David Burke Archives - Page 5 of 5

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Vandalising history. How the truth about Ireland’s Arms Crisis was corrupted by a gang of NI paedophiles, a dissembling Taoiseach, Private Eye magazine in London, some British Intelligence black propagandists as well as an Irish Times reporter who was an ally of the Official IRA.

by admin 12 June, 2020 0 Comments

By David Burke. Introduction. The story of the Arms Crisis is a perfectly simple one. It only becomes complicated when the lies, fantasies and myths that engulfed it are entertained as if serious. Only two participants in the débacle told the full, accurate and unvarnished truth: Captain James Kelly and Colonel Michael Hefferon, both dutiful officers of Irish Military Intelligence, G2. It is my intention to publish a book next September which will reveal the deepest secret of the affair, aiming to make it even easier to comprehend. For the most part, I have ignored the parallel story of how the truth was washed away by a flood of hogwash because it does little more than confuse the narrative. However, I will take this opportunity to present some of the more dramatically erroneous materials that made it into print. In other words, this is the story of what did not happen during the Arms Crisis and its aftermath. When the vines of deceit which wrapped themselves around the story are stripped away, what really happened in 1969/1970 becomes clear: James Gibbons, the Minister for Defence, 1969-70, oversaw an operation to import arms which were to be stored in the Republic under Irish Army lock and key. Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were deeply involved too. Blaney was probably the main protagonist in the affair. Jack Lynch knew about it too. The paedophile, the propagandist and the political correspondent: William McGrath, Hugh Mooney and Dick Walsh. The weapons – which never reached Ireland – were intended to be distributed to certain vulnerable Catholic communities in Northern Ireland but only in the extremely unlikely event of a ‘doomsday’ situation such as a pogrom. Since no ‘doomsday’ scenario in fact occurred, the weapons would have done little more than gather dust and might have become no more than a minor footnote in recent history. All that changed when news of the importation attempt leaked out and all political hell broke loose. History was corrupted by a motley crew comprising a group of paranoid and malicious paedophiles who surrounded Ian Paisley, a cabal of deceitful British Intelligence propaganda experts, a Taoiseach who dissembled under great pressure – as did his minister for defence, a collection of delusional Official Sinn Féin activists, a legion of profoundly ignorant British journalists, and finally Dick Walsh, a secret ally of the Official OIRA in the Irish Times. This ramshackle crew concocted a variety of gobbledygook conspiracy theories. Broadly speaking, they can all be boiled down to a simple and core allegation, namely that the arms were destined for the IRA as part of some sort of dastardly plot involving Charles Haughey. Lying on an industrial scale: Jack Lynch and Jim Gibbons. One of the reasons the Arms Crisis became so confused was because of the hogwash they spouted about it. 1969: INTRODUCING THE EXTREMIST LOYALIST CHILD-RAPIST, ORANGEMAN, BIGOT, THIEF, BOMBER AND TERRORIST WHO INSTIGATED THE FIANNA FÁIL-IRA SMEAR All the trace elements of the Arms Crisis myth can be found in a devious story published in the pro-Paisley newspaper, The Protestant Telegraph, in 1969. A group of extreme Loyalists zealots including ‘Dr’ Ian Paisley, his associate William McGrath, and Paisley’s one-time bodyguard, John McKeague, and one of McKeague’s friends, Alan Campbell, ratcheted up sectarian hatred in the 1960s in tandem with other like-minded bigots. McGrath was a vile creature: a notorious paedophile who would be convicted for child rape in December 1981. The RUC referred to him as ‘The Beast’. McKeague was worse; not only was he a child rapist but his depravity extended further – he became a UVF/Red Hand Commando serial killer and torturer. He would be murdered in February 1982 after he threatened to reveal what he knew about the Kincora Boys Home scandal when it looked like the RUC CID was on the verge of arresting him for rape. Alan Campbell was one of the three men who led the notorious Shankill Defence Association alongside McKeague. Campbell was also the RUC’s chief suspect in the abduction and murder of a ten-year-old boy in 1973 in Belfast. McGrath, McKeague and Paisley Back in April of 1969, McGrath, McKeague, Paisley and other hate-fuelled fanatics mounted a ‘false flag’ bomb campaign in the North, i.e. one they perpetrated but blamed on the IRA and Jack Lynch’s government. The most notorious bomb of the campaign was the one which exploded in the Silent Valley and cut off the water supply to parts of Belfast. At the time the IRA hardly existed and certainly had no intention of launching any sort of military campaign against the NI State. The allegation that the April 1969 bombs were part of an IRA campaign was circulated in the pro-Paisley newspaper, The Protestant Telegraph. It declared deceitfully that a source “close to [Stormont] Government circles” had informed the paper that a purported “secret dossier” on the Castlereagh electricity sub-station explosion contained: “startling documentation and facts. Original reports suggested that the IRA could have been responsible, but in Parliament no such definite statement would be made…We are told that the Ministry of Home Affairs is examining reports which implicate the Eire Government in the £2 million act of sabotage — By actively precipitating a crisis in Ulster, the Eire Government can make capital, win or lose. The facts, we hope, will be made public, thereby exposing the chicanery of the Dublin regime”. The Irish government ignited the Troubles – if you believe McGrath – by bombing the water supply to Belfast. This picture shows some of the débris left after the Silvent Valley bomb explosion actually perpetrated by supporters of Ian Paisley. William McGrath blamed Fianna Fáil for it. These lies would be laughable but for the vitriol they helped whip up in extreme Loyalist circles. McGrath was the main promoter of the lie. He used the then deputy editor of the Protestant Telegraph, David Browne, as his conduit to plant the story in the paper. Browne had been present at a meeting in

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The Official IRA planned the murders of journalists Ed Moloney and Vincent Browne.

by admin 31 May, 2020 0 Comments

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.

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Dick Walsh’s covert committee monitored OIRA media enemies. Future Irish Times Assistant editor put colleagues on lists.

by admin 29 May, 2020 0 Comments

By David Burke. Part 1 of this series can be found at https://villagemagazine.ie/dw/ THE OFFICIAL IRA AND OFFICIAL SINN FÉIN The IRA fractured in December 1969 into what became known as the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA. Sinn Féin split along the same lines the following month. Before the division, the IRA had been led by IRA veterans such as Cathal Goulding, who was its chief of staff, Seán Garland, Seamus Costello, Tomás MacGiolla, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Seán Mac Stíofáin. On the political front, they controlled Sinn Féin. Together the IRA and Sinn Féin were known as the Republican Movement. Goulding, Garland, Costello and MacGiolla sided with the Officials after the split and reproduced the military and political formula for their new organisation. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Seán Mac Stíofáin set up the Provisionals. Goulding’s faction managed to retain control of the United Irishman, the movement’s monthly newspaper. Collectively they also became known as the ‘Stickies’. Cathal Goulding avoids the media The United Irishman had been edited by Tony Meade, Denis Foley, Séamas Ó Tuathail (who brought sales to a height of 100,000 in 1969) and then Eoin Ó Murchú. In late 1972 Ó Murchú left and Dick Walsh of the Irish Times, later to become its political editor (from 1985) and indeed its assistant editor (from 1999), was asked to take care of the paper while a new editor was found. The full-time replacement turned out to be Jackie Ward, who had been in charge of the The Starry Plough which had appeared in Derry. In 1973 the Officials launched another publication, The Irish People, a weekly paper. Pádraig Yeates, who edited it between 1977 and 1982, joined the Irish Times in 1983. The Officials also produced numerous pamphlets, most but not all of which were produced openly as Official Sinn Féin publications. The Official IRA (OIRA) issued statements which were reported in the press. After they called a ceasefire in 1972, they continued to exist for purported ‘defensive’ purposes and continued to issue statements. The Irish Times continued reporting them until the mid-1970s. Bizarrely, when the paper interviewed Goulding wearing his political cap in 1983, it reported that the OIRA had ceased to exists in 1972, as if all the statements it had carried for the three to four years after the 1972 ceasefire had never appeared on its pages. It was the least of the dysfunctionalities in that paper’s nexus with the OIRA. WALSH’S SECRET COMMITTEE Behind the scenes Goulding and his GHQ staff decided to draw up a list of their friends and enemies in the media. Goulding, now chief of staff of the OIRA, appointed Dick Walsh as the kingpin of this clandestine effort. He was assigned to lead a committee which drew up lists of journalists and to characterise the attitude of each towards the Officials. The OIRA also spied on their political opponents throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s and probably well beyond. Their penetration of the Revenue Commissioners caused so much internal rancour that some civil servants tried to set up their own union. They felt the Officials had taken over the existing set up. The Officials’ spies in the Revenue Commissioners paid particular attention to the tax affairs of politicians such as Charles Haughey and well-known big -businessmen. Ultimately no use was made of the information they accrued because they did not want to draw attention to their assets in the department. The OIRA also spied on groups who were opposed to the Soviet Union such as the Irish Council for European Freedom and the Irish Czech Society. Their reports were presumably furnished to the Soviets. Amnesty International was another target. One of those monitored was Louise O’Brien. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY Dick Walsh broke the media into five groups. Category ‘A’ consisted of those deemed friendly towards the Official Sinn Féin and the OIRA. This group consisted of between ten and twenty reporters who were prominent in the early 1970s. Walsh included himself in it, along with members of the OIRA who were working in the media and those who, while never in any wing of the IRA, were sympathetic to the left-wing direction in which Goulding was taking the Officials. The political wing of the Party became known as Sinn Féin the Workers Party (SFWP) and later again simply the Workers Party (WP). Walsh and his committee presumably updated the list from time to time. One possible motive for the exercise was to help create a network of supporters in the media. On the other side of the coin had the revolution, that Goulding, Garland, MacGiolla and their comrades were fomenting, actually succeeded, the information would have been a useful resource to identify likely counter-revolutionaries. A number of ‘A’-listed OIRA figures were, or became, employees at the Irish Times. The purpose of this article is not to suggest that the Officials succeeded in taking control of the paper because they did not. The plot to murder a journalist at the Irish Times – which will be described in the next article in this series – demonstrates this definitively. Overall the paper was a broad church, especially under the editorship of Douglas Gageby. However, the ‘Stickies’ did have a number of notable successes in promoting their essential views, including their grossly distorted account of the Arms Crisis. THE IRA VOLUNTEERS AT THE IRISH TIMES As readers may recall from Part 1 of this series, James Downey, a former deputy editor of the Irish Times, stated that Dick Walsh was not only “an intimate of Cathal Goulding and the other leaders of what would shortly become the ‘Official’ Sinn Fein and IRA” but also that there were “two or three who were actual members of the IRA, on the paper”. (Downey p. 102.) Sean Cronin, former Chief of Staff of the IRA and Irish Times Washington correspondent during the Troubles Downey was disturbed by the OIRA presence and opined that “…the position of Dick

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Charles Haughey did not run guns to the IRA in 1970 but his father Seán did decades earlier. And on the orders of Michael Collins!

by admin 25 May, 2020 0 Comments

A gunrunner in the family. By David Burke. Haughey’s father Seán (on the right) who was one of Michael Collins’ most trusted officers. Collins chose him for one of his most sensitive secret operations. THE HAUGHEY FAMILY AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Haughey’s parents, Seán and Sarah (nee McWilliams), were born and reared almost next door to one another on small farms in the adjacent townlands of Knockaneil and Stranagone, near Swatragh, a few miles from Maghera town in Derry. Haughey Senior, who was born in 1897, joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917. He rose to become the Second in Command, and later Officer in Command, of the South Derry Battalion of the Irish Volunteers during the War of Independence. At the start of the conflict he carried out raids on the homes of loyalists and a number of retired British army officers. His military file marked him out as one of the most energetic IRA members in south Derry. In one attack on June 5th 1921, a Royal Irish Constabulary sergeant called Michael Burke was killed while others were seriously wounded in a late-night ambush of the barracks at Swatragh. As a result of his activities, Seán Haughey had to go on the run. According to his superior, Major Dan McKenna, he would have been killed had he been caught. “His enemies were of the opinion, and indeed not without reason, that he was the cause of all their woes in his area”. Sarah, who was born in 1901, also played an active part during the campaign as a volunteer in Cumann na mBan. She remained a member until 1923. Commandant Seán (Johnny) Haughey with his wife Sarah Ann who served in Cumann na mBan. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 21 December 1921 and ratified the following January. Yet hostilities persisted in the North. The UVF began to regroup under Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Crawford. Thirty-one people were killed in Belfast between 12 and 16 February 1922. On 19 March 1922, 200 IRA men surrounded the town of Maghera, County Derry, cutting off the telephones before seizing the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks from which they removed 17 rifles, 5,000 rounds of ammunition and a sergeant as a hostage. The IRA campaign continued the next day with the destruction of mills, sawmills, stables and outhouses in County Derry. Burntollet Bridge (which would become infamous in 1968) was blown up. On 30 March Michael Collins, representing the Provisional Government in Dublin, and Sir James Craig, signed an agreement. Collins wanted to neutralise the security forces in the North as a threat to the Catholics. In return for a cessation of IRA activity, it was agreed that Catholics should join the Special Constabulary and assume responsibility for policing nationalist areas. In mixed areas, an equal force of Catholic and Protestant officers would be deployed. Meanwhile, all searches would be conducted by mixed units with British soldiers in attendance. The Specials were to wear uniforms with identification numbers and surrender their arms once they had finished their duties so they could be kept in barracks. On 31 March Royal assent was given to the Free State Bill which became the new constitution of the Free State. The ceasefire Collins and Craig negotiated proved a failure. On 2 April 500 Specials swooped across County Derry and Tyrone scooping up 300 men for questioning but only four were found to be in the IRA. The rest escaped to County Donegal. By now the IRA was on the verge of a split into pro- and anti-treaty factions. The 8,500 volunteers who lived in the new State in the North were virtually all anti-treaty. Michael Collins was prepared to supply them with arms for a number of reasons, one of which was that it offered him a possible way to unify the IRA, something that was a priority for him. SÉAN HAUGHEY PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN MICHAEL COLLINS’ MOST SENSITIVE AND SECRET CROSS-BORDER OPERATION AFTER THE CEASEFIRE Seán Haughey became involved in what was perhaps the most sensitive and secret covert operation Michael Collins ever mounted: it was one to provide Catholics living across the new border with weapons to defend themselves from the forces of the new state. Hundreds of Catholics (and many Protestants) had been killed during sectarian riots that had erupted in July 1920. Between 1920 and 1922, 267 Catholics were killed, while 2,000 more would be wounded; another 30,000 people were evicted from their homes and driven from their jobs, especially at Belfast’s shipyards. Collins arranged for guns, at least some of which were supplied by the IRA in Cork, to be smuggled across the Border. Collins was keen not to use any of the weapons he had obtained from the British which could easily be traced back to forces under his control. The First Northern Division of the IRA in Donegal was led by Commandant-General Joseph Sweeney who went on record stating: “Collins sent an emissary to say that he was sending arms to Donegal, and that they were to be handed over to certain persons – he didn’t say who they were – who would come with credentials to my headquarters. Once we got them we had fellows working for two days with hammers and chisels doing away with the serials on the rifles… About 400 rifles and all were taken to the Northern volunteers by Dan McKenna and Johnny [i.e. Seán] Haughey”. (See also From Pogrom to Civil War by Kieran Glennon.) Eoin O’Duffy, who later led the Blueshirts, along with Collins and Haughey, was part of the operation to smuggle the IRA guns across the border. Another IRA man, Thomas Kelly, collected a consignment of 200 Lee-Enfield rifles and ammunition from Eoin O’Duffy. In an affidavit Kelly swore many years later, he revealed that the “rifles and ammo were brought by Army transport to Donegal and later moved into County Tyrone in the compartment of an oil tanker. Only one member of the IRA escorted the consignment through

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How the Irish Times got its biggest story of the last 50 years wrong.

by admin 21 May, 2020 0 Comments

The Assistant Editor of the Irish Times distorted the truth about the Arms Crisis. He was a friend of both the chief of staff of the Official IRA and the Taoiseach, ‘Honest’ Jack Lynch. The Official IRA had a vested interest in manipulating the story. Over time, the journalist portrayed Lynch as the hapless victim of the Arms Crisis. This article will look at his relationship with the Marxist wing of the IRA, the Officials. By David Burke Part 1: Dick Walsh and the Official IRA. CATHAL GOULDING AND THE ALDERSHOT MASSACRE Cathal Goulding In February 1972 the Army Council of the Marxist wing of the IRA, the Officials, directed an attack on the HQ of the British Army’s 16th Parachute Regiment Brigade at Aldershot in Hampshire. At the time, the Army Council consisted of Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland, Tomás Mac Giolla and others. On 22 February a time bomb was conveyed to the Aldershot complex in a Ford Cortina vehicle. It weighed 280 pounds (130 kg). The driver alighted and fled the scene with the bomb detonating seconds later. The Officials who had scouted the complex cannot have missed the fact there were many civilians in the vicinity. A few seconds later five kitchen staff were slaughtered: Jill Mansfield (34); a mother of an eight-year-old boy. Her body was identified by a tattoo on her arm; Thelma Bossley (44); Margaret Grant (32); Cherie Munton (20); Joan Lunn (39), a mother of three. So too was a gardener, John Haslar (58) who died from a fractured skull. Finally, a Catholic priest, Gerry Weston (38) perished. 19 others were wounded by the explosion. Not a single soldier died. CROCODILE TEARS AND LIES Goulding and his cronies declared that “initial reports confirmed that several high-ranking officers had been killed [at Aldershot]. British propaganda units then moved into action, and miraculously the dead officers disappeared”. The statement added that the Official IRA’s intelligence department, had ascertained that 12 officers of the Parachute Regiment had been killed in the attack. These claims were entirely dishonest. On 23 February, the Officials explained that the attack had been perpetrated in revenge for Bloody Sunday: “Any civilian casualties would be very much regretted as our target was the officers responsible for the Derry outrages [i.e. Bloody Sunday]”. Stripped of the crocodile tears, Goulding was saying that it was acceptable to kill a handful of kitchen staff, a gardener and a priest in a botched atrocity because his motive had been pure – the murder of soldiers. Stripped of the crocodile tears, Goulding was saying that it was acceptable to kill a handful of kitchen staff, a gardener and a priest in a botched atrocity because his motive had been pure – the murder of soldiers. The Officials also said that the bombing would be the first of many such attacks on buildings occupied by British Army regiments which were serving in the North. In November 1972 Noel Jenkinson from Meath was convicted for his part in the Aldershot atrocity. He died from a heart attack in October 1976. Cathal Goulding The Army Council of the Official IRA remained tight-lipped about the other members of the Aldershot unit and they all escaped justice. I spoke to Sean Garland – briefly – about the Aldershot atrocity many decades later. He acknowledged that the attack was “indefensible”. In fairness to him, he did seem genuinely remorseful. A FUNERAL ORATION FOR A FALLEN OFFICIAL IRA VOLUNTEER Dick Walsh was the political editor of the Irish Times. He died in 2003 at the age of 65. After his death, his former colleagues at the paper described him as someone who was “believed to have used his influence in the left-wing circles in which he then moved to urge the Official republican movement to abandon violent means to settle the Northern Ireland problem”. If he did, he certainly took his time about it. Joe McCann of the Official IRA. The violence continued. Walsh did not shun the Official IRA after Aldershot, nor does he appear to have advocated an abandonment of “violent means to settle the Northern Ireland problem” in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Why can this be said? Because Walsh helped write the funeral oration for an Official IRA volunteer called Joe McCann which was delivered by Goulding. McCann was killed on the streets of Belfast on 15 April 1972 while being chased by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. He was unarmed. Details of his death can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McCann. McCann is the silhouetted figure in the main photograph of this article, the man crouching with a gun in his right hand.) There was little sign of a foreswearing of ‘violent means’ in the oration. Goulding said that “those who are responsible for the terrorism that is Britain’s age-old reaction to Irish demands will be the victims of that terrorism, paying richly in their own red blood for their crimes and the crimes of their Imperial masters”. Perhaps blood was still high after the Bloody Sunday atrocity and the murder of the unarmed McCann by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and Walsh only came around to lobbying for non violence tactics later. Perhaps Goulding added the blood-curdling rhetoric himself. Walsh was presumably strongly in favour of the ceasefire the Officials purported to call on 30 May 1972. I say “purported” because Goulding, Garland and Mac Giolla et al reserved the right to engage in “defensive actions”. Hence, the Official IRA did not go away; far from it in fact. They retained their arms and engaged in murderous feuds with the Provisionals, the INLA and others. The Officials killed 25 people between the calling of the ceasefire and 1983. While the feuding might conceivably be shoehorned into the category of “defensive actions”, the bank robberies and building-site extortion rackets the Officials carried out, could not. Interested readers should purchase a copy of ‘The Lost Revolution’ by Hanley and Millar for further details about the feuding – and much

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The Forgotten Arms Crisis Scoop: how a London newspaper reported details of what became known as the Arms Crisis nearly seven months before it erupted in Ireland.

by admin 5 May, 2020 0 Comments

Séamas Ó Tuathail was the first journalist to discover details of what was to become known as the Arms Crisis but chose not to report it. Unbeknownst to him, some of the information he dug up was relayed to a British journalist by a talkative senior member of the IRA. The resulting British newspaper article may have exacerbated British Intelligence paranoia about what was afoot in Ireland nearly seven months before the Arms Crisis erupted. Within a few weeks of the report in the English paper, a British Intelligence operation swung into action. A British secret agent nearly lost his life in Dublin during the course of it. He was saved by the intervention of Irish Military Intelligence. By David Burke Introduction: PART 1: THE UNITED IRISHMAN Fifty years ago this month the Irish public awoke to sensational reports on the radio that Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney had been dismissed from cabinet by the then Taoiseach Jack Lynch. Another cabinet minister, Kevin Boland, subsequently resigned in protest along with a junior minister, Paudge Brennan. This became known as the Arms Crisis. What is not fully appreciated is that an Irish journalist, Séamas Ó Tuathail, now a senior counsel at the Irish Bar, had learnt about the story – and much more besides – some six months previously. He has never been afforded the credit he was due for his investigation. Why? Because he did not publish the full story. Ó Tuathail not only knew that a blind eye was being turned by the State to cross-border gun-running efforts by people ranging from the ordinary citizen to old IRA hands, but also that Fianna Fáil had engaged in a covert propaganda campaign. Ó Tuathail’s perfectly reasonable interpretation was that the campaign was designed to help Fianna Fáil take over the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fáil never really opened up about the campaign but they would undoubtedly have said that it was designed to bring pressure to bear on the British government to make concessions on Northern Ireland after they had neglected the North for decades and let it turn into a place of institutionalised bigotry. Ó Tuathail went ahead with the the covert propaganda aspect of his investigation in The United Irishman. A graphic from The United Irishman: a modern jet bearing the logo ‘UI’ shoots down an old fashioned Fianna Fáil fighter. The propaganda campaign was run by George Colley with the full support of Jack Lynch but it ran out of steam after a few months and became redundant after Lynch decided to adopt a more conciliatory approach towards London. It was being shut down in November 1969 when Lynch and Colley received an unpleasant surprise from Ó Tuathail in The United Irishman. Jack Lynch and the head of his ‘truth squad’ George Colley. Even a cursory glimpse at what Ó Tuathail reported about the propaganda campaign in November 1969 raises serious questions about the intrigues that were swirling around Lynch at the time, and of which he was aware. They add weight to the charge that Lynch knew about the efforts by some of his ministers to import arms. THE IRA ARMY COUNCIL Ó Tuathail’s story began one wet dark October night in 1967 when he was driven from Dublin to the ghostly shell of a dilapidated mansion somewhere in County Meath. He was twenty-six at the time and employed at Belvedere College as an Irish teacher. His driver was an IRA volunteer. After a long trip, the driver took a right turn off the highway somewhere between Navan and Kells. They followed a pitch-black narrow lane to the old building where Ó Tuathail was escorted into a former ballroom. An oak tree was sprouting through the roof. Close by the members of the IRA’s Army Council sat around an illuminated table: Cathal Goulding, Seán Garland, Seán MacStíofáin, Seamus Costello, Tomás McGiolla, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Paddy Murphy. They also happened to be the de facto directors of The United Irishman, Sinn Féin’s monthly newspaper. Ó Tuathail was escorted to a former ballroom. An oak tree was sprouting through the roof. Close by the members of the IRA’s Army Council sat around an illuminated table Ó Tuathail had come to the publication’s attention as the contributor of a series of Irish language articles to the paper’s former editors Tony Meade and Denis Foley. After a vacancy had arisen for the post of editor, a consensus had emerged that he would be the best fit for the job. Some negotiations had taken place before the meeting in the old ballroom and this was the opportunity to iron out a few details and finalise the appointment. Ó Tuathail told the panel he did not want to join the IRA. This presented no problem to Goulding who was in the process of winding down the military wing of the Republican Movement. While it might have troubled MacStíofáin, he knew Ó Tuathail a little from Irish language circles and did not raise any objection to a fellow Irish language speaker securing the post as editor of the paper. Ó Tuathail justified his stance on the basis that if he became a member of the IRA, he would be subject to possible orders from his superiors and would not be able to enjoy complete freedom as its editor. There were a few exchanges around the table but no disagreement and he was offered the post with independence a term of his contract. Taking the job also meant a 50% reduction in the salary he was receiving from Belvedere. Ó Tuathail left the ballroom while the Army Council resumed its agenda for the night. Members of the interview panel: Cathal Goulding, Seán Garland and Tomás McGiolla. INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR Ó Tuathail was a wild success as editor. In 1968 John Mulcahy, editor of Hibernia, awarded him the investigative journalist of the year accolade. He earned it for reporting on issues which the mainstream media was

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Did Thatcher sanction the Finucane murder? It is now up to PM Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to order a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane to establish whether or not Margaret Thatcher gave Sir Patrick Walker, Director-General of MI5, the green light to murder him.

by Joseph de Búrca 26 October, 2019 0 Comments

Update: this article was published in October 2019. One year later the British government has refused to carry out a judicial inquiry. One of the stated reasons is that the PSNI and Police Ombudsman are reviewing the case. However, no review is about to take place. Patrick Finucane’s widow has responded by saying that “as long as there is breath” in her body she will continue to seek answers about her husband’s murder and that the decision by the British government was “quite a shock” and showed “startling arrogance at ignoring the highest court in the land”, i.e. the UK Supreme Court which has ruled that an inquiry should take place. Mrs Finucane has also pointed out that Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, did not go into any detail about why the decision to refuse the inquiry was made. It “does seem rather bizarre” she added “that he [Lewis] is insisting the police [will investigate]” as the PSNI later issued a statement saying there is nothing new to investigate. The Police Ombudsman has no funding for a review. In any event such a review would be pointless and it is a judicial inquiry that is required. Clearly, there are other reasons Lewis and his boss Boris Johnson are blocking an inquiry. Village’s 2019 investigation addressed some of the issues the Tories, MI5 and other elements of the British Establishment are trying to suppress. That article starts here: Introduction: Margaret Thatcher and the cold-blooded murder of an Irish lawyer On 12 February, 1989, the UDA assassinated Patrick Finucane, a highly-regarded Belfast solicitor, at his North Belfast home. Finucane, who was 38-years-old, was shot 14 times by two masked UDA gunmen who sledgehammered their way into his house. His wife Geraldine was also injured during the attack which took place while the couple was enjoying a meal with their young family. In 2019 the Supreme Court in London ruled that the British Government had failed to investigate the murder properly. The only tenable reason for this is because the murder was organised by MI5, the intelligence service attached to the Home Office. A retired Canadian judge, Peter Cory, investigated the murder on behalf of the British State. During his inquiry MI5 officers broke into his office and stole some of the evidence he had accumulated. Cory also told Geraldine Finucane that he had seen a document relevant to her husband’s case which was marked “for Cabinet eyes only”. Mrs Finucane knows no more. This raises the distinct possibility that her husband’s case was discussed in Whitehall in sinister circumstances before the murder. These revelations formed part of BBC NI’s compelling seven part Spotlight series, ‘The Secret History of the Troubles’. They have been ignored by the mainstream British media. Put simply, the finger of blame is now pointing at Margaret Thatcher. It now looks like she gave MI5 the green light to murder a perfectly respectable, law abiding lawyer. If Thatcher and her circle did not order the murder, why are the Tory top brass so terrified of an inquiry? MI5 was led by Sir Patrick Walker at the time the assassination was planned and executed. If MI5 was involved, it is inconceivable he did not call the shots – literally. When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air. Theresa May, who was Cameron’s Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, did not order a proper inquiry either when she took over at 10 Downing Street. The opportunity and duty to do the right thing and call one has passed to Theresa May’s successor, Boris Johnson, and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Yet, will they prove every bit as disdainful and corrupt as Blair, Cameron and May and continue the cover-up? Time is fast running out to hear what potentially key living witnesses have to offer about the Finucane case. The list includes Thatcher’s then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. Born in March 1930, he published a 524 page autobiography in 2003. Unfortunately, there is no entry under the word “Finucane” in its index. Village offers him the freedom of this website to inform our readers about what he know about the case, most particularly anything about “cabinet eyes only” documents. The evidence that continues to accumulate points to the probability that Finucane, a skilful lawyer, was targeted by the British State because he had mastered the intricacies of the Diplock Court system in NI and was representing his clients to the best of his very considerable abilities. A lot of Provos were walking free from court. In the mind of Thatcher and others in London, he had to have been a Provo and his death warrant was approved. In these circumstances, the task of assassinating him was passed to Walker and his gang of cutthroats at MI5. However, Finucane was not a Provo. On the contrary, he represented both Republicans and Loyalists. Who ever heard of a Provo securing the freedom of the Loyalist enemy? Moreover, he was married to a Protestant. Finucane was perfectly innocent of any involvement with the IRA although he was vilified as a member after his death. Insofar as the UDA was concerned, the kill-order was issued by Tommy ‘Tucker’ Lyttle, the UDA’s ‘brigadier’ or commander in West Belfast. Ian Hurst, who served with the then top secret Force Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) of the British Army, has stated “with cast iron certainty” that Lyttle was a British agent who was “handled” by the RUC’s Special Branch (RUCSB) using the codename “Rodney Stewart”. Lyttle himself

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SECOND UPDATE: Kincora boy abused by Mountbatten committed suicide months later. By David Burke.

by admin 26 August, 2019 0 Comments

This article was updated on 20 December 2019 with additional information about the ongoing refusal of the Gardai to release the log of a visit by the Warden of Kincora Boys’ Home to Mountbatten’s home in the Republic of Ireland (See section 2) and further evidence of a link between Mountbatten and the abuse of boys at Portora Royal School (See section 13). It has long been rumoured in Britain that Lord Louis Mountbatten was a paedophile. A book now on sale has dug up impressive new evidence confirming what Irish sources – including the Provisional IRA – have known for decades about his sexual predilections. So impressive is the new evidence that mainstream British media outlets such as The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times and The Sun are covering the story. The book contains sensational new information about Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. Curiously, while the British media are happy to report on Mountbatten’s abuse of boys generally, the sections in the book about Kincora are being ignored. The book is called The Mountbattens: their Lives & Loves, and is written by Andrew Lownie. The author is a respected and serious historian who was once a Conservative Party Westminster election candidate. He is still friendly with many Tory MPs including one recently retired Cabinet minister. Lownie is also author of a book on Guy Burgess entitled Stalin’s Englishman which had many interesting Irish angles to it. 1. LOWNIE WAS DENIED ACCESS TO CERTAIN IRISH STATE FILES ON MOUNTBATTEN During his research for the biography, Lownie tried to gain access to certain Irish State files including Garda files about Mountbatten only to be rebuffed. They may contain some interesting material. A Deputy Garda Commissioner who is now dead told Village a number of years ago that he had heard disturbing rumours about Mountbatten sexual activities before he was killed. Another Garda intelligence source says that he had heard stories that while Mountbatten had been living in India, he had had access to a 14 year old boy. If Garda Intelligence, led by Larry Wren, the Head of C3 during the 1970s, knew anything about Mountbatten’s predilections, or the presence of cars with Northern Ireland registration plates, or of teenage boys visiting his property at Classiebawn in the company of older men, he did nothing about any of it. The Gardai had a security at Mountbatten’s estate and must have noted the registration plates of visitors. This means that the Gardai should have logs for August 1977 which noted the arrival of the car belonging to Joe Mains, the Warden of the notorious Kincora Boys’ Home because he trafficked at least two boys to Classiebawn that month. If the logs still exist, will Garda Commissioner Drew Harris (ex-RUC and ex-PSNI link man to MI5) see to it that they are released and prove once and for all that an Anglo-Irish Vice Ring ring existed and it involved Joe Mains? While the Kincora scandal was exposed in 1980, it was not until 1982 that allegations about MI5 and MI6 involvement in the affair began to appear in the press. Wren became Garda Commissioner in early 1983. He had developed exceptionally close links with British Intelligence during his tenure at C3. If the logs of cars visiting Classiebawn prove to be missing, an inquiry should be held to see if they were destroyed under Wren’s watch. For further information about Wren’s strange career at C3 please visit https://villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2019/06/16570/ ‎ Hopefully the car registration logs still exists. Will the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London which is probing the existence of VIP child sex abuse request Drew Harris and the Irish Government to release the relevant logs for August 1977, and indeed for all of the summers Mountbatten stayed at Classiebawn? Mountbatten’s movements were of enormous importance to the Gardai in the 1970s. Typically, the first they would hear about his pending arrival in the country was a frantic call from MI5 in London to alert them that he had boarded the Hollyhead car ferry en route to Dublin. Mountbatten’s reputation inside the Garda was that of a man who was reckless about his safety. He often gave them a security headache. On one occasion he managed to disembark before the Gardai could reach the ferry and provide him with an escort. However, on this occasion his car broke down and they rushed to his aid inland. His vehicle was towed back to Garda HQ at the Phoenix Park in Dublin where it was repaired by the fleet service department. While the repairs were taking place, Mountbatten was given a tour of the HQ which had originally been built as a Royal Irish Constabulary complex. The Gardai who dealt with him found him to have been ‘a most charming man’. 2.UPDATE: LOGS NOT MISSING BUT DISCLOSURE CONTINUES TO BE DENIED BY THE GARDAI Since this story first appeared, the Gardai have persisted in their refusal to allow Andrew Lownie gain access to their Classiebawn car registration logs. They emailed Lownie on 7 October 2019 stating that files ‘generated during the course of a criminal investigation’ are considered confidential and hence they would not be releasing them. It is significant that they did not deny that the logs still exist. Lownie responded to this by writing back pointing out that the logs he was looking for related to August 1977, i.e. two years prior to Mountbatten’s assassination. There could have been no investigation of a ‘criminal’ nature in 1977 to an assassination that did not take place until 1979. The head of the Irish police, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris is a former RUC Special Branch officer who worked extensively with MI5. To date, he has not intervened to have the logs of Mains’ visit in August of 1977 extracted from the main file, copied and sent to Lownie. Instead, on 7 November the Gardai reverted to Lownie saying: ‘I wish to inform you that all such security logs form part of the Garda Investigation File, and for the reasons outlined in email