The Intelligence War against the IRA

by Thomas Leahy

  The problem with assessing the impact of surveillance and electronic intelligence in Derry City is that information relating to such operations is scarce compared to that on Belfast. There are a few examples available, however, that can provide us with some insight. On 6 December 1984, two IRA volunteers, William Fleming and Daniel Doherty, were travelling on a motorcycle to Gransha psychiatric hospital near the city. They planned to kill a UDR reservist who also worked there. According to various accounts, the SAS, RUC Special Branch and 14 Intelligence Company members were undercover at the vicinity and followed the attackers in unmarked cars. They had allegedly received information from an agent about the attack. The circumstances surrounding the shootings of Fleming and Doherty by the undercover units have been disputed. The main debates have surrounded whether the IRA volunteers raised weapons when asked to halt. Nonetheless, the availability of sufficient intelligence for the British on this occasion led directly to the deaths of two Derry IRA members.123

  Earlier, on 10 June 1978, 14 Intelligence Company shot Denis Heaney. Heaney and another volunteer had approached the unmarked car of two surveillance operators.124 Later, on 28 May 1981, a 14 Intelligence Company operative shot George McBrearty and Charles Maguire. The undercover operative’s car had been spotted and followed by McBrearty’s IRA unit. The IRA members cornered the car at a road junction. The republicans got out of their vehicles ready to attack. The young officer shot dead two IRA members, allegedly wounding another before making an escape.125 This attack by 14 Intelligence Company against Derry City IRA members was in response to republicans spotting their undercover operators.

  Barker recalls various surveillance methods being used to identify and target Derry City IRA members. He remembers attending Sinn Féin anti-H-Block demonstrations in Waterloo Place on Saturdays to gather information on names and faces, although he mentions having to cease attending as republicans eventually worked out his identity.126 Barker also recounts taking photographs from the secure position of the British Army base overlooking the Bogside area. During republican marches such as the annual 1916 commemoration, RUC Special Branch members took photographs. ‘When we showed these photographs to agents’, Barker claims, ‘they would be able to identify those persons who were with the leading PIRA and Sinn Féin activists, and this would help us to build up a larger intelligence picture’. On one occasion in 1978, following surveillance of an Easter Rising commemoration, Barker’s colleagues made arrests of a small number of Donegal IRA members. The volunteers had attended the Easter commemoration in Derry City. The RUC Special Branch spotted a van during the march and later noticed the same van being driven by IRA volunteers close to the border, which raised their suspicions.127

  The reasons why infiltration of the Derry City IRA was possible were the same as those for the Belfast IRA. McKearney’s point about the interaction between cells is applicable to Derry. Barker writes: ‘[u]p to [the early 1980s], the cell system had been working fairly well … but … [eventually] one cell contaminated another while they moved weapons or assisted each other’. Barker suggests that a coming together of IRA cells in Derry City after the hunger strikes enabled Gilmour to set up various arrests.128 During an interview with Peter Taylor, one former Derry Provisional concurred with Barker’s view.129 Barker says that loose talk was a problem in Derry City as well. His informer, McCord, apparently gathered information via the loose talk of a cell member.130 Unknown volunteers could also quickly be identified in Derry City because of their associates. One example is Gilmour, who had no republican background. Gilmour says: ‘people were not stupid. When they saw you going around with guys like Eddie McSheffrey [a known republican], they knew exactly what you were involved in’.131

  Barker admits, however, that Gilmour’s original cell leader, McSheffrey, was ‘extremely security-conscious’ and frequently did not provide full details of operations beforehand. ‘Whilst Raymond knew what operations were planned’, Barker recalls, ‘the minute details and timing were known only to Eddie’. Gilmour supports Barker’s view: ‘[s]ometimes jobs would be carried out on the night of the meeting … which made it impossible to warn’ the intelligence services. One example is an incident when Gilmour’s cell was suddenly instructed to shoot at soldiers on the city walls, and they shot Private Christopher Shenton on 20 January 1981. Barker trusts Gilmour’s account because the latter usually informed on forthcoming IRA attacks.132 Barker also suggests that ‘good agents were becoming ever more difficult to recruit and once recruited, harder to sustain’. Following Gilmour’s exposure as an agent, there was not a constant supply of agents and informers available, especially in republican heartlands such as the Bogside. Attempting to recruit republicans and their supporters as informants proved very challenging. Barker argues that ‘[m]any [nationalists], like McGuinness, were totally non-recruitable as agents due to the intense loathing that they felt towards the security forces’. Instead, they remained silent during interviews.133 Memories of Bloody Sunday and discrimination in Derry City from the early 1970s in areas such as the Bogside, alongside more recent events such as the hunger strikes, undoubtedly motivated republicans’ commitment and loyalty to the IRA.

  Despite surveillance and special-force operations in Derry City, the success of such methods there was patchy. Much like the situation in Belfast, deploying the SAS was too risky in the city as it risked civilian casualties. Electronic intelligence and surveillance were possible to set up. But as various Derry City IRA members operated out of Donegal, surveillance on Derry City volunteers was challenging. Bugging premises in Donegal was not supposed to be within the remit of British intelligence services. Admittedly, the Garda were proactive in harassing republicans in Donegal. Barker, for example, praises cooperation between the Donegal Garda and Derry RUC.134 In 1980, a British area review of the security situation in Derry reported excellent cooperation with the Donegal Garda, based on previous good relations before the Troubles between the two police services in dealing with cross-border criminality.135 On the other hand, Barker admits ‘[p]reventing [IRA] activity was an almost impossible task and would have meant sealing virtually every inch of the border’.136 It was beyond the finances and resources of the Irish state to allow the Garda to police every part of the border. Unlike those in Belfast, Derry City IRA volunteers did have the option of escaping across the border, in their case to Donegal. With a constant stream of nationalists venturing into Donegal from Derry City before, during and after the Troubles for family, cultural and sporting reasons, bonds existed between many Donegal and Derry City residents. The result was that the IRA could receive at least a limited degree of cooperation and assistance from some Donegal residents.137 In addition, the abundance of approved and unapproved cross-border roads provided Derry City IRA volunteers with further opportunities to try to escape surveillance.138

  The superior training and firepower of UK forces meant that they often managed to shoot IRA attackers in ambushes, as seen in the examples above. On other occasions those carrying out surveillance were caught. On 11 August 1978, the IRA spotted Alan Swift of 14 Intelligence Company touring in his vehicle through a republican heartland in the city. The IRA located Swift’s vehicle in a lay-by in the Brandywell area. A hijacked van pulled out in front of his parked vehicle. The IRA members opened fire and killed Swift.139 Surveillance could work both ways. The IRA’s local knowledge of personnel and vehicles within republican areas of Derry City meant that undercover operations carried out by unknown vehicles touring areas for intelligence were dangerous. Supporters of the IRA presented risks for the security forces as well. Barker remembers that one of his colleagues was killed by the IRA in Derry City in January 1977, following intelligence passed to them by supporters.140

  One particular factor explaining the decline in activity Derry City IRA activity is nationalist opinion. The Provisional IRA faced significant criticism there following specific attacks. Patsy Gillespie was a canteen worker at the British Army barracks at Fort George in Derry. On 24
October 1990, armed men entered his house in the Shantallow area and forced him to drive a van with a bomb inside to Coshquin vehicle checkpoint on the border. Gillespie and five soldiers died when the van exploded at the checkpoint.141 The negative fallout that this incident had on IRA support levels in Derry was an important factor restraining their activities in the 1990s. Brendan O’Brien interviewed one local man who argued that the Paddy Gillespie killing ‘sickened a lot of people … [because] [h]e was just a cook in the Army barracks’.142 Local council elections for Derry City partly supports this argument that the Gillespie and other civilian killings saw IRA and Sinn Féin support stagnate in Derry. Although Sinn Féin won five seats in each election between 1985 and 1993, the SDLP increased their seats from fourteen in 1985 to seventeen in 1993.143 The IRA’s activities seem to have impacted on Sinn Féin’s support in the city, particularly as the latter’s vote surpassed the SDLP’s there after 1998.

  The SDLP also won support pre-1998 by ensuring significant regeneration and investment went into the city. O’Brien records that there had been £163 million pounds worth of investment in jobs and factories in Derry City by 1993.144 A former British soldier also recalls: ‘[i]n the 1990s, you started having a lot more money going in … You had a whole air of normality returning’.145 The IRA would have been reluctant to attack the new buildings and jobs created for the nationalist community for fear of isolating themselves. After becoming the majority party on the city council during the 1980s, the SDLP also changed the name of the council to Derry (rather than Londonderry) City Council, in order to represent the views of the majority nationalist population. In response, the IRA never attacked the city council building again.146 The IRA also did not recommence a commercial bombing campaign in Derry city centre during the 1990s, despite republican units elsewhere targeting other major towns in County Derry, such as in Magherafelt in May 1993.147 The Coshquin attack itself may have involved Derry City volunteers, demonstrating the potential capacity for further attacks by that brigade.148 But political circumstances meant that the Derry City units could not afford to carry out bombings in the city because of the risk of losing support. Furthermore, there was little incentive for IRA activity against loyalists in Derry City since there was only a small loyalist population in the Waterside area.149 Political factors provide the most convincing explanation of why the Derry City IRA and the British Army engaged in mutual gestures of de-escalation in the 1990s.150

  Conclusion

  In Belfast, the decline in the number of IRA attacks in particular periods was partly attributable to infiltration, surveillance and electronic intelligence. Nonetheless, there was also a decline in attacks because of a change in British Army equipment and the need to avoid civilian casualties on a regular basis to sustain Sinn Féin’s vote. By the 1990s, the Belfast Brigade had recommenced a commercial bombing campaign that caused extensive financial damage and meant that security installations and patrols had to be maintained. In Derry City, the IRA’s campaign was more of a persistent nuisance by 1994. Yet the evidence does not suggest that the intelligence war was the main reason for the IRA’s decline there. Rather, it was largely that the SDLP had begun rebuilding the city for nationalists. If the IRA recommenced bombing the city, they risked the wrath of the nationalist electorate, and a decline in electoral support.151

  The evidence provided in this chapter does not suggest that the Belfast and Derry City IRA Brigades called a prolonged ceasefire in August 1994 primarily because of the intelligence war. As Chapter 9 will reveal, the majority of rural IRA units and IRA units in England did not accept the ceasefire for this reason either. In fact, the IRA in many rural areas and England were the motor behind the IRA’s campaign persisting into the 1990s, partly because they were resistant to significant disruption by British intelligence.

  This chapter cannot produce a fundamental appraisal of the successes and failures of the agent Stakeknife or others. Full knowledge of their activities remains hidden. Based on the evidence currently available, I have suggested that the importance of Stakeknife and other alleged agents and informers against the IRA in Belfast and Derry City in the 1990s has been overestimated.

  9

  The Intelligence War against the IRA in Rural Areas and England and the IRA Leadership, January 1976 to August 1994

  Chapter 9 begins by evaluating the intelligence war’s effectiveness against rural IRA units. The primary rural units considered here are from the republican heartlands of south Armagh, east Tyrone and Fermanagh. Other than the East Tyrone and Newry units, in many rural areas the IRA’s elusive nature made the organisation difficult to infiltrate and restrain. I explore why rural IRA units were often hard to infiltrate. The resilience of rural units particularly in south Armagh provided momentum to the IRA’s campaign in terms of arms, explosives and expertise, which were even transferred to high-profile IRA operations in England by the 1990s. This chapter suggests that various rural IRA units prevented the containment of the IRA in Northern Ireland and ‘an acceptable level of violence’ emerging by the 1990s.

  I also detail how in England, IRA activity had increased in intensity by the 1990s. The IRA’s attacks in England combined with the ability of the IRA to import various consignments of heavy weapons from Libya suggests that the IRA leadership was not infiltrated at its highest levels. I provide reasons explaining the lack of infiltration of IRA units in England and the IRA leadership. The IRA’s lack of infiltration in England forms a crucial element of my central argument about why the organisation was not neutralised by British intelligence before the 1994 ceasefire. It also adds further evidence to back my view that the IRA was not significantly infiltrated at its Army Council level by 1994.

  Chapter 9 further demonstrates that various sections of the IRA evaded significant infiltration. The IRA persisted in disrupting Northern Irish political and socio-economic life up to the ceasefire in August 1994. The latter point is crucial, because Chapter 8 argued that the IRA sought only to persist in its campaign after 1983. The republican leadership wanted to bring the British state back to the negotiating table, albeit whilst obtaining the strongest possible electoral mandate to try to maximise concessions in future negotiations. This chapter suggests that the IRA fulfilled its aim of persistence and called a prolonged cessation in 1994 from a position of strength.

  South Armagh

  The South Armagh Brigade was the IRA’s most formidable unit and was leading the organisation’s campaign by the 1990s; this included conducting some operations in England.1 They killed a series of suspected low-level agents and informers between 1976 and 1994. William Martin was a retired poultry farmer from Crossmaglen. The IRA claimed Martin was in ‘a ring of informers’ and shot him. The RUC denied the IRA’s claims but did say Martin ‘might have passed a few words with soldiers when he met them’.2 Patrick McEntee was a Crossmaglen postman and a former member of the British Army. The IRA killed McEntee and released a statement shortly afterwards in July 1978. The IRA claimed McEntee: ‘had maintained occasional contact with security forces … and from 1975 … had given regular information to army intelligence’. The IRA had attacked McEntee for supposedly informing in 1973. Toby Harnden alleges that a local RUC officer admitted that McEntee had provided useful information.3 John McKeown was one of the fortunate agents who escaped death in south Armagh. In August 1999, An Phoblacht described how McKeown’s informing allegedly: ‘began in 1989 when he was caught stealing meat while he worked for a meat plant in Newry … two RUC detectives offered to drop the charges if McKeown agreed to inform’. He had to provide details on the movements of known republicans. The IRA questioned him for ‘stealing cattle’ and McKeown apparently revealed his informing because he wanted a ‘fresh start’.4

  The best-documented example of infiltration in south Armagh is the case of John McAnulty, a road haulier and smuggler. The Smithwick tribunal in Ireland investigated alleged Garda collusion with the South Armagh IRA in the killings of RUC Chief Superintendents Harry Breen and
Robert Buchanan in March 1989. During the tribunal, a former RUC Special Branch officer named McAnulty as a source. This admission provoked uproar during the proceedings because the intelligence services do not usually name informants, either dead or alive.5 Various sources say that McAnulty ran a haulage company and was heavily involved in cross-border smuggling with the IRA, including weapons smuggling. Amongst other things, the IRA accused McAnulty of providing intelligence that had led to the arrest of Raymond McCreesh in 1976. McCreesh later died on hunger strike. The Smithwick tribunal uncovered intelligence to suggest that McAnulty had told the RUC in 1985 that the IRA had a mole within the Dundalk Garda.6

  According to Matchett, a combination of electronic and human intelligence with special-force operations eventually led to the arrests of leading south Armagh republicans. Following intelligence operations that had led to the decline of the East Tyrone IRA by the mid-1990s (discussed in the East Tyrone section later on in the chapter) Matchett suggested that resources were ‘released … to concentrate on the once invincible South Armagh IRA’. He believes that the initial signs of success against the South Armagh IRA emerged in 1994. An arrest was made by HMSU of an – alleged senior – south Armagh republican. For Matchett, this arrest commenced the erosion of the South Armagh IRA’s activity, which he suggests also meant the decline of the IRA’s English campaign.7 Other evidence does demonstrate the neutralising of individual republicans in south Armagh. On 30 December 1990, the Royal Marines shot Fergal Caraher in Cullyhanna. British forces claimed that republicans had driven a car at a Royal Marine. The Army reported that they had opened fire to prevent the marine being hit by the car. Republicans said that this attack was unprovoked. Fergal’s killing did not deter other south Armagh republicans from participating in the sniper campaign against British forces and the RUC in the 1990s. The Fergal Caraher killing seemed to inspire rather than deter south Armagh republicans.8