The Intelligence War against the IRA

by Thomas Leahy

  Despite increased surveillance measures, the rural IRA evaded significant disruption to its activities up to 1975. Nash et al. mention a ‘border cuteness’. The knowledge and use of unapproved border roads, or the crossing of terrain outside of the gaze of security installations and checkpoints, meant that rural volunteers frequently evaded capture.147 With the rural IRA able to kill various security-force members by 1975, it appears that either it was not possible to cover all derelict premises and culvert openings to detect attacks beforehand with bugging equipment, or that the devices used for detection by British forces were not effective.

  According to McKearney, rural ASUs were ‘self-contained semi-autonomous groups’ that only met senior IRA leaders in the Irish Republic for training, supplies or to discuss ‘broad policy directives’.148 A degree of autonomy made rural units more resistant to infiltration by outsiders. They enhanced their autonomy by not operating with on-the-run volunteers from elsewhere. Clarke, for example, recalls how eventually ‘[t]he South Armagh lads didn’t like the Belfast men’.149 Keeping most outsiders out of South Armagh IRA activities no doubt increased security. The South Armagh IRA were so secretive that even senior republicans knew very little about them. For instance, George Clarke remembers visiting a senior informer he calls McMahon in County Louth some time between 1972 and 1973. Michael McVerry, a one-time senior South Armagh volunteer, was apparently present. McMahon told Clarke that he knew very little about McVerry because: ‘[w]e don’t tell each other of our role … [unless] on active service together’.150 Conway also recalls that whilst carrying out IRA GHQ duties, some rural ‘fiefdoms’ were reluctant to work with him since they were concerned that he would expose their units as an ex-prisoner.151 By restricting information to outsiders, and with only small numbers involved in rural ASUs, who were often related or friends, it was easier to keep information within a closed circle.152

  Admittedly, both O’Callaghan from rural Kerry and O’Doherty from Derry City claim to have operated with Tyrone units whilst on the run before 1975. O’Doherty was probably used after demonstrating his reliability to the IRA by carrying out operations in England. As an explosives expert, he also offered particular expertise.153 In general, however, outsiders from urban areas became less common within rural units by the mid-1970s. Laurence McKeown explains:

  somebody coming down from Belfast [for example] … would have to get used to operating in the country, which was different. The amount of time it might have taken to acclimatise to a rural area meant that some people would not be taken on down there in the first place.154

  Conway, originally from Dublin, recalls how difficult he found operating on the Derry border, and how glad he was to eventually be positioned in Derry City in the early 1970s. He preferred operating in the city because:

  it was … physically less demanding than operating on the border, [where there was] tough living conditions, exposure to the elements, long hours and days of waiting, and … marches through difficult terrain, often with heavy equipment such as landmines.155

  It became too risky to place urban volunteers into rural units, where they were expected to occasionally engage British forces in unfamiliar territory and conditions.

  These factors meant that the South Armagh and Tyrone IRA were difficult to infiltrate and had helped spread the IRA’s campaign by 1975. McKeown emphasised the growing importance of these units to the IRA:

  [t]here was an attitude from Belfast people that if Belfast wasn’t going well then that was a serious problem. I am not sure whether in reality that was the case. Personally, I think that rural units were important … They helped to stretch the enemy as far as possible.156

  The evidence in this chapter supports McKeown’s view. Rural units were stretching British forces by 1975. In south Armagh, the British government deployed the SAS in 1976.157 The increase in IRA activities across Northern Ireland had made the republican movement a greater threat in many ways by 1975. No longer was it an urban phenomenon that could be extinguished in Belfast and Derry City. Being so difficult to capture and infiltrate made rural units more durable in the long term too.158 In October 1975, a British Army commander warned the Northern Ireland Secretary of State that the effort against the rural IRA was going to involve: ‘a sustained effort and the long patient haul’.159

  According to Matchett, a former RUC Special Branch officer who operated in the border regions during the 1980s: ‘South Armagh IRA was the terrorist organisation’s most effective brigade … it had eliminated vehicle police patrols through the extensive use of roadside bombs.’160 Crucially, Matchett says: ‘By the mid-1970s cross-border IRA units had replaced Belfast IRA as the greatest threat.’161 In an Irish Department of Foreign Affairs report, Reverend Arlow, following his contacts with leading IRA Army Council members in 1975, also stressed the importance of the South Armagh IRA:

  His own impression is that the leadership of the organisation … has hardened considerably over the past few weeks and that the effective controlling group are now the South Armagh Brigade. These [sic] latter are now listened to with more respect in the Army Council than the Belfast Brigade.162

  The South Armagh IRA’s growing sophistication meant that they were beginning to lead the IRA’s efforts. Moreover, Arlow’s comments complement the assessment of British security and intelligence personnel at the time about the central importance of the South Armagh IRA and rural brigades to the IRA’s campaign by 1976. As in Derry City, the alienation of a considerable minority of rural republicans in places such as east Tyrone and south Armagh, caused by the use of indiscriminate security and intelligence measures before July 1972, provided a bedrock of support in the long term for the IRA. The alienation of many rural republicans contributed to the difficulties with gathering intelligence to counter the growing IRA threat.

  England

  An additional dimension to the IRA’s campaign was its attacks in England between 1973 and December 1975. McKearney explains the IRA’s logic for attacking England:

  extra pressure could persuade the British population to demand a troop withdrawal … England had much less security on the streets than Northern Ireland … Many Republicans felt that if the English sent their soldiers to make war in Ireland, the IRA should in return [conduct] war on England.163

  Following IRA thinking, if they conducted attacks in England, they could intensify a ‘troops out’ consensus in Britain.164 The IRA’s volunteers believed that the threat of violence in England made Westminster react to the ‘Irish problem’.165 For instance, O’Doherty’s small letter bombs caused injury and received national press coverage in England in 1973. Whilst operating in Tyrone, he mentions the press not reporting a substantial bombing there. He concluded that small attacks in England were more effective in highlighting the republican cause.166 Operation Banner believes: ‘PIRA … learned that one bomb in London had more impact than ten bombs in Northern Ireland.’167

  The other reason for turning to England was that the number of IRA attacks had declined in Belfast since 1972. McKearney argues: ‘[a]though still a very powerful insurrectionary force, the IRA in Belfast had suffered heavy losses … [The IRA] saw an English bombing campaign as … taking pressure off their hard-pressed volunteers’.168 McGladdery also emphasises: ‘PIRA … came to believe that they could turn an “acceptable” level of violence in Northern Ireland into an “unacceptable” level of violence with additional bombings in England.’169 This chapter disputes the idea that there was an ‘acceptable level’ of IRA violence across Northern Ireland by 1975. Nonetheless, there was considerable military pressure on the Belfast Brigade, and so it is possible that this factor partly influenced attacks in England to commence.

  The IRA’s initial attack in England led to arrests. On 8 March 1973, the IRA injured 200 people after two car bombs exploded in London, including outside the Old Bailey. The security services defused other bombs. Numerous republicans were arrested when attempting to fly back to Ireland on the same day. In Novembe
r 1973, nine people were found guilty of the bombings, including Gerry Kelly, today a senior Sinn Féin assembly member, and Dolours Price.170 There has always been suspicion that a high-level informer leaked details of the operation, since the police sealed the borders before the attacks.171 In 2009, these suspicions were somewhat vindicated by the release of George Clarke’s account of his time in RUC Special Branch. Clarke alleges that a senior republican provided information on the attack. Clarke claims that this republican had been involved with the IRA since the 1950s. This individual trained volunteers, and offered safe houses and supplies from County Louth. The informer, who Clarke calls McMahon, had a close association with senior IRA leaders, which apparently meant that he knew about the London bombings in March 1973. Clarke says that McMahon’s information alerted the mainland police and set up the arrests.172 In their recent work on Metropolitan Police Special Branch, who initially dealt with IRA activities in the UK mainland, Ian Adams and Ray Wilson confirm that RUC Special Branch ‘warned … that an ASU was on its way to England but were unable to provide specific details’.173 Their account provides further evidence that RUC Special Branch did have intelligence from within the IRA about some of the details of this operation.174

  The risk for McMahon was that few people knew about the proposed attacks, which could have placed him under suspicion.175 Yet he was not discovered. Senior Belfast personnel such as Brendan Hughes did not believe spies were involved. Instead, Hughes felt ‘the simple mistake we made was that we tried to get the people out of England too quickly’.176 In future, IRA bombing teams in London were not pulled out immediately and remained as ‘sleeper’ units hiding across England. The volunteers involved in March 1973 primarily came from Belfast too, which made the risk of exposure greater. If one became known, it was possible for the intelligence services to discover others by investigating their associates.177

  The IRA tried to ensure that they did not repeat similar mistakes. One tactic they adopted was to reduce the number of people who knew about English operations. McKearney describes how ‘operations in England thereafter would be organised directly through IRA GHQ staff. This strategy proved more effective and helped improve security.’178 The GHQ staff consisted of specialised sections, including finance, engineering and a quartermaster department.179 McKearney says:

  [i]t would be generally one or two people on the GHQ staff who would know [about English operations] … Usually operations [department] would have known and possibly the quartermaster on the basis he had to supply the equipment … The Chief of Staff, of course, would know. So you effectively had a small working group who would know within the GHQ.180

  Evidence provided by other republicans supports McKearney’s assessment. The Chief of Staff was appointed by the IRA Army Council and directed the IRA’s day-to-day activities.181 McKearney’s view is that the IRA began to tighten knowledge of English operations. The IRA would no longer tell a person such as McMahon about activities in England. Féilim Ó hAdhmaill, a former republican prisoner, also recalls that the IRA’s English department selected members from ‘all over Ireland’. For example, members of the so-called Balcombe Street Gang unit were from across the Irish Republic,182 whereas O’Doherty from Derry City conducted the letter-bomb campaign in late 1973. English operations provided another more temporarily secure outlet for volunteers already known in their locality in Northern Ireland by the security forces.

  Counter-intelligence measures adopted by the republican movement in England after March 1973 were not entirely successful. The security forces arrested three Sinn Féin members whilst they were carrying weapons for a planned robbery in Luton in England. Kenneth Joseph Lennon allegedly set up their arrests. Lennon was originally from Northern Ireland but resided in the Luton area at the time. Those captured each received a 10-year prison sentence. Revelations surrounding Lennon’s work for Metropolitan Police Special Branch emerged in April 1974. He decided to go to the National Council of Civil Liberties and detailed the pressure the police were putting on him. Lennon feared for his life. On 13 April 1974, his body was found lying in a ditch on Banstead Common. No organisation has claimed responsibility for his killing.183 It is possible that the republicans involved in the planned robbery were discovered after associating with the Irish community in Britain at the time. Associating with the Irish community in Britain provided agents and informers such as Lennon with the opportunity to gather information. In future, Laurence McKeown describes how volunteers travelling over from Ireland ‘were obviously told to stay out of Irish pubs and clubs as it could attract attention’.184 Recruits for the republican movement from the Irish community in Britain were potentially (but not always) easier to watch or target to become informers too. Metropolitan Police Special Branch had access to these individuals and their personal details.185 In contrast, individuals arriving from Ireland and living discreetly in England were difficult to discover due to a lack of background information available.

  Overall, the changes introduced to IRA operations in England enabled republicans to conduct further attacks across the English mainland in 1974. The security services seemed at a complete loss to counter many operations. On 4 February 1974, an IRA bomb exploded on a coach on the M62, killing nine soldiers and three civilians. The lack of intelligence on this attack was made evident when Judith Ward was wrongly convicted.186 On 17 June 1974, an IRA device in the Houses of Parliament injured eleven people. 187In the autumn, a series of indiscriminate pub bombings followed, which claimed the lives of civilians. For example, on 5 October 1974, two public houses were bombed in Guildford, leading to five deaths.188 Four people were again wrongfully convicted for the bombings. On 21 November 1974, the IRA attacked another two public houses in Birmingham. Twenty-one people died. The police arrested and convicted six Irish people, but again they were released in 1991 on appeal.189

  The lack of intelligence sources against the IRA in England was again apparent when the IRA’s campaign recommenced in west London in mid-1975.190 In September, they bombed a Hilton hotel, killing two people. The IRA continued attacks in west London, such as in Chelsea and Westminster. Taylor reported that the Metropolitan Police Special Branch appeared ‘virtually blind’. The IRA also shot and killed television personality and founder of the Guinness Book of World Records Ross McWhirter at his front door in Enfield in London in November 1975. McWhirter had earlier offered a £50,000 reward for information that led to the capture of the IRA unit responsible for recent attacks.191 In the end, the police arrested the IRA unit that had carried out these attacks after a five-day siege in Balcombe Street in December. The Metropolitan police decided to swamp the West End in the hope that the IRA would continue its campaign. Sure enough, the unit attacked a Mayfair restaurant. The police pursued them, but the IRA held hostages in a flat in Balcombe Street before surrendering five days later. It seems that only because the IRA risked coming out to carry out further attacks during an increased police presence that they were arrested.192

  Persistent attacks in England suggest that the IRA’s campaign there was not in decline by late 1974. Alan Barker even argues that IRA bombings in England ‘placed heavy pressure on the government’ to commence peace talks.193 There is evidence that radical policy departures were partly motivated to stop attacks in England. During a meeting at Downing Street on 4 December 1974, Rees feared a rise in anti-Irish attacks in the UK mainland following the pub bombings.194 These fears were well founded. In Birmingham, for example, some factories temporarily closed following clashes between Irish and English workers after the pub bombings.195 Nonetheless, the pub bombings also put pressure on the IRA. Ó Brádaigh said that the IRA cessation in late 1974 helped counter the negative fallout from such bombings.196

  The Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s intelligence and security response to the IRA’s campaign in England appeared to struggle by 1975.197 IRA counter-intelligence measures including using volunteers from the Republic or unknown volunteers from Northern Ireland not previously arres
ted. The lack of Garda or RUC intelligence on these individuals, combined with potentially an unwillingness of the RUC or Garda to share the intelligence with the Metropolitan Police Special Branch could have made successful intelligence operations against the IRA difficult. Furthermore, monitoring airports and ports was not going to have the same level of success after the initial March 1973 attacks. As explained, the IRA retained its cells in England for a period after attacks had been carried out. Further failings by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch against the IRA in England after 1975 led eventually to MI5 taking control of mainland counter-intelligence operations against the IRA. The seeds of the demise of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch emerged in this period.