The Kidnapping Review, Don Tidey, Provisional IRA, Brendan McFarlane IRA

The Kidnapping, Review, October, 2023 by Vincent McKenna MSc

Background

1982-83 would see Sinn Fein/PIRA enter electoral politics on a grand scale, however, the invoices and claims for expenses were for the first-time costing Millions of pounds to settle. Martin McGuinness had in 1982 meet with Fr Patrick Ryan at St Stephens Green in Dublin, where Patrick Ryan handed over less cash than expected from Gaddafi, McGuinness was furious as he explained the situation to Joe Cahill at 44 Parnell Square, Dublin.

I was present when Martin McGuinness was complaining to Joe Cahill about Fr Patrick Ryan, as my cousin PIRA Jeff McKenna, who would be killed in a hit-and-run in Dorset Street, Dublin in 1982, had brought me into 44 Parnell Square on a number of occasions and I was treated a a confidante. Jeff had been managing The Prisoner of War Department at Blessington Street. McGuinness suggested that Fr Patrick Ryan was spending, on himself, money that was destined for Sinn Fein/PIRA.

By early 1983, McGuinness, had a mere, £9,000 to hand over to PIRA member, John Crawley, who was directed by McGuinness to use his American accent to buy weapons across the counters of US gun shops and send them back home. This is where the initial information came from about the supply of weapons that would later be captured, McGuinness could not help boasting to those based at 44 Parnell Square, and I among those gathered.

Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were desperate for money, the money counterfeiting operation was producing poor results, takings from armed robberies often ended up in the pockets of the PIRA robbers, who rarely received their £10 per-week from the PIRA Leadership to supplement their social welfare claims. When Kevin Mallon was released in 1982, with his grand plan, to kidnap a race horse, Shergar, rather than place his dole money on it in the local bookies, Martin McGuinness said yes, Gerry Adams said yes, and the game was afoot.

The Reviewer

I have been associated with and involved with Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA since 1969, when as a child, I sat in my Uncle Sean McKenna’s kitchen in Newry, while he, JB O’Hagan and others created Sinn Fein/PIRA for the border counties, at exactly the same time as other founding members created Sinn Fein/PIRA in their own respective areas.

Vincent McKenna, front left, carrying symbolic coffin to commemorate the death of PIRA Hunger-Striker, Kieran Doherty TD.

I begin this review by saying, The Kidnapping, by Tommy Conlon and Ronan McGreevy, is perfectly timed, it is published when many thousands of victims of Sinn Fein/PIRA and Loyalist Terrorists, remain without answers. It is published at a time when Gerry Adams and his fellow gangland criminals continue to try and airbrush their crimes of rape and murder from the public consciousness.

The Kidnapping comes at a time when this author faces the 50^th Anniversary of the murder of my favourite Uncle, Cyril McCaul and his best friend and workmate Ivan Charlton. Two young men driving home from work on the 27 November, 1973, when they drove into a lorry that had been high-jacked by Provisional IRA criminals and placed on a notoriously dangerous part of the Ballygawley to Dungannon Road to lure the RUC into an ambush.

The Provisional IRA in Tyrone, led by my cousin Kevin McKenna (Chief of Staff, 1983-1997) claimed that the deaths of Cyril and Ivan were accidental, however, the statement of cowards rang hollow in my 9-year-old ears as I looked upon Cyril’s decapitated body in the morgue in Dungannon. In 1980, I volunteered for and was recruited by An Garda Siochana to infiltrate Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan/East Tyrone, which was led by my cousin Kevin McKenna.

PIRA Kevin McKenna, speaking at Carrickmore, Tyrone in 1975, during one of the many cease-fire agreed between Sinn Fein/PIRA and their MI6 Handlers.

The Kidnapping is a masterpiece as it places the Victim, Don Tidey and the sacrifice of our Defense Forces centre stage, while shinning a bright-light in to the dark sadistic minds of The Kidnappers and those who directed them, including former British Minister for Education in Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness and the wordsmith himself Gerry Adams TD.

 

Only those who have had a political lobotomy, would believe that Provisional IRA Director of Operations in 1983, Kevin Mallon, conducted a series of kidnappings, and their potential political consequences, without the seal of approval from Provisional IRA Northern Command and PIRA Army Council, who were in 1983 beginning to make political capital from the entrails of the Hunger-strikes of 1980-1981.

The Kidnapping Available HERE

 

The Psychopathy of The Kidnappers and their Masters

Thanks to Google, anyone can now quickly establish the murderous credentials of those who describe themselves as Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA. However, I would like to quickly set out the psyche of the men and women, that I knew as Sinn Fein/PIRA.

This Book published by, The Irish News, in Belfast contains 60 letters and articles by Vincent McKenna.

Also please note that the terminology, ‘Sinn Fein/PIRA’, was not the invention of British Spooks or Unionist Dinosaurs, but was in fact coined at the Sinn Fein/PIRA Ard Fheis (National Conference) in 1986 by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and we in the Sinn Fein/PIRA Propaganda Department, were told to sell the term far and wide, in order to undermine the newly created ‘Republican Sinn Fein/Continuity IRA’ that had split with Sinn Fein/PIRA due to a policy shift on abstentionism, although the truth be told, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, was not wholly enthusiastic about our newly sanctioned official policy of Ethnic Cleansing.

Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane OC

According to Seamus McElwaine, whom I had known since 1980, and whom I met again in Crumlin Road Jail in 1981. Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane was OC on the The Kidnapping of Don Tidey in 1983. And Kevin Mallon was Director of Operations who tasked McFarlane with the Kidnapping of Don Tidey. Seamus McElwaine had returned to his stalking ground of Knockatallon, Scotstown, following his role in the Kidnapping of Don Tidey. Seamus McElwaine told Jim Lynagh and I that he and Brendan McFarlane had opened fire in Derrada Woods killing Private Patrick Kelly and trainee recruit Garda Gary Sheehan.

 

Seamus McElwaine claimed that he had been drafted into the kidnapping of Don Tidey, by his Father’s life-long friend and IRA comrade, John Joe McGirl. Since the PIRA escape from Long Kesh/The Maze Prison September, 1983, Seamus McElwaine had spent his time with other PIRA escapees in the County Leitrim wilderness while sustaining life with groceries and other essentials supplied by John Joe McGirl and his nephew Francie (whom with Tommy McMahon planted the bomb on Louise Mountbatten’s boat in Sligo in 1979).

 

Seamus McElwaine was well able to survive in the rugged terrain of County Leitrim, a terrain that was no different from the hills, valleys, bog and ditches that he had scurried about in Knockatallon since he was a child. The gathering of dried twigs and heather to boil a kettle and the dispersing of the give-away smoke with stems of heather fashioned into a brush, was trade-craft for McElwaine.

 

John Joe McGirl, while a man full of hate, was not a stupid man, John Joe knew well that urban sectarian killers such as Brendan McFarlane would not fair so well as young McElwaine when they returned to the Leitrim bog with their quarry. Seamus McElwaine, would prepare base camp and all of its associated features, McElwaine would ride shot-gun and this was the perfect stage for McElwaine to perform.

John Joe McGirl seen here at Jim Lynagh's funeral with Martin McGuinness and planning retaliation for Loughgall, which would be Enniskillen.

Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, had made his name by murdering innocent civilians in Belfast’s urban jungle, in normal circumstances Brendan would have been treated like any other serial killer, however, he was a member of Sinn Fein/PIRA and that provided Brendan with a flag of convenience for his sectarian hatred. Brendan would some years later, in a secret deal, receive a Royal Pardon from Queen Elizabeth for matters not associated with Derrada Woods, showing without doubt that McFarlane was no republican.

While Gerry Adams was in Long Kesh in 1975, he was directing and sanctioning much of the sectarian murder in Northern Ireland. Adams would later claim that he had no hand in such sectarian murder in 1975-76, however, if that were the case, he would not have chosen Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane to represent Sinn Fein/PIRA during early meetings in 1985 with John Hume.

 

Seamus McElwaine, lauded as a ‘Freedom Fighter’ by ‘cease-fire soldiers’ such as Matt Carty TD (Who never actually knew McElwaine), was in fact a coward who murdered Protestant Farmers and other civilians along the border. The convenience of his Protestant targets often being off-duty RUC or UDR, was just that, a convenience to conceal a blood lust for his Protestant neighbors.

 

In June 1980, I was 16 years-old, I had left Tyrone, and I was living in a bed-sit on my own in Monaghan Town. I had been sworn into Na Fianna Eireann, I had been sworn into Provisional IRA by Kevin McKenna and I would be later sworn into Sinn Fein/PIRA by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Elected TD 1997).

 

I had in 1980, done as I had promised to my dead Uncle in 1973, infiltrated Sinn Fein/PIRA with a view to making them pay for my uncle’s death. By 1979, I had an interest in electronic engineering, and before leaving school I had done a placement with Loughran’s Garage in Ballygawley. However, any prospect, if there ever was one, of me walking away from my promise to my dead Uncle, were dashed on Easter Monday 1979.

On Easter Monday 1979, I had cycled from Aughnacloy to Clogher to witness my cousin Leo McKenna getting married to his Fiancée Bridie. As I stood there watching Leo and his bride leave the Chaple, I noticed a van, it was odd, I had seen a van moving like this in 1977 just before PIRA gunmen jumped out and shot dead David Morrow in Aughnacloy.

 

As I stood there transfixed on the van, a gunman dismounted and opened fire on Leo’s brother-in-law, Michael Cassidy, Michael’s little daughter screamed, another gunman dismounted and kept firing into Michael’s body as he lay dead on the ground. Soon after arriving in Monaghan Town, I would be in the company of Michael Cassidy’s killers, Jim Lynagh, Laurence McNally and Aidan McGurk.

On the 28^th June 1980, Jim Lynagh, Laurence McNally and Aidan McGurk would strike again, this time, they would murder William Elliot at the mart in Ballybay. The Garda Murder Squad AKA ‘The Heavy Gang’ were drafted into Monaghan Town from Dublin. One of those arrested, and who is still alive in 2023, broke under interrogation and gave up everything he knew. Seamus McElwaine arrived into McCagues Pub in Park Street, Monaghan Town and declared to myself and other Sinn Fein/PIRA gathered, that An Garda Siochana had just raided a number of arms dumps under McElwaine’s control.

 

I first met Seamus McElwaine in 1980 when he was 20-years-old, McElwaine had, like myself, joined The Provisional IRA when he was 16-years-old. By the age of 20-years, Seamus McElwaine was an established serial killer, who operated in Monaghan, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and so forth.

 

Seamus McElwaine and Jim Lynagh would then team up for one of their most cowardly murders. The murders of Norman Strong and his son James at Tynan Abbey, followed by the burning of their home and their bodies. A sadistic ritual often adopted through history by those who have lost sight of an elusive cause, because of their blind sectarianism and addiction to murder. McElwaine and Lynagh were going to repeat this outrage on Lord Paddy Rossmore, however, Gardai were fore-warned.

Formally The Round House Bar Monaghan Town. The morning after the Stronge murders, many of the murder gang were arrested from the basement of The Round House Bar.

Lynagh and McElwaine, often in my company, often compared how various bullet types had impacted on their victims at close range. In March 1981, McElwaine, like the coward he was surrendered along with fellow criminals to the British army. Finally, it was clear that McElwaine had no stomach for a fight when he and his comrades met armed and on-duty soldiers.

 

In 1982, when we held the Sinn Fein/PIRA convention in Monaghan Town to choose our candidate for the forth coming General Election in February, 1982, attempts to run Kevin Keelan were scuppered, by Seamus McElwaine’s father, Jimmy and his delegation from Knockatallon/Scotstown. Jimmy McElwaine, backed by a supporting letter from John Joe McGirl, insisted that Seamus McElwaine should be the chosen candidate.

Seamus McElwaine was run as the candidate in the February, 1982, General Election and our vote collapsed, as McElwaine was on remand for two of the many murders he had committed. The good people of Cavan/Monaghan had voted for Hunger-striker, Kieran Doherty as they believed that doing so would save his life, they were not going to vote in large numbers for a known serial killer such as McElwaine, no matter, how many votes belonging to dead men that we cast.

 

In May 1982, McElwaine was convicted and sentenced to Life for the murders for which he was charged, the Judge described Seamus McElwaine as a “Dangerous Killer”. However, McElwaine was not finished yet, and in September, 1983, McElwaine would escape from The Maze Prison, with dozens more Sinn Fein/PIRA convicted criminals. Brendan McFarlane had hand-picked McElwaine for the escape, while other men who had already served long sentences, were left behind. It was McElwaine who told me that Gerry Kelly MLA was the escaping prisoner who shot prison officer, John Adams in the head.

 

Many of those Sinn Fein/PIRA who had escaped from The Maze Prison in September, 1983, would initially hide-out in County Leitrim, under the watchful eye of John Joe McGirl and his nephew Francie. Brendan McFarlane was OC of those feral creatures who now lay low in the boglands of County Leitrim. McFarlane would choose the team that would kidnap, business executive, Don Tidey. The camp and its fire-power would be delegated to Seamus McElwaine.

 

Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, Gerard McDonnell and Tony McAllister, would be the core team, acting under direct orders from Director of Operations, Kevin Mallon.

 

Don Tidey Kidnapping, Why?

We in Sinn Fein/PIRA in the Irish Republic had funded three general elections in 1981-2, and we were feeling the pain of The Adams Project, ‘The ballot box in one hand and the Armalite in the other’. In Northern Ireland, assembly elections and Westminster elections were matching the costs incurred in The Irish Republic. We needed millions to fund The Adams Project, and we were effectively broke.

Active PIRA Terrorists were supposed to be paid £10 per-week to supplement their social welfare payments from the state, however, when invoices and expenses claims for elections were settled, there was very little left to pay PIRA Terrorists.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and I, were tasked with placing £10 per-month into brown envelopes, for the wives of PIRA terrorists, those terrorists imprisoned in Portlaoise and Long Kesh. The wives were on social welfare, and the £10 per-month was a small top-up.

 

The kidnapping of Shergar, promised much, and delivered nothing only a national and international crackdown on Sinn Fein/PIRA activity. Kevin Mallon’s bet, and McGuinness’s hopes lay dashed on a beaten docket. Contrary to the artistic license employed by Sean O’Callaghan and others about the demise of Shergar, the horse was shot in the head with a revolver by Kevin Mallon, when it had injured its leg in a horse box and was simply buried in a bog in County Leitrim. Kevin Mallon and my cousin Kevin McKenna were very close from their active days in Tyrone.

 

The next big fund-raising event, was even less successful than the Shergar fiasco. Galen Weston, remembered by PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, from Kevin’s time working in Canada, had been put forward as a good candidate for a kidnapping. However, in an exclusive, in, The Kidnapping, former Garda Commissioner, Nacie Rice, states that Sean O’Callaghan’s claim that he (Sean) tipped off An Garda Siochana about the plan to kidnap Galen, is in fact a false claim.

 

Sean O’Callaghan was being sponsored in London by Lord Cranbourne, and Sean’s false claim about saving Galen Weston, may have had more to do with getting a free lunch than reality. This reviewer can reveal that the name Galen Weston never left the inner circle of The General Headquarters Staff at 44 Parnell Square, Dublin, and the plan was only discovered by accident, when an ‘unofficial’ search’ was conducted of Rita O’Hare’s office in the early hours of 14 July, 1983. Gardai would later say that they had received a tip-off two weeks before their operation to protect Galen Weston.

 

The unofficial search of Rita O’Hare’s office was conducted by a Garda Agent acting under direction from senior Garda Officers. The search had nothing to do with kidnappings, but was focused on establishing the whereabouts of printing plates that were being used to print counterfeit Irish money and posing a threat to the value of Irish currency and the Irish economy. Rita O’Hare had concealed beneath a floor board, magazine and news-paper cuttings relating to Galen Weston, including pictures of his home and maps. This version of events supported by senior Gardai.

 

Senior Gardai put their own plan in place to protect Galen Weston, his family, and Ireland’s international reputation. Following a shootout with the would-be kidnappers, Gardai arrested all concerned and as they were convicted in November, 1983, Gerry Adams MP applauded their efforts on his behalf from the public gallery. While Martin McGuinness had sanctioned all kidnappings, he had also made it very clear that the kidnappers were not to allow themselves to be arrested, due to Sinn Fein/PIRA making electoral gains.

 

Interestingly, while artistic license has also been used by some to describe the discovery of hundreds of thousands of pounds in a PIRA bank account in Navan, the reality of the discovery, is much simpler. The money which was paid by Galen Weston’s company, to ensure no further threats to his family or staff, was to be transferred to America for the purchase of explosives and weapons for the PIRA.

 

Alan Clancy, who owned the Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan Town, was an ardent supporter of the PIRA, with former PIRA member, Tommy McNulty, in his book, Exiled, explaining how, The Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan was a hot bed of Provisional IRA activity, including the storage of weapons and fund raising.

 

It was from The Four Seasons Hotel that Catholic Headmaster, Cormac McCabe, Aughnacloy, was kidnapped by Kevin McKenna and Hensey McKenna, tortured and murdered, while his wife and handicapped child waited at the dinner table in The Four Seasons Hotel for Cormac’s return from the bathroom.

 

The revolver used to kidnap Cormac McCabe was kept in Alan Clancy’s night-safe, it was removed by doorman Seamus ‘The Bull’ McCleary (Not Sinn Fein/PIRA) and handed to Kevin McKenna. Kevin McKenna and Hensey McKenna wrestled Cormac McCabe out of the front door of the hotel and he was driven to his death by James Fox.

 

Seamus ‘The Bull’ McCleary and his wife Mary McCleary would enjoy free holidays in America provided by Alan Clancy for Seamus’s role in Cormac McCabe’s murder. However, Seamus ‘The Bull’ McCleary, soon regretted helping the PIRA when he was subject to a brutal assault by PIRA members in Emyvale, leaving Seamus with life changing injuries. One of those who attacked Seamus, Frank Daly, told me that he ran the full length of the dance floor in the Emyvale Inn and kicked Seamus in the head with hog-nail-boots as Seamus lay helpless on the ground.

 

The Kidnapping

 

Tommy Conlon and Ronan McGreevy, have published The Kidnapping at a time, when the well-oiled, illicitly funded, Sinn Fein/PIRA propaganda machine tries to white-wash its human and civil rights violations, including mass-murder and rape, from the human consciousness.

 

Conlon and McGreevy interrupt the false narrative by meticulously and uncompromisingly, producing a victim centric Masterpiece, that is revealing, captivating and emotionally draining.

 

The Kidnapping survivor, the hostage to gangland criminals, Don Tidey, appears from the fog of 40-years of Sinn Fein/PIRA misinformation, as a modest man of extraordinary character, a soldier who stands head and shoulders above the gangland criminals who so grievously and callously snatched a hard-working family man from his family, community and work place colleagues.

 

Those cradle-to-the-grave social welfare claimants in Sinn Fein/PIRA, who masterminded The Kidnapping of a hardworking family man, pale in the shadows of Don Tidey. Tidey brought wealth creation to Ireland at a time when another generation were being forced onto the famine ships by the murder, misery and economic self-defecation cast upon our people by his Sinn Fein/PIRA Kidnappers.

 

Kevin Mallon who had escaped from Mountjoy with my Monaghan Town based mentor, JB O’Hagan, did not act alone in this heinous crime.

 

Kevin Mallon was Directed by Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and the other members of The PIRA Army Council, who were desperate for money to fund their dual strategy of ‘The ‘Ballot Box in one hand and the slaughter of the innocent in the other’.

 

Behind The PIRA Army Council was the grubby little hands of The General Headquarters Staff, at 44 Parnell Square. Joe Cahill, Rita O’Hare, Rose Dugdale, Phil Flynn, Seamus McGarrigle, who would launder the proceedings of their nefarious activity.

 

The Bag-men, Phil Flynn, Alan Clancy, Patrick ‘I am Slab’ Murphy and Vincent Conlon would spread the spoils with the assistance of their little helpers in Bank of Ireland. Yes, as early as the 1980s we in Sinn Fein/PIRA had our people on the inside of the banking system.

 

Ivor Bell, Pat Doherty, Kevin McKenna, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, Martin Ferris, John Joe McGirl, JB O’Hagan, Michael McKevitt would sanction Kevin Mallon’s operational psychopathy, Brenda ‘Bik’ McFarlane, who had forced hunger strikers to sign Affidavits so their families could not save them when they went into comas, would again be OC.

Here Gerry Kelly MLA and PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna carry the coffin of Martin McGuinness. McKenna, the mass murderer had received an Amnesty from the British. 

Brendan McFarlane would command a group of ruthless killers, he being king among them, to kidnap and terrorize an unarmed family man, who rather than offending Ireland had brought its children prosperity through jobs and opportunity.

 

Following Seamus McElwaine’s participation in The Kidnapping he returned to the boglands of Knockatallon, a bogland that bordered county Fermanagh. One of the greatest vexations for McElwaine, was that the land from which his Family cut their turf each year, still remained in the hands of Lord Paddy Rossmore. The McElwaine’s had to pay a land agent each year to cut turf from what they believed to be Irish Land and common land to its people.

 

Those of us who knew McElwaine’s deeply ingrained hatred of Protestants, could see his relief to be back on familiar ground where he could stalk and kill his prey. However, it was ground beneath which he would soon be buried, set-up for The SAS by enemies within. His destiny had been cast in stone in 1985, when his father Jimmy, had once again challenged The Provisional IRA Command Staff in Monaghan.

 

At the 1985 election convention in Monaghan Town, we in Sinn Fein/PIRA proposed to run Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin for the county council and we knew we would face opposition from Jimmy McElwaine, who felt the candidacy was naturally his, and not the suited new boy, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.

 

When Jimmy McElwaine was defeated at the Monaghan convention, this set, in motion, the events that would unfold at the 1986 Sinn Fein/PIRA Ard Fheis. Jimmy McElwaine had made enemies for himself and his son, no matter how many paramilitary trappings were unfurled at Seamus’s funeral in 1986.

 

Also at the 1985 Convention, this reviewer was asked to run as a candidate for the Urban Town Council, a seat once held by Jim Lynagh, who was, in 1985, in Jail. The PIRA OC, Edward ‘Ned’ Hamill said he would propose me and his wife Bernie would second me, this was mainly due to the fact that there was internal division about some leadership members allowing RUC Super-grass, Owen Smyth to return to the ranks.

 

However, I rejected the nomination and gave Owen Smyth and Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha a clear run.

 

The 1983 cold blooded murders of Garda Shehan and Irish Solider Kelly in Derrada Woods, are often presented by suited terrorists, such as Gerry Adams, as an isolated incident, where PIRA gunmen, feared they were going to be shot and opened fire in self-defense, however, according to Seamus McElwaine this was not the case.

 

In March 1983, the PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, had upon request from Jim Lynagh sanctioned the murder of Irish Prison Officer, Brian Stack in Dublin. This murder, while in contravention of standing order number 8, was retrospectively sanctioned by Martin McGuinness (who was in Dublin handing over money to John Crawley and others to buy weapons), Martin Ferris, Joe Cahill, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy and Michael McKevitt.

 

The murders of Brian Stack, Garda Shehan and Solider Kelly a clear message to those who would dare interfere with PIRA plans. In 1984, following the murder of Brian Stack, a plan by Martin Ferris and John Crawley to escape from Portlaosie Prison was foiled. In 1985 another plan by PIRA members to escape from Portlaoise prison was foiled. However, it was clear that contraband, once denied to the PIRA in Portlaoise Prison by the professionalism of Brian Stack was now making its way to the terrorists.

 

Conlon and McGreevy describe through the Lense of eye-witness testimony, the savagery and barbarity of Brendan McFarlane and Seamus McElwaine as they cleared a path in front of them, leaving behind the depleted lives of Shehan and Kelly, both Irish Patriots murdered in cold blood by the enemies of Irish Republicanism. Mc Farlane who would with fellow escapee Gerry Kelly MLA, a short time later accept a secret Royal Pardon for crimes separate from the Tidey Kidnapping, from their British paymasters. What self-respecting republican would take anything from the British.

When this reviewer, began a prolonged debrief of former PIRA Hunger-striker, Sean McKenna, 1990-92, Sean McKenna was adamant that Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane and Seamus McElwaine were the shooters in Derrada Woods. Sean disclosed this as a matter of fact, not propaganda against his former OC, Brendan McFarlane.

 

At Chapter 25, Conlon and McGreevy set-out the trials and tribulations of those who went On-the-Run following their role in the Tidey kidnapping. This reviewer can shine another light into this dark corner. When PIRA member/Sinn Fein candidate, Peter Sherry, from Dungannon, became too hot to handle after he had murdered innocent civilian, Malcolm Cullen, in Shields Timber Yard in Dungannon in 1984. The PIRA Leadership tasked Peter with travelling to The UK where he would ride shotgun for Brighton Bomber, Patrick McGee.

 

However, Peter Sherry sent a message to his Boss, Kevin McKenna in Monaghan that he was moving over-seas, this information was intercepted by a Garda Agent, passed to his Garda contact, which was passed to C3 at Garda HQ and onwards to RUC Tyrone. This led RUC Officer, Ian Phoenix to follow Peter Sherry to a PIRA Laire in Scotland, where Brighton Bomber, Patrick McGee was arrested along with, Tidey Kidnapper, Gerard McDonnell.

 

McGee and McDonnell and their team planning a bombing campaign across UK holiday resorts, where the potential existed for many innocent men, women and children to be murdered and maimed. Soon afterwards, another of the Tidey Kidnapping gang, Seamus McElwaine would be shot dead by The SAS, who lay in wait at a remote location, that only a small number of PIRA knew about. 

McElwaine’s boasting of murdering many and injuring and maiming the innocent, had bought him a hole in the ground he so loved. I did not know who John Kelly was when McElwaine told me in Crumlin Road Jail in 1981 about shooting John in 1979, he was in fact the father, of DUP Leader, Arlene Foster.

 

John Joe McGirl who had feed and taken care of the Tidey kidnappers, was not done yet. In retaliation for Loughgall on the 8 May, 1987, John Joe would personally supervise the construction of the bomb that would be planted at the war memorial in Enniskillen in 1987, murdering 11 innocent men, women and children and maiming dozens more. 

Charlie Caufield, a close friend of McElwaine’s and Lynagh's, was OC on the Enniskillen Bomb. Most of the bomb team were arrested in Monaghan Town as they returned from planting the bomb, however, there was no forensics and the bomb exploded two hours after their arrest. The bomb done exactly what Kevin McKenna had planned it to do, just as the Shankill bomb done exactly what it was planned to do in 1993, anyone who thinks different, is either ignorant of the facts or a Sinn Fein/PIRA apologist.

Conclusion

 

The Kidnapping is a timely Masterpiece crafted on the potter’s wheel of truth. The Kidnapping exposes Sinn Fein/PIRA and their suited mouth-pieces as being no different from The Kinahan Cartel. Sinn Fein/PIRA are happy to benefit from the proceeds of crime, and are happier at kidnapping unarmed civilians, than they are confronting armed military personnel.

 

Kevin McKenna, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Pat Doherty, Joe Cahill, Kevin Mallon, JB O’Hagan, John Joe McGirl, Rita O’Hare, Rose Dugdale, Martin Ferris and the rest, were and remain nothing more, either in life or death, than the anti-thesis of Irish Republicanism, their actions repugnant, to all, but those who sell their soul for shillings, or seek protection from the consequences of their crimes.

 

The Kidnapping, must be read, by all who seek a better world for their children, that world cannot be handed over to The Butchers of Derrada Woods or those who would applaud them from the public gallery.