The Shankill Bomb, October 23rd, 1993
PIRA member, Thomas Begley
died and nine others, all Protestant civilians, were murdered when the PIRA bomb
he was carrying exploded ‘prematurely’ at Frizzell's fish shop on the
Shankill
Road on October 23rd, 1993.
Begley and a second bomber,
Shankill Butcher, Sean Kelly, wearing white coats and posing as delivery
drivers, carried the bomb into the shop.
Begley (22) was later buried
with full IRA honours in the republican plot in Milltown Cemetery, and his
coffin was carried by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. Gerry Adams had also given full IRA honours to his Father, Gerry Adams Snr who was a prolific Child Rapist, so Honor means very little within Sinn Fein/PIRA where serial killers and serial Child Rapists are given equal honours with the likes of Bobby Sands.
Shankill Bomb, October 23rd, 1993
While the Shankill Bomb will
remain etched in the minds of all decent human beings, and The Shankill Massacre
has been well documented, the fact remains that the Sinn Fein/PIRA spin doctors
and their friends in high places have left confusion rather than clarity.
In 1993, The UVF and The UDA
had out-gunned The PIRA for the first time since 1969 when The PIRA were
founded. It is not a conspiracy theory to believe that the loyalist groupings
were in concert with the security services, and this focused campaign was
having a significant impact on Sinn Fein/PIRA’s support base.
In East Tyrone, the ancestral home
of militant ‘republicanism’ there was talk of a split in 1993, that split had
been rumored for years, but had been side-lined as 28 PIRA activists were shot
dead by The SAS between 1987-92. Recruitment to The PIRA was not an issue,
however, the softer edges of Sinn Fein/PIRA were getting nervous and did not
want to be seen publicly involved with Sinn Fein/PIRA particularly at election
time, this was a major problem.
The Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership
in Belfast and Derry were trying desperately to hold the organisation together,
and they knew that any split in the border region would derail the political
ambitions of Gerry Adams. The key consideration for Adams and McGuinness was to
keep the organisation together at any cost, including sacrificing the lives of
the innocent.
The straw that broke
the camels back came in April 1993 when secret talks between McGuinness and MI6
were exposed, anyone who remembers that period will remember Adams and
McGuinness scrambling like rats to cover their tracks. McGuinness participated
in an MI6/BBC crafted documentary to try and explain away a secret document
that had been leaked to certain media. Adams and the Belfast leadership weighed
in behind McGuinness to support his version of events.
Secret Communication from MI6 Officer Michael Oatley to MI6 Agent Martin McGuinness in 1993
In fact, it was all a lie,
McGuinness was in fact an MI6 Agent and even his Handler MI6 Officer Michael
Oatley tried to offer support to the Sinn Fein/PIRA narrative. However, PIRA
Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, PIRA Quarter-Master, Michael McKevitt and PIRA
Bagman, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy had known nothing about the McGuinness and MI6
contacts. It could be the case that Adams did not know the full extent of
McGuinness’s dealings with MI6.
The exposure of the secret
contacts were initially denied by all parties and then gradually as they got
their various narratives together, they told their version of events. However, East
Tyrone PIRA and other activists around the country were not happy, something
had to be done to convince these unsettled PIRA members that Belfast PIRA had
not sold out.
Why The Shankill
The political cover-story for
The Shankill Bomb would be that The PIRA were targeting Johnny Adair, this was
a lie, Johnny Adair could have been taken out any time, The PIRA were receiving,
Grade A, information about Johnny Adair from people very closely associated
with him.
When The PIRA murdered 10
Protestants at Kingsmill, they used a cover-name, as it was not politically
expedient, particularly for the American audience to be engaged in a purely
sectarian conflict.
When The PIRA bombed
Enniskillen they said they were targeting British military, total nonsense. Enniskillen
was a sectarian kill, at a time when Sinn Fein/PIRA needed a blood sacrifice to
quench the thirst of their membership and followers, after Loughgall.
The political cover story for
Teebane,
17th January 1992, was that the 8 Protestants murdered were working
for The Security forces, again, a nice clean kill with good political cover
story to sell in America.
Johnny Adair was used as the
political cover story for The Shankill Bomb, it was a lie, it was a deliberate
sectarian kill to quench the thirst of East Tyrone PIRA as well as PIRA Leaders
such as Kevin McKenna, Slab Murphy and Michael McKevitt.
If anyone thinks that Sinn
Fein/PIRA would not sacrifice Thomas Begley to give greater credence to their political
cover-story, then you have a lot to learn about Sinn Fein/PIRA. They murdered
10 of their men on Hunger-Strike, they murdered 28 of their men in Tyrone
1987-92.
Sinn Fein/PIRA said the bomb
exploded ‘prematurely’, where did that information come from? Who can
independently prove that the bomb went off before its time? Perhaps MI6 or one
of their Puppets. This was a carefully spun web of lies.
The Shankill Bomb had the
impact required within Sinn Fein/PIRA, it convinced The PIRA in East Tyrone
that the leadership were not selling out and Kevin McKenna was happy with a
good kill that was in keeping with the policy of Ethnic Cleansing.
PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, 1983-1997
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