Security

An Irish Times insider passed a spiked Ed Moloney article about the Official IRA to its commanders, who spread a rumour he was a terrorist, expecting the UDA would murder him. The material was later published by Vincent Browne inspiring plans by the Official IRA to murder him. By David Burke. Ed Moloney A MEETING WITH THE HARD EDGE OF THE UDA’s INNER COUNCIL Shortly after the February 1982 general election, Ed Moloney of the Irish Times found himself standing in a room “in the office of Andy Tyrie at the UDA’s HQ in Gawn Street on the Newtownards Road” with three senior UDA leaders. The trio included John McMichael, a member of the UDA’s Inner Council and Commander of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), the name the UDA used when it perpetrated assassination, torture and other acts of violence. The name was used so that the UDA itself would not be proscribed. No-one was fooled, least of all the British government and its security services. The second individual was “a very senior member of the Inner Council who is still alive”. Ed Moloney does not want to name him. The third man was Davy Payne, one of the UDA’s most feared killers and torturers. Like the other two, he was a member of its ‘elite’ Inner Council. John McMichael Moloney still recalls how “Payne was to my left. The other two were to my right. Their presence lent considerable authority to what Payne told me, since these three were the UDA’s main military men on the Inner Council”. Ed Moloney survived his encounter with these men. He continued to work as the Northern Editor of the Irish Times and went on to be voted Irish journalist of the year in 1999. Before the encounter with the UDA, he had worked for  Hibernia and Magill. After his time at the Irish Times, he went to work at the Sunday Tribune. He now lives in New York and publishes a blog, ‘The Broken Elbow’. He has contributed to Village. He is also the author of a string of acclaimed books about the Troubles. A CRITIC OF THE WORKERS PARTY During the course of Moloney’s work he had gathered ample evidence that the Official IRA (OIRA) was still in existence despite claims by its political wing, Sinn Féin the Workers Party (SFWP), to the contrary; and, moreover, that it was engaged in a wide range of criminality including bank robberies and extortion. After SFWP won three seats in the February 1982 general election, the party found itself holding the balance of power. The new SFWP TDs voted for Charles Haughey as Taoiseach in a stark choice between him and Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael. Dick Walsh of the Irish Times, who was an ally of Cathal Goulding, chief of staff of the Official IRA, was appalled by his party’s support for Haughey. He described the development as a “Hitler-Stalin pact of sorts” in the Irish Times. The pact was never destined to last and Haughey’s government would collapse eight months later when the SFWP deputies withdrew their support. After the February 1982 election, Moloney wrote two pieces for the Northern Notebook of  the Irish Times. He has explained to Village  that one part of the series “dealt with the political journey SFWP had taken to power in the South. That part duly appeared on the Saturday as all Northern Notebooks did”. He submitted a second piece which was not published. It  “dealt with the continued existence of the SFWP’s military wing and the various criminal activities it was involved in, including racketeering and paramilitary activity”. This part “never appeared and I was never officially informed nor given any explanation by the Irish Times.  I cannot even say whether my copy was even shown above the level of sub-editor”. Moloney believes that “the real SFWP/OIRA influence was wielded at sub-editor level where stories could be changed and challenged without senior figures even knowing”. Shockingly, someone in the Irish Times – position unknown – passed the article to the Officials behind Moloney’s back. Moloney subsequently handed the research over to Magill, then edited by Vincent Browne, who published a two-part series on SFWP in March and April 1982. The magazine flew off the shelves and sold out completely. This was egregiously embarrassing for SFWP. It later changed its name to the Workers Party (WP) in an effort to distance itself from the whiff of sulphur that clung to the Sinn Féin part of its old name. Vincent Browne (left); Cathal Goulding on the cover of one of the two 1982 Magill articles which incensed the Official IRA; Ed Moloney (right) As Moloney has confirmed to Village, “I certainly gave Vincent the material I had gathered over the years, including material the IT had refused to publish”. THE MACHIAVELLIAN OFFICIAL IRA PLOT TO MURDER ED MOLONEY That the OIRA tried to set Moloney up for murder is not in doubt. The only issue is whether they did so after the publication of the Magill articles, or before. If it was before, it means that the murder attempt was designed to prevent the information he had gathered from reaching the public. If after, it was an act of revenge and a possible attempt to prevent further revelations. The plot was deeply Machiavellian: two Sinn Féin the Workers Party members told the UDA that Moloney was in the INLA. “Since people like Andy Tyrie and John McMichael knew me and doubted the claim, the UDA stayed its hand. The allegation against me was apparently made to the UDA by two members of Sinn Féin the Workers Party” Moloney has told Village that: “I learned about the threat to my life from the late UDA North Belfast Commander Davy Payne who informed me one day that the UDA had been told that I was a member of the INLA but, since people like Andy Tyrie and John McMichael knew me and doubted the claim, the UDA stayed its hand.