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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
22 April-May
April-May 23
A Glimpse of the
Serpent’s Tail
M16 gents inside the Deprtment of Justice nd
An Grd Síochn during the Troubles
By David Burke
Introduction
I remember being struck by a passage in a
book written by the late Kennedy Lindsay, ‘The
British Intelligence Services In Action’ (1981).
Lindsay, a Unionist politician, alleged MI6:
“has numerous agents and informants [in
the Republic], including many at high levels in
the civil service, police and armed services.
The territory had been part of the United
Kingdom until 1921 and even to this day Irish
governments do not have full legitimacy in the
eyes of some citizens. Feuds from the civil war
that followed independence linger on. Political
bias in appointments is common and breeds
the type of jealousy that erodes loyalty to a
regime or even to the state itself. [MI6’s]
problem has never been to fi nd agents, but to
limit them to those with the best contacts and
most promise”.
Generally, Lindsay’s book reveals he had a
number of good sources. In 1981, I wondered
if the passage of time would yield confi rmation
of Lindsay’s bold assertion about spies in the
Republic.
This article will allow you to judge for
yourself.
1. An Irish spy agency is set up
by MI5
MI5 was instrumental in setting up the fi rst
modern spy agency in Ireland, G2, Irish military
intelligence.
G2 came into being after a secret meeting on
31 August 1938.
MI5 sent Guy Liddel to attend it. JW Dulanty,
the Irish High Commissioner in London, and
Joseph Walsh the Secretary of the Department
of External Aff airs, attended on behalf of
Ireland.
Cooperation continued after the war. In the
late 1940s, MI5 and the Gardaí placed Robert
Briscoe, a Fianna Fáil TD, under surveillance
due to his links with militant anti-British
Zionists in Palestine.
MI5 and MI6 renewed their interest in Ireland
after the IRA launched its Border Campaign
which, as the name suggests, was directed
against the security forces of Northern Ireland
which were posted along the Border. It began
in 1956 and ended in early 1962.
2. Thomas Coyne, MI6 spy
and Secretary General of the
Department of Justice, 1949-61
The Home Office
(which runs MI5)
had a hot line to the
Department of
Justice (DoJ) in
Dublin. One of those
to pick it up during
the Border
Campaign was
Thomas Coyne who
served as DoJ
Secretary, 1949-
1961. Born in 1901,
Coyne didn’t
participate in the War
of Independence,
opting instead to join
the Royal Flying
Corps (RFC) in 1918.
Coyne went on to work with MI6, something
that will be described in a later section of this
article.
3. The Aristocratic Spy
Arthur Forbes, the 9th Earl of Granard (1915–
1992) was another British spy who lived and
operated in the Free State and, later, the
Republic of Ireland.
Educated at Eton and Trinity College,
Cambridge, Forbes was appointed Air Attaché
to Romania on 31 October 1939. He earned the
rank of wing commander. He spirited diplomats
and politicians escaping newly Nazifi ed Poland
from Romania to Greece via Bucharest, on his
personal Percival Q6 aircraft. These included
British subjects and other diplomats who had
escaped from Poland during the German
invasion from Cernăuți in Northern Romania
(now Chernivtsi in Ukraine) to Bucharest and
on to Greece or Turkey.
On 30 October 1940, he was appointed
Deputy Air Attaché to Greece. Later during the
war, his insights were sought as an adviser to
Britain’s Minister of State for the Middle East.
Guy Liddel of MI5, who helped set up
Irelnd’s fi rst modern spy gency, G2
Cstleforbes
The 9th Erl of Grnrd s child
Thoms Coyne,
Secretry Generl
of the Deprtment
of Justice nd MI6
mole
POLITICS
22 April-May
April-May 23
instructions from Coyne” and was
“informed that he was going to be assigned
to duty, with whatever Garda Division it was that
handled Security, in the Depot in Phoenix Park.
He would start at the clerical bottom, inform
himself, be efficient, become valued and
maintain confidentiality about being seen by Mr
Coyne. The Department of Justice did not want
to hear from him. He might hear from the
Department. If he did, the expectancy was that
he would be appropriately productive and
cooperative. [Crinnion] did not elaborate further
in his [1973 Mountjoy] letter [to the Taoiseach].
[Crinnion] maintained, when interrogated [in
1972], that transactions, such as his with [John]
Wyman [of MI6] , were ‘ordinary’ practice in the
Garda. My recollection, such as it is, tends to be
that he was implying that what had happened
came under the umbrella of his understanding
with Mr Coyne”.
8. ”Shock” at the DoJ, but a
cover-up follows
Dolan next made the following extraordinary
revelation:
“I clearly remember the shock his letter was,
to any of those in the Department who
succeeded to the oce or the functions of Mr
Coyne, or who served with him. At that juncture,
Mr Coyne was deceased and [Coyne’s successor]
Mr [Peter] Berry retired”.
The reference to John Wyman above, is to
Crinnion’s MI6 handler.
9. “...liaisons, such as his with
Wyman [of MI6], were known
about and not excluded at
the level at which he was
operating”
Dolan explained that Crinnion wanted Lynch to
carry out a personal investigation which would
The Earl undoubtedly worked with one or
more of Britain’s intelligence agencies, most
likely MI6, Britain’s overseas spy agency, and
MI9 which operated behind enemy lines
creating escape networks.
His decorations included the Air Force Cross,
the French Légion d’Honneur and America’s
Legion of Merit.
From 1972 to 1990 Forbes was a director of
Texaco, which was active in Ireland.
4. Thomas Mullen, MI6 spy at C3
Forbes and Coyne were part of a network that
enabled Garda moles to feed Irish intelligence
secrets to MI6. That information was held by
C3, the nerve centre of Garda intelligence, at
the organisation’s HQ in the Phoenix Park.
Sergeant Thomas Mullen of C3, a man who
lived in Milltown, County Dublin, was MI6’s
mole inside C3. Mullen was born in or about
1902. Mullen was not the first mole at C3. He
had at least one predecessor. Unfortunately,
the latter’s name is not known.
Mullen took over the role from his forerunner
after the latter retired.
5. Patrick Crinnion, MI6 mole.
The only Irish official ever convicted for
espionage was Detective Patrick Crinnion of
C3, about whom I have written a book called
‘The Puppet Masters’.
Crinnion was born in 1934 and joined the
gardaí in 1955. He was convicted of a number
of crimes in late February 1973. In the book I
ventured the likelihood that Crinnion had a
deferential attitude towards the Ascendancy,
a trait which stemmed from his mother’s role
as housemaid at Powerscourt House, Co
Wicklow, and disposed the young Crinnion to
work with Britain. The family resided in an
estate cottage on the Boghall Road, Bray. After
the publication of the book, a new source came
forward with information which showed that
Crinnion also spent a formative part of his
youth in County Longford, working on the Earl
of Granard’s Castleforbes estate. I was
supplied with a document by a DoJ ocial who
I will call ‘Dolan’ who had read a secret letter
Crinnion prepared for Taoiseach Jack Lynch
while in Mountjoy prison in early 1973. (I will
call this Crinnion’s ‘Mountjoy Letter’). Dolan,
having read the Mountjoy Letter, was able to
reveal that Crinnion’s
“father seemed to have been absent from his
childhood. Nuancing indicated an ingrained
‘tenantry’ obeisance to the Earl. There was
acknowledgement of kindness by the Earl to the
family. It was also clear that the [Earl had]
British rather than Irish propensities...”.
6. The Earl and Patrick
Crinnion
Crinnion was bright, he later joined Mensa.
This was noted by his co-workers at the
Castleforbes estate. Dolan revealed that
Crinnion’s 1973 Mountjoy Letter described
how one of the “estate people” made “a
personal approach to the Earl when Crinnion
was in early adulthood”. This,
“resulted in [Crinnion] going to England,
either to join, or be - in some unrecollected way
–‘familiarised’ with policing. Without any great
lapse of time, advised, I think, either directly, or
indirectly by the Earl, Crinnion returned to
Ireland, to join [the part-time garda reserve] An
Taca Síochána, from which he ultimately joined
An Garda Síochána.
“It was conveyed to Crinnion; either when he
was associated, in whatever way he was, with
policing in England; or when he later joined An
Taca Síochána; whether directly or indirectly by
the Earl, or by somebody else. I cannot recall at
all; that he should respond cooperatively,
when, one day, he would be ‘approached’
career-wise”.
Having joined Taca Síochána, Crinnion
passed his Garda exams and, on 10 May 1955,
joined the force proper. He was soon assigned
to Dublin Castle’s Special Detective Unit (SDU),
better known as the Special Branch. Philip
McMahon was in charge when Crinnion joined
its ranks.
7. Crinnion receives an order to
spy from Thomas Coyne
While working for McMahon, Crinnion received
an extraordinary summons to a clandestine
meeting with Thomas Coyne. Dolan has
described how “Tommy Coyne” asked Crinnion
to come and see him in the Department of
Justice, then with oces on the top floor of
Government buildings. There, he “received
The men who rn the DoJ, Thoms Coyne,
1949-61; Peter Berry 1961-71; nd Andy
Wrd 1971-86
The Deprtment of Justice
John Wymn of MI6 nd Ptrick Crinnion
of C3
Ptrick Crinnion. He ws not debriefed
by his superior, Lrry Wren, fter he ws
rrested with John Wymn of MI6
24 April-May
April-May 25
reveal that he – Crinnion – had been acting on
orders from his superiors. Dolan explained that
Crinnion felt that a
“personal investigation, by An Taoiseach, if
sensitively conducted, person to person, at
[Garda] Commissioner level, would establish
his bona-fi des and would likewise establish
that liaisons, such as his with Wyman [of MI6],
were known about and not excluded at the level
at which he was operating, in a sector of mutual
concern. Reassured, An Taoiseach could then
facilitate appropriate disposal of his
prosecution”.
My interpretation of this is that Crinnion was
telling Jack Lynch that his superiors at C3 knew
he was in contact with MI6. At the time of his
arrest, Larry Wren was running C3. He did so,
1971-1979. Patrick Malone had run it at the end
of the 1960s. Malone was promoted to the post
of garda commissioner in January 1973, the
approximate time that Crinnion’s Mountjoy
Letter was written. Hence the advice to Lynch
to liaise with the new Garda Commissioner
makes sense. There are other reasons which
point to Wren’s knowledge of Crinnion’s
relationship with MI6.
10. A second mole at the DoJ
Thomas Coyne must have had an accomplice
at the DoJ. Recall that Coyne told Crinnion that
the DoJ (i.e. Coyne’s cabal within the
department) “did not want to hear from”
Crinnion although Crinnion “might hear from
the Department”. Since Crinnion was to go to
C3 and “start at the clerical bottom” it was
clearly envisaged that this process would take
time. Coyne resigned shortly after talking to
Crinnion, plausibly indicating another DoJ
o cial was in place to continue operations.
How else could Crinnion expect to “hear from
the Department”.
11. Pointing a fi nger at Peter
Berry
Peter Berry served as the Assistant Secretary
at the DoJ in charge of state security. Berry,
who joined the DoJ in 1927, had twenty-six
years experience in the security fi eld. In 1961,
Berry succeeded Coyne as Secretary. Berry
remained as Secretary until early 1971. As
Secretary he continued to deal with security
issues. He died suddenly of a heart attack on
14 December, 1978.
Dolan felt that the recruitment of Crinnion by
Coyne should not exclude the “possible role of
Peter Berry”. In other words, Dolan, who
rubbed shoulders with Berry on a weekly, if not
daily, basis suspected Berry was part of the
same clandestine apparatus as Coyne.
12. Dirty tricks at the DoJ
If Dolan was correct, it becomes possible to
comprehend Berry’s bizarre behaviour during
the 1970 Arms Crisis. MI6 was deeply involved
in that aff air as I indicated in the last edition of
Village.
A number of ministers including James
Gibbons, Neil Blaney and Charles Haughey,
engaged in an attempt to import arms to the
Republic. Gibbons was Minister for Defence
and had legal authority to import arms. The
plan was to import and store the weapons in
the Republic as insurance against a ‘doomsday’
situation erupting in the North. They were not
being imported to arm the Provisional IRA as
MI6 wanted the Irish public to believe. Jack
Lynch knew about these machinations.
Berry went to Lynch to tell him about the
attempted importation in April 1970. To Berry’s
dismay, Lynch went into cover-up mode.
I point to the evidence that it was Crinnion,
the MI6 mole, who slipped a note to Liam
Cosgrave of Fine Gael, in ‘The Puppet Masters’.
Cosgrave was leader of the opposition at the
time. Cosgrave managed to sweep Lynch’s
cover-up aside.
Berry promoted the same falsehoods that
Crinnion and John Wyman of MI6 were putting
into circulation, i.e. that the guns were for the
IRA, not part of an Irish military contingency
plan.
It was Berry who pushed for the trial of
ministers Haughey, Blaney and others against
the recommendation of Lynch’s
attorney-general.
It was Berry who altered a witness statement,
intending to send innocent men to jail.
These acts make perfect sense if viewed
through the prism that Berry was Coyne’s
successor as MI6’s man at the DoJ.
13. A delicate British “source”
in Dublin
In 1970, G2, Irish military intelligence, was
sending undercover spies across the border.
British o cials knew about this but were afraid
to confront the Irish government because they
did not want to expose the source of their
information, i.e. someone who knew what was
going on inside G2. On 17 June 1970, the UK
Representative to the Stormont government,
Ronnie Burroughs, wrote to the Foreign O ce
in London making reference to a delicate
“source” who had supplied information about
G2 activities in Northern Ireland:
“If the function of these [Irish military
intelligence] O cers is as innocent as is
suggested [their work] can be carried out by
ordinary political observers operating quite
openly. If there is a clandestine element then I
do not see how we can tolerate them. We
certainly would not do so in any other part of
the UK … Owing to the delicacy of the source it
would of course not be possible to reveal to the
Irish their own acknowledgement of the
presence of these O cers”.
The delicate “source” was the holder of a
senior position within the Irish state security
apparatus. On the face of it, one would suspect
that the delicate ‘source’ was an o cer in the
Irish Army or an o cial at the Department of
Defence. However, C3 liaised with G2 and knew
much about their activities. Hence, the source
could have been Crinnion or a more senior
G a r d a o c e r .
14. The “authoritative source
in the Irish government” who
smeared Neil Blaney for MI6
Neil Blaney, who had been dismissed from
Cabinet by Jack Lynch in 1970, became the
target of a plot by MI6 to prevent his
reappointment to Cabinet. He was the victim of
a smear campaign designed to denigrate him
in the eyes of Washington.
There were two key fi gures at the American
Embassy in 1970, the ambassador, John
Moore, and his “political officer” Virgil
Randolph III.
In May 1971 Randolph III was contacted by
“an authoritative source in the Irish
John Wymn of MI6
Jck Lynch nd Jmes Gibbons
Chrles Hughey nd Peter Berry
Peter Berry, ‘Doln’, DoJ offi cil who
worked with Berry, believed Berry helped
Thoms Coyne recruit Crinnion to spy for
MI6
24 April-May
April-May 25
government” who gave him a very peculiar
view of what was allegedly afoot in Ireland. The
Irish ocial claimed – deceitfully – that there
were three separate wings of the IRA on the
island: the Officials who were “under
Communist influence”; the Provisionals; and a
100-strong underground army he called
“Blaney’s Private IRA”. The notion that
“Blaney’s Private IRA” existed is so farcical that
it does not merit a rebuttal, but the
“government” official was sufficiently
convincing at the time to persuade Randolph
III of its existence.
Why would a “government” ocial peddle
these ludicrous yarns to the American
Embassy? What was his agenda?
15. The disappearance of
Crinnion’s Mountjoy Letter
Crinnion was caught by Special Branch ocers
in December 1972 when he went to a rendez-
vous with his MI6 handler, John Wyman, in
Dublin. He was taken to Mountjoy where he
wrote a secret letter to Jack Lynch. It was found
and scrutinised by Dolan, the DoJ ocial
referred to earlier.
The Mountjoy Letter was meant to have been
sent to Lynch after it was discovered in
Crinnion’s prison cell but I fear it may not have
reached him.
A copy of Crinnion’s Mountjoy Letter was
placed in the archive of the ‘Security’
department of the DoJ. Another copy should be
held by the Department of the Taoiseach. I
doubt whether either has survived. If the
Mountjoy Letter has not survived, it is fair to
ask if another MI6 asset at the DoJ removed or
destroyed it.
16. What, if anything, did Andy
Ward do about Crinnion’s
Mountjoy Letter?
Berry’s successor as head of the DoJ (1971-86)
was one of his protégés, a man called Andy
Ward, was DoJ secretary when Crinnion’s
Mountjoy Letter to Lynch was discovered in
1973.
There is no doubt that Ward knew about the
Mountjoy Letter. If he carried out any sort of an
enquiry, it was withheld from the public. It is
my view that no such enquiry was ever held but
I would be delighted to be told otherwise.
17. Larry Wren, head of C3,
and Assistant Commissioner
Ned Garvey did nothing about
Thomas Mullen, MI6’s mole
inside C3
The role of Thomas Mullen as an MI6 mole
inside C3 was uncovered in 1972-73. Mullen
confessed to Mick Hughes of the Special
Branch that he had been recruited by a retiring
C3 ocer. “There has to be someone to forward
[the information]”, was Mullen’s explanation
for his actions. Neither Larry Wren, head of C3,
1971-79, nor Assistant Garda Commissioner
Ned Garvey (later Garda Commissioner), who
oversaw C Division, brought about a
prosecution of Mullen – despite his confession.
18. Larry Wren interferes with
C3’s personnel records
C3 had approximately a
dozen members. This
narrows the list of
possible suspects who
might have spied for MI6
at C3 — before Mullen
took over the role — to
someone who retired
from the force while
Mullen was still serving
there. While one might
think it a straightforward
matter for the Garda —
even at this late stage — to
examine C3’s personnel
records to see who retired
while Mullen was still in
place, I should caution
that Larry Wren interfered
with the personnel
records at C3. The evidence he permitted to be
given at Crinnion’s trial was that Crinnion
joined C3 a full five years after he had actually
entered the unit. So, the personnel paper trail
at Garda HQ is hardly reliable.
19. Concealing Crinnion’s role
in sparking the Arms Crisis
The fact that Crinnion posted the note to Liam
Cosgrave was withheld from the public, and -
most likely - from Jack Lynch. That meant that
MI6’s direct and central role in sparking the
Arms Crisis was concealed.
Crinnion wrote to a number of politicians,
including Garret FitzGerald and Conor Cruise
O’Brien, stating that he had precipitated the
Arms Crisis. Neither of these men disclosed
this information to the public.
20. A “Source close to new
Government” spreads further
MI6 smears
US Ambassador
John D Moore
became the target
of an elaborate
confidence trick
designed to
denigrate Haughey
in April 1973, as
the sponsor of a
Provisional IRA
bombing
campaign in the North, from which he was
allegedly deriving a profit.
Again, a dubious government ocial was
involved. The information the deceitful ocial
relayed – or had relayed on his behalf – was
devious in the extreme but Moore believed it
was true. After he digested it, Moore sent a
cable to Washington in April 1973. Moore’s
cable alleged that the new government had
learnt that senior Fianna Fáil figures had been
involved in a conspiracy along with the IRA to
bomb Belfast and then purchase the damaged
properties at a discount.
Crucially, the cable identified the “source”
as someone “close” to the Cosgrave
Government.
Moore could only have swallowed these lies
if he believed the “source” was an ocial with
access to highly classified information. The
Special Branch and DoJ had access to this type
of information.
The source cannot have been Crinnion, as he
had served a short prison sentence by this
stage, and had fled into exile.
Andy Wrd
Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ptrick Crinnion nd
Grret FitzGerld. Crinnion told O’Brien
nd FitzGerld tht he precipitted the
Arms Crisis. They sid nothing (2)
US mbssdor John D Moore (left) nd with
President Ford in the Ovl Office in 1975
Lrry Wren
who did
not seek to
prosecute
Thoms
Mullen of C3
fter Mullen
confessed tht
he hd been n
MI6 spy
Chrles Hughey
