by Thomas Leahy
25. Nelson Inquiry Report, p. 161.
26. Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, pp. 2–21, 59–60, 130–2, 188, 317.
27. TNA, FCO 87/976, Future Terrorists Trends, 15 December 1978.
28. Cf. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, 110–11; Moloney, Secret History, p. 164.
29. Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 18 April 2011.
30. Cf. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, 110–11; Frampton, ‘Agents and Ambushes’, pp. 93–6.
31. Reference number 1588 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Martin Dillon, The Dirty War (London: Arrow Books, 1991), pp. 85–6.
32. See reference numbers 1090–1, 1679, 1748, 1913 and 1926 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; see also Dillon, Dirty War, pp. 75–92; Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 177–82, 190–1.
33. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, p. 83.
34. Reference number 2013 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; see also ‘Brendan Megraw’, BBC News Online, 14 November 2014: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30044240; ‘IRA Investigation Locates Grave Sites’, An Phoblacht, 1 April 1999: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/4724; ‘Bodies Found: Brendan Megraw’: https://thedisappearedni.co.uk/index.php/people-found.
35. See Appendix A.1.
36. Interview with Laurence McKeown, Belfast, 4 February 2014.
37. TNA, CJ 4/3474, Belfast area review, October 1980, pp. 33, 38.
38. See Appendix A.1.
39. Operation Banner, point 505.
40. See Appendix A.1.
41. Moloney, Secret History, pp. 574–7; see also Grey, The New Spymaster, pp. 58–82; Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 60–1, 95–104; and Hughes in Moloney, Voices, p. 277.
42. Moloney, Secret History, p. 575; Moloney, Voices, pp. 278–79; Eamon Collins with Mick McGovern, Killing Rage, 2nd edition (London: Granta Books, 1998), pp. 216–19, 233–44.
43. McKearney, Provisional IRA, pp. 142, 173; for Scappaticci denials see: ‘Stakeknife: Ex–IRA and MI5 Members Could Be Prosecuted’, BBC News Online, 18 December 2018: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46598765.
44. Anthony McIntyre, ‘How Stakeknife Paved Way to Defeat the IRA’, The Blanket, 11 May 2013: http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu:81/paved.html; see also Anthony McIntyre, Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism (New York: Ausubo Press, 2008), pp. 177–93.
45. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 208–20, 259–60.
46. An inquiry into Stakeknife was announced in October 2015 and is currently ongoing. ‘Stakeknife: Army’s Most High Ranking Agent within the IRA to Be Quizzed about 24 Murders’, BBC News Online, 21 October 2015: www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-34594175; Danny Morrison, ‘Number 10’s Murderer – Scap’, 30 January 2016: www.dannymorrison.com/?p=3620; McIntyre, Good Friday, pp. 177–93; ‘Stakeknife: Double Agent in IRA “Was Given Alibi by Senior British Officials”’, The Guardian, 11 April 2017: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/11/stakeknife-double-agent-in-ira-was-given-alibi-by-senior-british-officials; John Ware, ‘Exposed: The Murky World of Spying during the Troubles’, Irish Times, 11 April 2017: www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/exposed-the-murky-world-of-spying-during-the-troubles-1.3043818. Ware recently produced a documentary about Stakeknife for the BBC called Spy in the IRA, broadcast on BBC Two on 11 April 2017; ‘Freddie Scappaticci Was Our Most Valuable Spy in IRA during Troubles: British Army Chief’, The Belfast Telegraph, 20 April 2012: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/freddie-scappaticci-was-our-most-valuable-spy-in-ira-during-the-troubles-british-army-chief-28739868.html; ‘Stakeknife: Ex-IRA and MI5 Members Could Be Prosecuted’; John Ware, ‘Scappaticci and the Importance of Reporting What We Know, Rather Than What We Think We Know … ’, 23 April 2017: at https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/04/23/soapbox-scappaticci-and-the-importance-of-reporting-what-we-know-rather-than-what-we-think-we-know/.
47. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 219–22, 234.
48. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, p. 391.
49. McKearney, Provisional IRA, pp. 142, 173.
50. Cf. McIntyre, ‘Stakeknife’; McIntyre, Good Friday, pp. 177–93.
51. Hewitt, Snitch!, pp. 1–5, 18, 121–5, 148.
52. Grey, The New Spymaster, pp. 72–5.
53. Ware, ‘Exposed’; see similar arguments in Grey, The New Spymaster, pp. 58–82.
54. Dillon, Dirty War, pp. 315–25; Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 233–40; Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 281–6.
55. Reference number 2273 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; see also ‘IRA Combat RUC Informers’, An Phoblacht, 28 January 1982, pp. 6–7; Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 207–8; Dillon, Dirty War, pp. 385–97.
56. For details on Gilvarry, Trainor and Robinson see Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 207–8; Dillon, Dirty War, pp. 385–97; Ingram with Harkin, Stakeknife, p. 84; ‘IRA Combat RUC Informers’, An Phoblacht, 28 January 1982, pp. 6–7; reference numbers 2031, 2273, 2284, 2292, 2338 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
57. ‘Anthony Braniff’, An Phoblacht, 25 September 2003: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/10570; Dillon, Dirty War, p. 392; Ingram with Harkin, Stakeknife, pp. 84–5; ‘IRA Combat RUC Informers’, An Phoblacht, 28 January 1982, pp. 6–7; reference number 2370 on McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
58. See further examples in Appendix A.3.
59. Ingram with Harkin, Stakeknife, pp. 238–40; reference numbers 2715–16 and 3017 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
60. ‘Informer Worked for the RUC for Three Years’, An Phoblacht, July 1 1993, p. 2; Ingram with Harkin, Stakeknife, p. 92; reference number 3399 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
61. ‘Families Demand Justice over IRA Victims “Executed” as Informers’, The Guardian, 1 June 2015: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/families-justice-ira-victims-executed-as-informers-british-army-agent-stakeknife; ‘Senior Officer Says Stakeknife Investigation “Might Not Have Been Possible” Before Now’, Irish News, 18 April 2017: www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2017/04/18/news/senior-officer-says-stakeknife-investigation-might-not-have-been-possible-before-now-999542/.
62. Suzanne Breen, ‘IRA Must Clear Names of Stakeknife’s ‘Informer’ Victims with Pardon, Says Ex-Provo’, The Belfast Telegraph, 13 April 2017: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ira-must-clear-names-of-stakeknifes-informer-victims-with-pardon-says-exprovo-35618694.html.
63. Martin McGartland, Fifty Dead Men Walking: The Heroic True Story of a British Secret Agent Inside the IRA (London: John Blake Publishing, 2009), pp. 108–11, 142–8.
64. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, p. 267.
65. Interview with former British soldier 1, 26 May 2011.
66. Interview with Féilim Ó hAdhmaill, Cork, 9 September 2013.
67. McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 143.
68. Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 23 May 2012.
69. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, p. 209.
70. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 151–2, 161–5, 193–4, 226.
71. Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 23 May 2012.
72. McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 142; for Scappaticci’s denials see ‘Stakeknife: Ex-IRA and MI5 Members Could Be Prosecuted’.
73. Cf. Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, p. 76.
74. Interview with Laurence McKeown, Belfast, 4 February 2014.
75. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 202–7.
76. Interview with former British soldier 1, 26 May 2011.
77. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 113–14.
78. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 122–4,171–4.
79. McGartland, Fifty Dead Men, pp. 111, 174, 232.
80. Ingram and Harkin, Stakeknife, pp. 233.
81. Aldrich, GCHQ, pp. 498–500.
82. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 134–5.
83. For more on Vengeful in Belfast, see TNA, CJ 4/3060, ‘Vengeful’, 20 February 1980; TNA, CJ 4/3060, P. Coulson, ‘Meeting to discuss Vengeful Computer Mark II system at Headquarters Northern Ireland in Lisburn’,
30 October 1979’; TNA, CJ 4/3060, Letter from J. J. Bourn (Northern Ireland Office) to R.J. Andrew (Minister of Defence), 11 May 1976; and TNA, CJ 4/3060, ‘An automated system for information on suspects in Northern Ireland’, 21 July 1975.
84. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, p. 146; reference numbers 2031–4 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; and Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, pp. 60–3.
85. Mulholland, ‘Politics and Violence’, pp. 409–11.
86. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 161–5, 193, 209, 222–5, 237–9.
87. Interview with Laurence McKeown, Belfast, 4 February 2014.
88. Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014.
89. Interview with former British civil servant, 25 March 2014.
90. Matchett, Secret Victory, p. 192.
91. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, p. 207.
92. Mulholland, ‘Politics and Violence’, 410–11.
93. Interview with Laurence McKeown, Belfast, 4 February 2014.
94. Interview with Séanna Walsh, Belfast, 21 May 2012 in Leahy, Informers, p. 143.
95. Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 166–73.
96. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, p. 278.
97. ‘Chronology of the Conflict for 1992 and 1993’, CAIN online; http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch92.htm and http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch93.htm
98. ‘Chronology of the Conflict for 1994’, CAIN online: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch94.htm.
99. Ciaran De Baroid, Ballymurphy and the Irish War (London: Pluto Press, 2000), pp. 336, 362.
100. Cf. Hughes with Moloney, Voices, p. 284.
101. Sarma, ‘Informers’, 171.
102. Interview with former British soldier 1, 26 May 2011.
103. McGartland, Fifty Dead Men, pp. 247–52.
104. Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 18 May 2011.
105. McGartland, Fifty Dead Men, pp. 259–308; see also Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 267–70.
106. McGartland, Fifty Dead Men, pp. 128, 196–8.
107. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 197–9, 244–5.
108. Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014.
109. O’Brien, Long War, pp. 195–8.
110. LHL NIPC, P3504, Oration by Gerry Adams President of Sinn Féin at the Wolfe Tone Commemoration in Bodenstown, Kildare, 25 July 1989.
111. Interview Tommy McKearney, interview with author, Monaghan, 18 April 2011.
112. Patrick Finucane Review; reference number 3012 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
113. See Appendix A.1.
114. Kevin Toolis, Rebel Hearts: Journeys within the IRA’s Soul (London: Picador, 2000), pp. 5, 214.
115. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 117–22; Lewis, Fishers, pp. 185–95; Reference number 2754 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Ware, ‘Exposed’.
116. Barker, Shadows, pp. 137–221; Gilmour, Dead Ground, pp. 79–330; Taylor, Provos, pp. 260–4.
117. Reference number 3126 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Toolis, Rebel Hearts, pp. 192–241, 255–7.
118. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, p. 90.
119. Barker, Shadows, pp. 201–4.
120. Reference number 2676 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Toolis, Rebel Hearts, pp. 225–6.
121. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 90–1; Reference number 3209 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
122. Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife, pp. 91. Reference number 3357 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
123. Reference numbers 2667 and 2668 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, pp. 193–201.
124. Reference number 2025 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, p. 44.
125. Reference numbers 2330–1 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, pp. 141–2.
126. Barker, Shadows, p. 96.
127. Barker, Shadows, pp. 96, 133–5.
128. Barker, Shadows, p. 184.
129. See McMonagle in Taylor, Provos, p. 257.
130. Barker, Shadows, p. 203.
131. Gilmour, Dead Ground, p. 127.
132. Barker, Shadows, pp. 151, 179–83; Gilmour, Dead Ground, pp. 124–8, 141–2; reference number 2285 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
133. Barker, Shadows, pp. 118–19, 226.
134. Barker, Shadows, p. 122.
135. TNA, CJ 4/3474, Londonderry area review, May 1980, pp. 24, 62–4; see also Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border, pp. 120–1, 136, 198, 214, 221.
136. Barker, Shadows, pp. 122–3.
137. Nash et al., Partitioned Lives, pp. 76–81.
138. Nash et al., Partitioned Lives, pp. 76–81.
139. Reference number 2043 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, p. 44.
140. Barker, Shadows, pp. 105–8.
141. Reference number 3146 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
142. O’Brien, The Long War, p. 56.
143. See Appendix A.2.
144. O’Brien, The Long War, pp. 51–2.
145. Interview with former British soldier 1, 26 June 2012 (italics mine).
146. Ó Dochartaigh, Civil Rights to Armalites, pp. 260–3.
147. ‘Chronology of the Conflict’, CAIN online: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch93.htm.
148. Toolis, Rebel Hearts, pp. 252–4.
149. Moloney, Secret History, p. 352.
150. Moloney, Secret History, pp. 363–71.
151. Ó Dochartaigh, Civil Rights to Armalites, pp. 260–3.
9 The Intelligence War against the IRA in Rural Areas and England and the IRA Leadership, January 1976 to August 1994
1. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 12–13.
2. Reference number 1961 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
3. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 277–8; reference number 2035 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
4. ‘Informer Comes Forward’, An Phoblacht, 19 August 1999: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/5262.
5. For security or intelligence service members past and present, revealing the identity of agents and informers is an offence under the UK Official Secrets Act. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 60–1.
6. Smithwick Tribunal of Inquiry Report (Government of Ireland, 2013), pp. 161–2, 339–43, 392: https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/smithwick-tribunal-final.pdf; ‘Mole Named at Smithwick Tribunal’, Irish Times, 11 May 2012: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0511/breaking31.html; see also Dillon, Dirty War, pp. 358–63; Reference number 3047 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
7. Cf. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 232–3.
8. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 408–9; ‘‘Life’ Means 16 Months in Prison for IRA Killer’, The Guardian, 20 March 1999: www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/mar/20/johnmullin; Reference number 3169 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; ‘Caraher Family Still Seeking Justice after 17 Years’, An Phoblacht, 10 January 2008: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/17986.
9. Reference number 1667 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, p. 9.
10. Reference number 1872 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, pp. 10–11.
11. Operation Banner, point 520.
12. Operation Banner, points 521–2.
13. Aldrich, GCHQ, pp. 500–2.
14. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 252–62.
15. TNA, CJ 4/3474, South Armagh area review, March 1980, p. 55.
16. Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 289.
17. See Appendix A.1.
18. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 486–7, 494–5.
19. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 123–4.
20. Dewar, British Army, pp. 127–36.
21. Operation Banner, point 244.
22. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, p. 409; Reference number 3169 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
23. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, p. 82; see tables 8 and 9 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, pp. 1556–7.
24. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 12�
��13.
25. Matchett, Secret Victory, p. 13.
26. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 11–14, 21–6, 197–237, 317–51.