The Intelligence War against the IRA

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The Intelligence War against the IRA Page 37

by Thomas Leahy


  58. Omand, Securing the State, pp. 29, 90–1.

  59. Cf. Johnson, ‘The Development of Intelligence Studies’, pp. 3–4; Warner, ‘Theories of Intelligence’, pp. 27–9; Gill and Phythian, Intelligence, pp. 17–9; Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (California: CQ Press, 2017), pp. 2–4.

  60. Gill and Phythian, Intelligence, pp. 79–80; Omand, Securing the State, p. 287; Johnson, ‘The Development of Intelligence Studies’, pp. 9–10.

  61. George Clarke, Border Crossing: True Stories of the RUC Special Branch, the Garda Special Branch and the IRA Moles (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2009), pp. 217–18; see similar view in Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, p. 113.

  62. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 98–100.

  63. Steve Hewitt, Snitch! A History of the Modern Intelligence Informer (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), pp. 1–5, 18, 121–5, 148; Grey, The New Spymaster, pp. 3–4, 280–99.

  64. English, Does Terrorism Work?, pp. 8–13, 93.

  65. Dominic Bryan, Liam Kelly and Sara Templer, ‘The Failed Paradigm of “Terrorism’’’, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 3.2 (2011), 80–96.

  66. Bryan et al., ‘The Failed Paradigm of “Terrorism’’’, 82–3.

  67. Bryan et al., ‘The Failed Paradigm of “Terrorism’’’, 83–4.

  68. David W. Brannan, Philip F. Esler and N. T. Anders Strindberg, ‘Talking to “Terrorists”: Towards an Independent Analytical Framework for the Study of Violent Substate Activism’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 24.1 (2001), 3–4, 11–12, 18; Bryan et al., ‘The Failed Paradigm of “Terrorism”’, 84–5.

  69. ‘Hezbollah: Five Ways Group Has Changed since 2006 Israel War’, BBC News Online, 11 July 2016, at: www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36672803.

  70. Peter R. Neumann, Britain’s Long War: British Strategy in the Northern Ireland Conflict 1969–98 (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2003), p. 3.

  71. Bryan et al., ‘The Failed Paradigm of “Terrorism’’’, pp. 86–8.

  72. English, Does Terrorism Work?, pp. 12–13.

  73. See Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 111–13; for academics using the term see Kalyvas, Logic of Violence, pp. 105–6, 176–7; Frampton, ‘Agents and Ambushes’, pp. 87–8. Hewitt, Snitch!, pp. 1–38.

  74. Alan Barker, Shadows: Inside Northern Ireland’s Special Branch (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2007), pp. 138–9.

  75. Kevin Fulton with Jim Nally and Ian Gallagher, Unsung Hero (London: John Blake Publishing, 2008), pp. 1–22.

  76. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 98–100.

  77. A similar point about shifting allegiances and levels of collaboration and denunciation in civil wars is made by Kalyvas, Logic of Violence, pp. 12–14, 101.

  78. Raymond Gilmour, Dead Ground: Infiltrating the IRA, reprinted edition (London: Warner Books, 1999), pp. 25–108; Barker, Shadows, pp. 139–49.

  79. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 36–9.

  80. Stan A. Taylor and Daniel Snow, ‘Cold War Spies: Why They Spied and How They Got Caught’, Intelligence and National Security, 12.2 (1997), 101–10, 116–25; for a further discussion of motives for agents and informers see Hewitt, Snitch!, pp. 5–66; and Grey, The New Spymaster, pp. 4, 51.

  81. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence, pp. 178–9, 332, 351.

  82. As Hopkins argues, there is a wide range of dissenting republicans, including those who left the movement following Sinn Féin’s decision to take seats in the Irish parliament in 1986, and those who split with the Provisionals over the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The terms unaffiliated or dissenting republicans are used to capture the nuances of non-mainstream republicanism. Stephen Hopkins, The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), pp. 53–74.

  83. Stephen Hopkins, ‘The Chronicles of Long Kesh: Irish Republican Memoirs and the Contested Memory of the Hunger Strikes’, Memory Studies, 7.4 (October 2014), 425–39.

  84. Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 22–4, 90, 122–3, 134–7, 213; see also Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. vii–19, 26–75.

  85. Trevor Lummis, ‘Structure and Validity in Oral History’, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 276.

  86. Lummis, ‘Structure’, pp. 274–5; see a similar point in relation to interviewing former paramilitaries in English, Does Terrorism Work?, pp. 22–4.

  87. Ronald J. Grele, ‘Movement without Aim: Methodological and Theoretical Problems in Oral History’, in Perks and Thomson, Oral History Reader, pp. 40–1.

  88. Alessandro Portelli, The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and the meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 3–20; Portelli, Luigi, pp. 15–62.

  89. See Brendan Hughes in Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), pp. 124–36.

  90. Moloney, McIntyre and Ruan O’Donnell dispute that Price gave details about the McConville killing to Boston College. See ‘Dolours Price’s Trauma over IRA Disappeared’, Irish News, 18 February 2010: https://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/supporting-documents/irish-news/; Ruan O’Donnell, ‘Boston College Tapes: PSNI to Get Access to Dolours Price Interviews’, History Ireland, 21.3 (May/June 2013), 10–11.

  91. ‘Case to Proceed against Ivor Bell over McConville Murder’, BBC News Online, 15 September 2017: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41279110; ‘Ivor Bell Unfit for Trial over Jean McConville Murder’, BBC News Online, 19 December 2018: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46626092.

  92. ‘The Troubles: Former IRA Man Ivor Bell Cleared of Jean McConville Charges’, BBC News Online, 17 October 2019: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50044269.

  93. ‘Jean McConville: Ivor Bell to Be Prosecuted for Aiding Murder’, BBC News Online, 4 June 2015: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33005771; ‘Gerry Adams Freed in Jean McConville Murder Inquiry’, BBC News Online, 4 May 2014: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27278039; loyalism has also been affected by the extradition orders for the Boston College material. See ‘Boston College Tapes: Police Get Access to Ex-Loyalist Prisoner Winston Rea’s Interviews’, BBC News Online, 5 June 2015: www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-33017930.

  94. Anthony McIntyre, ‘The Belfast Project and the Boston College Subpoena Case’, paper given at Oral History Network of Ireland Second Annual Conference in Ennis, Co. Clare, 29 July 2012: https://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-belfast-project-and-the-boston-college-subpoena-case/; see also Ruan O’Donnell, ‘Boston College Tapes’, pp. 10–11.

  95. A similar approach is adopted by other Troubles researchers. See Dermot Feenan, ‘Researching Paramilitary Violence in Northern Ireland’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 5.2 (2002), 161–2.

  96. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, pp. 650–1.

  97. Richard J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (London: Harper Press, 2011, paperback edition); Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door; assessments of the effectiveness of US intelligence against jihadists have also been made without full access to intelligence archives. See Amy B. Zegart, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

  98. Andrew, Defence of the Realm.

  99. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 859.

  1 British Political, Military and Intelligence Strategy towards the IRA: August 1969 to July 1972

  1. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 286–306.

  2. Operation Banner, point 809.

  3. Desmond Hamill, Pig in the Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1984 (London: Methuen Publishing Limited, 1985), p. 7.

  4. Taylor, Provos, pp. 48–54.


  5. Cf. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, p. 43.

  6. John Whyte, ‘How Much Discrimination Was There Under the Unionist Regime, 1921–1968?’ Contemporary Irish Studies (1983): http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm; Taylor, Provos, pp. 30–1.

  7. Laura K. Donohue, ‘Regulating Northern Ireland: The Special Powers Act 1922–1972’, The Historical Journal, 41.4 (December 1998), 1089–1120.

  8. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 59–62.

  9. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 14–16.

  10. Dermot Keogh, Jack Lynch: A Biography (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2008), pp. 143–4.

  11. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 286–301.

  12. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, pp. 29–33.

  13. Operation Banner, points 404 and 804.

  14. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 45–6.

  15. See reference numbers 34–6 and 38 in David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea, Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women, and Children who Died as a Result of The Northern Ireland Troubles, updated edition (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company Limited, 2007).

  16. Operation Banner, points 217–18.

  17. See ‘Internment’, CAIN online: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/intern/chron.htm.

  18. Operation Banner, point 219.

  19. Frank Burton, The Politics of Legitimacy: Struggles in a Belfast Community (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Books, 1978), pp. 80–1, 88, 107–8.

  20. McCleery, Operation Demetrius, pp. 53–96, 128–68.

  21. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 57–8.

  22. ‘Chronology of the Conflict 1971’, CAIN online: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/.htm.

  23. Frampton, ‘Agents and Ambushes’, p. 81.

  24. Table 3 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, p. 1554.

  25. A fourteenth person died from the injuries they sustained. See Saville Inquiry Report (London: House of Commons, 2010), vol. 1, chapter 3, ‘Events of the Day’, 3.70.

  26. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 27–8.

  27. Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, pp. 2–11, 51–9, 326–8.

  28. For details on the burning of Cork city centre see Taylor, Provos, p. 11.

  29. Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, p. 59.

  30. For example, see the Irish government’s European Court of Human Rights case against the British government for the five techniques used at the start of internment in the 1970s in Taylor, Provos, p. 96.

  31. Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, pp. 59, 317; Omand, Securing the State, pp. 90–3, 260–9.

  32. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 135–8.

  33. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 140–8, 172–212.

  34. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 310–14.

  35. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 311–12.

  36. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 334–6.

  37. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, pp. 30–1.

  38. Shane Paul O’Doherty, The Volunteer: A Former IRA Man’s True Story (Durham: Strategic Book Group, 2011), pp. 8–39, 47; see also Niall Ó Dochartaigh, From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 137–44, 232, 250–2.

  39. Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, pp. 29–46, 135–46, 230–45, 265.

  40. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 45–6, 57.

  41. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 54–61.

  42. The National Archives London (TNA), CAB 128/49, Minutes of Cabinet meeting held at 10 Downing Street, 9 February 1971, pp. 1–4.

  43. TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future developments in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–6.

  44. Huw Bennett, ‘From Direct Rule to Motorman: Adjusting British Military Strategy for Northern Ireland in 1972’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33.6 (2010), 512–13.

  45. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 58–9.

  46. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 48–51.

  47. Cf. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 61–8.

  48. Seán MacStiofáin, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (Edinburgh: Gordon and Cremonesi, 1975), p. 241; see also McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 118.

  49. Dewar, British Army, pp. 66.

  50. English, Does Terrorism Work?, pp. 134–6.

  51. Paddy Devlin, Straight Left: An Autobiography (Belfast: Blackstaff Press Limited, 1993), pp. 155–7.

  52. Peter Taylor, Brits: The War against the IRA (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002), pp. 80; see also Tony Craig, ‘From Backdoors and Back Lanes to Backchannels: Reappraising British Talks with the Provisional IRA, 1970–1974’, Contemporary British History, 26.1 (2012), 100–5.

  53. TNA, CJ 3/98, Record of a meeting with the SDLP at UK Rep’s Office, 11 April 1972, pp. 1–2.

  54. William Whitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs (London: Aurum Press, 1989), pp. 93–4.

  55. Whitelaw, Whitelaw, pp. 92–3; Devlin, Straight Left, pp. 173–4.

  56. Operation Banner, point 225–6.

  57. TNA, PREM 10/1007, Heath telegram to Mr Lynch, 24 April 1972, pp. 1–2.

  58. Cf. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, p. 39.

  59. For details of Morris, see Kieran Conway, Southside Provisional: From Freedom Fighter to the Four Courts (Dublin: Orpen Press, 2014), p. 63.

  60. TNA, FCO 87/5, Summary of comments made by Frank Morris, 9 February 1972, pp. 1–4.

  61. Craig, ‘From Backdoors’, pp. 103–4.

  62. TNA, CAB 130/560, Minutes of a Cabinet meeting held at 10 Downing Street, 12 June 1972, p. 5.

  63. Neumann, Britain’s Long War, pp. 27–8.

  64. TNA, CJ 4/1456, IRA Truce 26 June to 10 July 1972, pp. 1–13.

  65. TNA, CJ 4/136, Meeting between the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and SDLP representatives Mr Hume and Mr Devlin at UK Rep office, 18 June 1972, pp. 1–2; Devlin, Straight Left, pp. 173–8.

  66. Whitelaw, Whitelaw, pp. 94–100; for more on the relationship between the SDLP, the IRA and Sinn Féin in the early 1970s see Gerard Murray and Jonathan Tonge, Sinn Féin and the SDLP: From Alienation to Participation (London: C. Hurst and Co. Ltd, 2005).

  67. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 286–306.

  68. Operation Banner, points 204–5.

  69. See table 2–1 in Operation Banner, point 224.

  70. Bennett, ‘Direct Rule to Motorman’, pp. 519–24.

  71. Operation Banner, 217–18, 225–6.

  72. TNA, PREM 10/1007, Notes of a meeting, 14 April 1972.

  73. TNA, CAB 130/560, Confidential annex to Cabinet meeting, 16 June 1972, pp. 1–3.

  74. Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, pp. 59–60.

  75. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 286–306.

  76. English, Does Terrorism Work?, p. 99.

  77. Peter Taylor, Loyalists (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000), pp. 22–3.

  2 The Intelligence War: August 1969 to July 1972

  1 See a similar point in David A. Charters, ‘“Have a Go”: British Army/MI5 Agent-Running Operations in Northern Ireland 1970–72’, Intelligence and National Security, 28.2 (2013), 202–4.

  2 Moloney, Secret History, pp. 119–42.

  3 For example, see Bew, Frampton and Gurruchaga, Talking to Terrorists, pp. 49–54.

  4 Operation Banner, point 856; interview with former British soldier 1, 26 May 2011.

  5 Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peace Keeping (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), pp. 94–5.

  6 TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future developments in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–6.

  7 Clarke, Border Crossing, pp. 217–18.

  8 Hewitt, Snitch!, pp. 5–9, 123–5, 148.

  9 Interview with Laurence McKeown, Belfast, 22 May 2012.

  10 Hewitt, Snitch!, p. 5.

  11 Brendan Anderson, Joe Cahill: A Life in the IRA (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2004), pp. 169–91.

  12 TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future development
s in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–2.

  13 TNA, FCO 87/2, MOD assessment of current operational situation in Northern Ireland, 21 March 1972, pp. 1–2.

  14 Gerry Adams, Before the Dawn: An Autobiography (Kerry: Brandon, 2001), pp. 188–90.

 

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