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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
October-November 49
1. The spider at the centre of
an MI6 web
The spider in this dark web was Maurice
Oldfield, Deputy Chief of MI6, 1964-1973;
Chief 1973-1978. He dealt with Irish affairs for
MI6.
Oldfield was no shrinking violet. He boasted
of torturing Jews, some of whom must have
been Holocaust survivors in Palestine after the
end of WWII. He played a role in toppling the
secular prime minister of Iran in 1953, thereby
kicking up a hornets’ nest in that region. He
was also a sexual abuser of young males and
a collector of pornography focused on young
males. MI6 inadvertently let its guard down by
admitting to the Hart Tribunal into the Kincora
Boys’ Home sex abuse scandal that Oldfield
had a relationship with Joe Mains, the man in
charge of Kincora. MI6 reviewed its files on the
Kincora matter in 2011. According to the Hart
Report (2017), MI6 revealed that: “The
relationship [Oldfield] had with Kincora boys’
home (KBH) in Belfast and subsequent ‘rent
boy scandal’ is, in my view the only remaining
potential sensitivity in the papers. The
sensitivity being that [Oldfield] may have a link
(by association through his friendship with the
KBH Head) to the alleged crimes at the boys’
home. Given the current climate surrounding
similar cases, it may at some point emerge as
an issue” (Chapter 28, Paragraphs 619).
The Briish
Secre Service’s
manipulation of
he Arms Crisis
T
he Arms Crisis of 1970 involved an
alleged attempt by two Fianna Fail
government ministers, Neil Blaney
and Charles Haughey, to import
arms for the Provisional IRA. Worse
still, they were accused of having done so with
misappropriated Exchequer funds, aided and
abetted by a clique of treacherous military
intelligence (G2) officers.
The truth about the Arms Crisis is stranger
than fiction and involves the machinations of
a British spy in Garda Intelligence and a
disloyal official in the Department of Justice
(DoJ); the fracture of the IRA in 1969; the
chicanery of a former SS officer in Hamburg;
the forgery of a witness statement; perjury in
the High Court; the reproduction of a Sinn Féin
pamphlet by British black propagandists and
an anti-Haughey smear campaign that lasted
over a decade.
The criminal charges against Blaney were
dismissed at an early stage.
The trial of Haughey (and three others)
collapsed in September 1970. A second one
resulted in the acquittal of all of the defendants.
I have published three books which deal
with the issue since 2020. They examine it
(and many more issues) from different angles:
first, what actually happened; second, how it
was misrepresented and, third, the ominous
role of MI6 as part of a wider campaign to
control Irish politics in the 1970s.
This article is an attempt to distil the key
points in the story. The thesis I tender is that
the fingerprints of the British Secret Service,
MI6, are to be found at many twists and turns
of the story.
Many of the facts reported in this article are
based on quotes from official sources.
MI6’s Grees Hi
By David Burke
The covers of Dvid Burke’s book on the
Arms Crisis
POLITICS
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50 October-November
2. Haughey Crushes the IRA
Haughey is the other central character in the
Arms Crisis saga. He served as Minister for
Justice in the early 1960s when he extinguished
the flickering embers of the IRA’s Border
Campaign. Next, he stamped down on
fundraising by the Republican movement. He
was despised by the IRA.
Haughey was centrally involved in the policy
of rapprochement with the Unionist
government at Stormont in the 1960s. He
became friendly with two Stormont ministers,
Harry West and Brian Faulkner.
3. Prejudice and the denial
of civil rights
The Arms Crisis was provoked by the eruption
of the Northern Ireland (NI) Troubles. The roots
of that conflict can be found in the denial of
civil rights such as one-man one-vote, fair
allocation of housing, and fair employment
practices to the minority community in the
North. A civil rights campaign to remedy these
breaches was supressed with lethal brutality
by Unionists.
On 1 January 1969, a group of university
students was attacked by Loyalist mobs at
Burntollet Bridge, near Derry, while marching
for civil rights. The RUC permitted thugs to hurl
piles of granite stones at the marchers. One
young woman was beaten senseless and
shoved into the river. A group of men persisted
in their attack of her. One of them pierced her
leg with a long nail which he had driven
through a wooden stick. As she lay face down
in the water, spurts of blood gushed from her
calves. She was saved by fellow marchers after
the thugs abandoned her.
Following the attack, Loyalist hoodlums
invaded Catholic estates in Derry, smashing
windows and breaking doors. Anyone they
encountered, and adjudged Catholic, became
fair game for a beating.
4. Ethnic cleansing
On 14 August 1969, the RUC took to the streets
in Shorland semi-armoured vehicles manned
with Browning 0.30 medium machine guns.
Some of the RUC personnel sprayed bullets
into the Divis flats. One tracer bullet tore into
Patrick Rooney’s head. He was only nine years
old. When Paddy Kennedy MP visited the flat,
he found the boy’s father scraping his brains
off the wall with a spoon.
150 houses were burnt and another 300
were badly damaged with the assistance of the
RUC police reserve, the B-Specials. All told, six
people were killed.
Prime Minister (PM) Harold Wilson and his
Home Secretary, James Callaghan (a future
prime minister) were appalled.
But none of this seems to have made any
lasting impact on Oldfield.
Wilson disliked Oldfield. Oldfield later
complained that Wilson would rather cross the
road than stop to talk to him.
5. The violent men
responsible for the Riots
(who later became MI and
MI agents)
The riots in Belfast were led by a child rapist
called John McKeague, a former bodyguard of
Ian Paisley. He later became a serial killer and
agent of MI5. Another key participant was
William McGrath, also a paedophile and close
associate of Paisley. Oldfield sent McGrath to
work at Kincora Boys’ Home in June of 1971 to
acquire ‘kompromat’ about Loyalist politicians.
McGrath was convicted for child rape in
December 1981.
Neil Blaney and others urged PM Wilson to
send troops to halt the mayhem. Wilson
obliged.
6. The Defence Committees
which wanted peace, not an
escalation of violence.
The besieged and terrified people of Belfast,
Derry, Newry and elsewhere, set up defence
committees. The Central Citizens Defence
Committee (CCDC) was led by Tom Conaty, an
opponent of the IRA. He became an adviser to
William Whitelaw, the first British Secretary of
State for NI. Whitelaw later served as Margaret
Thatcher’s Deputy PM.
Paddy Devlin, who later served as an SDLP
minister in the 1974 Power Sharing
Government, was secretary of the CCDC.
The number two figure in Derry was Patrick
Doherty, another opponent of the IRA and a
friend of John Hume.
The committees were run by priests,
lawyers, businessmen and ex-servicemen.
Inevitably, there were members of the IRA in
the ranks. The most prominent in Belfast was
Jim Sullivan who joined the Official IRA – not
the Provisionals - after the IRA split in December
1969.
7. “The Taoiseach and
other Ministers have met
delegations from the North”
The committees begged Jack Lynch for guns to
defend themselves. He led them to believe
they would receive weapons.
A memo addressed to the chief of staff of the
Irish Army on 10 February 1970 stated that:
“The Taoiseach and other Ministers have met
delegations from the North. At these meetings
urgent demands were made for respirators,
weapons and ammunition the provision of
Sen Lemss, Terence O’Neill, Hrry West
nd Brin Fulkner
RUC nd Loylist militnts t Burntollet
Bridge, Jnury 1969
John McKegue who led the Loylist
ttcks on Ctholic homes
Pece not wr. Defence Committee
Leders, Tom Conty, Pddy Devlin nd
Pddy Doherty, ll opponents of the IRA
Neil Blney nd Chrles Hughey
Murice Oldfield nd Chrles Hughey
VillageOctNov24.indb 50 03/10/2024 14:27
October-November 51
which the Government agreed. Accordingly,
truckloads of these items will be put at
readiness so that they may be available in a
matter of hours”.
8. Arms flight
Jock Haughey, a brother of Charles, was
involved in a successful attempt to smuggle
arms from the UK to Dublin in September 1969.
Many in the Irish cabinet knew about the
endeavour. The guns, acquired by Jock
Haughey, were for defence purposes. Context
is important: at this time, Fine Gael supporters
were supplying arms. At least one Garda gave
a gun to Joe Cahill of the IRA. However, the
guns were taken by Cathal Goulding, the
Marxist chief-of-staff of the pre-split IRA. None
of them were delivered to the defence
committees.
A sum of £100,000 was provided by the Irish
Government for the relief of distress in the
North in 1969. There was a number of attempts
to procure arms by those with access to it.
9. Grooming Patrick
Crinnion for MI
Oldfield mistook the defence committees for
the IRA. He deemed them a threat to Britain. He
launched an operation to crush them, and
destroy Haughey and Blaney. He was aided
and abetted by Patrick Crinnion, a senior
intelligence officer in C3 (the nerve centre of
Garda intelligence).
Crinnion was spotted as a potential recruit
by a member of the Irish ascendancy. He was
afforded some experience in some sort of
police work in England and then returned to
Ireland where he joined An Taca Síochána, the
Irish reserve police force, and then enlisted in
An Garda Síochána. Soon, he was assigned to
the Special Branch.
Crinnion’s handlers told him he would
receive an approach and that when he did, he
was to react favourably. The approach was
made in 1960 by the Secretary to the
Department of Justice (DoJ), Thomas Coyne.
It is quite likely that Peter Berry, Deputy
Secretary at the DoJ and the man in charge of
the security department, was a party to this
machination.
An officer at C3 called Thomas Mullen was
working for MI6 but was about to retire.
Crinnion was slotted in, to take over the reins
from him.
Crinnion’s MI6 handler was John Wyman.
10. Oldfield, Wyman and
Crinnion create a myth
Ludicrous as it may seem now, Crinnion
reported to his Garda superiors that Haughey
and a newsagent from Donnybrook
manufactured the split in the IRA in December
1969. Their purported aim was the creation of
the Provisional IRA. In reality, the fracture had
been six years or more in the making and
sparked by the desire of the leadership to
adopt Marxism and engage in electoral
politics, against the wishes of the more
traditional wing of the movement.
Meanwhile, Seán MacStíofáin – who
opposed the leftward drift in the IRA - was
telling the Garda precisely the opposite,
namely that Blaney’s circle was funding the
Marxist leadership of the IRA. This allegation
was also a lie.
Put simply, the Garda, buried under a
blizzard of lies, did not know what was going
on.
11. MI sting operations in
London
Oldfield next set up a series of sting operations
which lured defence committee members to
England with all sorts of promises of weapons.
12. Conor Cruise O’Brien
sends a report about G to
the British Embassy
In October 1969, Conor Cruise O’Brien TD of
the Labour Party, sent a report to the British
Embassy about the activities of G2 in
Monaghan and in NI. The report portrayed the
efforts of G2 and the defence committee as
indicative of some sort of splinter IRA activity.
It alleged that: “Since the recent major
outbreaks of trouble an ‘agent’ of Messrs
Haughey, Blaney and Boland, has been
conducting these military intelligence
personnel (Captains Doolan and Duggan) on
trips behind the barricades. Contacts are being
built up, and ammunition and money has been
distributed. Generally the contacts are among
the Republican element in the North, who have
more or less broken with the Dublin HQ of the
IRA, principally because this ‘agent’ can
deliver what the IRA cannot”.
On 10 November 1969, the British
ambassador, Andrew Gilchrist, sent a
confidential telegram to London, in which he
identified O’Brien as his informant. O’Brien
and/or Gilchrist, had deduced that an office in
Co Monaghan “contains an Intelligence Unit,
where Irish Army Intelligence Officers brief and
debrief visitors to and from the North”.
13. The SS arms dealer
Captain Kelly of G2, Irish military intelligence,
took over the attempt to procure arms for the
defence committees in January 1970, with the
sanction of James Gibbons, the Minister for
Defence. Jack Lynch knew what was afoot. This
is crucial to an understanding to the history of
the time.
The plan was to store the weapons in the
Republic and distribute them to the committees
in the event of another ‘doomsday’ eruption of
violence in the North.
Weapons were purchased from Otto
Schlueter, a former SS officer turned arms
dealer. His mother and his deputy had been
murdered by the French Secret Service after he
had sold guns to France’s enemies in Algeria.
Schlueter knew better than to step on the toes
of a secret service. He alerted German
intelligence about Captain Kelly’s purchase.
Schlueter was a sometime partner of Tony
Divall, another arms dealer. Significantly,
Divall was an ex-MI6 officer who had retained
close contact with London.
By the time the weapons were due to fly to
Dublin, German intelligence, MI6 and the
Garda were aware of the G2 operation.
So too was Seán MacStíofáin of the newly
formed Provisional IRA. John Kelly, a member
of the defence committee, was helping Captain
Kelly purchase the arms in Germany. Behind
Jock Hughey
Ptrick Crinnion nd Otto Schleuter
John Wymn, Murice Oldfield nd Peter
Berry
Gibbons nd Hughey fter the two
rms trils
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52 October-November
the captain’s back, John Kelly alerted
MacStíofáin to the arms flight. MacStíofáin
leaked the news to the Garda. He would hardly
have done so if the guns were destined for the
Provisionals.
Airport officials also realised an arms
importation was afoot and alerted Brian
Lenihan, the then Minister for Transport. He
knew that it was a G2 operation and rang
Colonel Hefferon of G2 to warn him. The arms
flight was cancelled.
14. Crinnion, MI’s Midnight
Postman.
Jack Lynch convened a cabinet meeting at
which he announced that there would be no
more attempts to import arms and that the
matter was closed. Gibbons, Haughey and
Blaney were to remain in Cabinet.
Patrick Crinnion of C3 typed an anonymous
note which described the attempt to import
arms and delivered it to Liam Cosgrave, Leader
of the Opposition, in the middle of the night.
15. Why did Peter Berry,
Secretary of the DoJ, forge
a witness statement?
The cat was now out of the bag. Lynch ordered
Gibbons to disavow the importation and throw
Captain Kelly and the others to the wolves.
Lynch sacked Blaney and Haughey from
cabinet.
In his memoirs, John Peck, the British
ambassador, pretended that he knew nothing
of the crisis until he was told about the sacking
of Haughey and Blaney.
Peter Berry, now Secretary of the DoJ,
pushed for a trial. The Attorney General was
opposed to this but Berry prevailed.
Behind closed doors, Lynch told
Ambassador Peck that he hoped ‘Charlie’
would be acquitted.
Someone at the DoJ – almost certainly Berr y
– altered the witness statement of Colonel
Hefferon, the ex-Director of G2. The passages
which were deleted were references by the
colonel to the knowledge in the Department of
Defence of the importation. Later, Seamus
McKenna SC, who led the prosecution,
denounced the toxic brief he had received,
with the permission of the Bar Council of
Ireland.
Why did Berry behave in such an
unscrupulous manner? He knew he was
framing the defendants – especially Captain
Kelly – for crimes they had not committed. Cui
bono?
16. “Mr Lynch and Mr
Gibbons, the villains of the
piece, continue to enjoy the
fruits of a very dirty victory”
The jury was appalled by the performance of
Gibbons in the witness box (for the prosecution)
and impressed by the evidence of Colonel
Hefferon (who exposed the lies of Gibbons).
They acquitted all of the defendants.
David Blatherwick of the British Embassy
sent a confidential report to Frank Steele of MI6
on 24 August 1972 stating that: “We see no
reason to change our earlier judgement that
Hefferon and Gibbons were willing to go along
with Capt. Kelly and his influential Ministerial
supporters until the crisis point came in April/
May 1970, when [Capt.] Kelly became the fall
guy, and Gibbons, by means of lying and
eventual perjury preserved his head. Mr Lynch
and Mr Gibbons, the villains of the piece,
continue to enjoy the fruits of a very dirty
victory”.
17. A “delicate source”
betrays G oicers in
Northern Ireland
G2 sent officers to collect intelligence in NI. On
17 June 1970, Ronnie Burroughs, a senior
British official in NI, wrote to the Foreign Office
making reference to a delicate “source” who
had supplied information about G2 activities
in NI. He stated: “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 Officers”. This
“source” could have been Crinnion or someone
at either the Department of Justice, or Defence.
18. Fine Gael’s embassy
informant
In 1970 Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael was
appointed to the Public Accounts Committee
(PAC) inquiry into the distribution of the sum
of £100,000 which had been assigned for the
relief of distress in the North. Some of it had
been used to fund the G2 operation. FitzGerald
advised the British Embassy of PAC’s private
deliberations behind the backs of his PAC
colleagues. Having spoken to FitzGerald, on
18 December, 1970, John Peck, the British
ambassador, advised London that it looked
“increasingly” likely that the PAC probe “could
be a re-run of the arms trial and be awkward
for Messrs. Haughey and Blaney”.
Peck was a former Head of the Information
Research Department (IRD) black propaganda
machine. Like Oldfield, he had been involved
in the 1953 MI6-CIA coup in Iran.
19. Des O’Malley urges
the Garda to betray their
“confidential sources”
The head of the SDU, John Fleming, gave
evidence to the PAC. He revealed that the
Garda had “confidential sources” inside the
IRA. This could have resulted in the death of
those sources. Fleming could have relied upon
the Official Secrets Act but Des O’Malley, the
then Minister for Justice, was encouraging
Fleming to speak frankly.
The PAC was unable to determine how the
entirety of the fund had been distributed.
Ambassador Peck and the Foreign Office in
London conspired (with some success) to
John Kelly (left) nd Sen McStíofin
Brin Lenihn, Chrles Hughey nd
Jmes Gibbons
Jck Lynch nd Jmes Gibbons
Chrles Hughey t Four Courts (left)
Cptin Jmes Kelly
Chrles Hughey, Peter Berry, President
Kennedy nd Colonel Michel Hefferon
behind Kennedy
John Fleming nd Des O’Mlley
VillageOctNov24.indb 52 03/10/2024 14:27
October-November 53
thwart the publication of Captain Kelly’s book
on the crisis.
20. Haughey and the KGB
Oldfield next launched a campaign of
vilification.
An official of the Irish government – probably
Crinnion or someone from the DoJ – told the
American embassy that Blaney has established
his own breakaway wing of the IRA. This smear
was communicated to Washington in May
1971.
MI6 and the IRD formulated a smear play
book at meetings at Stormont Castle.
Rumours were circulated that Haughey was
mixing with the KGB in Dublin.
Crinnion and Thomas Mullen attempted to
fabricate a link between Haughey and a factory
in Dublin allegedly owned by the Mafia.
The IRD reproduced an Official Sinn Féin
pamphlet with an added hostile paragraph
about Haughey.
21. Star Pistols
It was alleged by Garret FitzGerald, Gerry
L’Estrange and Des O’Malley that the Star
pistol which killed Garda Richard Fallon in April
1970 had been smuggled into Ireland by Jock
Haughey. L’Estrange claimed that the shooter
had been spirited out of Ireland by Neil Blaney
in a car driven by a Special Branch officer.
Neither story was true.
If anyone was to blame for the use of the Star
pistol, it was probably Oldfield. He had
permitted Star pistols from Birmingham to
reach Ireland so he could monitor to whom
they were distributed.
22. Private Spy Magazine
Oldfield also vilified Haughey in Private Eye
magazine in London with stories of shady
financial deals and links to the IRA. I asked the
former editor of Private Eye if Oldfield had
contributed to these stories and he replied that
it was so long ago he could not remember – not
that the suggestion was outrageous. The
smears were identical to those in the Stormont
smear play book.
23. Lynch told the British
ambassador he was
prepared to mislead the Dáil
about security co-operation
On 25 April 1972, PM Ted Heath wrote to Lynch
urging the immediate instigation of security
co-operation along the border. When
questions were raised in the Dáil about his
communications with Heath, Lynch denied
that co-operation had been broached. Yet,
behind closed doors Lynch was telling Peck
that he agreed that “discrete collaboration was
clearly called for”.
In what must have been music to Oldfield’s
ears, that same month Lynch gave Peck what
he interpreted as ‘carte blanche’ to pursue the
establishment of security co-operation directly
with the departments of Defence and Justice
in Dublin. Peck sent a telegram to London
stating that the co-operation would be “mutual
and discreet, bearing in mind that it has to be
deniable in the Dáil”. Afterwards, there was a
meeting to kick start the co-operation between
the Chief-of-Staff of the Irish army and the
military attaché at the British embassy. The
point of contact for Peck at the DoJ was Andy
Ward, the Secretary of the department (1971-
86). Larry Wren of C3 soon took over.
24. FitzGerald and O’Brien
save MI’s Blushes
In February 1973, Crinnion and Wyman were
convicted after three months in custody. They
were released with time served.
On 12 June 1973, Crinnion wrote to Garret
FitzGerald and Conor Cruise O’Brien. Crinnion
revealed that he had precipitated the Arms
Crisis. FitzGerald and O’Brien protected MI6 by
not revealing this.
Lynch brought Haughey onto his front bench
in 1975, hardly the act of someone who
believed Haughey had purloined exchequer
funds in an attempt to arm the Provisional IRA.
In 1979 Haughey became Taoiseach.
Oldfield was appointed by Margaret
Thatcher as Security Coordinator for NI in 1979.
He continued to smear Haughey. However,
Oldfield’s secret sex life – including the abuse
of young males – was discovered by Scotland
Yard. He was suspended and soon retired.
Thatcher later confirmed in Westminster that
Oldfield had been ousted due to his sexual
proclivities.
Haughey served as Taoiseach, December
1979 to June 1981, and February 1982 to
December 1982. He prioritised bringing down
the IRA. NI Secretary James Prior told the
Commons on 10 December 1982 that: “It is
also true that the recent level of co-operation
and effort in the Republic towards combating
terrorism has reached a new and most
welcome level. It reflects a substantial
development of attitudes in the South”.
Captain John M. Feehan, the owner of
Mercier Press (and author of three books on
Haughey) told me in the early 1990s that he
had spoken to a diplomat at the British
Embassy who acknowledged they had
misjudged Haughey.
25. Oldfield’s toxic legacy
includes boosting the
Provisional IRA
The Arms Crisis wrecked the defence
committees. Many in the minority community
turned to the Official and Provisional IRA
instead.
Fianna Fáil suffered a decade or more of
internecine feuding.
The poison emanating from the DoJ and
Garda HQ polluted the legal system. The Arms
Trials were followed by the Sallins mail train
robbery, Kerry Babies and other scandals.
The failure of the Garda to investigate the
1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings may have
been influenced by the presence of British
agents in the Garda and at the DoJ.
MI6 took up their cudgels against Haughey
again in the 1980s, but that is a story for
another day. So too is the role of a number of
high-profile media figures in Ireland who
helped them, as did an array of MI6 inspired
‘useful idiots’ in various walks of life.
Chrles Hughey ws smered s n
ssocite of KGB officers ctive in Dublin
Htchet Men, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Gerry
L’Estrnge nd Grret FitzGerld
Hrold Wilson nd Ambssdor John
Peck. Peck ws once Director of the IRD
Hughey nd Lynch
VillageOctNov24.indb 53 03/10/2024 14:27
