Enniskillen Bomb 1987 by Vincent McKenna
Loughgall was the key motivating factor for bombing Enniskillen, however, Kevin McKenna had also just lost the Eksund gun ship, Kevin had lost his A-Team and his weapons within a few months, he wanted, as did all others, to strike hard at the Prods or as Kevin called them "Orange Bastards".
Those who directed Enniskillen were Kevin McKenna (Chief of Staff - Dead), JB O'Hagan (Army Council/Quarter Master-Monaghan/East Tyrone - Dead), Brendan McKenna (Adjutant - still alive), Hensey McKenna (Internal Security - Dead), Edward 'Ned' Hamill (OC Monaghan - Still alive), John Joe McGirl (provided the bomb - Dead), Michael McKevitt (Quarter Master General - Dead), Thomas 'Slab' Murphy - alive).
Operatives: Charlie Caufield
(OC on the operation - Still alive), Laurence McNally (Dead), John 'Dinger'
Bell (Still alive), John Joe Coyle (Dead), Vincent xxxxxxxxx (Still alive - a
wee scare a few months ago), these were the operatives directly involved in
planting the bomb that exploded. Sean Tierney who was detained in Gough Barracks with me in 1986 under a 7 Day Detention Order was to detonate the second bomb that failed to explode.
In the aftermath of Enniskillen, the backlash was expected to be the usual mantra from unionists, nobody expected the backlash to go international and include Gadhafi withdrawing support, Kevin McKenna and those around him, simply did not understand the meaning and significance of Remembrance Sunday, they considered Remembrance Sunday to be parochial RUC/UDR, Prods remembering their dead, not the world being thankful for its freedom.
It was due to this unexpected
International dimension, and utterances from Dublin and London about increased
cooperation, that Owen Smyth wrote the bogus letter to Brian Lenihan TD and
others, claiming that he was an MI5 Agent who was disillusioned with the
tactics of MI5 including changing the timer on the Enniskillen Bomb, pure
nonsense, yet nonsense that has to be put right.
In the letter Smyth claims that MI5 "became aware" of the local PIRA in Fermanagh preparing to bomb Enniskilleen, only Walter-Mitty would say such a thing when dogs on the street knew that the entire operation was planned, directed and carried out from Monaghan Town.
Jim Lynagh and I
I had many roles within Sinn Fein/PIRA, and that probably explains the great lengths that some have went to over decades to try and silence me. Two days before Jim Lynagh was shot dead by The SAS at Loughgall, I spoke to him at Dublin Street in Monaghan Town. Our meeting was being observed by two Garda Special Branch Officers sitting outside Jim Lynagh’s flat at the bottom of Dublin Street, a flat Jim shared with fellow Sinn Fein/PIRA operative John ‘Dinger’ Bell.
At this point in 1987 my job was gathering and corelating intelligence for Sinn Fein/PIRA, however, Lynagh wanted me to start planting under-car booby traps. Not only did he want me to plant them, but he wanted me to construct them. I was to construct the booby-trap bombs by getting the component parts across the border, assembling them, and then, on Command planting them.
As Jim and I stood chatting on Dublin Street in May 1987, Jim explained that the Semtex that had been supplied to Sinn Fein/PIRA by Libya smelled like marzipan, I think that was the first time I had heard about marzipan. Jim said that I would be taking a couple of ounces of Semtex into Tyrone at any given time. The Semtex would be wrapped in cling-film, and I would place it in my under-pants (that is a diplomatic description of what he said) and simply walk through the British Army Check-point.
As implausible as this might sound, I was already in position, by training with a local GAA Team in Tyrone and walking in and out through the British Army check-point with regularity. To the point that the British Army did not bother searching me, I was polite to the Soldiers at the check-point and they simply let me go through without any problem.
A couple of days later Lynagh was dead, and while I remained within Sinn Fein/PIRA, I never heard another word about booby-traps, I was then under the command of another member of East Tyrone PIRA and Intelligence was my core role. In fact, my new PIRA commander said:
“We have enough killers, we need good intelligence”.
Semtex from Libya
Libya had resumed its aid to
the Provisional IRA and had provided $2 million to Sinn Fein in the Irish
Republic (Irish Times, 18 and 19 June 1986). This money was secured by Fr Patrick Ryan, Joe Cahill and Ted Howell.
In an interview on RTE TV on 28 October, 1986: Colonel Qadhafi said that Libya should be thanked for its position on Ireland:
"If I was leader of the south of Ireland, I would consider
that the north was colonised and fight to liberate that part of the country".
British Press reported that
two senior Sinn Fein officials (Ted Howell and Joe Cahill) had visited Libya in April for a ceremony to
mark the American raids on Libya which was addressed by Colonel Qadhafi's
teenage son, Sadi, and that Colonel Qadhafi had supplied the IRA with large quantities
of plastic explosives.
Mr Collins, told the Dail on
10 November that the Irish police were urgently examining reports that two
landings of arms had been made in 1985 and two in 1986, all arranged by the PIRA. He said later on RTE that there was "reason to worry" (Irish
Press, 11 November 1987).
Anonymous letter claimed British knew of Enniskillen bomb plans?
In the 1987, General Election,
held on 17th February, in the Irish Republic, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
was the candidate in the Cavan/Monaghan constituency. Owen Smyth was in charge
of Public Relations for Sinn Fein/PIRA in the Monaghan Electoral area, as he had
been for the 1985 Local Government Elections, in which he was also a candidate.
In the aftermath of the
Enniskillen Bombing, it was Owen Smyth who wrote an anonymous letter to then
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan TD, claiming that he was an MI5
Officer who had prior knowledge of the Enniskillen Bomb. Smyth never made any
secret of the under-hand things that he engaged in. Smyth had sent the letter
to Muddy the Waters. In reality, Smyth had a very large chip on his shoulder, as he had turned Informer when arrested by the RUC in 1981. Smyth like many other informers (Eamon Collins - Newry etc) in the 1980s was allowed to return to the community as he had not taken the stand against Sinn Fein/PIRA members.
It is highly unlikely that the
British had any prior knowledge of Enniskillen, as the operation was planned in
Monaghan by a very tight circle of people and the operational detail would not
have been known, even to some of those who offered support services. There would
have been no need for anyone to change the timing on the bomb, as it was always
meant to Murder civilians.
Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, who was based in Monaghan, had lost his A-Team at Loughgall and he intended making the Protestant community pay dearly for that loss. Rather than reassess his own role and position, it was easier to keep everyone happy with a good sectarian kill.
State papers: Self-proclaimed
operative sent Brian Lenihan letter six days after IRA bomb killed 12
An anonymous letter-writer to
the Irish government 30 years ago claimed that British intelligence knew in
advance about the Enniskillen bombing but chose to do nothing about it as they
believed it would create a “massive backlash”.
The Enniskillen bombing on
Remembrance Sunday, November 8th, 1987, was one of the worst atrocities of the
Troubles. Twelve people were killed when an IRA bomb blew out the walls of a
building beside the cenotaph in the town, burying dozens of spectators in
rubble.
Six days after the bombing, an
anonymous, typed letter was sent to then Tánaiste and minister for foreign
affairs, Brian Lenihan. It has now been released as part of the 1988 State
papers.
The letter was sent by a man
who claimed that he was so scared that he drove across the Border to post it.
He claimed that he was an MI5
agent operating in Northern Ireland for 18 months and that he worked in the
special section which was set up to infiltrate paramilitary organisations.
Remembrance Day parade
He listed ways in which
British intelligence sought to target republican paramilitaries including the
manipulation of Dessie “The Border Fox” O’Hare, “a psychopath”, through his
wife.
He went on to state that his
section of MI5 knew in advance of plans to bomb the Remembrance Day parade in
Enniskillen.
British intelligence knew when
and where the IRA gang were going to plant the bomb, its size and technical
make-up, he claimed.
“Our section decided to change
the timing device and let the explosion take place so that the IRA would score
an own goal and create a massive backlash against itself,” he wrote.
“Our section also calculated
that in the climate of a backlash against the IRA all kinds of security
measures could be implemented including extradition.”
The self-proclaimed operative
also suggested that MI6’s involvement in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings had
been “well-established” in MI5.
“If I had more courage, I
would come out openly and prove with more what I am now saying,” he wrote.
The anonymous letter generated
only one piece of correspondence in the files. It was from an official in the
Department of Foreign Affairs to an official in the Department of Justice.
It noted that the letter was sent in an envelope to the Tánaiste but was addressed to “Dear sir or madam”. The official suggested that perhaps the letter was meant for a wider circulation including the press.
Other Top StoriesThe Enniskillen Bomb Why and Who
Loughgall Martyrs and the Pressure to Retaliate
Choosing the target that would be Enniskillen
Kevin McKenna making the final decision
Although it was never
officially admitted, Gardai did detect suspicious activity and arrested a
number of the bomb team in Monaghan on the morning the PIRA bombed the
Remembrance Day ceremony in Enniskillen.
Three Co Tyrone men on the run
from the RUC and living in Monaghan were stopped in a car in Monaghan hours
before the explosion.
The woman believed to be the
joint-leader of the South Fermanagh Brigade of the IRA was also understood to
have arrived in Monaghan that morning. Gardai regarded the activity as
suspicious but thought little more of it until later in the morning when the
reports of the Enniskillen bombing arrived.
The men detained in the car
and a number of others were questioned and forensic tests taken but no evidence
of any kind was found to connect them with the bombing, according to officers.
However, intelligence reports
later indicated that it was almost certain that the eight IRA suspects whose
movements were detected in Monaghan that morning were involved in the bombing.
Gardai and RUC believe the
bombing operation was led by the woman, and that she was in the group that had
driven west from Enniskillen after they had finished planting the bomb in the
building owned by the Catholic Church beside the Cenotaph at around 10.43 a.m.
on Remembrance Sunday.
The woman, although still only
in her 20s, was known as an extremely hard-line figure who had risen rapidly
through the local IRA ranks. She was said by officers to have engaged in the
torture of at least one IRA man suspected of passing information to Gardai in
Monaghan.
Importantly, she and the man, Charlie Caufield, her co-leader of the bombing operation were close to the
IRA's Chief-of-Staff, Kevin McKenna, a County Tyrone man living in Smithborough.
Intelligence appraisals of the
Remembrance Sunday bombing put it in the context of a decade and-a-half of
assassinations of Protestants/security personnel along the Border by the IRA's
Border brigades. In the late 1980s IRA tactics had grown to include coordinated
"spectaculars", such as double or treble bomb attacks in different
locations.
At the same time as the
Enniskillen bomb was detonated, the west Fermanagh IRA was unsuccessfully
trying to detonate at second 400lb landmine at the site of the Remembrance Day
ceremony in the village of Tullyhomond, just across the Border from Pettigo in
Co Donegal. This event was attended by more than 100 members of the Boys and
Girls Brigade, the Protestant equivalents of the Catholic scouts and girl
guides.
If this bomb had exploded it
would have caused even worse carnage than the one at Enniskillen. Forensic
examination of the device showed that it was wrongly wired. It was never
ascertained if this was done intentionally or accidentally by the west
Fermanagh bombers, who must have been aware of the likely outcome of their
bomb.
The Tullyhomond bomb was
connected to a command wire running across the Border into Donegal. However,
the Enniskillen bomb was detonated by a timer. This meant that the Enniskillen
bombers knew they would have no sight of the likely target and could only
surmise what the impact of the bomb would be.
A report in The Irish Times
about a week after the Enniskillen bombing, that the device was detonated by a
timer, was denied privately to other journalists by a senior Sinn Fein figure
who acted as an unofficial IRA source to the media. However, British army
ordnance officers were able to reconstruct part of the timer, a device commonly
used in IRA bombs.
In its only official comment
about the bombing, the IRA said it had been a "mistake". The truth
was that it had been a success in Provisional IRA terms, it had struck back at
the Protestant community for the deaths of eight SF/PIRA members at Loughgall,
and was celebrated as such in two pubs in Monaghan Town owned by two members of
SF/PIRA. The Enniskillen Massacre brought much needed cohesion within the ranks
of the ‘Border’ IRA Brigades.
The event drew international
opprobrium down on the PIRA and the visit to the injured by Diana, Princess of
Wales, and Prince Charles drew international media attention to the event.
Privately, republican sources admitted that it had virtually reversed the
positive international image the organisation had built up at the time of the
hunger-strikes.
The woman who led the bombing team with Charlie Caufield is in the US, where she has raised a family.
FREE e-Books
Irish Republicanism in the 20th/21st Century
Sex Crime Ireland a Definitive History
Voice from The Grave PIRA Hunger -Striker Sean McKenna
Top Blog Posts
Plan to Murder Secretary of State 2000
An Garda Siochana Monaghan Town
Sinn Fein Provisional IRA Monaghan Town
Loughgall Impact on PIRA Monaghan
Plan to Murder Queen Elizabeth 2011
MI5 and Continuity IRA Arrests
Columba McVeigh Murder Cormac McCabe Murder
Sinn Fein Exploiting Social Media
Sinn Fein Provisional IRA Sex Crime
