An Phoblacht Republican News Vincent Mc Kenna

Vincent Mc Kenna interview




1. Firstly, can I ask where you were reared and how you ended up living in Monaghan Town?



2. My family have lived in Monaghan for centuries, we are mainly based in Clara in north Monaghan, however, we have a very large extended family that now stretches the length and breadth of Ireland. I was reared in County Tyrone a few miles from my ancestral family home in Clara in north Monaghan.



3. At what point did you return to Monaghan from Tyrone?



4. I left school when I was 16 years old and immediately moved back to Monaghan. I worked in Monaghan Poultry Products, which is now sadly closed, and I lived in a bedsit.



5. So you were living on your own and working in a factory when you were 16 years old?



6. That is correct, I was earning 38 pounds (punts) per week initially as I was only a child and not entitled to ‘mans’ wages, my bedsit was costing me 7 pounds (punts) per week. However, I was getting a good dinner in the factory every day and that kept me going.



7. At what point did you get involved with the republican movement?



8. In Monaghan Poultry Products a number of the older lads were already members of Na Fianna Eireann, which is the junior IRA, and I joined immediately.



9. What did you do in the Fianna?



10. To be honest the Fianna was really like the boy scouts, we simply marched on Easter Sunday and went to march at Bodenstown every June. We would meet in Rossmore Park to practice marching and sometimes we would meet in a prefab where the new county council offices now stand in Monaghan Town.



11. So you had no weapons training or anything of that nature while in the Fianna?



12. No, most of the lads that were in the Fianna were harmless; it was just like a boys club.



13. Did you join Sinn Fein?



14. Yes, I was in Mc Cague’s pub in Park Street one Saturday night and I was talking to Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin , he asked me to join Sinn Fein, I told him that I was only interested in fighting the brits and not simply sitting at meetings. However, Caoimhghin said that I could do both and he invited me to a Cummann meeting. I went to the O’Hanlon Sinn Fein Cummann meeting the following week, the meeting was held up stairs in St Maccartans Hall in Park Street. Those present on the night I joined Sinn Fein were Caoimhghin, JB O Hagan, PO’M, and Kieran Starrs. It would have been 1980 as Caoimhghin was still working in the Bank of Ireland.



15. Were you sworn in?



16. Yes, Caoimhghin read out a statement and I had to swear to that statement.



17. Were you joining Sinn Fein or the IRA or both?



18. I was joining Sinn Fein.



19. At what point if any did you join the IRA?



20. As far as I am concerned I joined the IRA when I joined Na Fianna Eireann, however, I did not have a significant role in the IRA until Jim Lynagh engaged me as an Intelligence Officer.



21. I am sure you are aware that there are some people who contradict the fact that you were a member of the IRA?



22. If you are talking about people like Owen/Eoin Smyth and Dennis Donaldson then I am sure you will understand if I treat their previously publicly stated comments about me with contempt, as both provided information to the RUC about Irish Republicans.



23. So what role had you in the IRA?



24. My job was to gather information about British targets, that information was typed up on an old IBM type writer that I had, it was coded and past to Jim Lynagh. Jim compared my coded reports with reports that he had seen from a female republican in Tyrone.



25. What type of information are we talking about?



26. I will have to leave that to your imagination.



27. When Lynagh was killed in 1987 how did you feel?



28. I was devastated, Jim had been so excited about the fact that new weapons and explosive supplies were at hand, he really wanted to take the war to the Brits, but he was betrayed.



29. Do you honestly believe that Loughgall was the work of British agents within the republican movement?



30. I know for a fact that RUC touts within the republican movement were responsible for the Loughgall executions.



31. How do you know?



32. I have dedicated the past 25 years establishing the truth about those responsible for Loughgall.



33. But surely you can’t say you have spent the last 25 years establishing the truth about Loughgall when you were a public campaigner against the IRA?



34. You say I was a public campaigner against the IRA, I say I was a public campaigner against criminals; it just so happened that those criminals were within the IRA.



35. Are you then saying that your public persona was different from your personal position?



36. I am saying that I was and remain opposed to those people who use the republican movement for criminal activity; my position has been vindicated with all that is now known publicly about people such as Slab Murphy and so forth.



37. When Jim Lynagh was killed did you severe your connection with the IRA?



38. No, I was approached by another member of the East Tyrone IRA and I continued to work as an Intelligence Officer for the IRA.



39. Is that IRA member still alive?



40. Yes, he is alive and well.



41. Can you name him?



42. I can, but I won’t.



43. It has been suggested that while you were in FAIT you were still working for an IRA intelligence unit, is that the case?



44. I have already made my position clear, my interest has always been to establish the truth about Loughgall, I would have went to bed with the Queen of England if that would have brought me any closer to the truth about those who betrayed Jim Lynagh.



45. It has been stated that you had meetings with IRA Leader Joe Cathal when you were in FAIT, is that true?



46. I had known Joe for many years, and it is fair to say that I remained in contact with Joe while I was in Belfast.



47. How does that fit with your public campaign against the IRA?



48. I have already answered that question.



49. If that was and is your position, why did the republican movement use their paper An Phoblacht and their press facilities at Stormont to run a campaign against you?



50. The people who ran the campaign against me were RUC informers such as Owen Smyth in Monaghan and Dennis Donaldson in Belfast, I do not believe that the Republican movement ran a campaign against me, simply criminals and touts within that organisation.



51. Do you take any pleasure from the fact that Liam Adams, Gerry Adams Snr , Thomas Slab Murphy and others within the republican movement have been exposed as criminals?



52. No, I am now and always have been an Irish Republican and for that reason I take no pleasure from these latest exposures.



53. When you were involved in FAIT did you pass information to the IRA?



54. Firstly, when I was asked to go into the FAIT office and sort it out, I was absolutely amazed. A short time before I was asked to go into FAIT, FAIT had threatened me with legal action as I said in The Irish News that FAIT were a front for drugs dealers.



55. So who asked you to go into FAIT?



56. Liam Clarke from the Sunday Times, he and his wife Cathy Johnston had been involved with FAIT and Liam told me that FAIT was going to close unless they got someone in there quick, I could not believe that I had been asked to go into FAIT.



57. Who was involved in FAIT and who was funding FAIT?



58. When I went into the FAIT office on High Street there was nobody left in the group, they had all abandoned ship and a vast amount of money was gone missing.



59. What do you mean money gone missing?



60. Firstly, from 1996 I had been lecturing in Start Your Own Business at Queens University, so I had a very good understanding of accounts and business. FAIT had been funded to the tune of almost one-million pounds sterling, the majority of this money had come from the Central Community Relations Office at Stormont. The core funding was for rent, rates, phone, petty cash and wages for two members of staff. However, when I went into FAIT I quickly discovered that tens of thousands of pounds were missing and basics like rent, rates, electricity had not been paid for a very long time.



61. What had happened to the money?



62. From my investigation, it was clear that certain people involved with FAIT had been using the petty cash account to fill their pockets, large amounts of money had been transferred through the petty cash account to facilitate this embezzlement.



63. Did FAIT have any assets?



64. No, even basic things such as a video camera that had been purchased to interview victims of violence had been taken from the office and never returned.



65. Was Sam Cushnahan not the Director of FAIT?



66. Sam was a man in serious financial difficulty when I meet him; he had just asked his brother John Cushnahan MEP to co-sign a bank loan of 20,000 to save him from bankruptcy. Sam’s wife had not spoken to him for years; Sam was having a relationship with a woman from east Belfast. Sam’s unhealthy life style lead to him having a heart attack and he often borrowed money from me to buy wine and cigarettes to take up to his mistress in east Belfast. This mistress had lost a 12 year old child to suicide.



67. Was Martin McGartland involved in FAIT?



68. Yes, he was living in hiding in England as he had been exposed as an RUC tout, McGartland was in regular contact with Sam Cushnahan.



69. What was Liam Clarke’s role in FAIT?



70. Liam was simply feed ‘exclusive’ stories by Sam Cushnahan, if someone came to FAIT seeking help Sam would usually phone Liam to see if he wanted the story.



71. FAIT had several public fall-outs among its members, why was that?



72. It was really about egos and money; they all had their hand in the cookie jar.



73. Did you receive any wages or expenses when you were in FAIT?



74. Absolutely not, there was no money in FAIT and it owed tens of thousands including rent and other basics that had been directly funded by the NIO.



75. Is it true that Martin Mc Gartland made a donation of two-thousand pounds to FAIT while you were working there?



76. I was only aware of that money being paid to Sam Cushnahan after I left FAIT.



77. How did you become aware of that payment?



78. When I left FAIT I received a tax rebate for a few pounds and I made enquires about that tax rebate, Revenue told me that two salary payments had been made in my name. When I challenged Sam Cushnahan about these payments, he told me that Martin Mc Gartland had paid two-thousand to FAIT and that the only way he (Sam) could get the money out of the FAIT bank account was to say it was for wages.



79. Did FAIT actually help any victims?



80. I can only speak for the time that I was in FAIT and what I seen there, FAIT was very poorly organised and was not subjected to the public scrutiny that it should have been. Vast amounts of tax payers’ money was pumped into FAIT simply because it was an anti-Sinn Fein platform. People in FAIT got free trips to America and certainly misused their position. Victims were a secondary consideration to people such as Sam Cushnahan.



81. Vincent, let me ask you again, were you working for the PIRA when you were in FAIT?



82. I have already answered that question.



83. Were you questioned about the shooting of RUC informer Martin Mc Gartland?



84. Yes, I was questioned for several hours in Castlereagh Holding Centre about the shooting of Mc Gartland.



85. It has been suggested that you passed McGartland’s details to the PIRA in west Belfast, and in particular to an IRA member who had been on Hunger Strike with your cousin Sean Mc Kenna in 1980, is that the case?



86. I would say that Mc Gartland was the only person who compromised his own security, he was in regular contact with journalists in the north and on occasion he invited a teenage girl over to his hideout in England where he showed off his legally held handgun.



87. This interview would not be complete if I did not ask you about the allegations that eventually seen you fall from grace, are you guilty of those allegations or do you maintain your innocence?



88. My position is today as it was in April 1998 when those allegations were first muted. I have consistently and persistently made my case before the courts and that will continue. As for those who ran a malicious and vexatious campaign against me, I can assure you that they are guilty of much greater crimes than any crime alleged against me.



89. Are you angry about the campaign that was run against you?



90. Not really, when you know that those shouting loudest are doing so to drown out the screams of their victims, you take some consolation in that, when you watch certain people campaign against you in the media when you know that those people have disposed of their unborn children and grandchildren like dogs, or that they participated in, facilitated and concealed the rape of children you know that they are simply in pain.



91. Are you talking about anyone in particular?



92. Does it matter, they know who they are, I know who they are and some day they will stand before God.



93. Vincent, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak to me and I would like to wish you well for the future.