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
