Ireland's political and cultural magazine
By Deirdre Younge. Introduction. Freddie Scappaticci became an agent for British Army intelligence in 1978. A member of the IRA in Belfast he worked his way up the IRA hierarchy, eventually becoming second in command of the ‘Internal Security Unit”, known as the feared “nutting squad”. He joined the British Army’s newly-formed Force Research […]
By Deirdre Younge. Tom Oliver, a farmer from Riverstown, on the Cooley peninsula, was kidnapped, interrogated and murdered by the IRA in July 1991. They alleged he was a Garda informant. The murder by the IRA’s punishment squad didn’t only cause devastation for his family but split the tight-knit community in which he lived. […]