local vehicles in rural areas. Much as in Belfast and Derry City, security-force personnel at the checkpoints could contact the vehicle registration services in Coleraine to verify whether a vehicle had been stolen. In a Ministry of Defence document in June 1973, the author stressed the importance of monitoring movements across the border: ‘terrorist vehicle traffic across the border with the Republic is considerable and includes the conveyance of personnel, weapons, ammunition and explosives for the purposes of training, operations, political activities and escaping following crimes’.108 By 1975 the Army had also begun using their own computer stations in local areas across Northern Ireland linked to a centralised database back in Lisburn, where British Army headquarters were based. In December 1974, the journalist Fisk reports that ‘Computer links have been installed in at least 12 Army positions near the border with the Irish Republic and soldiers manning them can use a console that connects with the central computer at Thiepval barracks, Lisburn’. He claimed that six of these positions were in south Armagh. The information held by that computer system included ‘the names and addresses of people living in areas of violence and details about their friends, relatives and homes’.109 A private letter from Roy Mason, the Minister for Defence at that time, to Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in July 1975 suggests Fisk’s reporting was accurate. Mason confirmed that computerisation of records of vehicle and personality cards held by different Army regiments was underway. He assured Rees that access to the system was tightly controlled to prevent intelligence leaks. Mason promoted sharing this information with the RUC to improve security.110 Technology was beginning to support the gathering, collating and dissemination of intelligence via computer systems in Northern Ireland by the mid-1970s. Surveillance
was another measure being used to ensure that the amount of information held on suspects increased.

  By 1975, it appeared that the intelligence war’s overall effect on the South Armagh and Tyrone IRA had been limited. In terms of the IRA’s ability to strike intended targets in south Armagh, they killed twelve in 1972 and fourteen in 1973. Whilst the killings of intended targets declined to twelve in 1974, they reached fourteen again in 1975. A similar pattern occurred in Tyrone. In 1972, the Tyrone IRA killed eight intended targets. The level rose to thirteen in both 1973 and 1974, before declining to five in 1975, which resulted from the IRA being on ceasefire. The South Armagh IRA were not observing the ceasefire to the same extent.111 Based on this evidence, it seems that high-level intelligence on these units was in short supply by 1975. The examples of alleged agents and informers above justify this view. If true, none of these cases represents infiltration to the heart of the South Armagh or Tyrone IRA. In fact, putting Oxford graduates such as Nairac undercover in south Armagh suggests that British intelligence was struggling.112 A former British soldier believes that in most rural areas before 1975, ‘I don’t think [we] were getting … [substantial] penetration of the IRA in the rural areas up to [1975], and I don’t think [we] were physically defeating the IRA [in rural areas].’113 British government members at the time agreed. On 5 November 1975, Merlyn Rees and Frank Cooper told their Irish counterparts at the Irish Embassy in London that there was ‘virtual anarchy’ in south Armagh. ‘The PIRA there’, Rees explained, ‘had achieved a remarkable and highly dangerous level of sophistication’.114 Kieran Conway agrees that by 1975: ‘the IRA was … stronger in many rural areas than it had ever been’.115

  The Tyrone and South Armagh IRA did not kill the numbers of intended targets that the Belfast Brigade managed in 1972. But they were never expected to do so. Both units had a much smaller population from which to recruit, and as a result had much lower numbers of volunteers.116 They could not carry out various attacks at once. The main threat posed by the rural IRA was its ability to inflict numerous casualties in single attacks. After events such as Bloody Friday, the IRA scaled down its car-bomb usage in city areas, as multiple civilian casualties had produced negative publicity. The situation was different in rural areas, where the IRA could operate in the open countryside. The IRA could use larger bombs and landmines without causing extensive civilian deaths. As a former British soldier summarises, by the mid-1970s:

  if it was going right [for the IRA] in Belfast, one person dies, but if it was going right in the rural areas, a lot of people died … in Belfast, they were small bombs. Whereas in the rural areas, they had huge bombs.117

  The IRA’s landmine and bomb attacks on country roads in south Armagh led to the security forces abandoning motorised vehicle patrols for much of the Troubles.118 The IRA killed many security-force members in single attacks in these regions. On 10 September 1972, for instance, an IRA landmine exploded under an Army Saracen near Dungannon, County Tyrone, killing three soldiers and injuring many others. The explosion created a deep crater in the road. At the time, this was the biggest device the IRA had ever used.119 Later, in November 1974, the IRA targeted soldiers visiting an electricity substation after an explosion the previous evening in Tyrone. The IRA left a landmine, which killed two and injured seven.120 Similar attacks took place in south Armagh. To take a few examples: in April 1973, the IRA used a landmine to kill two soldiers driving a Land Rover near Newtownhamilton;121 and on 17 July 1975, the IRA placed a bomb in a beer keg on a bridge in Tullydonnell, killing four British soldiers.122 The South Armagh IRA also specialised in snipers and booby-trap bombs in abandoned houses, which had killed and injured other security-force members by 1975.123 Statistics surrounding fatalities overlook intended targets injured by the IRA, and the danger that the rural units posed in terms of their ability to kill numerous security-force members in single attacks.

  The Fermanagh IRA’s campaign was less intense at this stage. The IRA killed eleven intended targets there in 1972, a significant increase from the total of one the previous year. Many killings there involved booby-trap car bombs under vehicles belonging to security-force members, the shooting of off-duty security-force members and the ambushing of British soldiers.124 There were also landmine attacks, such as on 7 August 1972 when such a device exploded under an Army Land Rover near Lisnaskea, killing two soldiers.125 But IRA killings of intended targets in Fermanagh declined to three in both 1973 and 1974.126 This decline is curious, since Fermanagh had a history of electing republican representatives,127 and of discrimination in jobs and in the local electoral system before 1969. These factors had encouraged IRA support and increased activity elsewhere.128 The intelligence war does not appear to explain the reduction in killings. There were no known agents or informers operating there in the period before 1975. Of course, some may have remained undetected, but since IRA activity increased in Fermanagh after 1975, agents and informers had little long-term effect.129 The two main factors influencing this fluctuation were the presence of a large Protestant security-force community living there, which made the IRA more cautious at times;130 and a lack of organisers in that vicinity at certain times.131 The rise and decline in Fermanagh IRA activity was a constant feature of the conflict, as I detail in Chapter 9.

  There are a few factors specific to the early 1970s that explain the difficulties for British intelligence in infiltrating the rural IRA. One reason is that British forces had neglected rural areas at first and focused initially on the greater IRA threat in the cities. The British Army initially dedicated fewer resources to rural areas. This strategy enabled infant IRA rural units to organise, train and gather expertise. In a review of operations and resources deployed against the rural IRA in August 1975, a security-force official commented that there were initially ‘uncoordinated efforts in the early 1970s’ there against the IRA because the focus was initially on Belfast and Derry City. The report admitted that by 1975 it had become clear that ‘soldiers on the Border at present are stretched to perform their duties’, particularly because of the length of the border and its open terrain.132 By the time that the British military deployed more resources to rural areas in the mid-1970s, the IRA in places such as south Armagh had become well trained and ‘sophisticated’. Harnden has written about how the South Armagh IRA used veteran republicans to gradually train new recruits. He believes this ‘system meant that there were fewer mistakes and therefore fewer arrests in South Armagh than in any other IRA brigade area’.133

  Tommy McKearney, a former Tyrone volunteer, suggests that ‘[w]ith wider spaces and different terrain, the smaller rural ASUs proved more difficult to pin down’. He also points out that rural volunteers crossed into the Irish Republic. They were shielded there by ‘a measurable degree of hard-core support concentrated along the Border areas’, such as in Donegal and Monaghan.134 Indeed, there were close links between nationalists in Derry and Donegal, Monaghan and Tyrone, and south Armagh and Dundalk, since they crossed the border for family, work or social activities.135 The British Army regularly complained that IRA units operating in Fermanagh and Tyrone came from Monaghan,136 that South Armagh units were based in counties Louth or Monaghan,137 or that Donegal provided a relative ‘safe haven’ for Derry volunteers.138

  British forces have overemphasised the level of IRA attacks in border regions that originated from the Irish Republic. Mulroe’s research details how over half of republican suspects in areas such as south Armagh resided in Northern Ireland rather than across the border in the 1970s.139 Mulroe provides a breakdown of RUC and Garda numbers in the border areas. He demonstrates how the RUC deployed insufficient numbers in regions such as south Armagh and the ‘more republican border areas of Fermanagh’. Mulroe suggests: ‘[a]s security cooperation was officially based on Garda-RUC dialogue, it was difficult to establish relations when the RUC presence was so minimal’ in particular areas. Whilst there was a greater British Army presence in places such as south Armagh, the Army withdrew from t
he border in some rural localities. This tactic aimed to force cross-border attackers to venture deeper into northern territory, increasing the possibility of arrest. The Irish security forces cannot be solely blamed for IRA activities in Fermanagh, south Armagh and Tyrone.140

  There have been complaints made by some former British security-force members about southern Irish politicians not allowing the Garda to be more proactive against the cross-border IRA.141 Mulroe accepts that political influence did hinder cross-border cooperation to some extent. Yet he feels that a focus in Ireland on internal security, and suspicions of collusion on the part of some RUC units, explain the lack of cooperation between the Garda and RUC at times.142 Mulroe also emphasises the lack of resources, funding and intelligence for the Garda as inhibiting their ability to disrupt cross-border IRA activities.143 Indeed, in a paper discussing cooperation with the Garda in rural areas in November 1975, it was noted that the RUC and Garda had agreed to explore further methods of cross-border cooperation. Discussions commenced at Baldonnel in September 1974 between the two police forces. The recommendations of the panels included the expansion of existing means of communication and exchanging intelligence. The November 1975 report concluded that cooperation had improved.144 A report of a meeting between leading British officials and ministers including Frank Cooper, Merlyn Rees and security-force representatives such as the RUC Chief Constable and the GOC in September 1975 supports this view. The Chief Constable and head of RUC Special Branch commented that ‘relations with the Gardai were extremely good at present’. The problem was that ‘there were limitations to the extent to the Gardai’s knowledge’. Their view indicates deficiencies in Garda intelligence rather than a general reluctance by Dublin politicians to disrupt IRA activities.145 A joint RUC and Garda report on south Armagh in February 1976 agreed that the IRA there were ‘tight’ in terms of security because of the ‘painstaking’ intelligence carried out by that unit. As a result, both the RUC and Garda complained of ‘scant’ intelligence on South Armagh IRA units.146