Jack Lynch Archives - Village Magazine

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The Artful Dodger: O’Malley nit-picks with RTE over timing trivia while still ignoring all the important questions about the Arms Crisis.

by admin 20 June, 2021 0 Comments

By Sean Brennan. I have just read the article in the Sunday Independent [20 June] concerning whether RTE contacted Des O’Malley first while the station was producing the GunPlot series. It is the second article which the Sunday Independent has produced about the issue. The earlier one – written by Des O’Malley – appeared on 13 June. The article in today’s Sunday Independent [20 June 2021] concerns RTE’s apology to O’Malley and his family over a statement it issued last week about who made the first move to establish contact. This is truly a case of a very minor issue being blown up out of all proportion. It hardly undermines the quality and brilliance of the GunPlot series. One thing is absolutely clear now: it is not correct to say – as Des O’Malley claimed on 13 June – that RTE “never attempted to contact” him. Even as he says himself, his son talked at length to the producers on his behalf. O’Malley seems upset that he was not approached before the GunPlot podcasts were broadcast. However, they were aired over nine weeks. Hence, there was plenty of time to make contact with O’Malley as they rolled out. Surely O’Malley does not think he can dictate when he should have been approached? Surely the producers should be able to dictate their own pace? I have spoken to David Burke, author of a recent book on the Arms Crisis. He featured heavily in episode 8 of the podcast series (about the two Arms Trials). He was not interviewed until after episode 6 had been broadcast. (Some quotes from him in the earlier podcasts were taken from a lengthy interview he gave for the TV version of GunPlot. The TV interview was recorded earlier in the year.) Overall, O’Malley’s complaints are bewildering. He has spent well over 40 years dodging questions about the Arms Crisis. So why does it matter how contact between him and RTE was established: he was never going to answer the hard questions which he has been ducking for decades. In December 1980 Vincent Browne, the editor of Magill magazine, raised a number of issues about the Arms Crisis which involved O’Malley. Browne wrote: “Magill attempted to have Mr. O’Malley explain his side of this story for the July [1980] issue but he declined to speak to us. The offer of space to state his case is still available.” O’Malley’s silence in the interim has been deafening. In his Sunday Independent article of 13 June, O’Malley gave the impression that he has always been open about his knowledge of the scandalous series of events that surround the Arms Crisis; moreover, that he was ever willing to share it if only asked. Further, that there was a malign conspiracy at RTE to censor him. Will he now agree to do a fullscale interview for an additional episode of the GunPlot podcast? Is he now finally prepared to answer any and all questions? Will he answer the questions Magill raised over 40 years ago? Will he now agree to do a fullscale interview for an additional episode of the GunPlot podcast? Is he now finally prepared to answer any and all questions? Will he answer the questions Magill raised over 40 years ago? Des O’Malley declined to be interviewed by RTE in 2021 on the grounds of ill health. (It has presumably passed because he is now capable of writing at length for the Sunday Independent.) Yet, while in good health, he spent decades avoiding the hard questions about the Arms Crisis. The process began in earnest in 1980 after Magill magazine described two meetings he had had: one with Charles Haughey and a second one, after it, with Peter Berry of the Department of Justice. They will be examined in detail later in this article. O’Malley has failed to answer questions raised by Vincent Browne in that edition for over 40 years. In the meantime, other questions have arisen for O’Malley to answer. None of them have been addressed by him. O’Malley failed to raise and answer the difficult Arms Crisis questions in 2001 during a four-part TV series broadcast on RTE which was dedicated to his life. He also had an opportunity to put what he knew about these events in his 2014 memoirs. Instead of a thorough analysis, his book was a huge disappointment to historians who attacked it for its lack of real content. Now, he is jumping on utter trivia about who rang whom first instead of answering the really important issues about this monumental scandal. Now, he is jumping on utter trivia about who rang who first instead of answering the really important issues about this monumental scandal. Village has published a number of articles concerning Des O’ Malley’s role in the events in 1970. These articles included a number of matters which Village believes have not been addressed and satisfactorily answered by O’Malley concerning his role and actions in 1970. See: Ducking all the hard questions. Des O’Malley has vilified an array of decent men and refuses to answer obvious questions about the Arms Crisis and the manner in which the Provisional IRA was let flourish while he was minister for justice. See also: The ‘Last Man Alive’ is still saying nothing. Des O’Malley’s silence about his role in the Arms Trials and Arms Crises of 1970 has become thunderous. And: Vilification Once More For the sake of clarity, I will summarise some of the more important questions which Des O’Malley needs to answer, starting in the next section. Please also note that extracts from the December 1980 edition of Magill which addressed the O’Malley-Haughey and O’Malley-Berry meetings are reproduced at the end of this article. A letter by author Michael Heney to the Sunday Independent is also reproduced towards the end of this piece. Mr Heney was replying to O’Malley’s article of 13 June last. Army Directive dated 6 February 1970. This directive documented an order which was given by the Minister for Defence,

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Politics

Vilification Once More

by admin 13 June, 2021 0 Comments

Des O’Malley, the Minister for Justice in 1970, continues to ignore the hard questions about the Arms Crisis. Instead, he persists in smearing anyone who dares to disagree with him. Some of his latest slurs question the integrity of those in RTÉ responsible for the ‘GunPlot’ series. It is now time to stop throwing the mud and answer the hard questions. By Sean Brennan. Introduction I have just read in the Sunday independent Des O’Malley’s article about GunPlot, the RTE television documentary on the Arms Crisis 1970 and the RTE Radio Podcast Series. Des has a problem in accepting the truth, particularly when the truth contradicts Des’s preferred narrative. The big lie as propagated by Jack Lynch and Jim Gibbons about what happened during the Arms Crisis in 1970 has finally been definitively nailed and, unusually, history has been rewritten. The purpose of the lie was to protect Jack Lynch’s position at all costs. Des O’Malley has given oxygen to this false narrative for the last 50 years. His article in today’s Sunday Independent is no surprise. O’Malley has made a career out of maligning decent men. He often does this in a cowardly way, waiting until the person to be maligned has died. O’Malley’s article today is practically the same as the article which he wrote on 27 September 2020. Both articles contain no evidence to support O’Malley’s assertions and are based purely on bluster and spoof. In contrast to O’Malley’s article, my article below contains incontrovertible documentary evidence from State papers that were hidden and suppressed by the State from the Arms Trials in 1970. RTE did invite Des O’Malley to participate in GunPlot. One of O’Malley’s claims in the Sunday Independent is that he was not asked to participate in GunPlot by RTE. RTE have just issued a statement which reveals he was invited but declined, instead nominating his son Eoin to talk on his behalf. Perhaps if he been man enough to face the cameras, he would have featured heavily in the TV broadcast and podcasts. However, that would also have meant he would have had to answer all the hard questions. According to the RTE statement: “The truth matters. And the truth is that RTÉ did make contact with Des O’Malley to ask him for an interview for the series. Des O’Malley declined to be interviewed by us and nominated his son Eoin to take part in the series in his place. The truth does matter.” Complete silence about O’Malley’s secret meeting with Charles Haughey. What might RTE have asked O’Malley? I wrote an article for Village Magazine on 17 April 2021, titled “The ‘Last Man Alive’ is still saying nothing. Des O’Malley’s silence about his role in the Arms Trials and Arms Crisis 1970 has become thunderous”. The ‘Last Man Alive’ is still saying nothing. Des O’Malley’s silence about his role in the Arms Trials and Arms Crises of 1970 has become thunderous. In my article I raised many very important questions for Des O’Malley to address but he has failed to reply. The most serious one concerns his secret meeting with Charlie Haughey just two weeks before Haughey stood trial for criminal conspiracy and sedition in the biggest criminal trial that this country has ever seen. Here we had the Minister for Justice meeting a man who stood accused of the most serious crimes surreptitiously, to discuss the evidence that a prosecution witness was to give at the forthcoming trial. Until O’Malley addresses our concerns as to why he met Charlie and what they discussed and why he forwarded Charlie’s requests to the witness, Peter Berry, the Secretary of the Department of Justice, there will be questions over O’Malley’s character. Haughey’s request was to ascertain whether Berry could be induced or intimidated or persuaded to change his evidence to suit Haughey’s case. There was also a subtle threat that Berry would be roasted while in the witness box by a particularly aggressive and brilliant lawyer, Seamus Sorohan. The fact that Berry said that O’Malley was biting his knuckles when he was relaying Charlie’s request to Berry would suggest that O’Malley was nervous. The question is: why was he nervous? Berry also said that he felt nauseated by the fact that O’Malley was pretending to Haughey that he was Haughey’s friend. Berry also said that he felt nauseated by the fact that O’Malley was pretending to Haughey that he was Haughey’s friend. What I cannot get over is the fact that O’Malley was prepared to meet Haughey behind Jack Lynch’s back. This was a disloyal and deceitful thing to do to someone who just four months earlier had promoted O’Malley to ministerial ranks. With friends like that who would need enemies? The arms importation operation was not ‘illegal’. Des O’Malley says that RTE put a gloss on the crisis that the then-Taoiseach Jack Lynch was somehow involved, that he knew all about the plot to import arms “illegally”. The jury at the Arms Trial held that the plot was not illegal. What is undeniable is that Lynch knew of the plan to import arms legally as follows: Berry told Lynch in Mount Carmel in October 1969 about the meeting in Bailieboro which was attended by Captain Jim Kelly and citizens from the North, and during which the plan to import guns was first discussed. Lynch confirmed the fact that Berry told him of this meeting to Jim Gibbons who was the Minister for Defence. Gibbons informed Colonel Hefferon of what Lynch told him. Casting doubts over Ben Briscoe While David Burke was carrying out research for his book on the arms crisis, ‘Deception and Lies, The Hidden History of the Arms Crisis 1970’, he spoke to Ben Briscoe, who was a friend of Jim Gibbons and George Colley. Briscoe told Burke, and later confirmed to the RTE Gunplot Podcast team, that he knew about the arms-importation operation months before the Arms Crisis erupted and that when the attempt to import the arms was

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The ‘Last Man Alive’ is still saying nothing. Des O’Malley’s silence about his role in the Arms Trials and Arms Crises of 1970 has become thunderous.

by admin 17 April, 2021 0 Comments

By Sean Brennan The purpose of this article is to examine Des O’ Malley’s Role in the events which are commonly known as The Arms Crisis and The Arms Trials 1970. The Arms Crisis erupted during the early hours of 6 May 1970, when a press release issued by the Government Information Service announced that the Taoiseach Jack Lynch had sacked his two most powerful Ministers, Neil Blaney and Charles Haughey, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Finance respectively. The Minister for Local Government, Kevin Boland had also resigned in protest at the manner in which his colleagues, Blaney and Haughey had been dismissed from Government. I should state at the outset that I am the son of Paudge Brennan, Fianna Fáil TD for Wicklow for 25 years, who resigned his position as a junior Minister reporting to Boland in sympathy with these other resignations. The reason for the sackings was allegations that Blaney and Haughey had been involved in a conspiracy, carried out behind the Taoiseach’s back and without his knowledge, to illegally import guns and ammunition. It was also rumoured that the guns were for the IRA. There were also imputations that the purpose of arming the IRA was to abolish partition, by force. The IRA hardly existed at this stage and was mocked by Northern nationalists with the taunt “IRA equals I Ran Away”. It was further suggested that Blaney and Haughey were involved in some sort of coup d’etat, whereby it was their intention to overthrow Jack Lynch as Taoiseach. I will prove in this article that this, conventional, narrative of the Arms Crisis was a deliberately fabricated lie. This lie was concocted by Jack Lynch in order to protect his own position. It turns out that Lynch was an inveterate liar. In fact, the author Michael Heney has shown that Jack Lynch lied on more than 30 occasions in matters pertaining to the Arms Crisis and Arms Trials. Lynch was aided and abetted in his lies and deceit by his Ministerial colleague Jim Gibbons who perjured himself while giving evidence at the Arms Trials. It has been commented on by colleagues and friends of Gibbons that he was never the same man again after giving the perjured evidence that he gave at the Arms Trials. Some friends even went as far as saying that Gibbons was a broken man after the arms trials. Gibbons was a practising catholic and it would appear that he suffered severe bouts of guilt and remorse for his dishonest actions during the arms trial. Lynch on the other hand continued to perpetuate the lie about the arms crisis and appeared to be quite comfortable in doing so. However, all may not have been as it seemed. Maybe Lynch was not as comfortable with this big lie as it appears. To be fair to Jim Gibbons, while his behaviour in perjuring himself at the two trials can never be excused nor forgiven, he too may have been a victim of Lynch’s deceit. It might appear that Lynch was protecting Gibbons when he did not sack him together with Blaney and Haughey on 6 May 1970. But this was not the case. Lynch was protecting himself. Lynch could not sack Gibbons as this would risk Gibbons declaring Lynch’s knowledge of the approved arms plan and Lynch’s position would be exposed. By ‘protecting Gibbons’, Lynch was effectively setting Gibbons up and manipulating him into a position where he would be ‘pressurised’ into perjuring himself while being cross-examined by the top lawyers in the country a total of eight times. This must have been humiliating for Jim Gibbons and would have had a devastating impact on him emotionally and psychologically. When Gibbons was promoted to Agriculture and not sacked on 6 May 1970 nobody told him that he would have to perjure himself. If he had known that that was going to be the price of holding on to his position in Cabinet he might very well have taken a different position and the course of Irish history would have been a lot different. Gibbons did Jack’s dirty work, paid the price for doing that and Jack kept his hands clean. Jack always kept his hands clean. Lynch was also aided and abetted in the continuation of his lies and deceit by the media and lazy journalism. The only journalist who contested Lynch’s dishonest narrative was Vincent Browne, who wrote about the Arms Crisis and Arms Trials in Magill Magazine in 1980 using as his source the diaries of Peter Berry, the former Secretary of the Department of Justice, who was a key player in the events. Browne found it impossible to get an Irish printer to print these editions of Magill as printers were fearful of crossing the government and the consequences that this might have for their business and future printing contracts. So these issues of the magazine had to be printed in the UK. It has been suggested that the reason for the media acting in concert with Lynch’s lies is that the media, particularly RTE and the Irish Times had been infiltrated by Official/IRA, Official Sinn Féin and Workers Party members such as Dick Walsh, who reviled FF and in particular Charles Haughey. Last Year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Arms Crisis/Trials. Such Anniversaries normally involve acknowledging the relevant events or occasions, celebrating them and then moving on. However, the fiftieth anniversary of the Arms Crisis was different to the extent that it marked a complete change and correction of the false received narrative of the events that had been promulgated for the previous fifty years. This revision was as a direct result of two brilliantly researched books on the Arms Crisis written by two experts on the subject. The books, ‘The Arms Crisis of 1970 – The Plot That Never Was’ and ‘Deception and Lies – The Hidden History of The Arm Crisis 1970’ written by Michael Heney and David Burke respectively are based on

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Paudge Brennan, the forgotten man of the Arms Crisis

by admin 29 December, 2020 0 Comments

A note from the editor: This article is about the late Paudge Brennan, the Fianna Fáil Minister who resigned a little over 50 years ago after the eruption of the Arms Crisis. It is written by his son, Sean. Not surprisingly, it is partisan. It does, nevertheless, yield an insight into a perspective on Irish politics that has been shielded by the mainstream media, especially The Irish Times and RTE. Not a word of it has been changed. Introduction Shortly before Neil Blaney died, he went for a meal with some very close friends. Blaney reminisced about his political career. When it came to the period of the Arms Crises 1970 Blaney told the others that as far as he was concerned the unsung heroes of that period were “Kevin and Paudge”. He was of course referring to his two closest political friends and colleagues, Kevin Boland and Paudge Brennan. Paudge Brennan was my father. When the events of the 1970 Arms Crises are discussed, the name Paudge Brennan is rarely mentioned. However, Paudge’s political career was hugely influenced by these events. Shortly after Neil Blaney was sacked on 6 May 1970, Paudge tendered his resignation as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government. At the time, the media generally reported that my father resigned out of loyalty to Neil Blaney. This was not the case. While my father was always a very loyal colleague and friend, he did not resign out of loyalty to Blaney or Haughey but rather out of loyalty to his own principles and high personal standards. He did not wish to be part of a set-up which was riddled with deception, lies, treachery and betrayal. He knew that Jack Lynch’s actions in sacking Blaney and Haughey for their involvement in the government-approved plan to import arms was treacherous and dishonest and motivated by the then Taoiseach’s desire to preserve his own position at all costs. It was a huge act of betrayal by Lynch of his cabinet colleagues. Because of Paudge Brennan’s very close relationship with Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland, who were key players in the events leading up to the ministerial sackings, I believe that he was very much aware of the arms importation plan. He would also have been aware of the pivotal role played by the Minister for Defence, Jim Gibbons, in the events surrounding the arms importation plan. My father also believed that Lynch was aware of the plan to bring in the arms but then, when the plan was in danger of being uncovered, Lynch denied all knowledge of it in order to preserve his own position – and betrayed his ministerial colleagues, Blaney, Haughey and Micheál O’Moráin. Paudge Brennan did not want to be part of that deceit. Not only did he sacrifice his position as Parliamentary Secretary but due to the fact that there were now four ministerial vacancies and only six Parliamentary Secretaries of which he was one of the most senior, there was a very strong probability that he would have been appointed a minister in May 1970. After Fianna Fáil won the 1969 General Election there was much speculation by political commentators that Paudge Brennan was going to be appointed the Minister for Defence. This did not happen, however – and Jim Gibbons got this job. If Paudge Brennan had been appointed the Minister for Defence in 1969, then history would have been very different and there might not have been an arms trial. Lynch would not have been able to manipulate my father into colluding with him in telling lies and covering up Lynch’s role in the arms plan. My father was far too honourable to behave in such a deceitful manner. TOM BRENNAN Paudge Brennan’s father, Tom Brennan, was the Commandant of the 4th Battalion of the North Wexford Brigade of the IRA during the War of Independence. He took the anti-treaty side in the civil war. When my father was a baby his mother brought him by pony and trap to Enniscorthy so that his father, who was in prison, could see his young son. However, the prison guard on duty refused to allow my grandmother and my father in to see my grandfather. Tom Brennan was interned in Tintown Prison Camp at the Curragh. During his time there he went on a three- week hunger and thirst strike. One of his fellow internees in Tintown was Niall Blaney whose son Neil became a great friend and political colleague of Tom’s son Paudge many year’s later. Paudge was one of 10 children and grew up in the village of Carnew in south County Wicklow. The village population consisted mainly of pro-Free State supporters, with the result that my father, being a son of a Republican, would have been an outsider in political terms. However, he was well able to stand his ground and look after himself and was hugely proud of and loyal to his father. My grandfather Tom Brennan was asked to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1927 General Election in the constituency of Wicklow. As he was originally from Wexford, he felt that he was in some way a blow-in in Wicklow and he was therefore not comfortable standing for election in that constituency. By 1943, however, he agreed to be a candidate for Fianna Fáil in Wicklow in that year’s General Election. Kevin Boland’s first time in Carnew was when he accompanied his father Gerry Boland to Carnew to persuade Tom Brennan to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1943 General Election. While Tom failed to get elected in 1943, he was elected in the general election in 1944. My father was a very good footballer and played corner forward for Wickow for many years during the 1940s and 1950s. Wicklow had some very good players during that period. My father took over the family’s successful building-contracting business when his father was elected a TD in 1944. The contracting business specialised in

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Ducking all the hard questions. Des O’Malley has vilified an array of decent men and refuses to answer obvious questions about the Arms Crisis and the manner in which the Provisional IRA was let flourish while he was minister for justice.

by admin 22 November, 2020 0 Comments

The print edition of Village magazine posed a number of questions to Des O’Malley about the Arms Crisis but he ignored them. They arose out of an article he had published in the Sunday Independent in September. He also used that article as a platform to attack recent research on the crisis without addressing any of the evidence which has appeared in two new books. His Sunday Independent article vilified the organisers of the Citizen Defence Committees (CDC) alleging they were supporters of the Provisionals. He has yet to withdraw the smears about the CDC organisers. The original article with a small amount of new material is reproduced below. By David Burke. Introduction. Des O’Malley served as Chief Whip and Junior Minister for Defence to Jack Lynch’s government in 1969 and 1970. In May 1970 he was appointed as Minister for Justice by Lynch, though he was only 31 years of age – just as the Arms Crisis was erupting. Despite his youth and inexperience, Lynch chose to place him in this crucial position. On top of this, the appointment was made as the Provisional IRA was learning to crawl. The Provos maintained a low profile throughout 1970 and some of 1971 while its leaders focused on recruiting volunteers in competition with the Marxist Official IRA. So low was its profile that Martin McGuinness joined the Officials unaware that the Provisionals even existed. Cleary, O’Malley did not appreciate what was afoot either. O’Malley has recently descended from retirement claiming to be “duty bound” to set the record straight on new revelations about the controversial arms importation attempt that sparked the Arms Crisis. The new – and not so new – evidence about the crisis O’Malley contests portrays his hero Jack Lynch in a very poor light. It indicates that Lynch knew about the arms importation that sparked the Arms Crisis; moreover, that it was a secret but legal manoeuvre of the State. In making his case O’Malley pointedly vilified the memory of Captain James Kelly and a multitude of others in the Citizen Defence Committees (CDCs) whom he has recklessly and inaccurately portrayed as midwives to the Provisional IRA. Unfortunately, Des O’Malley has not engaged with any of the evidence which has emerged in recent times, not to mention that which has been in existence for decades. His account is a conceited fantasy in which he and Lynch saved the State from civil war despite daunting odds and the treachery of disloyal Fianna Fáil colleagues who were aided and abetted by menacing allies in military intelligence. All he seems prepared to offer is an assertion that Lynch was a man of great integrity incapable of deceit and that – for some bizarre reason – the authors of two new books on the Arms Crisis – Michael Heney and myself – have claimed that Jack Lynch was a party to a plot to arm the Provisionals. This is an astonishing misrepresentation for neither of us made any claim that even remotely chimes with this. I would like to test O’Malley’s account of his struggle to save Ireland from doom by reference to a number of documents which contradict his mythmaking. The Smoking Gun Document That Refers to the Taoiseach. How, if the arms importation operation which was at the centre of the Arms Crisis was conducted behind Lynch’s back, does O’Malley explain the content of a document which came into existence on 10 February 1970? It was prepared by the Department of Defence. It was withheld from the jury at the Arms Trials but eventually released by the National Archives. It was reproduced in a book by Angela Clifford entitled ‘Military Aspects of Ireland’s Arms Crisis of 1969-70’ in 2006. In other words, O’Malley has had at least 14 years to provide his account of it. He ignored its existence in his memoirs which appeared in 2014. He did not mention it in his recent Sunday Independent article. O’Malley was the Junior Minister for Defence when the document – from his Department, remember – came into existence. The document specifically referred to the Taoiseach Jack Lynch and was entitled Addendum to the Memo of 10/2/70, Ministerial Directive to CF: It 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 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”. There is no sign this document, despite it’s unimpeachable pedigree, has yet registered with O’Malley. Question 1: How do you reconcile this document with your assertion that Jack Lynch did not know about attempts to supply weapons to the citizens of the North? The ‘Secret’ Military Document That Refers to the 150 Rifles Which Were Stored in Dundalk. It was Withheld From the Arms Trial jury. In early April 1970 panic swept across Ballymurphy, a Catholic estate in Belfast, that the British Army was about to abandon the Catholics who lived there to an onslaught by Loyalist murder and arson gangs: in other words, a repeat of the violent killings and forced evictions of August 1969. The fear proved ill-founded and was short lived. While the panic was abroad, (senior) Minister for Defence James Gibbons ordered the transport of some of the Irish Army rifles that had been set aside under the orders given in February 1970. He did so without input from Jack Lynch who could not be contacted. A transport of army trucks with 500 rifles, 80,000 rounds of ammunition and respirators was sent to the North but did not cross the border. Instead, the trucks parked at Dundalk Barracks in the Republic. According to a Military Intelligence file, there was insufficient room to store all 500 of the rifles so 350 were returned to Dublin. The remaining 150 were kept in Dundalk. This contradicts the Gibbons-O’Malley-Lynch version of events which would have us believe

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‘Deception and Lies’: A thrilling history that confirms Lynch not Haughey as unprincipled and explains how a named IRA double agent deceived the nation and the record.

by admin 21 September, 2020 0 Comments

Conor Lenihan reviews ‘Deception and Lies – the Hidden History of the Arms Crisis 1970’ by David Burke: the arms crisis was a legitimate operation of state which history has falsely judged as a nefarious adventure by Haughey who went on trial 50 years ago this week for alleged illegal gunrunning. The year 1970 was a pivotal year for Northern Ireland. The political earthquake discharged by the evidence of the Arms Trial left the career of Charles J Haughey in tatters. While acquitted of charges that he had trafficked weaponry for the benefit of the IRA, the public belief that he had done so left a shadow of suspicion over him that even to this day it is difficult for new evidence to dissipate. Haughey clawed his way back to power and in the process effectively toppled his nemesis in the Arms Trial – the then Taoiseach Jack Lynch. The main career victims of the Arms Crisis were those on the republican wing of Fianna Fáil, most prominently Neil Blaney, Kevin Boland and the less celebrated Wicklow TD Paudge Brennan. However, in human terms, the biggest victim was Captain James Kelly, who as a career army officer, dutifully carried out his duties in the military intelligence section of the defence forces. Though acquitted in the Trial, Captain Kelly and his family were on the receiving end of state harassment and persecution for years afterwards. It was only after his death that the state, through a statement from then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, frankly acknowledged he had done no wrong. ‘While acquitted of charges that he had trafficked weaponry for the benefit of the IRA, the public belief that Haughey had done so left a shadow of suspicion over him that even to this day it is difficult for new evidence to dissipate’ At the heart of the Arms Crisis was an attempt by the government in Dublin to grapple with a situation that was veering out of control in the north with the potentially lethal possibility of a “doomsday” situation or civil war on the island of Ireland pitching Catholic against Protestant. From the summer of 1969 feelings were running high. Loyalist mobs ran amok in response to the minority Catholic population’s embrace of peaceful protests through the civil rights agitation. Catholic homes were burnt in what had all the appearance of an organised pogrom perpetrated by the sectarian elements in the loyalist community. If the Dublin government were wrong-footed by the crisis so too were the forces of moderate unionism as well as the entrenched interests of the Stormont government. Extreme loyalists, including the Reverend Ian Paisley, were brutally outflanking the moderates by exaggerating the influence of the IRA and suggesting the civil rights marches were being orchestrated by republican paramilitaries. Against this background and failed efforts by the Dublin government to escalate the crisis at UN level ministers launched efforts to deal with the plight of the nationalists in the north. The Irish army was ordered to the border and relief camps set up for those who were fleeing the early stages of the conflict. Delegations from the north demanded that the southern government supply them with guns so that they could defend their communities. The Taoiseach Jack Lynch agreed to supply weapons, if the situation worsened, and initiated arrangements through his Minister for Defence Jim Gibbons that the army would discreetly acquire weaponry that could not be traced to Dublin should the “doomsday” scenario occur. Captain Jim Kelly, an assistant to the head of Army Intelligence, was given the lead role to travel north, assess the situation on the ground, and ensure that citizen defence committees got the assistance they needed. These committees had only come about because the IRA’s campaign, under the leadership of Cathal Goulding, had become political and Marxist with little actual military capability to defend the community. Captain Kelly was, with the full knowledge of ministers, putting together a covert operation of state that was designed to get weapons and make them available to suitable people north of the border. Too many people got to know of his operation as it progressed. ‘David Burke’s new book on the Arms Crisis slots in a final, but vital, piece of the jigsaw. Why was it that, while the Irish army were fully involved in the operation, the Department of Justice and Garda intelligence were left out of the loop?’ David Burke’s new book on the Arms Crisis slots in a final, but vital piece of the jigsaw, into play. Why was it that, while the Irish army were fully involved in the operation, the Department of Justice and Garda intelligence were left out of the loop? It appears that the then Secretary of the Department of Justice Peter Berry, an overpowering figure, was simply not trusted to be involved given his paranoia on security matters generally. Few of the books to date have focused on Berry’s motivations and weaknesses. ‘David Burke, for the first time ever, explains why Berry and the Special Branch moved to close down what, as a matter of political and historical fact, was a legitimate operation of state, approved by the Taoiseach’ Berry used his considerable influence to blow the whistle on the operation. David Burke, for the first time ever, explains why Berry and the Special Branch moved to close down what, as a matter of political and historical fact, was a legitimate operation of state, approved by the Taoiseach and supervised by his most important ministers. ‘The reason is truly startling: Seán MacStíofáin – the first Chief of Staff of the Provisional wing of the IRA played the Special Branch – to damage Goulding’s Marxist wing of the IRA and perhaps to split, and corrupt history’s view of, Fianna Fáil’ The reason is truly startling and the book takes on the aspect of a thriller as Burke posits the figure of “the deceiver” and finally unmasks him later in the book as (spoiler alert)…Seán MacStíofáin, the first Chief of

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Traduced (updated version): John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination perpetrated by the British Secret Service, MI6, and was placed under MI5 surveillance in Dublin with the assistance of the Gardaí.

by admin 3 August, 2020 0 Comments

By David Burke. UPDATE: See also Just declassified UK memo on John Hume reveals interest of PM John Major’s top civil servants in “possible press stories regarding John Hume’s private life”. John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination in the early 1970s perpetrated by British spies. It was spearheaded by an individual called Hugh Mooney, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, who once worked as a sub-editor for the Irish Times. Mooney belonged to the ‘Special Editorial Unit’ (SEU) of the Information Research Department (IRD). It was responsible for the production of black propaganda. Mooney’s boss was the IRD’s Special Operations Adviser, Hans Welser, a veteran of the WW2 Political Warfare Executive. The IRD was part of the Foreign Office and worked closely with the British Secret Service, MI6, which is also attached to the Foreign Office. The IRD operated from a building in London called Riverbank House. Although Mooney worked at Army HQ Northern Ireland under the cover title of ‘Information Adviser to the GOC’, official documents show that in 1972 he was reporting to the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at Stormont – not to the GOC. This means that his activities were known about at a very high level. Prior to his attack on Hume, Mooney had worked in Bermuda where his colonial and racist side had come to the fore, a story for another day. Mooney and his associates sought to depict John Hume: as part of a communist conspiracy to turn Ireland into Europe’s Cuba; as a supporter of the IRA; as a fundraiser for the IRA; as a thief who stole charitable donations; as a man for whom a warrant had been issued for his arrest in 1972. There may have been other smears which have not yet been detected. Unintentionally, Her Majesty’s spies and their colleagues in the British Army also made his task of achieving peace extraordinarily difficult at key moments in his career, such as those of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 in his native Derry. Rogue elements inside MI5 also plotted with the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) to tear down the 1974 Power-Sharing Executive of which Hume was minister for commerce. This left Hume without a reliable source of income for a number of years and could have forced him to abandon politics for a job outside of it. Throughout his career he was placed under surveillance, something that was tantamount to treating him as a subversive. In the 1980s the Gardai in the Republic of Ireland helped MI5 bug some of his conversations. A house where his deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, stayed in 1983 was also bugged by the Gardai. In the 1990s MI5 opposed his discussions with Gerry Adams. Hume was a towering political figure of immense courage, foresight and integrity. Boris Johnson has paid him a lavish tribute, praising his “strong sense of social justice” and saying that without him “there would have been no Belfast or Good Friday Agreement”. Despite Johnson’s fine words, the Tories did their best to stand in Hume’s way during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In fact it is not an exaggeration to say that they made his life hell. HEATH IN THE 1970s: Ted Heath served as Tory prime minister, 1970-1974. He sent his black propaganda operatives to Ireland to conduct dirty trick campaigns in the early 1970s. It was they who ran the smear campaign against Hume. Ironically, it is Heath’s legacy which is in now in tatters while Hume’s has never soared higher. Heath’s reputation was destroyed by a report published by the Wiltshire Police in 2017 about his abuse of boys, one as young as 14. THATCHER IN THE 1980s: Margaret Thatcher, Tory PM, 1979-90, let MI5 (attached to the Home Office) spy on Hume in gross violation of his human rights. Some of this surveillance was carried out in the Burlington Hotel in the Republic of Ireland with the assistance of the Republic’s special branch. The first steps of the peace process were taken in the middle of Thatcher’s premiership in 1986 when a back channel was opened between Gerry Adams and Charles Haughey via Fr. Alex Reid. Haughey ‘s Northern Ireland adviser Martin Mansergh was a pivotal figure in the process. Thatcher’s battery of spies do not appear to have had any inkling of what was afoot. Had Thatcher discovered this development, it is – to put it mildly – likely she would have denounced it. The Haughey-Adams process was so secret that even John Hume did not know about it when he entered the process later and expressed disbelief when he finally discovered this fact. MAJOR IN THE 1990s: Thatcher’s successor at 10 Downing Street, John Major, PM 1990-97, was not supportive of the next phase of the process which became known as ‘Hume-Adams’. In 1993 and 1994 key elements of the press in the Republic denounced Hume’s dialogue with Adams, in particular Conor Cruise O’Brien who wrote for Ireland’s Sunday Independent. O’Brien was close to a number of dubious intelligence figures such as Dame Daphne Park, a self-confessed MI6 dirty tricks expert and David Astor, one of MI6’s most important assets in the media. O’Brien knew them through the British-Irish Association (BIA) which Astor had helped set up in the 1970s, and which Park co-chaired in the 1980s. It was Astor who appointed O’Brien as editor of The Observer. Haughey considered the BIA a British Intelligence front and forbade Fianna Fail figures (such as Brian Lenihan) from attending it. How much O’Brien was influenced by his friends in the British Establishment is an imponderable. Major, who had an exceptionally close relationship with his spymasters, was not supportive of what Hume, Adams and Dublin were trying to achieve either. Eventually, Bill Clinton had to intervene to twist Major’s arm and move the process forward. Still, MI5 tried to derail it. Haughey’s successor as taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, 1992-94, became so concerned about the hostility of MI5 that he told Major

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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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General

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