by Thomas Leahy
Phoenix mentions that helicopters equipped with long-range cameras and heat detectors helped locate IRA suspects in Belfast. This evidence supports Bradley’s point about the danger of helicopters to IRA activities.82 The range of surveillance and technical equipment deployed against the IRA in Belfast undoubtedly caused them difficulties. The IRA’s movement was being restricted and occasionally observed in the dense city estates either by surveillance on the ground or in the air. With the new computerised Vengeful vehicle record system and personality-card systems operating against the IRA in Belfast too, it faced increasing challenges by the 1980s.83
The SAS were not operational in Belfast to the same extent as in rural areas during the 1980s. When the SAS engaged in operations in Belfast in the late 1970s, controversy emerged. On the evening of 20 June 1978, four IRA members collected explosive devices in west Belfast for an attack on a Post Office depot in Ballysillan. As they prepared to plant explosives by the depot, a joint SAS and undercover RUC Special Branch unit (later known as the HMSU) opened fire, killing three IRA volunteers. Aware that a fourth volunteer was involved, the SAS shot a man standing in a field next to the depot, William Hanna. Hanna turned out to be a civilian walking home with a friend. Phoenix explains that the unease on the part of the Chief Constable of the RUC about the use of the SAS in the cities emerged because of ‘the high risk of civilian casualties’.84 The SAS made few appearances in the Belfast area for this reason.
Specific factors made the Belfast IRA susceptible to surveillance and technical intelligence. Following the end of the no-go areas in August 1972, Army barracks, technical equipment and surveillance operators were able to move into the republican streets of west Belfast to restrict the IRA’s freedom of movement. McKearney’s point about the IRA leadership in the cities suggesting that volunteers live at home after 1975 is also relevant here. Surveillance and eavesdropping were easier to accomplish when IRA volunteers were not on the run. Ian Phoenix’s surveillance example above in December 1983 against IRA members in south Belfast demonstrates the dangers of mixing of known and unknown volunteers in cells. Surveillance on known operators could expose the unknowns in the new cells. But the requirement for expertise and training was vital, making it difficult for the IRA to create cells with only inexperienced volunteers.
Despite the abundance of intelligence activity against the IRA in Belfast, an important alternative explanation for the decline in IRA activities there is the greater level of political control being exerted over the IRA by Sinn Féin. Marc Mulholland suggests: ‘the IRA generally was anxious to be seen not to be targeting the “Irish, working class”’, whom, ultimately, Sinn Féin relied on for their electoral mandate. He continues: ‘[g]iven the high risk of collateral damage in built-up areas, the use of heavy antipersonnel weaponry was really only effective in rural districts. By the mid-to-late 1980s, IRA operations in urban areas were little more than harassment’.85 Admittedly, there were incidents in which civilian deaths still occurred, such as the Shankill fish shop bombing in 1993. But various examples support Mulholland’s view. Gerry Bradley remembers operations decreasing in Belfast partly: ‘because the pressure was on not to injure civilians … [the leadership] worried about “international opinion”, about “electoral considerations”. You practically had to guarantee no one would be injured by mistake’. Bradley describes a plan by his unit to blow up the main sewer near Belfast city centre. He claims the operation was cancelled because the leadership feared that the risk of civilian deaths was too high.86 What makes his example more believable is that it does not necessarily depict Bradley in a favourable way.
Laurence McKeown echoes Bradley’s suggestion that after 1975 ‘it was about trying to control the operations more, to stop … civilian casualties occurring as in the early 1970s’.87 Danny Morrison explained why the IRA had to be careful:
The war was always directly related to politics … the IRA strove to avoid civilian casualties … The perception then from the outside world would be that this is a war. If the only people killed are civilians in no-warning bombs then that’s terrorism. So the IRA was quite conscious about having to demonstrate that it was fighting … legitimate … warfare.88
Even a former British civil servant told the author that the IRA ‘was not a movement dedicated to violence for its own sake. It has moral and legitimacy boundaries surrounding it, although you may say that it did not have these boundaries at certain points and towards certain people.’89 This view will be contentious in some eyes. For instance, off-duty security-force members and their families in the borderlands would dispute this argument. Civilians were also killed and their deaths had a significant impact on the republican movement, as Chapter 10 reveals. Yet Mulholland and republicans convincingly suggest that deaths and operations decreased in Belfast following 1975 partly because operations aimed to avoid civilian casualties in part to help Sinn Féin’s electoral prospects. Surprisingly, Matchett’s account agrees. He argues that the IRA began to rely more on its rural units by the late 1970s because there was ‘a reluctance to use car bombs in the city, whereas large roadside bombs and heavy weapons were used in rural settings. The [IRA] leadership wanted to reduce the number of civilians killed.’90
The current literature overplays infiltration as a main reason for a decline in killings by the Belfast IRA between 1976 and 1994. Bradley recalls: ‘[w]hen something went wrong, [everyone said] it was … touts. It wasn’t.’91 The decline in shootings of British soldiers from the late 1980s was also partly attributable to improvements in British Army protective gear. Army flak jackets became harder to penetrate for the IRA in Belfast, who were using low-range weapons. Switching to long-range weapons was not an option there. The IRA did not want increased civilian casualties that might contradict their claim to be fighting a legitimate war, and which might also lose Sinn Féin votes.92
McKeown suggests that personalities helped determine how security-conscious an IRA cell or brigade were.93 Séanna Walsh agrees: ‘[t]he IRA was not some sort of monolith. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about Belfast or even about areas within Belfast. Some [volunteers] would have been much tighter than others.’94 Bradley’s account shows that some cells in Belfast were not always risk-averse. On 28 November 1981, Bradley says that his cell killed a police officer in Belfast. A few days beforehand, one cell member had been arrested. ‘Normally’, Bradley explained, ‘the operation would have been called off … the squad … decided [the volunteer arrested] would be okay’. But this volunteer allegedly talked. Bradley’s cell was arrested and remanded in custody until that volunteer withdrew his evidence against them.95
It is not accurate to suggest that the Belfast IRA was at a virtual ‘standstill’ by the 1990s. Despite the IRA killing no British soldiers there after 1992, this is not a sign of terminal decline. In fact, from the early 1990s, the Belfast IRA changed tactics and conducted a series of bomb attacks in the city centre. They bombed the Grand Opera House and Crown Bar in 1991.96 Later, on 15 February 1992 and on 22 May 1993, they caused millions of pounds in damages with bombs in Belfast city.97 Despite the city bombings ceasing by late 1993 following arrests, there were still regular incidents in 1994. For example, on 17 February 1994, an IRA rocket hit a police Land Rover in the Markets area, killing an RUC officer and injuring two others.98 Ciaran de Baroid, a Ballymurphy resident, believes that regular incidents demonstrate that up until August 1994, the Belfast IRA remained ‘formidable’. What makes his account believable is that he admits that by the second prolonged ceasefire in 1997, the organisation was beginning to struggle in Belfast.99 The fact that commercial bombings inflicted significant financial damage and regularly went ahead casts doubts on claims that Stakeknife or other informers had complete access to Belfast IRA operations on a regular basis. These attacks suggest that the Belfast IRA was not completely ‘rotten’ with informers by the 1990s.100
It has often been overlooked that the cell structure provided the IRA with ‘greater operational securi
ty’ than it had had before 1975 in areas such as Belfast. In particular, cells often restricted foreknowledge about operations.101 A former British soldier recalled:
The times when you would be given chapter and the verse [by human sources] were very, very few … People would be told at the last minute about an operation … PIRA did this deliberately, frightened that the information would be told to the intelligence agencies from sources.102
For instance, McGartland’s cell leader asked him to attend a meeting in June 1991. McGartland claims that the IRA instructed him to drive two gunmen to kill Tony Harrison of the British Army in June 1991. He claims that he had no chance of preventing this operation without his IRA accomplices discovering his true identity.103 Danny Morrison suggests that the smaller number of IRA volunteers involved after 1975 in the cities helped to filter out agents and informers via the cells. The trouble for agents and informers was, ‘[t]he more information they gave, it became easier for the IRA to work out who was the common denominator’.104 His explanation explains why Martin McGartland was eventually discovered. Following the arrests of more volunteers, McGartland joined a cell. When his cell prepared to attack British soldiers at a pub in Bangor in July 1991, he informed RUC Special Branch. His information led to the security services arresting IRA couriers on the way to the pub. McGartland was quickly discovered because suspicion already surrounded him for other failed attacks. He only survived by jumping from a high-rise flat where he was being interrogated by the IRA. Once he recovered, McGartland fled abroad.105
In relation to counter-surveillance, Bradley suggests that the IRA would frequently cancel operations in Belfast to avoid detection, if a helicopter was in the area. The IRA adopted further techniques to ensure that their plans were not accessed by means of surveillance and technical intelligence. McGartland claims that some IRA volunteers would only discuss IRA business when in the gardens of their houses, fearing that their premises were bugged. On another occasion, McGartland claims that IRA members used him as a courier for a note wrapped in cling film. He did not read its contents for fear of being exposed as an agent, although he says that the receiver told him the contents on one occasion. Whilst McGartland got around these counter-intelligence measures at times, the fact that IRA attacks continued in Belfast in the 1990s suggests that similar IRA counter-surveillance methods were successful in evading detection.106
Phoenix recalls that surveillance on IRA members could not operate constantly. These gaps in coverage meant that individuals could still carry out some attacks. According to Phoenix, although Dan McCann was eventually shot by the SAS in Gibraltar, in Belfast he had been able to evade surveillance on one occasion in the mid-1980s, in order to target two RUC officers. One of Phoenix’s colleagues commented that if IRA operatives worked out they were under surveillance, they would also cancel operations to deflect attention from their units for a while.107
These examples support Danny Morrison’s view that ‘even if Belfast happened not to do much for three or four months … the IRA was … philosophical about that. They were always working to rebuild and renew structures when they were infiltrated.’108 A focus on persistence, rather than escalation, meant that the Belfast IRA could afford for its campaign to ebb and flow in the city after 1975. Nonetheless, the Belfast Brigade still maintained an ability to disrupt the life of the city into the 1990s to a considerable extent. Republican areas and the city centre remained gripped by constant checkpoints, helicopter flights, driving restrictions, security patrols and reinforced security barracks. If the IRA’s aim in Belfast was to persist and maintain high-security alerts, it seems to have achieved this objective by August 1994.
Whilst the IRA persisted in Belfast, Sinn Féin had also become the leading nationalist party on Belfast City Council by 1993. Gerry Adams had been the MP for West Belfast between 1983 and 1992, although he temporarily lost that seat to the SDLP between April 1992 and May 1997.109 Leading republicans emphasised the implications of their electoral support at the time. During his oration at the Bodenstown commemoration event in Kildare in July 1989, Adams highlighted that the ‘excellent … significant gains’ in local elections was a firm indication to the British government that Sinn Féin was not in decline and ‘[t]hey have not succeeded in beating us’.110 The persistent support for Sinn Féin in Belfast during local elections into the 1990s supports Adams’s assessment.
The republican movement was not made irrelevant in Belfast. There was a permanent republican presence and potential resistance to political settlements that it disliked. Memories of the tumultuous events of 1969, including the burning of nationalist houses, and later events such as the hunger strikes, confirmed IRA support in Belfast in the long term. According to McKearney: ‘[a]t that time, voting for Sinn Féin was tantamount to voting for the Provisional IRA’.111 The implication of his view in relation to Belfast is that support for Sinn Féin prior to the 1994 ceasefire represented support for the IRA. Intelligence operations against the IRA in Belfast may have set back republican operations at times. But election results suggest that the intelligence campaign had not succeeded in drawing greater support away from the IRA by 1994. Accusations of collusion between the security services and loyalist paramilitaries in the killing of lawyer Pat Finucane in February 1989, who had defended republicans in court, certainly did not assist in trying to entice support in the republican heartlands of Belfast away from the IRA and Sinn Féin.112
Derry City
The Derry City IRA killed seven ‘intended targets’ in 1976, before the number declined to between one and a maximum of six per year up until 1989. Between 1990 and 1992, the killings of ‘intended targets’ even dropped to zero.113 In contrast to Belfast, there was no commercial bombing campaign in Derry City after 1980. Kevin Toolis believes that infiltration caused the decline in IRA killings in Derry City.114 There are examples of alleged higher-level infiltration in the city. For example, Ingram says that he helped handle Frank Hegarty during the 1980s. Rob Lewis, another former FRU operative, also claims that Hegarty informed. Hegarty is alleged to have previously been an informer in the Official IRA during the early 1970s and to have begun informing on the Provisionals in the 1980s. Various sources say that Hegarty worked his way to being the IRA’s quartermaster in Derry City, as republicans trusted him following many years of service. This position enabled Hegarty to inform the security services in the north and south about some of the Libyan weapons moved into Donegal, close to the border with Derry, in the mid-1980s. The IRA believed Hegarty was the culprit because he disappeared at the time the weapons were seized. Once Hegarty returned, for reasons that remain disputed, the IRA kidnapped and shot him.115
Raymond Gilmour informed on the Derry City IRA from the late 1970s to 1982. Alan Barker, his former RUC Special Branch handler, verifies some of his activities. Initially, Gilmour decimated the Derry INLA, a left-wing Marxist group who split from the OIRA in December 1974. Eventually, the IRA accepted Gilmour. He inflicted considerable damage. Barker recalls that a merging of cells during the hunger strikes allowed Gilmour to set up the arrests of IRA volunteers from other cells. Later, Gilmour’s promotion to Derry Brigade staff gave him insight into where the IRA were storing a heavy-machine gun, allowing the security forces to seize it. The RUC’s Special Branch pulled Gilmour out of Derry City and he turned supergrass, leading to thirty-nine people being charged. Whilst Gilmour’s evidence was later rejected by the courts, some republicans never returned to Derry City from Donegal in fear of arrest.116
Controversy surrounds the case of Patrick Flood, killed by the IRA in July 1990 for allegedly informing. Toolis writes that Flood began ferrying weapons around for the IRA in the 1980s. Toolis claims that Flood became an informer following his arrest in 1987, when weapons were found at his property by the RUC. Flood supposedly became the brigade’s chief bomb-maker whilst at the same time setting up arrests. For instance, in August 1989 three volunteers arrived at a house where Flood was preparing a bomb. The house was raided. F
ollowing similar incidents, the IRA interrogated Flood. The IRA claimed that Flood had admitted to informing.117 Flood’s wife and Ingram deny these allegations.118
There were low-level agents and informers that allegedly infiltrated the Derry City IRA in these years. Barker says that in 1982 the RUC Special Branch gained ‘priceless information’ about the IRA from an IRA associate whom he calls Sean McCord. McCord was friends with a leading member of the Waterside cell. McCord claimed that his friend had provided him with details about IRA activities, despite McCord not being a member. McCord relayed the information to RUC Special Branch. His loose association with the IRA, and the fact that Barker does not report that McCord provided intelligence over many years, probably saved him from IRA suspicions.119 Others that the IRA suspected of informing did not survive. The IRA shot Kevin Patrick Coyle, a twenty-four-year-old, in the Bogside area in February 1985. The IRA claim that Coyle had been informing since 1981.120 This accusation cannot be confirmed. Republicans killed Ruari Finnis, a volunteer from the Waterside area, on 6 June 1991. At the time, the IRA alleged that Finnis ‘had been acting as a police informer for three and a half years’. Finnis’s family and Ingram reject these claims. Ingram argues that failed operations Finnis was involved in ‘were almost certainly detected via electronic surveillance’.121 Later, in November 1992, Gerard Holmes’s body was discovered in the Creggan area. The IRA said that although Holmes was not a volunteer, ‘he had been passing information to … Special Branch for 11 years, causing the arrest of several people’. His family reject the accusations. The evidence available is inconclusive.122
