Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Norman Strong Murder 21st January 1981

Norman Strong Murder 21st January 1981

The majority of people who have commented on the murder of 86-year-old Norman Stronge and his 48-year-old sons James at Tynan Abbey on the 21st of January, 1981, have done so from two perspectives. Firstly, there were those people who knew the Stronge family personally and were simply outraged by the cowardice of their murders. Secondly, there were those who simply reported the facts as it was their job to do. In this article, I would like to offer a view of the murders from within the ranks of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan at that time when the murders were sanctioned.

The Sinn Fein/PIRA view of the murders of the Stronge Family were best summed up by, a member of The PIRA Army Council, Gerry Adams  when he said: 

“The only complaint I have heard from nationalists or anti-unionists is that he (Sir Norman) was not shot 40 years ago.”

Gerry Adams was/is someone who murders women and children, in contrast to, Sir Norman Stronge, former Speaker of the Stormont Parliament who had fought at the Somme and had been awarded the Military Cross and the Belgian Croix de Guerre for bravery.

Murder at The Abbey

In 1980, a significant event took place that has never been mentioned in relation to the lead up to the murders of Norman Stronge and his son James at Tynan Abbey. In October 1980, Jim Lynagh, who had recently served a sentence in The Maze/Long Kesh for possession of explosives was before The Special Criminal Court in Dublin under the CRIMINAL LAW [JURISDICTION] ACT 1976.

In 1980 Jim Lynagh, Aidan McGurk and Laurence McNally were charged with the murder of a UDR man, Henry Livingstone. The Special Criminal Court held that the prosecution had not established a prima facie case and ordered the release of the three accused. Jim Lynagh, Aidan McGurk and Laurence McNally had murdered in cold blood Henry Livingston, as he lay on the ground McNally and Lynagh continued to fire bullets into his body.

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In October 1980 Lynagh was a Sinn Fein Councilor on Monaghan Urban Council and he was also OC (Officer Commanding) Monaghan/East Tyrone PIRA. Jim Lynagh was an experienced and intelligent PIRA operative; he made no apology for those who died at his hand.

This picture shows two people who were directly involved in the Stronge murders and one who sanctioned the murders. Actually there are three who were directly involved in the murders, the third is in the coffin.

The release of Jim Lynagh, Aidan McGuirk and Laurence McNally were very significant, these were three very seasoned operatives, although one did not have to be Special Forces to murder an 86-year-old as he sat in his armchair watching TV.

Lynagh, McGuirk and McNally reported back to The PIRA Command Staff in Monaghan Town. In 1980 The PIRA Command Staff included Kevin McKenna (PIRA Chief of Staff 1983-1997), J.B. O’Hagan (Asst Chief of Staff), Brendan McKenna (Adjutant), Vincent Conlon (Finance) and so forth. There was an overinflated number of PIRA activists in Monaghan Town, this was mainly due to the numbers that had arrived in Monaghan from Tyrone, Derry, Armagh and so forth and claimed to be On-the-Run (OTR).

In the 1970s/1980s Goggle did not exist and there were very few telephones. This lack of communication and knowledge meant it could take weeks to check out someone who arrived in Monaghan Town and claimed to be On The Run (OTR). For example, George Poytz arrived in Castleblaney and claimed to be On the Run, he was in fact a British Agent. The majority of Sinn Fein/PIRA activists in Monaghan Town were on Social Welfare in the 1980s, this was mainly due to the economy being very depressed.

While there were significant numbers of PIRA activists in Monaghan Town, only a few were of any real value for the type of campaign being waged by Kevin McKenna. Kevin McKenna was from outside the border town of Aughnacloy in County Tyrone, he was On The Run and living in Monaghan from the 1970s. All non-loyalist murders committed in and around Aughnacloy between 1970 and 1980 would have had Kevin McKenna’s finger-prints on them. McKenna had no success in and around Aughnacloy from 1980 onward (success being measured in death).

Kevin McKenna had personally murdered Cormac McCabe from Aughnacloy, when Cormac McCabe was kidnapped from the Four Seasons Hotel, murdered and his body dumped at the border. Kevin McKenna had also personally murdered school boy Columbia McVeigh, Columbia McVeigh was not an informer, however, Columbia had been so badly tortured that they decided to kill him and secretly bury him, his body has never been found.

Kevin McKenna was a sectarian killer and derived his greatest pleasure from murdering Protestants. I had known Kevin from I was a small child as he was a good deal older than me. The decision to murder Norman Stronge and James Stronge was taken very quickly, the Stronge Family had not been high on PIRA hit list, however, The PIRA in Monaghan Town had a great deal of information about The Stronge Family and their routine.

The decision to murder Norman Stronge and his son James was taken immediately after the attempted murder of Bernadette McAliskey in Coalisland, County Tyrone, by The Ulster Freedom Fighters. On the 16th of January 1981 Bernadette McAliskey (nee, Devlin) and her husband were shot by members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, who broke into their home near Coalisland, County Tyrone. The gunmen shot Bernadette Devlin nine times in front of her children. The UFF members who carried out this attack must have known that it would be the local Protestant population that would pay the price for their actions.

Following the shooting of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband by the UFF, The PIRA quickly convened a meeting in Monaghan Town and the decision was taken to take out a high-profile target. The most high-profile target immediately at hand to The PIRA in Monaghan was Norman Stronge and his son James. The 8-man PIRA Unit led by Jim Lynagh were ordered to kill everyone in Tynan Abbey and to burn the Abbey to the ground.

Murder Most Foul

On the evening of the 21st January 1981 the 8-man PIRA Unit lead by Jim Lynagh were driven to the border between Monaghan and Armagh. Members of The PIRA Unit held two families hostage and stole their family cars for the return journey to Monaghan. The 8-man PIRA unit made their way to The Abbey where they blew of the heavy front doors with bombs that had been made over the previous days by Jim Lynagh and Charlie Caufield.

When The PIRA members entered the library they, Jim Lynagh and Seamus Shannon, summarily executed Sir Norman and his son James as they sat watching TV. The PIRA Unit then planted incendiary devices so that The Abbey and the bodies of Sir Norman and James would be burned beyond recognition and could not avail of normal funeral arrangement, for example, where their family could view the bodies during a traditional wake and Christian funeral.

The burned remains of Tynan Abbey in 1981

As the PIRA Unit left the scene in their stolen cars, RUC officers arrived and were fired upon by The PIRA Unit, Lynagh, Shannon (Lynagh’s brother-in-law) McNally and McGuirk focused heavy fire on the wind-screen of the RUC cars to try and kill the officers inside. Later, both Lynagh and Shannon expressed frustration that they did not know that the roofs of the RUC cars were not bullet proof, if they had known this they could have climbed onto the roof of the RUC cars and killed the officers inside. The RUC returned some fire, but the PIRA Unit made their escape across fields and forest and into near-by Glaslough in County Monaghan.

The PIRA Unit made their way to the home of Mr Harry Lavery in Glasslough and arrangements were made for the PIRA Unit to return to Monaghan Town. On the morning of the 22nd of January 1981 members of the Garda Special Branch Unit raided The Round House Bar in Church Square in Monaghan Town and found some of The PIRA Unit hiding in the basement. While The Round House Bar was owned by Mr Robert Loane, it was being managed and operated by Owen/Eoin Smyth who was involved in the planning of the Stronge murders.

This was The Round House Bar but eventually even the drunks walked away

Th remaining members of The PIRA Unit had made their way back to Mullaghamatt Council Housing Estate, where their uniforms were washed in a safe house and the weapons (one lost at the scene of the murders) were returned to a PIRA Arms Dump in Rossmore Forest Park, close to Mullaghmatt Council Housing Estate.

While An Garda Siochana arrested most of the murder gang, there was no evidence available to the Gardai in Monaghan other than a finger-print belonging to Seamus Shannon on one of the cars used. While Owen/Eoin Smyth had been warned by Jim Lynagh not to go back into the north again, as he would be arrested for the murders. Smyth, went into the north and was arrested by The RUC, Smyth squealed like a rat to save himself and would eventually only serve a few months in The Maze/Long Kesh after admitting his role in two high-profile murders.

Seamus Shannon would face extradition due to the finger-print evidence and Smyth’s touting. The Republic of Ireland Supreme Court later rejected an appeal by Seamus Shannon against his extradition to Northern Ireland to face charges of involvement in the Stronge double murder. The Court rejected the defense that these were political offences, saying that they were:

“so brutal, cowardly and callous that it would be a distortion of language if they were to be accorded the status of a political offence”. Shannon was extradited but later acquitted.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

William Hampton, Sinn Fein, Millions

William Hampton Sinn Fein/PIRA Millions

11th December 2019

FAO
Director General RTE
Donnybrook
Dublin 4

Ref: Complaint: William E. Hampton - RTE Prime Time Programme – 10th December 2019 - 9.35pm

Dear Sir/Madam

On Tuesday night I had watched the RTE News at 9pm and at the end of the News there was an advertisement for the Prime Time Programme to follow, on the advertisement I seen two  people that I recognised, although the advertisement did not name either, the men I recognised from the advertisement were Owen Smyth AKA Eoin Smyth and William E. Hampton AKA Billy, I decided to watch the Prime Time Programme to see what was being said.

Background
Towards the end of 2006 I received a phone call from Kevin McKenna asking if I could do him a favour. I was working very hard in 2006 and did not really have time to get involved in anything, however, I agreed to meet with Kevin McKenna in Smithborough in Monaghan. Kevin McKenna told me that a man by the name of William Hampton AKA Billy, had left Sinn Fein a large amount of money in his Will in 1997, but now wanted to change his Will and leave his money to The Irish Labour Party as he had become aware of the fact that Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, Joe Cahill and the leadership in Belfast had covered up the rape of children and protected the rapists.

Kevin McKenna asked me if I would go to the UK and meet with William Hampton and try to convince him that giving his money to Sinn Fein would help with the peace-process. Kevin did not want to send any member of Sinn Fein/PIRA to meet with William Hampton.

In March 2007 Kevin McKenna had set-up a meeting between William Hampton and I, that meeting was to take place at The Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon, Wales. At my own expense I travelled to Wales by Ferry and booked into The Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon. The day after I booked into the Black Boy Inn, William Hampton arrived and asked for xxxxxxx at the Reception.

William Hampton, who insisted that I call him Billy was a strange wee man, but who was well educated about the ways of the world. Billy told me that he had left most of his estate to Sinn Fein/PIRA in a Will that he had made in 1997, but he now wanted to change his mind as he had learned about the numbers of children who had been raped by Sinn Fein/PIRA and that Gerry Adams, Joe Cahill and the leadership had protected the rapists while silencing the children, Billy said that he now wanted to leave his money to the Irish Labour Party as he believed that Pat Rabbitte, Eamon Gilmore and the Labour Party were better able to represent Irish interests.

William Hampton told me that when he had initially spoken to Kevin McKenna on the phone in 2006 about his plans to change his Will, Kevin McKenna became very aggressive and said that Billy would make him (Kevin) look like a fool to the leadership, Billy said that Kevin McKenna had told Billy in no uncertain terms that if he changed his Will, he (Kevin McKenna) would get a couple of young lads in Cootehill to say that Billy had molested them when he (Billy) had lived in Cootehill and Sinn Fein would get their money that way, Billy said that Kevin McKenna had told him that his (Billy’s legacy would be that of Paedophile and not Patriot and Sinn Fein had a media machine that could deliver that message to every corner of the world). William Hampton also said that when he had contacted the solicitor in Cootehill in 2006 with whom he had made his Will in 1997, and told him that he wanted to leave his money to the Labour Party, that solicitor had warned him that the PIRA would not take such a change of heart lightly.

I told Billy that Kevin McKenna should not have threatened him, I told Billy that I could not speak for Kevin McKenna or Sinn Fein/PIRA, and my only mission was to try and convince Billy to leave the money to Sinn Fein as it would help with the ‘peace-process’, Billy kept going back to the threats made against him by Kevin McKenna and it appeared that Billy was taking those threats very seriously and he did not want to be remembered a paedophile as such a legacy would play into the hands of people he had despised all his life, Billy did not name any individual or group that he so despised. I did not inform Billy, and I do not think he knew, that Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore were original Official Sinn Fein (Sticky’s) and hate figures for Kevin McKenna and the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership in general.

This threat by Kevin McKenna against Billy in 2006, may be why in the Prime Time programme Owen Smyth states, that, “Billy’s money is better than the Northern Bank money as it is legitimate “if” they handle it right”, this suggests that Smyth might have known about the threat and the possibility that the discovery of such a threat could show that the money was left to Sinn Fein/PIRA under duress and is in fact the proceeds of crime, coercion.

I asked Billy how much he had left Sinn Fein in his Will and he said it was substantial and in many bank accounts around the world, he did not give a definitive figure and I am not sure that he knew, I asked him why his money was so widely distributed around the world and he simply said to hide it from the tax man.

After Billy and I enjoyed meal together in The Black Boy Inn he left and I never seen him again, I stayed in the Black Boy Inn until the Monday and I returned home to Ireland by Ferry. I reported to Kevin McKenna about the meeting with Billy, I told Kevin McKenna that while I understood why he had threatened Billy, I thought it was despicable, however, I felt that because of that threat Billy would not change his Will even if he wanted to.

Inaccuracies in The Prime-Time Programme

Prime Time presented as almost inconsequential the conviction of Owen Smyth for IRA membership in the 1970s, in fact Owen Smyth was convicted in 1982, and the murder charges relating to his self-admitted role in the murders of 86 year-old Norman Strong and his 57 year old son James at Tynan Abbey in January 1981 were left on the books, as Smyth had effectively turned super-grass, but retracted his State’s evidence when he was remined by The PIRA that his family lived in Monaghan. Eamon Collins, Robert Lean, Bow Scally, Rab McAllister and many others had gone through the same process, turning informer and then retracting.

I was 17 years old when I was in The Republican A Wing of Crumlin Road Jail with Owen Smyth in 1981, Owen Smyth told me that he had ‘filled the books’ when arrested by The RUC as he did not want to go to jail for the murders of Norman Strong and James Strong.

Owen Smyth told me that he and Jim Lynagh had planned the Strong murders.

The Prime Time programme stated that charges in relation to the human bomb attack in 1990 were dropped as Owen Smyth had an alibi, in fact in the programme Owen Smyth states that if there were 20 people in his pub it would be full, yet his alibi was that there were 26 people in his pub on the night he was accused of being involved in the human bomb in 1990 and his alibi only materialised after he was charged. He was charged based on his own admissions and eye witness testimony.

Smyth states that in 1997 he spoke to Kevin McKenna about William Hampton, as, “for want of a better word Kevin McKenna was my Boss”, this at a time when Kevin McKenna was Chief of Staff, so Smyth is admitting that he was a member of a terrorist organisation in 1997 a crime for which he has never been prosecuted.

The Prime-Time reporter air-brushed the victims of Owen Smyth’s and Sinn Fein/PIRA crimes from history and presented a very carefully crafted caricature of Owen Smyth who has always been viewed as a dangerous and manipulative individual, who has been going deeper and deeper into a Walter-Mitty existence. It is interesting that the Sinn Fein leadership offer a different view of William Hampton’s contact with the party.


Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Joseph 'Joe' Haughey, was either Very Lucky or a Protected Species

Joseph 'Joe' Haughey, was either Very Lucky or a Protected Species

In November 1981 I was arrested by The RUC and charged with endangering the lives of three RUC Officers and a civilian. I was remanded to Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast. When you enter Crumlin Road Jail the Governor asks if you wish to be housed with The PIRA, Loyalist terrorists or if you wish to enter an ordinary criminal wing. I said I was able to go on The PIRA Wing. I was remanded onto A2, this was the middle landing on A Wing that had three floors.
This Authors Prison Number 3327
I initially shared a cell with Tommy Prendergast and Francis Murphy, two Belfast PIRA men. On my first visit to the yard I was approached by The PIRA Intelligence Officer (IO), of The Command Staff, Joseph ‘Joe’ Haughey or as we all knew him ‘Big Joe’ as he was a stout man. I told Joe the story of my arrest and he told me that he wanted me on the Escape Committee. Before my arrest in 1981 I had meet with Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan who had escaped from Crumlin Road Jail in June 1981.
Joseph 'Joe' Haughey who murdered Mary Travers
For, Joe Haughey, to be on The Command Staff of The PIRA in Crumlin Road Jail meant that he was a significant PIRA player on the outside, however, when a PIRA member is imprisoned they lose their outside rank, this can on occasion be replicated in prison, as it was in the case of Joe Haughey.

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I got on well with Big Joe and I found him to be an engaging person, however, unlike others in Crumlin Road Jail, Joe never gave the impression that he was expecting to do big time. Joe had been charged with hijacking a car used in the M60 Machinegun killing of the Deputy Governor of Crumlin Road Prison, Mr Edward Jones, who was murdered in 1979.

Joseph ‘Joe’ Haughey would receive a suspended sentence for what was a significant role in the high-profile murder of Mr Jones. Compare this sentence to the Life sentence handed down to Mary McArdle, for her accomplice role in the murder of Mary Travers in 1984.
Deputy Governor of Crumlin Road Prison, Mr Edward Jones, who was murdered in 1979
Soon after I was remanded in Crumlin Road Jail I was released on bail as the sitting Judge viewed me as a child and felt it was not appropriate for me to be in an adult prison. The RUC objected to bail, stating that I was heavily involved with The PIRA. I returned to the ranks of Sinn Fein/PIRA, when I was released on bail and I was On-The-Run (OTR) until 1984 when I was returned to Crumlin Road Jail on remand for the same offence as 1981.

When I entered The Republican A Wing in Crumlin Road Jail in 1984, I was immediately greeted by Joe Haughey who was now on remand for the murder of Mary Travers and the attempted murder of her Father, Magistrate Tom Travers. Joe now held the position of Chief of Staff of The PIRA on A Wing. I was quickly recruited by Joe for the Escape Committee and I had a role in planning what was expected to be a significant escape. That escape was compromised when Prison Officer uniforms were found in a carefully constructed hide.

My role on the Escape Committee meant meeting with and talking to Joe every-time we went to the yard for exercise. Joe and I got on exceptionally well, I was a good deal younger than Joe and I think he seen himself as my mentor. Joe was always in good form, but he showed a great deal of regret not only about the death of Mary Travers, but also about Mary McArdle, the young woman who would be sentenced to life for helping Joe and his accomplice to attack the Travers family as they left Mass.
While Solicitor, Pat Finucane, was not my Solicitor, he would request visits with me, as he was the Interlocutor between The PIRA Command Staff in Crumlin Road Jail, and The PIRA Command Staff in Belfast.
Mary Travers murdered in cold blood
Joe had no problem telling me that he was the Commanding Officer who led the attack on the Travers family, Joe told me that Gerry Adams was his Commanding Officer and Gerry had personally sanctioned the attack on Tom Travers. I told Joe that I had meet Gerry Adams at a PIRA meeting in Monaghan earlier in 1984.

While Joe was a very personable individual, he sometimes said things that did not add up. For example, in 1981 there had been an RUC informer in with us in A Wing, the informer had told Joe that he had not spoken to the RUC, however, during the informer’s trial it became clear that he had talked and named people. When you entered Crumlin Road jail you had to tell The PIRA Intelligence Officer if you had talked to The RUC or not, if you had talked there was no problem, word would be sent out to The PIRA so they could move weapons or personnel or whatever else had been compromised. If you did not tell The IO the truth, that was a problem.

When I spoke to Joe about this, 1981 informer, in 1984, Joe had a very exaggerated view of how he would deal with the informer if he ever got a chance to go to Monaghan. Joe said he would kick in the door of the informer’s pub and shoot him with an AK47. I thought this a strange description, when there were Supergrasses, Bowe Scally and so forth, who had now retracted their statements walking around A Wing, it was just one of those things that stuck with me.

In the intervening years there have been suggestions that Joe Haughey was in fact a British Agent, and that remains possible, when we consider that one of his closest PIRA associates was Frederico "Freddie" Scappaticci, a long serving British Agent who had murdered many innocent people. The Belfast Brigade of The PIRA was, from a Republican perspective, “Rotten” from the top to the bottom, not simply because it was overflowing with informers, but because of its incessant criminality, Gerry Adams Snr, Liam Adams, Seamus Marley, Marty Morris, and so forth.

Joseph 'Joe' Haughey, was either Very Lucky or a Protected Species, from Carrick Hill, the 66-year-old was first convicted in November 1981 for hijacking a car used in the M60 Machinegun murder of the Deputy Governor of Crumlin Road Prison, for which he received a suspended sentence, this at a time when kids were getting two years jail-time for throwing petrol bombs.

In 1986 Joseph ‘Joe’ Haughey was acquitted of the murder of Mary Travers and the attempted murder of her Father Magistrate Tom Travers, yet Joe openly admitted to myself and others that he was the Commanding Officer on that operation and that Gerry Adams was his Commanding Officer.

Gerry Adams had been shot and wounded in March of 1984; however, his injuries were and continue to be heavily exaggerated. One of the loyalist gunmen John Gregg who had shot and wounded Gerry Adams was in Crumlin Road Jail in 1984. John Gregg was in a holding cell with me as we were being moved across to the Court House which was accessed by means of a tunnel that went under The Crumlin Road.
Graffiti that appeared on the walls in Dundalk after Gerry Adams admitted that he knew for 10 years that his brother Liam had raped his four-year-old daughter Aine.

At this time in 1984 PIRA prisoners were seeking segregation from Loyalists who shared the landings in A Wing, but were generally kept apart by being out of our cells at different times. We had been told by The PIRA Command Staff to engage in fist fights with loyalists if we were placed in holding cells with them. I done as I had been ordered and I engaged in a fist fight with John Gregg, however, The Prison Officers broke it up fairly quick. Gregg then told me that when he fired his weapon at Gerry Adams there was no kick of the gun. Gregg believed that the weapons used by his loyalist hit team had been compromised by a UDA informer working for The RUC.

When I returned from my Court appearance I reported to Joe Haughey about my encounter with John Gregg. Joe Haughey then explained to me that there was a Top-man Agreement in place, between, The PIRA, UDA and UVF, this agreement meant that people such as Adams would not be attacked by loyalists and visa vis. The attack on Adams was a breach of the PIRA and Loyalist Agreement. John McMichael was later sold out by his own people for sanctioning the attack on Adams.

Bizarre as it may sound, there were regular meetings between the leaders of loyalist terror groups and the leaders of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Belfast, these meetings were normally related to protection rackets, to ensure that Sinn Fein/PIRA and loyalist terrorists did not step onto each other’s turf at interface areas in the city.

Within 5 days of being shot in 1984 Adams held a press conference and quickly returned to his position on The Brigade Staff of The PIRA in Belfast, where he immediately sanctioned a number of operations including the plan to kill Magistrate Tom Travers. I meet Gerry Adams at a PIRA meeting in Dublin Street, Monaghan Town in the summer of 1984. The PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna was On-The-Run and living in Monaghan.

Prison Life in the 1980s:

Prison Life in the 1980s: Crumlin Road Jail was a strange place. It was a Victorian Prison that is now a visitors and conferencing centre. In the 1980s Crumlin Road Jail was used to house Sinn Fein/PIRA Prisoners, UVF/UDA prisoners and ‘ordinary criminals’.

The cells in the 1980s were as basic as the day the prison opened in 1846, there were bunk or single iron beds with a metal spring base on which there was a thin foam mattress and each prisoner had a horse-hair blanket and pillow. There was one plastic chamber pot per-prisoner sharing a cell and each morning during ‘slop-out’ prisoners would empty and wash their chamber pots in the slush room.

In the slush room there were some cubicles where prisoners could use an actual toilet bowl when ‘slopping out’.

Prisoners also had a large plastic mug, a plastic plate and plastic cutlery. Prisoners could also get access to small transistor radios.

I was held on A Wing, A Wing held both Sinn Fein/PIRA and UDA/UVF prisoners. Prisoners were let out of their cells at different times. For example, when UVF/UDA prisoners were using the shower room, Sinn Fein/PIRA prisoners would be ‘slopping-out’. I was always used the showers when opportunity presented.

On one occasion, I was washing at the sink in the shower room waiting on a shower to become available when I noticed that the prisoner using the sink beside me had a UVF tattoo on his arm, we both realised at the same time that I was in the wrong place, he simply said, quietly, your in the wrong place. I walked slowly to the cage type door and told the prison officer that I was ready to go.

Joe Haughey, PIRA Belfast, Mary Travers Murder, Tom Travers

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Loughgall Martyrs 33rd Anniversary, Jim Lynagh, Paddy Kelly, Sinn Fein, Provisional IRA

Loughgall Martyrs 35 Anniversary Sinn Fein/PIRA

Loughall Ambush a Summary

Three weeks before Loughgall, Paddy Kelly who was Officer Commanding East Tyrone Provisional IRA, arrived in Monaghan Town to meet with Jim Lynagh, Lynagh was Officer Commanding Monaghan/East Tyrone PIRA and he sat on the Brigade Staff as a Military Strategist. When Paddy Kelly could not find Lynagh, which was not unusual, Paddy Kelly made the fatal mistake of inquiring at The Round House Bar about Jim Lynagh’s whereabouts.

In 1987, the Round House Bar was now owned by Owen Smyth, Smyth had turned Super-grass in 1981 when arrested by the RUC and he would again talk when arrested by An Garda Siochana in 1990 in relation to his role in a human bomb attack in 1990. It has long since been believed that Owen Smyth was protected by a higher-ranking informer, this was not unusual.

Two days before Loughgall I meet with and spoke to Jim Lynagh on Dublin Street in Monaghan Town, our meeting was observed by two Garda Special Branch Officers who were parked outside Jim Lynagh’s flat at the bottom of Dublin Street, a flat that Jim shared with John ‘Dinger’ Bell.

I looked Lynagh directly in the eyes and told him that I believed he was about to be killed, I told him that while the SAS might pull the trigger, it was our own that was going to set him up. Lynagh looked me straight in the eyes and asked me if I wanted him to stop, I said yes, what we need is political leadership and he could deliver that. Lynagh dismissed my concerns and our conversation turned to booby-traps and Semtex.

The morning after Loughgall, members of Monaghan/East Tyrone PIRA were telling each other that the SAS had been lying around all remote RUC stations and it was just bad luck, anyone, who was not militarily and politically illiterate knew that Loughgall was a well-planned ambush and its fall-out would have long-term repercussions.

Gerard Harte was, by Kevin McKenna, given the task of investigating and reviewing the Loughgall operation, with a view to identifying an Informer or Agent within Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA. I was with Kevin McKenna when Gerard Harte reported his findings, soon afterwards, Gerard Harte was, with two others, shot dead by the SAS.

In Belfast in 1994, and by pure chance, I meet a former British soldier who had been one of the out-layers at Loughgall, he now worked in retail security, and I had taken on such as job for the summer break from QUB. Mike would leave retail security in August 1994 to join the RUC and be replaced by his former comrade Johnathan who had also been an out-layer at Loughgall. The instructions given to the army at Loughgall was to let no-one out of the Kill-Zone. This instruction would be understood by anyone who knew Lynagh, Kelly and Kearney in particular, as they had no intention of going to jail.

In 1998, I would meet the most interesting of people who had been involved in Loughgall, I have never named this individual. Three weeks before Loughgall, this individual told me that he had signed in and out, to the firing range beneath the forensic lab in Belfast, two senior RUC Officers (later ambushed outside Dundalk), approximately eight SAS Soldiers and weapons similar to those that would be used by the Provisional IRA Unit at Loughgall three weeks later.

I asked this individual why the SAS would use weapons similar to those to be used by the PIRA at Loughgall, and he said, the soldiers were highly trained, and they would be able to distinguish between Friendly and Hostile fire on the evening of the Loughgall operation. While not an absolute requirement in this instance, it would probably be better to have a record of the Provisional IRA Unit opening fire first, for any subsequent political post-mortem.

I would also meet with Sir John Hermon, Sir John had no hesitation in telling me that the gloves came off with Loughgall, the order to kill came directly from Mrs Thatcher following a series of high-profile murders by the Provisional IRA. I would in 1999 have an opportunity to speak with Mrs Thatcher and she was satisfied that Loughgall was the right thing to do, she believed that, while not its main objective, the ambush at Loughgall strengthened the hand of those who were prepared to surrender the Provisional IRA.

I did not tell Mrs Thatcher, about Jim Lynagh’s plan to disappear Gerry Adams, following a successful Loughgall.

Loughgall Introduction

I am constantly asked, if Sinn Fein and The PIRA are separate organisations, and I have to say, No. The PIRA Army Council is the Supreme Ruling authority of Sinn Fein/PIRA, the term Sinn Fein/PIRA is not propaganda, it is shown beyond reasonable doubt in The Green Book (Sinn Fein/PIRA Bible):

"An O.C.'s (Operations Commander) might know how to put a unit on a military footing; an I.O.'s (Intelligence Officer) might know how to create an effective intelligence network; a Cumann Chairman (Sinn Fein) might know how best to mount a campaign on a given issue, e.g. H Blocks etc., and for all members of the movement regardless of which branch we belong to, to enhance our commitment to and participation in the struggle through gaining as comprehensive an understanding as possible of our present society and the proposed Republican alternative through self and group education".

This explanation of Sinn Fein/PIRA being a singular organisation with The PIRA Army Council providing an over-arching strategy was clearly set-out during the Sinn Fein/PIRA Ard Fheis in 1986 when both Martin McGuinness (MI6 Agent) and Gerry Adams (Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead) said:

“A Sinn Fein activist is the same as a PIRA activist, they are one and the same, there is only one Sinn Fein/PIRA”. This mantra was echoed at Sinn Fein/PIRA functions around the country as Republican Sinn Fein led by Ruairi O' Bradaigh had just split from Provisional Sinn Fein/PIRA.
While you do not have to be a member of The PIRA to become a Sinn Fein/PIRA TD, senior officer holders in Sinn Fein must be sworn members of The PIRA as they are directly answerable to The PIRA Army Council. This has been in place since the foundation of Provisional Sinn Fein/PIRA in 1969-70, as Provisional Sinn Fein/PIRA believed that The Official IRA from whom they had split, had allowed their hearts to overrule their minds when The Official IRA decided to walk away from a violent campaign in the north. Many members of my extended paternal family were founding members of Provisional Sinn Fein/PIRA.

As a child I sat in the company of Provisional Sinn Fein President and Army Council member Ruairi O' Bradaigh and Provisional Sinn Fein vice-President and Commander in Cumann na mBan (Female PIRA) Maire Drumm. It was clear that to hold these high offices in Sinn Fein one had to be a sworn member of The Provisional IRA, this requirement has not changed.

Other Top Stories







Loughgall Martyrs 33rd Anniversary and Gerry Adams

Was it correct and proper for The PIRA to be surrendered? Yes, it was correct and proper for The PIRA to be surrendered, but not for the reasons advanced by Gerry Adams nor under the Terms and Conditions agreed between Martin McGuinness and his MI6 Handlers.

From a traditional republican perspective, the reason that it was correct and proper to surrender The PIRA was due to the fact that The PIRA had become/and remain The Black and Tans of the latter 20th Century and now the 21st Century. This does not mean that there were not good men and women who genuinely believed in a cause, however, they were blinkered by that cause and blinded from the treachery, corruption and criminality of their leadership.

In Gort in December 1920, as observed by historian Roy Foster, “a new level was plumbed” when two local boys with no IRA connections were murdered by the Black and Tans for “impudence”. Their bodies were thrown into a ditch “after being dragged behind one of the dreaded lorries until they were unrecognisably mangled”. This was just one example of what poet WB Yeats referred to in his poem Reprisals as “Half-drunk or whole-mad soldiery”.

For those of us who were actually in the trenches, the reality of Sinn Fein/PIRA from the mid-1970s onward was in extreme contrast to their publicly stated claims of being the defenders and liberators of the Catholic/Nationalist community in the north. A good example of how The British Security Services dealt with Sinn Fein/PIRA can be found in the manner in which The CIA and FBI dealt with The Communist Party in America in the 1970s. When The Communist Party collapsed in America, there were more paid up members of The CIA and FBI in its ranks than there were actual Communists.

By the time the Sinn Fein/PIRA Army Convention was held in Donegal in October 1997, the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership were infiltrated to the point that Agents, Informers and touts outnumbered actual Sinn Fein/PIRA members. This level of infiltration was fully exposed when Bobby Storey and the lads raided Castlereagh RUC Holding Centre in 2002, however, no action could be taken as several levels of the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership would have had to be wiped out.

Those Sinn Fein/PIRA members who had not been compromised sat ideally by while Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists were protected and on many occasions their victims beaten, shot, murdered or exiled. Sinn Fein/PIRA members tied rape victims to lamp-posts and poured paint or tar over them so that other rape victims would not dare to break silence. These were not acts carried out by weak individuals, these were acts directed from the very top of Sinn Fein/PIRA. 

Dogs on the street knew that Gerry Adams Snr, Ruby Davidson and many others were prolific child rapists, yet they were protected and on the occasions of their deaths afforded full style Sinn Fein/PIRA funerals.

In 1998, I press released a list of 100 Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists and pedophiles who had been protected by the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership, to highlight the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein/PIRA as self-proclaimed liberators/defenders of the nationalist/Catholic community. In response to my press release some good journalists (who had not sold out to the 'peace-process' gravy train) began to ask serious questions of the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership. 

The Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership panicked and ordered an Internal-Audit of Sinn Fein/PIRA around the country to establish how wide-spread the rape of women and children was within the organisation. This Internal-Audit was to estimate the political damage that could be caused to Sinn Fein/PIRA if someone actually investigated the claims. Seamus and Annie concluded their Internal-Audit and reported back directly to Sinn Fein/PIRA HQ in Belfast. The Internal-Audit found that at least 5,000 women and children had been raped by Sinn Fein/PIRA members.

In 2014 Gerry Adams TD would produce a list of 27 Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists that they had Ghosted into The Irish Republic in order to take the political pressure off. This was the 27 origionally included in the initial list of 41 On-The-Runs to receive 'Comfort Letters' from MI6.

Leading members of Sinn Fein/PIRA who had admitted to Sinn Fein/PIRA that they were sex criminals such as Gerry Adams Snr, Liam Adams, Marty Morris, Seamus Marley, Ruby Davidson, Briege Meehan, Michael Marron and hundreds more were and continue to be protected by Sinn Fein/PIRA. Only a handful of Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists have actually appeared before the courts, their victims remain silenced in the Ghettos and the leafy lanes of suburbia by the threat of death, as suffered by Paul Quinn in Monaghan or Kevin McGuigan in Belfast in recent times.

Of the initial list of 41 Sinn Fein/PIRA members drawn up by The Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership to receive Comfort Letters from MI6, 27 on that list were Sinn Fein/PIRA sex criminals such as Seamus Marley. Seamus Marley is the son of leading Sinn Fein/PIRA member Laurence Marley who was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries. Seamus Marley had been moved out of Belfast after admitting to the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership that he had engaged in sex crimes.

The Secretary of State for the north was told in 1999 that 27 of the 41 OTRs on the list were sex criminals and not on-the-run for Terrorist activity, however, like many Secretaries of State he was simply an MI6 appointee, following The Oatley and McGuinness script. 

Marley was moved to a Sinn Fein/PIRA safe-house in Louth where he raped two young boys, he is now serving 7 years for those rapes but is under investigation for other crimes. In Dundalk in the 1990s Liam Adams was describing himself on the front page of the regional paper, Argos, as a Pedophile Hunter, in fact, he was the pedophile but had been protected by the leadership of Sinn Fein/PIRA, he has since died while serving 15 years for raping a 4-year-old-child. The majority of Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists in the north, were and continue to be, Ghosted into The Republic when their victims cannot be silenced. The numbers involved are overwhelming.

This article by Ed Moloney in The Sunday Tribune shook the leadership of Sinn Fein/PIRA as people were beginning to break silence.

Sinn Fein/PIRA member Michael Marron pleads guilty to raping a female child after that child's family had to move out of the area to seek justice. Michael Marron is also the person who continuously ran a smear campaign against Eamon Collins before Eamon was murdered in 1999. Marron had often written on the walls of Barcroft estate that Eamon Collins was a Peadophile.

This article in The Sunday Herald September 1999, highlights how the rape of women and children is being used by Sinn Fein/PIRA as a weapon of torture, The Rape Crisis Centre, Belfast is quoted, "One in every Four clients that we deal with, women and children have been raped by Sinn Fein/PIRA members. In some instances Mothers have been warned at gun point to take their raped child to England for an abortion so that the Sinn Fein/PIRA rapists cannot be identified at a latter point by DNA from the baby.

This article that appeared in The Newsletter Sept 2000 explains how a male child was shot by Sinn Fein/PIRA because he told  social worker that he had been sexually abused by a senior member of Sinn Fein/PIRA.

Sinn Fein/PIRA kept very detailed records of the Human Rights abuses they engaged in, they also kept a very clear record of certain loyalist groups that were engaging in similar activity against their own community. I downloaded this database from a Sinn Fein/PIRA computer in Belfast, when I still had a wee key.

Sinn Fein/PIRA mouth-pieces such as Gerry Adams stood at the graveside of PIRA volunteers and lied through their teeth, all of the above and much more is why The PIRA should have been surrendered, The PIRA had become and remain The Black and Tans of the latter 20th Century and now the 21st Century and no number of apologists will remove that stain. Sinn Fein when they break FREE from The PIRA Army Council and their Handlers, will be entitled to engage in normal politics, but until then they must remain in political self-isolation.

The Provisional IRA are proxies for their Handlers, they should disband and decommission their MI6 supplied Glocks. The PIRA Army Council should apologise to the Catholic/Nationalist community in the north for the crimes it has committed against them these past 50 years.

Loughgall Martyrs 35 Anniversary Background

On Tuesday 21 October, 1986, Martin McGuinness arrived in Smithborough in County Monaghan to meet with Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, at that time Kevin McKenna was living with his family on a small holding that was owned by a Sinn Fein/PIRA supporter, Sheila O’Neill. McGuinness had arrived to deliver a message from Sinn Fein/PIRA Headquarters in Belfast, that message was that GHQ had sanctioned a proposed plan to introduce a policy of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’. The plan had been developed by Jim Lynagh while he was in Portlaoise Prison, contrary to the nonsense I have often read, Kevin McKenna was enthusiastic about the plan, I should know I spoke to him regularly. 

This article was penned by Liam Clarke in March 1998, it is an interview with Vincent McKenna, within days Sinn Fein/PIRA rumors would begin that Vincent McKenna was a child molester.

Kevin McKenna could trace his heritage back to Niall McKenna of 1641, who had massacred over 2,000 Protestants in the Monaghan/Tyrone region while stripping thousands more Protestants of their belongings and driving them from their homes. While Kevin McKenna was happy to kill British military personnel, he derived his greatest pleasure from purely sectarian operations such as Kingsmill (10 Protestants), Enniskillen (12 Protestants), Teebane (8 Protestants) Shankill (10 Protestants dead, 57 Protestants injured). Kevin McKenna never tired of targeting Protestants in his native Aughnacloy, County Tyrone and while he had murdered a number of Protestants in Aughnacloy and Monaghan in the 1970s, McKenna failed to carryout any successful operations in Aughnacloy from 1980 onwards. 

When Martin McGuinness left the meeting with Kevin McKenna, McGuinness was arrested by members of An Garda Siochana. Soon after McGuinness was arrested Garda Headquarters received a call from an MI6 Officer known as Michael Oatley CMG, OBE (The Mountain Climber), Oatley requested that McGuinness be released without charge and Oatley’s request was granted without question. The order to release McGuinness was a surprise to even the most seasoned Garda Detectives in Monaghan including Colm Brown and John McCoy. This intervention by MI6 makes a nonsense of the Sinn Fein/PIRA assertion that there was no MI6 contact during this period, or perhaps, the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership did not know about the true nature of the relationship between MI6 Officer Oatley and Martin McGuinness. Below McGuinness hiding like a scared rat as Michael Stone opens fire on mourners.


Loughgall Martyrs Used

In 1987 Gerry Adams gave the oration at the funeral of Loughgall Martyr, Jim Lynagh, at Latlurcan Cemetery in Monaghan Town, and I quote from that oration:

“Anyone who does business with The British, The Freestate establishment or The SDLP are fools because they have all sold out on the Irish People”.

We now know, for reasons that I will explain in a moment, that in 1987 the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership were already in bed with all of the above and in particular The British. At Jim Lynagh’s graveside in 1987 many young men and women that were gathered, were inspired by the Gerry Adams oration, many went on to kill and some were themselves killed. We now know that Gerry Adams was speaking out both sides of his mouth, however, I have never found any evidence that Adams was an Agent of any State, his political ambition was enough for the Brits to work with.

Martin McGuinness is a very different kettle of fish; McGuinness had been groomed by MI6 from those early days in the 1970s when the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership meet with British Officials. According to Sean O’Callaghan (a Garda and MI5 Agent) who was in regular phone contact with McGuinness in the 1990s, McGuinness was formerly recruited by MI6 in the mid-1980s. O’Callaghan claimed that he witnessed many meetings between McGuinness and MI6 Officer Oatley during a period that the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership claim there was no contact between the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership and The British. O’Callaghan also claimed that when Oatley used Irish in his communications to McGuinness, it was O’Callaghan who provided the Irish, anyone who knew McGuinness, will know that his IQ was not overwhelming.

In 2017, David Trimble, who had become friendly with McGuinness admitted that he was with Sean O’Callaghan when Sean O’Callaghan received a long and detailed phone call from Martin McGuinness in the 1990s. However, the greatest indictment against McGuinness is the communication below, the provenance of which the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership continue to deny, to accept its provenance as set out here is to accept that McGuinness, ‘the republican hero’, was in fact an MI6 Agent who had a free hand from his Handlers to engage in and direct murder, nothing new there when we look at all the other British Agents/informers/touts who did and continue to sit at the top of Sinn Fein/PIRA.

Catholics Not Included

It is also worth noting that the terms and conditions of the Sinn Fein/PIRA cease-fire (Articles of Surrender) as presented to their MI6 Handlers, specifically excluded Catholics in the six-occupied-counties and also excluded every fibre of the fabric of The Irish Freestate (Republic), including members of An Garda Siochana. The General Election in 2020 showed many members of An Garda Siochana voting for Sinn Fein/PIRA which is the equivalent of a turkey voting for Christmas. The Electoral Act 1960, Section 8A allows for all members of An Garda Siochana and the Irish Defense Forces to be entered on the postal-vote-list and while not all Gardai and Defense Force members may realise it, these votes are opened and counted in the same manner as any other vote.


Between 1992 and The PIRA Convention in October 1997, I was a runner between Kevin McKenna (PIRA Chief of Staff) and Martin McGuinness (Army Council). On 10th October 1997 a Provisional IRA General Army Convention was held in Falcarragh, County Donegal, and was attended by Kevin McKenna, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty, Michael McKevitt, Bernadette McKevitt Sands and so forth.


Back in the 1980s Google did not exist so records had to be kept in a written form, here is a copy of the records kept for Kevin McKenna in relation to all deaths, weapons seizures and so forth in 1986.

Kevin McKenna was also using another member of Sinn Fein/PIRA as a runner with Northern Command; however, McKenna was concerned that the second runner may have been compromised. As I had a genuine reason for visiting Monaghan each week and a genuine reason for visiting Derry each week, the security forces were less likely to take me under their notice, or so Kevin McKenna believed. I meet with McGuinness at a safe-house on The Culmore Road in Derry on a regular basis.

Interestingly, I only parted company with Martin McGuinness following the Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA General Army Convention which was held in Falcarragh, County Donegal, On 10 October 1997. I parted company with McGuinness as I was advised by members of my extended paternal family in Dundalk and south Armagh, that Michael McKevitt and others were being allowed, by The Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership, including Kevin McKenna, Martin McGuinness and Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, to empty PIRA arms dumps as they prepared to set-up The Real IRA.

I travelled from Belfast to Monaghan at the end of 1997 to ask Kevin McKenna (Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy had just been appointed Chief of Staff of the PIRA – Murphy was no less ruthless than Kevin McKenna but he was easily bought as he was promised by MI6 that his criminal empire would remain untouched by the security forces in the north) why the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership were allowing McKevitt to take explosives, weapons, ammunition and personnel without sanction. 

Kevin McKenna said that, “The odd bomb going off here and there would help keep Unionists focused on working with the ‘Doves’”. Normally anyone who misused or misappropriated as much a bullet belonging to The PIRA was court-martialled and punishment administered, two of the disappeared had allegedly misused a single gun belonging to the PIRA.

I was devastated by Kevin’s answer as I had put a lot of work into the peace-process and I had convinced a lot of people to give Sinn Fein a chance to move away from violence. Kevin McKenna and the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership had decided to use The Real IRA as proxies to do their dirty work, just as they had done with many proxy groups over the years. 

This tactic would back-fire with the Omagh Bomb, and only then did the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership condemn the so called ‘Dissidents’. Recently Sinn Fein/PIRA MEP, Martina Anderson has been lobbying The Irish Government not to extradite Omagh Bomber, Liam Campbell, yet again exposing the lie of so called ‘Dissidents’.

At this point I changed tactic, in March 1998, I gave an exclusive front-page story to The Sunday Times in which I described my time in Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan and the Ethnic Cleansing strategy developed and operationalised by Jim Lynagh and the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership in the mid-1980s.


While on the 31st of August 1994 The PIRA Army Council issued a general press statement through P.O’Neil, This press statement did not contain any meat on the bones of the Terms and Conditions of the PIRA cease-fire, the detailed Terms and Conditions which have never been altered to this day were delivered by McGuinness to MI6. There was in fact a twin-track approach, The Good Friday Agreement did not mirror the Terms and Conditions of The PIRA cease-fire. 

The Good Friday Agreement did not contain any detail about ‘Comfort Letters’, it did not contain any detail about Sinn Fein/PIRA being allowed to continue Human Rights abuses against the Catholic community (including murder and rape) and so forth. The latter is why, The British Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, stated in 1999 that the murder of Charles Bennett by The PIRA was not viewed as a breach of The PIRA cease-fire but was viewed by the British as “Internal-House-keeping”.

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, offered a false sense of security to those who has suffered at the hands of Sinn Fein/PIRA and Loyalist terrorists for decades when on, Wednesday 20th May 1998, Blair delivered a speech at the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster in which he unveiled a hand-written set of pledges to the people of Ireland in advance of the Referendum on 22nd May 1998. 

The text of the pledges was as follows:

“I pledge to the people of Northern Ireland:

1.   No change in the status of Northern Ireland without the express consent of the people of Northern Ireland.

2.    Power to take decisions returned to a Northern Ireland Assembly, with accountable North/South co-operation.

3.      Fairness and equality guaranteed for all.

4.      Those who use or threaten violence excluded from the Government of Northern Ireland.
5.      Prisoners kept in unless violence is given up for good”.

The Provisional IRA Army Council: Wednesday 31 August 1994

The Terms and Conditions of this cease-fire exclude in totality the Catholic community of the occupied 6 counties. We retain the right and capacity to suppress all and any opposition to our stated position from within the Catholic community, without political interference from The British Government, including its armed forces.

The Provisional IRA Army Council: Wednesday 31 August 1994

The Terms and Conditions of this cease-fire excludes in totality the Irish Freestate, its armed forces including members of An Garda Siochana. We retain the right and capacity to bring about the destruction of the Irish Freestate by whatever means at our disposal, without foreign interference.

Comfort Letters for On The Run Terrorists

While many showed surprise when the trial of John Downey collapsed in relation to The Hyde Park Bombing, many who showed surprise were liars as they had been warned about the Comfort Letters in 1999. Over 240 Sinn Fein/PIRA murderers and rapists would receive Comfort Letters and be able to come and go as they pleased.

Letter from Minister of State, Adam Ingram in May 2000, stating that all OTRs would be arrested if they returned to Northern Ireland. Liar.

Secret Talks between The British Government and Sinn Fein/PIRA

Following Sir Patrick Mayhew’s speech at Queens University in Belfast in 1993, there was a question and answer session, this author asked Sir Patrick openly in front of the media, academics and students gathered if The British Government was talking to The PIRA, Sir Patrick denied the charge. Shortly after Sir Patrick spoke at Queens, a document that was sent from Michael Oatley MI6 Officer to MI6 Agent Martin McGuinness was shown to certain trusted journalists by this author, so that they may push on with questions about secret talks between The PIRA and The British Government.

When Sinn Fein/PIRA heard of the document between MI6 Agent Oatley and McGuinness, there was panic, as the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership with the exception of McGuinness did not recognise the described document. The fact was that the document appeared to show that McGuinness was a British Agent rather than a negotiator on behalf of the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership, although he was also led on the latter.

The leaks led to the breaking of the story on 8 November 1993, by Belfast journalist, Eamon Mallie. Eventually both the British and Sinn Fein/PIRA admitted that there was contact and each side gave their own account of such contact to minimise outrage from various quarters on both sides. Sinn Fein/PIRA persistently denied the document that was produced at that time by this author (see, below), and purported to be a communication between MI6 Agent Michael Oatley and Martin McGuinness, the communication, when subjected to discourse analysis, appeared to show that McGuinness was in fact an MI6 Agent, not a James Bond type Agent, simply a puppet on a string.

The Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership continued to state that only Sinn Fein had spoken to the British, however, in 1994, PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna gave a rare interview to Eamon Mallie on Downtown Radio, in which he said, “As long as the boys with the balaclavas are at the table I am happy”, McKenna was referring to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, yet at all times, including in 2020 on their official website, Sinn Fein/PIRA claimed/claim that it was Sinn Fein who was negotiating with The British and the document below was a communication between British ‘Officials’ and the Sinn Fein negotiators, this is a lie, the original handwritten version of the communication had Martin McGuinness written at the top and was signed off with, Is Mise, Michael Oatley. A blind donkey reading this document can see that it was a personal communication between MI6 Officer, Michael Oatley and MI6 Agent, Martin McGuinness and was probably included in disclosed documents by Sir Patrick Mayhew by accident.

In February 1994 I had an article published in The Irish News (this can be checked in their archive) and The Irish Press (no longer in circulation) in which I stated the following, in the hope of encouraging Sinn Fein/PIRA personnel to stand down as they were involved in a phony war:

“And I ask you Irish men and women within the ranks of The PIRA to check the motivation of your leadership before checking the timer on your bomb”.

Martin McGuinness MI6 Agent

There is no contradiction in the claims that Martin McGuinness was an MI6 Agent from the mid-1980s and his direct involvement in directing acts of violence including the mass murder of civilians. A communication from MI6 Agent Michael Oatley on 3rd June, 1993 (see, below) to Martin McGuinness highlights this Moral Quagmire, when Oatley says:

“Your unfortunate headline events of April have made acceptance of your offer much more risky for him. You and I may think this should not matter, but the fact is that it does and it is that which is holding things up – if you like, human characteristics rather than anything more sinister”.

When MI6 Agent Oakley says, “Your unfortunate headline events of April…” he is talking about April 24th, 1993, when The PIRA bombed Bishopsgate and devastated the heart of the City of London, one person was killed, 44 were injured and £350 million of damage was caused.

When Oatley says, “much more risky for him”, he is referring to The British Prime Minister, John Major, the same John Major who told Parliament in 1993 that it would make his stomach sick to even think that any British official would be talking to The PIRA.

Shortly before the headline events of April 1993, Tim Parry (aged 12) and three-year-old Johnathan Ball died and 54 others were injured after the Provisional IRA detonated bombs that had been hidden inside high street litter bins in Warrington in England on the eve of Mother's Day that year. In 1999 loyalist terrorists, Orange Volunteers, were preparing to copy-cat the Warrington attack in Dublin but these attacks were thwarted.

The most significant component of this communication, between McGuinness and what many believe to be his Handler, MI6 Officer Oatley, is when he says;

“You and I may think this should not matter, but the fact is that it does and it is that which is holding things up – if you like, human characteristics rather than anything more sinister”. 

Oatley suggests that while he and McGuinness cannot understand why the murder of women and children should delay negotiations, it is the human characteristics of Prime Minister, John Major that is preoccupying him with concern about the murder of women and children.

On the official Sinn Fein/PIRA website in 2020, Sinn Fein/PIRA claim that they received a communication from a British government representative on June 3, 1993, and that the said communication was initialed and they have removed the initials for security reasons. However, the communication was not from a British Government official and it was not for the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership, but was a personal communication from MI6 Officer Michael Oatley to Martin McGuinness. The PIRA Army Council fear the implications of anyone establishing the ‘true’ provenance of the communication, however, here it is. 

The communication had been sent by Oatley to the MI6 Officer (Robert) who had replaced him on the British negotiating team, Robert had Oatley’s handwritten communication typed so that he could remove McGuinness’s name from the top of the communication, and Robert completed the typed version with R. (handwritten), to show that this was a very personal communication, from Oatley to McGuinness. R. is the initial that Sinn Fein/PIRA have removed from the bottom of the document below as it appears on their website.

Setting the Record Straight 2015, https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/15216.


It is believed that The British included this communication by ‘mistake’ when Sir Patrick Mayhew, on Monday, 29 November, 1993, the British Minister with Chief responsibility for the Six Counties, lodged in the Library and Vote office at Westminster, what he claimed to be all messages "received and dispatched" in the course of the British government's protracted contact and dialogue with Sinn Fein/PIRA. His 'record' covered the period of 22nd February 1993 - 5th November 1993. He claimed this to be the totality of the period involved.
It is this combination of Martin McGuinness as an MI6 Agent (and an array of British Agents/informers/touts) at leadership level and the political ambitions of Gerry Adams that brings the British Security Services to focus their attentions on undermining the position of PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, who, while loyal to Adams post-Loughgall, was a militarist, who would not surrender easily. 

It is for these reasons that 28 PIRA volunteers were killed by The SAS in East Tyrone between 1987 and 1992, these volunteers under the direct and personal leadership of Kevin McKenna. By 1992 Kevin McKenna was ineffective and that is exactly the way McGuinness and his Handlers wanted him. Intelligent strategists such as Jim Lynagh were replaced by donkeys.

Loughgall Informer

The leadership of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan have serious questions to answer as to why they allowed a fully-fledged RUC Informer back into the ranks of Sinn Fein/PIRA when he had served only a few months in Long Kesh for PIRA membership when he had admitted his role in two high profile murders. Owen Smyth (AKA Eoin Smyth) from Monaghan Town had been told in 1981 by PIRA Commander Jim Lynagh not to travel into the north, after members of The PIRA who had shot pensioner Norman Strong and his son James at Tynan Abbey were found by Gardai hiding in the basement of The Round House Bar in Monaghan Town which was owned by Owen Smyth’s Uncle Robert Loane but which was run and operated by Owen Smyth. 

When Owen Smyth was arrested by The RUC Smyth began to talk immediately and named every member of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan and anything else that he could tell the RUC about Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan. Owen Smyth would also tell a 17-year-old Vincent McKenna in Crumlin Road Jail that he had turned informer as he did not want to go to jail for the two killings, Owen Smyth also boasted that he and Jim Lynagh had planned the killings of Norman Strong and his son James. 

Seamus Shannon would be extradited in 1984 based on information provided to The RUC by Owen Smyth. Why did the Command Staff of The PIRA in Monaghan allow Owen Smyth to return to a position within Sinn Fein/PIRA that gave him access to details of PIRA operations including Loughgall? In 1990 Owen Smyth again turned informer when arrested by Gardai in relation to a Human Bomb attack in Fermanagh, again, Smyth had the charges against him mysteriously dropped and he returned to the Sinn Fein/PIRA fold.

Owen Smyth also has questions to answer in relation to his close association with two sisters from Monaghan Town who were bringing UDR members into Monaghan Town periodically between 1994-1997. These two sisters would be seen drinking with the said UDR members in loyalist pubs in places such as Caledon in County Tyrone. On one occasion the two women and the UDR members were followed from Caledon to Monaghan Town. 

These UDR members were being brought into Monaghan Town by the two women and the UDR men were using these visits as scouting missions for a UVF death squad who would later target Caoimhghín Ó’Caoláin in a bomb attack. Another UDR man would be found shot dead on the out skirts of Monaghan after the gun he was carrying went of as he was preparing to target a member of The PIRA. 

All of these questions remain unanswered, and various suggestions have been put forward as to why The PIRA in Monaghan failed to establish the truth in these matters, one theory being that Smyth was being protected by a high-ranking informer on The PIRA Command Staff in Monaghan.

Loughgall Martyrs 35 Anniversary Ambush 1987

Loughgall is a picture-postcard village on the borders of Tyrone and County Armagh that with its neatly arranged window boxes and hanging baskets you would expect to win the best kept village competition year after year. Tourists come for the antique shops and cosy tea rooms that line its narrow main street. 31 years ago in 1987, other visitors came to Loughgall.

The quiet of a May evening on 8 May 1987 was shattered by the thunder of SAS guns as the Regiment (as it is known) ambushed and wiped out one of the most heavily armed and experienced Active Service Units (ASU) the Provisional IRA had ever assembled. It was known as the ‘A’ Team. Eight bodies in boiler suits, some with balaclavas, lay bloody and dead on the ground and in the back of the van in which they had been travelling. 

The SAS had been lying in wait and had opened up with a barrage of over 200 rounds blasted from General Purpose Machine guns (GPMGs) and high-powered Heckler and Koch rifles. The SAS outnumbered and outgunned the IRA by three to one. The van was riddled like a sieve and its IRA passengers cut to pieces. It was the biggest loss the IRA had suffered since 1921 when a dozen of its men were wiped out by the notorious ‘Black and Tans’. Loughgall police station, a few hundred yards outside the village and the target of the IRA’s attack, was reduced to a twisted pile of concrete and rubble. The IRA just managed to detonate its 200lb bomb before the SAS opened up.

A few miles away in the ops room that was the nerve centre of the security forces’ Tasking and Co-Ordinating Group (TCG) from which the ambush had been directed, an SAS Commander, a Senior M15 Officer and two senior RUC Officers (both shot dead 1989, see, Smithwick Tribunal) anxiously gathered to hear the result of one of the most carefully planned M15, RUC and Army operations of the northern conflict. They gathered around an SAS officer who was in radio contact with the SAS commander on the ground, when the news came through, the SAS Officer turned to those gathered (TCG) and declared, “Total Wipe-out”.

To the British, the SAS had given the IRA a taste of its own medicine and to Ulster Unionists clambering for the army to take the gloves off, not before time. There was celebration in the TCG at the unprecedented spectacular and quiet contentment in the Northern Ireland Office. Its Permanent Under-Secretary at the time, Sir Robert Andrew, later said how he felt on hearing the news. ‘My personal reaction was really one of some satisfaction that we had ‘won one’ as it were. I think it demonstrated to the IRA that the other side could play it rough. I hope it sent a message that the British government was resolute and was going to fight them.’

Certainly the IRA had been playing it very rough. Only a fortnight earlier, it had assassinated Northern Ireland’s second most senior judge, Lord Justice Gibson and his wife with a 500lb bomb as they drove back across the border after a holiday away. The explosives had come from Libya. The judge had been a prime target ever since he had acquitted the police officers who shot dead Gervaise McKerr (whose case was also ruled on at Strasbourg) and two other IRA men during a car chase in 1982. He commended them for bringing the deceased to ‘the final court of justice’. None of them was armed at the time. The then Northern Ireland Secretary, Tom King said;

"We were conscious we were facing an enhanced threat and we took enhanced measures to meet it. The SAS was the cutting edge".

At the time of Loughgall, the IRA was brimful of confidence. It had recently had its bunkers filled almost to bursting with over 130 tons of heavy weaponry and high explosives smuggled into Ireland in four shipments courtesy of Mrs Thatcher’s sworn enemy, Colonel Gaddafi (murdered 2011) of Libya. 

The depleted ranks of its leadership had also been strengthened by the IRA’s mass break-out from the Maze prison in 1983, many of whose senior gunmen were still on the run. One of them was Patrick McKearney (32) and shot dead at Loughgall.

Loughgall Martyr Jim Lynagh

It was known that IRA Commander, Jim Lynagh, had developed a new Maoist strategy of liberating Green Zones, zones that would be cleared of the British and their collaborators. The IRA began its new strategy in 1985 with a devastating mortar attack on the RUC station in the border town of Newry in which nine police officers died. It followed it up with a bomb and gun attack on Ballygawley police station that left two RUC men dead. In 1986, it launched a bomb attack on another police station, unmanned at the time, in the tiny village of the Birches along the shores of Lough Neagh in County Tyrone. Now a new delivery system had been used, a JCB digger with a 200lb bomb in the bucket. The digger smashed through the security fence, the bomb exploded and reduced the station to rubble. The attack on Loughgall was designed to be a carbon copy of the attack on the Birches. But this time British and Irish intelligence knew the IRA was coming and was across its plans.

The first indicator about the Loughgall operation came three weeks earlier from an RUC agent based in Monaghan Town, Patrick Kelly had travelled to Monaghan to meet Jim Lynagh, however, as often happened, Lynagh was not about, Patrick Kelly made the fatal mistake of making inquiries about Lynagh with Owen/Eoin Smyth, the Round House Bar, Church Square, Monaghan Town. Barely three weeks before Loughgall, five of the East Tyrone IRA had shot dead Harold Henry (52), a member of the Henry Brothers construction business that carried out repairs on security force bases. Just before midnight, the IRA took Mr Henry from his home, put him up against a wall and shot him dead with two rifles and a shotgun. He left a widow and six children. To the IRA he was a ‘legitimate target’, the first of more than twenty ‘collaborators’ to be ‘executed’ by the IRA for ‘assisting the British war machine.’ One of the weapons believed to have been used in the Henry killing was later retrieved at Loughgall.

On the basis of the information passed to the Garda Siochana (Irish Police) and RUC Special Branch by the IRA informer in Monaghan Town, a major security operation was put into action. Extra SAS Teams were brought into the north, within hours of arriving in the north, the SAS Teams were brought to the firing range beneath the RUC Forensic Lab in Belfast, were they test fired similar weapons to those that would be used by the IRA Team at Loughgall. 

The SAS Team was briefed by Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and RUC Superintendent Robert Buchanan. This test firing would allow the SAS to distinguish between friendly and enemy fire on the night of the Loughgall executions. While the Monaghan Informer had given an indicator that a major operation was about to take place, the actual target was not immediately known, this would take a detailed mapping of a myriad of intelligence sources. The Monaghan Informer would contact his handler a couple of days before Loughgall to say that Jim Lynagh had moved to a safe house in Coalisland, County Tyrone.

There was other vital intelligence too from M15′s listening devices planted inside the homes of IRA suspects, usually put in place when they were away, or even when the homes of the more prominent ones were being built. As long as the batteries held out, these technical devices – or ‘bugs’ – could be monitored many miles away or their content down-loaded by helicopters flying over the premises where they were hidden. It’s likely too that the location where the explosives were stored for the Loughgall bomb were also under M15 technical surveillance. They were probably also under human ‘eyes-on’ observation by operators of the army’s top-secret undercover unit, 14 Intelligence Company (known colloquially as the ‘Det’) and the RUC’s equivalent covert unit, E4A. ‘E’ is the code for the RUC’s Special Branch.

The security force operation was put in place on Thursday 7 May, the day before the IRA’s planned assault. Three Special Branch officers from the RUC’s specialist anti-terrorist unit volunteered to remain inside the normally sleepy station as decoys to give the appearance of normality whilst the IRA did its ‘recce’. ‘Matt’, a veteran of such covert operations, was one of them. They entered the station with some of the SAS troopers as darkness fell on the Thursday night. They made sandwiches and cracked jokes to lighten the tedium of waiting and perhaps to calm the nerves.

The joint leaders of the ASU was Patrick Kelly (30), an experienced IRA commander whose sister, supported by the other relatives, was a prime mover in bringing the Loughgall cases before the European Court. Kelly had been arrested in 1982 and charged with terrorist offences on the word of a ‘Super-grass’ but was subsequently released as the testimony lacked corroboration. Jim Lynagh was the second Commander and was the man most sought after by the British and Irish security services. Among the younger members of the ASU were four young friends from the village of Cappagh who had joined the IRA after the death of one of their village friend, Martin Hurson, on hunger strike in 1981. One of them, Declan Arthurs (21), was to drive the JCB with a 200lb bomb in the bucket – just like the Birches.

Throughout the long hours of Friday, the maze of country lanes around Loughgall police station were watched and patrolled by ‘Det’ operators on the look-out for the ‘A Team’. One of them was a young women called ‘Anna’ who was driving around the area with her ‘Det’ partner as part of the surveillance cordon. Suddenly they spotted a blue Toyota Hiace van. At first they thought it was simply stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle but when they realised it was a JCB, they immediately put Ballygawley and the Birches together. ‘You suddenly realize it’s the MO (modus operandi) used by the East Tyrone Brigade,’ she said. ‘It was like a replay. But this time we were on top of it and we knew what was happening. So we passed on the information to the TCG and pulled off.’ The Chief Constable of the time, Sir John Hermon, said the IRA ASU could not have been arrested. He said it was never a realistic option since the IRA would be unlikely to come out with their hands up and police officers lives would therefore be at grave risk.

At 7.15 pm as dusk gathered, the JCB with Declan Arthurs at the wheel and the bomb raised high in the bucket, trundled past the police station with the blue Toyota van in attendance. Both then turned and headed back in the direction whence they had come. Suddenly, the JCB roared into life, headed for the perimeter fence and crashed through it. Almost simultaneously, the van drew up outside, disgorging Patrick Kelly and other members of the ASU who sprayed the station with their assault rifles. The SAS almost certainly opened up the moment Kelly started firing. Everything seemed to happen at once in a deafening crescendo of noise. Inside the station, ‘Matt’ (Special Branch), who was by the front window, was only about ten metres from the JCB when it came to a halt right before his eyes. He turned and ran to the back with one word on his mind. Bomb! ‘I thought of the Birches and Ballygawley and the next minute there was an almighty bang. I was hit in the face, knocked to the ground and buried. I thought “I’m dead”, simple as that!’ Miraculously ‘Matt’ survived although buried in the rubble ‘inhaling dust and darkness.’ The ‘A’ Team did not. ‘Declan was mowed down. He could have been taken prisoner,’ his mother, Amelia Arthurs, said. ‘The SAS never gave them a chance.’ The photographs taken at the scene are gruesome. The van in which the IRA volunteers had travelled was ripped open by part of the shrapnel from the digger bucket when it exploded, this is new information.

‘Matt’ felt no sympathy for the bullet-riddled bodies on the ground outside the station and in the back of the van. ‘They were there to kill us,’ he said. ‘These guys were responsible for lots and lots of deaths in that area and other parts of the province. Dead terrorists are better than dead policemen.’ Forensic tests carried out on the IRA weapons retrieved at the scene were linked to eight killings and thirty-three shootings.

The area around the police station had not been cordoned off since to have done so would have risked making the IRA suspicious and wary of the carefully laid ambush. As a result, two brothers returning home from work, were shot by the SAS. The security personnel who lay on the outer core of the ambush had been ordered to kill everyone within the kill zone.  Perhaps the soldiers thought they were part of the ASU or mistook their white Citroen for an IRA ‘scout’ car, maybe because one of the occupants was wearing a boiler suit. The brothers had been working on a car. The SAS fired forty rounds at the vehicle, killing Anthony Hughes (36) and seriously wounding his brother Oliver who was scarred for life. He said no warning was given. The RUC’s Chief Constable, Sir Jack Herman, described the attack on the two innocent men as ‘an unspeakable tragedy’ and blamed the IRA, not planning and operational shortcomings, for his death.

When ‘Anna’, her ‘Det’ colleagues and the SAS returned to base, there were great celebrations. ‘There was a huge party and it probably went on for 24 hours,’ she said. ‘A lot of beer was drunk. We were jubilant. We thought it was a job well done. It sent shock waves through the terrorist world that we were back on top.’ She said of the dead IRA men. ‘They’re all volunteers and actively engaged against the British army. They’re ‘at war’ as they would describe it. My attitude is that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. We were just happy at the end of the day to be alive ourselves.’

Some new information is contained in this article, it is certain that the first indicator for the Loughgall operation came from an RUC Special Branch Informer in Monaghan Town. This informer also contacted the RUC to let them know that Jim Lynagh had moved to a safe house in Coalisland just before the Loughgall operation. Once the security services had their first indicator of a major IRA operation, M15 and the RUC had to simply correlate their myriad of intelligence to match the A Team with their target. At the same time that M15 and the SAS were focused on the East Tyrone IRA, M16 were working closely with Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams and had adopted a hands-off approach to the IRA in Derry and Belfast.

There is no question that the relationship between Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and The British Secret Service lead to the SAS executions at Loughgall, the British wanted to undermine PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, McKenna wanted to take the war to the British and their collaborators and he viewed politics as nothing more than a public relations exercise that could provide cover for the real business of The PIRA, which was to drive the British apparatus out of Ireland. Adams and McGuinness had already sold out, and even at the graveside of Jim Lynagh, Adams would spout his lies when he said, “Anyone who does business with The British, The Freestate establishment or The SDLP are fools for they have all sold out on the Irish people”, Adams said these weasel words while he was already in bed with all of the above.

Sinn Fein/PIRA can get as many illiterates fools as they like to make videos for YouTube stating that Lynagh and Kelly would have supported Sinn Fein/PIRA’s British inspired ‘peace-strategy’, however, anyone one who was on the same intellectual level as Jim Lynagh would know well that Adams, McGuinness and their ‘peace strategy’ is nothing more than a British inspired surrender of Irish Republicanism.

Keywords: Loughgall Martyrs, 35 Anniversary, Jim Lynagh, Patrick Kelly, Declan Authurs, SAS, Ambush, Gerry Adams

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