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PB February/March 2024 February/March 2024 17
W
hen Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn
Féin is asked if the Provisional
IRA still exists, her unwavering
response is to say that it has
gone away. When asked about
the existence of the Army Council, the ruling
body of the Republican movement, she has said
that: “Nobody directs Sinn Féin other than Sinn
Féin members and the Sinn Féin leadership. I’m
the leader of Sinn Féin, I know who runs Sinn
Féin”.
If, in saying the IRA has ‘gone away’, McDonald
means it has ceased to exist, she is sorely
mistaken. The members of the present-day Army
Council, which meets approximately twice a
year, would demur. The IRA and the Army Council
still exist, albeit not on a war footing.
In the extremely unlikely event of a clash
between Sinn Féin and the Army Council, the
former will jump to the latter’s tune.
1. Republican dogmatists
believe the Army Council is
the legitimate government of
Ireland
The pre-eminent position of the Army Council
over Sinn Féin is rooted in Republican dogma
and history.
The IRA emerged as a ‘single issue’
organisation dedicated to the obstruction of
every element of British power in Ireland, neither
endorsing nor opposing any other cause,
national or international.
Those who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty
over a century ago, did so because they viewed
it as the betrayal of their campaign to end British
rule in Ireland and create an independent
32-county republic. They perceived those who
supported the Treaty as disloyal to the ideal of
the Republic. The anti-Treaty Republicans
recognised the First Dáil and, to a lesser extent,
the Second Dáil. After that, they decided to
boycott the Dáil. This became known as the
policy of abstentionism. In the 1930s, an IRA
convention gathered a number of those elected
to the second Dáil and resolved that the Army
Council of the IRA had become the seat of
sovereignty, i.e., the legitimate ruling authority
on the island, pending the attainment of full
independence. While some Republicans later
came to believe it was acceptable to enter Dáil
Eireann on purely strategic grounds, they never
rejected the authority of the Army Council.
The Army Council did not cease to exist after
the Good Friday Agreement.
If the IRA has disbanded completely, as some
in Sinn Féin say, that would mean the Army
Council is no longer the flame-carrier of the
‘true’ Republic and Sinn Féin had turned its back
on its core principle. More pointedly, it would
mean that the ‘true’ republic did not exist. That
has not happened. On the contrary, the Army
Council still calls the shots. If there is a clash
between the leaders of Sinn Féin and the Army
Council, the latter will prevail.
The Army Council has no interest whatever in
The role of the Army
Council of the IRA in
‘peacetime’
By David Burke
exerting its authority over Sinn Féin policy in
general. There is no known friction between the
two bodies. It would be laughable to suggest
that the Army Council meddles with Sinn Féin’s
positions on issues such as fishing, agriculture,
climate change or housing.
It is concerned with a small number of very
narrow issues such as the strategy for the
holding of a poll on reunification. Also, if Sinn
Féin considers entering into a coalition
arrangement with another political party after
the next general election, the Army Council will
control what Sinn Féin chooses to do. It would
not, for example, let Sinn Féin enter into a
programme for government that ruled out a
reunification poll.
The notion that Sinn Féin is led by a team of
vibrant young politicians is, in large part, an
illusion. The key strings are pulled by a group of
nameless men in their seventies. Some of them
have held elected positions within Sinn Féin,
reinforcing the cohesion between the two
bodies.
NEWS
18 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 19
2. For once the PSNI is not lying
It is not as if the PSNI always manages to tell the
truth. In August 2015, however, it did state
correctly that, while the IRA no longer existed as
a paramilitary organisation, some of its
structures remained intact. None of its activities
involved breaking the law.
The British government has no diculty in
telling lies about Ireland when it suits its
purpose. However, the conclusion of the
Assessment on Paramilitary Groups in NI, an
inquiry set up by the British government, was
also correct when it concluded, in October 2015,
that “all the main paramilitary groups operating
during the Troubles are still in existence,
including the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red
Hand Commando, the Ulster Defence
Association, the Provisional IRA, and the Irish
National Liberation Army”. But, it added, “the
leaderships of the main paramilitary groups
[including the IRA’s] are committed to peaceful
means to achieve their political objectives”.
3. The function of the Army
Council in ‘peacetime’
During the Troubles, the IRA held conventions
which were attended by IRA representatives
from all over Ireland. They directed policy and
elected an Army Executive. In turn, the Executive
elected the ruling Army Council. The IRA has
held at least one Army convention since it
allegedly disbanded. It took place in the 1990s
and gave the Army Council authority to deal with
the IRA arsenal in a flexible manner.
At least one meeting of the Army Council has
taken place in the Gaeltacht in Meath.
The key figures in the 2024 Army Council are
well known to Garda intelligence.
The belief inside the Garda HQ is that while
the IRA’s military structures remain operational,
the organisation is not engaged in criminal
activity.
The Provisional Republican movement still
has two wings, Provisional Sinn Féin (politics)
and the Provisional IRA (military). The
movement’s strategy for decades was the
attainment of a United Ireland via an Armalite in
one hand and the ballot box in the other. The
focus since the Good Friday Agreement has been
on the ballot box.
The primary function of the Army Council is to
manage, direct and control the overarching
strategy of the Republican movement.
It maintains contact with its allies abroad
including ETA in Spain.
Another task of the Army Council is to oversee
the administration of the IRA’s financial empire.
Yet another function is to maintain active IRA
volunteers in place as a deterrent to anyone with
hostile intentions towards Sinn Féin, or former
or serving IRA members. The mere existence of
the IRA is also likely to keep dissident
Republicans and Loyalist mavericks in line.
In the unlikely event that the peace process
broke down, the Army Council would act as
midwife to the rebirth of the IRA.
4. A political fig leaf
The charade that the Army Council no longer
exists serves a number of useful purposes.
Foremost, it is a fig leaf which allows Unionists
and the British government to work with
Republicans. After the next election, the faction
inside Fianna Fail which is open to a coalition
with Sinn Féin will rely upon the fiction that the
Army Council has disbanded.
5. A ballot box in one hand, an
Armalite in the bunker
The guns which the Provisionals accumulated
during the Troubles, often with enormous
diculty, have not all been ‘put beyond use’ as
Sinn Féin claims. They are well oiled and
carefully stored in bunkers around the island.
The Army Council maintains this arsenal
because it cannot countenance a repeat of what
happened to Nationalist communities in the late
1960s. Catholic families were harassed and
driven from their homes by Loyalist vigilantes.
This culminated in a murderous onslaught on
Nationalists led by the RUC, B-Specials and
Loyalist militants in August 1969. The IRA had
very few weapons at its disposal to protect
Nationalist communities. The IRA in Belfast
dispatched volunteers on a nationwide search
for arms for defensive purposes. Some of the
weapons they dug up proved rusty and useless.
Incredible as it may seem now, members of Fine
Gael and even gardaí supplied Nationalists with
weapons in late 1969.
6. A British surrender in all but
name
The Deep State in the UK has surrendered to the
IRA in all but name. A poll on a United Ireland will
take place over the next decade.
The power-brokers at the Northern Ireland
Oce (NIO) during the Troubles were drawn
from dark corners. The key figures in it were
members of MI5, MI6, the IRD (propaganda) and
the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The modern
spooks who control the NIO are focused on
finding a way of lowering the Union Jack in
Northern Ireland. One of the rooms at the NIO
HQ in London contains maps of the North which
illustrate demographic changes. They are
updated regularly. Some trusted visitors to the
building are asked if they have any innovative
ideas that might accelerate Britain’s
disengagement.
The Army Council knows that time is on its
side. This may explain the IRA’s
uncharacteristically soft response to the theft
by it of intelligence files from the PSNI special
branch in 2002. An IRA unit led by the late Bobby
Storey, the Provisional IRA’s former Director of
Intelligence, penetrated Castlereagh holding
centre in east Belfast on St Patrick’s Day, 2002.
Garda intelligence sources believe that the
18 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 19
event was masterminded by Martin McGuinness.
Castlereagh was the nerve centre of all PSNI
anti-terrorist operations. A few days before the
break-in, the special branch had moved its most
confidential files during a renovation of
Castlereagh. Yet, the intruders knew precisely
where to go: Room ’two-twenty’. They easily
overpowered the duty officer inside and
absconded with the files. These records
contained the names of PSNI special branch
agent handlers – including their home addresses
and the codenames of the informers they
handled. The IRA discovered that they had
acquired details of informers working inside
both Republican and Loyalist paramilitary
groups. Some of the informers were referred to
by their codenames. Provisional IRA intelligence
personnel were undoubtedly able to decipher
many of the codenames.
Millions of pounds were spent relocating
police ocers whose personal details were
found during the raid.
The operation aorded IRA intelligence an
opportunity to rid the movement of informers.
The raid was the worst British intelligence
disaster since the death of 25 senior RUC and
MI5 ocers in the Chinook helicopter crash of
1994 at the Mull of Kintyre.
While the PSNI special branch and MI5 work
together closely, it is undoubtedly the case that
MI5 runs agents inside the Republican
movement without any involvement of the PSNI.
Hence, the IRA can hardly claim that it uncovered
all of the informers inside its ranks. The MI5
informers are presumably of a far higher status
than those run by the PSNI. Nonetheless, the
Castlereagh raid stands as a stark warning to
future possible informers.
The IRA denied that it was behind the
Castlereagh break-in. No one believed it.
Incredibly, none of these informers have been
executed.
There are a number of reasons for the leniency.
First, the Army Council may not want to break its
ceasefire. Second, there may be an
understanding with British intelligence that
since Britain wants to leave, the informers no
longer pose a threat to the IRA. Thirdly, the Army
Council may have been offered further
concessions by the Deep State in return for the
safety of the informers.
There are other indications of clandestine
rapprochement between the Army Council and
the Deep State. Sinn Féin’s response to the
appointment of Drew Harris as Garda
Commissioner in 2018, while not welcoming was
not hostile either. McDonald told the Dáil that
Harris “must demonstrate that he in no way
subscribes to the toxic, vindictive policing
culture which necessitated the disbandment of
the RUC”.
Yet, Harris represents everything against
which the old Provisional Sinn Féin once stood.
He had served as a liaison between the RUC/
PSNI and MI5 and was the ocer responsible for
withholding RUC files on collusion from the
families and victims of collusion. Stephen
Travers, a survivor of the Miami Showband
massacre, has stressed that Harris blocked
eorts to get to the truth of that atrocity, and
described his appointment as “a blow to every
victim of collusion”.
7. ‘Dispensing death and
destruction’
The existence of the Army Council may become
an issue in the forthcoming general election.
Sinn Féin is foolish to deny its existence. The
electorate is not stupid. Denial will give Sinn
Féin’s opponents an opportunity to drag up the
past.
There is a growing library of books about the
IRA for the public to digest.
Ronan McGreevy and Tommy Conlon
published ‘The Kidnapping’ in late 2023,
primarily about the abduction of Don Tidey.
Chapter 5, entitled ‘Dispensing Death and
Destruction’, contains a wider look at IRA crimes.
During the hunt for, and rescue of, Don Tidey,
in 1983, Garda Gary Sheehan and Private Patrick
Kelly of the Irish Army, were shot dead by the IRA
in Derrada Wood, Co. Leitrim. During the 2011
presidential election, David Kelly, the son of
Private Kelly, confronted Martin McGuinness
about the death of his father. When Sinn Féin
canvassers hit the doorsteps during forthcoming
elections, it is likely some of them will face a
grilling based on the content of this book. One
of the more problematic passages – for Sinn Féin
– can be found on pages 295-87:
“Adams’s successor Mary Lou McDonald
apologised to the Kelly family in August 2020.
The Sinn Féin leader told the Westmeath
Independent that, if she could, she would
rewrite the family’s history. ‘I can’t do that. But
I can assure them of my utmost respect, my
absolute sympathy’, she said. McDonald
recognised that there should be a process by
which families like the Kellys got comfort and
succour, and so feel less alone with their grief.
‘This is about getting answers for families. I’ve
no difficulty committing myself to that,
irrespective of who the family is, irrespective of
the circumstances’.
David Kelly responded by stating that he
would judge Sinn Féin by its deeds not its words
in relation to the murder of his father.
On the following St Patrick’s Day in 2021,
when much of the world was still in lockdown as
a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sinn Féin
staged an online concert bookended by
contributions from McDonald and her northern
counterpart Michelle O’Neill. There was ‘no
better man’, O’Neill said, to end the online
concert than Bric McFarlane.
The appearance of the chief suspect in
relation to the events at Derrada Wood prompted
a letter from David Kelly to the News Letter:
“The acquittal of Brendan McFarlane on one
charge of false imprisonment and two firearms
charges in June 2008 in the kidnapping of Don
Tidey does not take away from the fact that he
has never given an adequate explanation to a
key matter. He has not explained why his
fingerprints were found to be present at the
scene in Derrada Woods, Co Leitrim, where two
members of the security forces were murdered
on 16 December 1983. No one has ever faced
prosecution for the murders up to the present
time…I would like to invite Mr MacFarlane to
publicly explain how his fingerprints were found
to be present at the scene of my father’s murder
and that of Garda Gary Sheehan’s. I would also
invite as party president, Mary Lou McDonald
who has participated in the concert, to persuade
him to come forward with any information he
may have about the events of that terrible day”.
At least one meeting of the
Army Council has taken
place in the Gaeltacht in
Meath
20 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 PB
are here, because it is not our government’.
Walker describes how:
“Dementia robbed him of precious
memories at the end of his life. He deserved
a longer time to enjoy his legacy, and in his
final years, he could not recall the key
political moments he had been involved in.
His retirement was not the one he had
planned, but he retained his inquisitive
nature and remained sociable in his final
days. His grown-up children marked the
first anniversary of his death with a warm
tribute and recalled their father as a
paradox, someone who was an
‘unapologetic, grounded, lofty, demanding,
generous, compassionate, gregarious,
deeply serious personality’”.
Walker also quotes Mary McAleese, who
described Hume as “a priest. He was a pastor.
He was a prophet”. To this, Walker adds that he
was a “persuader”, the apt title of his book.
***
The Army Council of the IRA is still in
existence. It is disciplined. It maintains a very
low profile. Thus far, campaigns by those who
want to shine a light on the IRA and make it an
issue in the forthcoming Irish general election
are not gaining much traction with the
electorate.
David Burke is the author of a number of books
which describe British intelligence and IRA
operations in Ireland.
8. The SDLP is now the party
with a radical edge
While Sinn Féin has lost of lot of its radical edge
in its rush to convince middle-class Ireland that
it has changed its militaristic ways, the SDLP
has sharpened its rapier. It was Colum Eastwood
who named ‘Soldier F’, the Bloody Sunday killer,
by his real name in the House of Commons.
Peadar Tóibín, the leader of Aontú, named him
in the Dáil, not a Sinn Féin deputy.
Colum Eastwood has stated that he will not
engage with the Biden administration on St
Patrick’s Day in protest at the situation in Gaza.
Eastwood, who visited Khan Younis in 2012,
said he “cannot in good conscience attend
White House parties for St Patrick’s Day while
the administration turns its face the other way
and refuses to call for an immediate ceasefire
Mary Lou McDonald’s position is weaker. She
has said that a St Patrick’s Day visit by Sinn Féin
will go ahead and provide an opportunity for
Ireland to send “a very clear message” to US
leaders over the situation in Gaza. “President
Biden and others need to be moved onto the
correct path, which is in the first instance a path
of ceasefire”,
Put simply, the Army Council and Sinn Féin
have decided to engage in little more than
gesture politics for their former Palestinian
allies — to maintain good relations with
Washington. If grassroots Sinn Féin opposition
to this soft line rises, it could result in some
friction between Sinn Féin at grassroots level,
the party hierarchy, and the Army Council.
9. The alternative to physical
force violence was the SDLP
The longstanding dierences between Sinn Féin
and the SDLP are well captured by a new book
by Stephen Walker, the former political
correspondent of BBC Northern Ireland. It is
called ‘John Hume, The Persuader’. Hume and
the SDLP opposed violence in the face of
pressure and intimidation throughout the
Troubles. While there are many fine books about
Hume, none of them span the entirety of the
man’s career as does this work. One passage
captures Hume’s courage, determination and
articulacy. In early 1972, shortly before the
horrors of Bloody Sunday, Hume took part in an
anti-internment protest that was halted on
Magilligan strand, short of a nearby internment
camp. Walker describes how:
“John Hume stood on the sand; across
from him was a uniformed British Army
ocer. They were within touching distance.
The politician was in his trademark suit and
tie, his mop of black hair tousled. He looked
concerned. He and the soldier were
separated by barbed wire, and, behind the
barrier, a line of troops stood pensively
clutching their riot shields and batons. They
had already fired rubber bullets at the
protestors in an attempt to push them down
the strand away from the army line. Hume
was in no mood to be fobbed o with
excuses. He demanded answers from the
man who was now blocking his path: ‘Could
you tell me on what authority you are
holding us back here from walking along?’
The ocer told Hume he was in a prohibited
area. Hume then demanded a ceasefire:
‘Ask those men to stop firing rubber bullets
at women please!’. He was told: ‘They will
not. They will stop it, provided you keep
away from the wire and don’t try to enter
this prohibited area”.
Hume insisted that he and his colleagues be
allowed to go further. He and around 2,000
others wanted to get close to the internment
camp to demonstrate the ongoing detention of
hundreds of men without trial. In front of the
television cameras, the commanding ocer told
Hume the march was being stopped from
getting any closer because it had been
‘prohibited by the government of Northern
Ireland’. Hume was defiant:
It is not our government and that is why you
One of the rooms at the NIO HQ in London
contains maps of the North which illustrate
demographic changes. They are updated
regularly
