by Thomas Leahy
Sinn Féin Informers and the Peace Process
Following the exposure of Denis Donaldson as an informer in 2005, an entirely different argument has arisen to suggest why republicans accepted the Good Friday Agreement. It involves the manipulation of grass-roots republicans by Donaldson and other informers within Sinn Féin. Moloney implicitly suggests that Donaldson was pivotal in guiding the republican movement towards the peace process. According to Moloney, by 2002 Donaldson:
was in the outer circle just beyond the Adams think tank, often charged with ensuring that leadership decisions were fully and properly enforced. His proximity to the inner circle was the reason for the widespread shock in the IRA and Sinn Féin since this opened up the possibility that British intelligence not only knew about the Adams [peace] strategy but had helped to shape it.202
Two former republican prisoners share Moloney’s view. Anthony McIntyre claims that: ‘Denis Donaldson was … [c]loser to the Sinn Féin leadership than … Stakeknife … Donaldson was never slow to berate those who dissented from the leadership.’ In McIntyre’s view, Donaldson enforced the leadership’s peace-process strategy, whilst exposing and pressurising dissenters.203 Tommy McKearney agrees that Donaldson was influential in ensuring that the IRA’s armed campaign ended. Since Donaldson was one of ‘leading members of the movement’, McKearney argues he ‘undoubtedly inflicted considerable damage on the IRA and Sinn Féin’.204 McKearney explained that Donaldson was an ‘agent of influence’:
agents of influence became very important in terms of steering IRA thinking in a direction that would be amenable to the British government’s policy … [the British state] saw that there was a popular dimension to the IRA’s insurgency. [Therefore] in the early 1980s … the British government decided that they had to have the IRA involved in a settlement.
McKearney argues that Donaldson was ‘close to the republican leadership’ and could keep the British ‘reasonably well informed of the thinking of the leadership of the senior IRA and Sinn Féin members’. In McKearney’s view, ‘agents of influence’ were important in identifying opponents of the peace process to British intelligence, who, subsequently, could remove dissenters. Ultimately, McKearney concludes:
agents of influence … played a significant … role in persuading the IRA to follow a particular line. The important thing was to … make the IRA believe that … the Good Friday Agreement was not absolute and utter defeat … to present it as a very good bargain … The agents promoting this message would have been very influential.205
These examples would suggest that Donaldson contributed significantly to the peace process being accepted within republicanism.
It is certainly plausible that Donaldson carried significant weight within the republican movement. Donaldson had been interned alongside republicans such as Bobby Sands during the 1970s.206 In 1972, An Phoblacht praised Donaldson’s ‘republican spirit’.207 In particular, he was revered for helping to defend the Short Strand nationalist area in Belfast from loyalist attack in 1970. In later years, he stood for Sinn Féin in the Westminster elections in 1983. Despite losing out, he was still highly regarded by republican leaders and would be an important ‘cog in the Sinn Féin machine’ until 2005. After 1998, he became Sinn Féin’s office administrator at Stormont, where he would ‘vet and discipline’ electoral candidates and facilitate negotiations with the IRA to disarm.208 Various sources describe how Donaldson also travelled to the United States and beyond, canvassing support for the peace process in the late 1980s and 1990s. McIntyre claims: ‘[e]arly in the peace process … [when Donaldson] was sent out to take charge of the party’s New York operation, he began to undermine anyone thinking along traditional republican lines’.209 Against this background, An Phoblacht tried to reassure republicans after Donaldson’s exposure as an informer that whilst it was disappointing, he was an exception.210 The revelations about Donaldson and others including Roy McShane, a Belfast driver for Sinn Féin leaders who was exposed as an informer in 2008, left some republicans such as Bradley shocked. Feeney writes:
Men and women … who had given their lives to the IRA … were shocked, disgusted and depressed by these revelations. They had been risking their lives for years, confident in the belief that the republican leadership, though they made mistakes, were immune from British influence … By the early years of this century, no one could be sure of any of that.211
Bradley’s account demonstrates that revelations surrounding senior agents and informers after 2003 troubled some former volunteers.
The notion that British intelligence recruited agents and informers within Sinn Féin to remove opponents to the peace process has support from other sources. Peter Taylor discusses the case of Stephen Lambert from Derry. Lambert was already known to the security services and had spent time in jail before 1984. After being released in that year, Lambert worked for Sinn Féin. In 1988, he was approached on various occasions by a British intelligence officer. Lambert rejected the offer and reported it to Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin set him up as a double agent, so that they could record and reveal British intelligence tactics. Lambert then agreed to meet the intelligence officer. At the meeting, he was told that British intelligence wanted agents and informers to remove those who opposed the peace strategy by ‘discrediting and lifting’. Taylor argues that the recording of the second meeting that Lambert had with the intelligence officer ‘Steve’, via a tape recorder stuffed down his trousers and a microphone concealed in his shirt, was identical in content to the first meeting notes that Lambert had made for Sinn Féin. Taylor has ‘no doubt’ that Lambert’s account is ‘genuine’.212 Another example emerged in October 1998. Tony Deeney from Derry City allegedly told An Phoblacht he had been an agent for nine years, which partly involved infiltrating Sinn Féin and reporting attitudes towards the peace process.213 Later, in August 1999, An Phoblacht claimed that John McKeown from south Armagh had been working for British intelligence for ten years. According to the paper, part of his role was said to include monitoring opinions on the peace process held by local Sinn Féin activists.214
Current evidence, however, contradicts the suggestion that ‘agents of influence’ within Sinn Féin played a significant role in persuading republicans to end the IRA’s armed campaign. Donaldson and other Sinn Féin informers seem to have had extremely limited access to the IRA. We have seen that the IRA continued with a persistent campaign in north and south Armagh, Belfast, Fermanagh and parts of England before 1994. In addition, the IRA had received an estimated 150 tonnes of weapons from Libya by the late 1980s, excluding the amount seized from the Eksund in France in 1987.215 These points support Brian Rowan’s and Danny Morrison’s assessment that ‘[Donaldson] was all about political espionage.’216
More importantly, it does not appear that there was a British policy of getting informers to remove those who might disagree with a peace-process strategy within Sinn Féin. Opposition to the continuation of the cessation in 1996 emerged in Belfast, south Armagh and elsewhere. The return to conflict was not prevented.217 The British intelligence officer ‘Steve’ also informed Lambert that they felt McGuinness was not going to lead republicans towards peace in 1988.218 McGuinness remained in his position. Various examples in Chapter 9 demonstrate that the British government and security forces were willing to arrest and try to convict Adams if the opportunity emerged, despite Adams advocating talks and a peace process from the 1980s, and his denial of IRA membership.219 These examples question whether there was an overall strategy focusing on removing opponents to peace from the 1980s onwards. Neither Donaldson nor other Sinn Féin informers had positioned pro-ceasefire personnel across the republican movement by the 1990s. Instead, it appears that there was a debate between different sections of the IRA and Sinn Féin about a cessation. It was not a question of the leadership pushing each republican heartland into the peace process against their will. Adams and McGuinness, for example, repeatedly asked the British government to insist on demilitarisation in south Armag
h after 1998.220 Their actions show that Belfast and Derry City republicans could not simply manipulate or order rural republicans into the peace process without considering the latters’ perspective.221
Evidence provided elsewhere in this chapter suggests that many republicans were ready for a political compromise by 1994 and again in 1997. Peace-process opponents lacked support and did not cause a substantial split. McKearney says:
agents of influence can only take people where they want to go … It would be wrong … to suggest outright duplicity on the leadership’s part … the vast majority of the membership remained content to accept the outcome.222
In addition, following McGuinness’s death in March 2017, McKearney argued that the commitment of leading republicans such as McGuinness to the movement ‘was crucial in persuading many republicans to endorse’ the peace process and change tactics, whereby ‘politics … was the continuation of war by other means’ for the republican leadership. Whilst McKearney disagrees with this policy because he believes Northern Ireland remains dominated by sectarian division, he admits that McGuinness as part of the republican leadership helped ‘changed the dynamics of political power in Ireland forever’.223
Donaldson does not appear to have provided detailed insights into the long-term strategic plans of Sinn Féin leaders. Danny Morrison suggested that Donaldson was outside the ‘inner circle’ of the republican leadership:
[E]ven if Denis was privy to what was openly being said at a private meeting, the republican movement, being a revolutionary movement, would also have an inner revolutionary position which no one but the most trusted would know about … This was one of the strengths of the struggle – the inability of the British or their informants to penetrate … the psyche of the leadership … That gap in knowledge meant the Brits never really knew what they were dealing with.224
Jonathan Powell’s memoirs support this view. Powell recalls having to ‘make a best guess as to the real bottom line of each side’ in the peace process, including that of republicans. He recalls republicans always demanding one final concession before talks closed. Powell’s surprise at this tactic suggests that he lacked detailed insight before the talks on what republican leaders would demand.225 A former British civil servant, who was engaged in the peace process in the 1990s, presents a similar assessment to Powell’s:
we had through the long arduous years of the 1970s and 1980s, through the … intelligence agencies … an increasingly clear coverage. If something was done or said at an Ard Fheis … we would know the same day. But what was harder to get was political intelligence. Because the republican leadership, essentially Adams, McGuinness … and others, were clearly reluctant to share very much with their own folk.226
The above quote is crucial. It supports Morrison’s suggestion that the republican leadership were a small, core group whose long-term strategic vision was not known to those outside that group, including behind-the-scenes personnel such as Donaldson. The analysis here can explain why the British government were so unsure about the intentions of the republican leadership even after 1998. Powell remembers the British government commissioning work in early 1999 to plan for the IRA’s campaign resuming, as devolution had stalled over the issue of decommissioning.227 Donaldson could only report to the British what Sinn Féin leaders were willing to disclose to the wider movement. Donaldson ‘was not in the tight inner circle of Gerry Adams’.228
The evidence provided further supports the view that the Blair and Major governments took a careful approach, and a considerable risk, during the peace process. The intelligence services were certainly receiving some information from Donaldson and others about the republican leadership’s plans. The trouble was it was not concrete evidence from those creating the present and future strategies. There was an element of having to trust the intentions of the IRA Army Council and Sinn Féin negotiators. This view is not to argue that the intelligence services were not receiving some level of intelligence on leading republicans’ intentions. Gerry Kelly removed listening devices from his house in 1998 that had apparently been there for three years, after Mo Mowlam hinted at their existence.229 Nevertheless, the comments above from senior British officials suggest that they were not receiving detailed information on republican leadership strategy from intelligence sources, perhaps as a result of republican leaders being security conscious in certain properties and areas. The intelligence that the British were receiving from those on the fringes of the republican leadership such as Donaldson was, at minimum, being used by the British government in the 1990s to internally justify their strategy of talking to republican leaders.
Conclusion
This chapter began by proposing that the Irish government and the SDLP engaged in talks with Sinn Féin from the late 1980s for two primary reasons: Sinn Féin’s ability to win a sizeable minority of nationalist support in Northern Ireland, and the IRA’s persistence with its armed campaign. The second section of this chapter identified that by the 1990s, continuing IRA activity, Sinn Féin’s electoral mandate in Northern Ireland and the pan-nationalist talks encouraged a change in British strategy towards trying to bring republicans into a political settlement.230 The slight alteration in British strategy by the 1990s means that the term ‘strategic defeat’ is problematic. The IRA’s ‘Armalite and ballot box’ strategy had not delivered all the concessions that they desired. But the British strategy of creating a ‘middle-ground’ settlement without the Provisionals had not succeeded either by the 1990s. Neither had majority-rule unionists achieved their aim.231 Instead, there was a strategic compromise by all sides because of the political and military stalemate that their leaders had recognised. A smaller electoral mandate meant that the republican movement conceded more ground in comparison to many of their opponents.
As IRA activity continued, the British state reintroduced the ‘dual-approach’ strategy to try to end the conflict as soon as possible. They would try to persuade the Provisionals to end their armed campaign via secret talks using intermediaries, alongside public speeches. At the same time, the security forces used intelligence to disrupt IRA activity and try to quickly force the organisation into a permanent ceasefire. The previous chapters have demonstrated that the IRA persisted in disrupting life across many parts of Northern Ireland up to 1994. Despite some setbacks in south Armagh and England before July 1997, the second ceasefire did not emerge to any great extent because of British security or intelligence successes. Instead, the IRA’s decision to end its armed campaign can primarily be attributed to internal political factors in Ireland.232 By the mid-1980s, the republican leadership had realised that without sufficient electoral support they would have to make greater political compromises in negotiations than they would have wanted. In order to maximise their strength in future negotiations, they began trying to find common ground with the more politically popular constitutional nationalists in the late 1980s. After the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, it was clear that no further concessions would be forthcoming before a ceasefire. At the same time, however, other nationalists in Ireland and America were willing to assist Sinn Féin to enter political negotiations provided a ceasefire was called beforehand. For these reasons, the republican leadership called a ceasefire in August 1994. The time lapse between December 1993 and August 1994 can be attributed to the leadership checking that most republicans accepted a ceasefire.233 The second ceasefire was called in July 1997 principally because the demand for decommissioning of weapons before talks had been dropped by the newly elected UK Labour and Fianna Fáil governments.
A range of republicans recall discussions taking place in the prisons in the late 1980s or early 1990s about the prospects for an unarmed strategy. The republican leadership appeared to have checked the views of the grass-roots shortly before the 1994 cessation. Most republicans interviewed did believe that the peace-process strategy was sensible at the time in order to increase the movement’s political support. It is true that a minority of republicans had (and still hav
e) deep misgivings about the peace process. It also may be the case that ‘[t]here was no open discussion’ of policy options, and that the leadership tended to make decisions and check for a consensus afterwards.234 But the evidence currently available suggests that the leadership did investigate whether a majority of republicans favoured their strategies in the prisons and at public meetings before the Good Friday Agreement. More research is needed on this topic, but the evidence provided adds nuance to the current debate.
I also question the view that agents and informers within Sinn Féin such as Donaldson were crucial in leading to the Good Friday Agreement by helping British intelligence to remove dissenters. This opinion does not explain why particular individuals, who were in favour of the peace process, were targeted for arrests. The available evidence also suggests that a widespread consensus emerged in favour of settling for a political compromise amongst republicans by 1997, for reasons other than Donaldson’s ‘enforcement’. Since Donaldson was outside the group of leading republican strategists, he only fed to British intelligence what the republican leadership wanted the rest of the movement to know. Former British state personnel agree that they lacked insight into the long-term strategic plans of leading republicans such as Adams and McGuinness. Donaldson and other informers within Sinn Féin were primarily promoting a strategy that it appears many republicans by the 1990s saw as the best alternative way to achieve their objectives anyway.
This chapter cannot decisively prove that most republicans turned towards peace because of political arguments put forward by their leadership. But the evidence provided develops the discussion surrounding the republican grass-roots’ consensus towards peace. Furthermore, it appears that the republican leadership were seeking negotiations before the standout intelligence successes such as those at Loughgall or Gibraltar. The intelligence war does not seem to have significantly influenced the republican leadership’s decision to go for peace. Neither do ‘agents of influence’ seem to have manoeuvred leading republicans towards peace talks. As a veteran Troubles commentator suggests: