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.
Other Top Stories
Other Top Stories
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.
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
