THE IRISH OBSERVER: An Garda Siochana Monaghan Town

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

An Garda Siochana Monaghan Town

I arrived in Monaghan Town in 1980 aged 16 years-old. While I was only a child, I was politically motivated.

Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan hadsignificant numbers of personnel, due mainly to Sinn Fein/PIRA members claiming to be On-the-Run from Northern Ireland.

Prior to Sinn Fein/PIRA launching a campaign of Ethnic violence in Northern Ireland, the IRA had been active in Monaghan. The border-campaign 1956-1962 had been directed from Monaghan and would cost the lives of Fergal O’Hanlon and Sean South in 1957, when they were shot dead by The RUC. See also, Connie Green below.

Fergal O'Hanlon (Irish: Feargal Ó hAnnluain, 2 February 1936 to 1 January 1957) was a volunteer in the Pearse Column of the Irish Republican Army

O'Hanlon was born in Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, into a staunchly republican family, Feargal O'Hanlon was a draughtsman employed by Monaghan County Council. He was a Gaelic footballer and a keen Irish language activist. A devout Catholic, O'Hanlon considered becoming a priest and spent one year at the seminary in St. Macartan's.

Aged 20, O'Hanlon was killed along with Seán South while taking part in an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, during the Border Campaign. Several other IRA members were wounded in the botched attack.

The IRA fled the scene in a dumper truck. They abandoned it near the border. They left South and O'Hanlon, both then unconscious, in a cow byre, and crossed into the Republic of Ireland on foot for help for their comrades. The wounded IRA men were treated as "car crash victims" by sympathetic staff in the Mater Misericordia Hospital in Dublin.

The events and personalities are sympathetically recalled in Dominic Behan's ballad The Patriot Game.

O'Hanlon's mother remained firmly committed to the IRA and was hurt by the suggestion that there was an alternative to IRA activity or that her son was anything other than an Irish hero.

A marble monument now stands at the spot where South and O'Hanlon lost their lives. An annual lecture has been held in memory of O’Hanlon since 1982, and approximately 500 people attended a 50th commemoration of the men's deaths in January 2007 in Limerick.

In 1971, a monument was unveiled to O'Hanlon in his hometown - on a hill overlooking the Clones Road on which he had made his last journey home. A Gaelic football team was founded in Monaghan in 2003 and called the Fergal O'Hanlons.

His brother Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain was elected a Sinn Féin abstentionist TD in the 1957 general election to Dáil Éireann. His sister Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha was a Sinn Féin Councillor on Monaghan Urban Council.

Following the failed Border-campaign 1956-1962 The IRA in Monaghan and The Irish Republic was in disarray, there were both personality and ideological differences. The Official IRA seen the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland as an opportunity to rekindle their fortunes.

The IRA in Monaghan would become active in 1968 and its ranks would fill quickly with those Sinn Fein/PIRA arriving in Monaghan and claiming to be On-The-Run.

An Garda Siochana in Monaghan would maintain order, by means of surveillance, arrest and imprisonment. Even during the most dangerous of times, the Dublin and Monaghan bomb attacks by ‘loyalists’ in 1974 An Garda Siochana held the line between Law and Order and Anarchy.

The PIRA were by the mid-1970s the dominant force in Monaghan. Monaghan Town in particular was swamped with Sinn Fein/PIRA members from Northern Ireland such as Kevin McKenna, JB O’Hagan and so forth. These older members were now commanding younger and some quite ruthless individuals such as Jim Lynagh, Lynagh was born in Monaghan.

An Garda Siochana were under resourced and poorly manned, however, these deficiencies were due to a lack of political-will by various Governments, normally lead by Fianna Fail.

In the 1970s a group of Gardai known as The Heavy Gang would engage in brutish tactics against Sinn Fein/PIRA members, and this resulted in a number of individuals being forced to make false confessions. However, this Heavy Gang was not a true reflection of the ethos of An Garda Siochana, most officers continued to police as normal.

In Monaghan Town the numbers of Garda Detectives specifically tasked with dealing with the threat from Sinn Fein/PIRA were rightly or wrongly referred to as Special Branch. Unlike The RUC who often lived in private housing estates in safe areas, Gardai in Monaghan lived cheek by jowl with PIRA serial killers. Gardai had no security on their homes in 1970s/1980s and this left them vulnerable to intimidation and threat.

DUP Deputy Leader, Peter Robinson, arrested and charged in Monaghan 1986

As a member of Sinn Fein/PIRA it was easy to identify those Gardai who might be friendly towards Sinn Fein/PIRA (not many) and those who were taking Sinn Fein/PIRA to task. It was not unusual to sit in the company of PIRA members such as Jim Lynagh and hear certain Gardai being referred to as “Blue-shirt Bastard”, this title was normally reserved for no nonsense officers such as John McCoy or Colm Browne.

By the 1980s The PIRA in Monaghan were more often redundant than they were active, with the caveat that PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna continued to direct operations over a wide area. When Jim Lynagh was in prison and certainly after he died, The PIRA in Monaghan would wind down. Following Loughgall, there were few volunteering for operations.

An Garda Siochana continued to police as normal, with specialist units remaining focused on Sinn Fein/PIRA activity. In the mid-1980s Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan was dividing its time between elections and operations in the north. An Garda Siochana remained focused on the sharper edges of Sinn Fein/PIRA, namely Jim Lynagh and those who worked with him.

By the end of the 1980s the older Garda Officers who had been at the cutting edge against Sinn Fein/PIRA were retiring and a new generation of Gardai were arriving in Monaghan. Some of the new Gardai would still have been opposed to Sinn Fein/PIRA but there was also a new element that were not so easily defined.

This uncertain aspect of An Garda Siochana is best summed up by Chief Superintendent, Tom Curran, when giving evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal set up to inquire into collusion between certain Gardai in Dundalk and The PIRA. Tom Curran told The Smithwick Tribunal that he would not give the name of an ‘Informer’ to the Garda Intelligence Collator in Monaghan Garda Station, for fear the ‘Informer’s’ name would become known.

While not having any knowledge of the Garda being referred to by Tom Curran, it was this sense of uncertainty that caused issues in the fight against Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan, although, due to the actions of The SAS, The PIRA in Monaghan was finished, in real terms, by the early 1990s.

It was no secret within Sinn Fein/PIRA circles that some Gardai were working with Kevin McKenna, in terms of providing him with information about various matters.

In Conclusion

Without the selfless efforts of the majority of An Garda Siochana in Monaghan, the death toll in the border counties would have been much greater. The high number of arrests, seizure of explosives, weapons and ammunition were unequalled in The Republic.

An Garda Siochana were poorly financed and often lacked political certainty about how to police the border. With limited resources and while being fully exposed to the threat from violent criminals, An Garda Siochana, in the majority helped defeat one of the most dangerous elements of The PIRA on the Island of Ireland.

Connie Green secretly buried 1955

On 26 November 1955, almost 50 years ago, Connie Green of Saor Uladh was buried unnamed in a Monaghan graveyard.

In October 1951 Liam Kelly of Pomeroy, County Tyrone, was dismissed from the IRA. With his own power base in East Tyrone he took the local Volunteers with him in a new direction.

Founding Fianna Uladh, a political party recognising Leinster House, he was elected to Stormont in 1953 but immediately arrested and jailed for 12 months for sedition.

Seán MacBride secured Kelly's election to the Seanad in 1954. On his release on 19 August 1954, Kelly returned to a wild welcome in Pomeroy including a bloody riot with the RUC. Despite the attendant publicity Fianna Uladh faded away. Kelly turned his energies to his military organisation — Saor Uladh.

Saor Uladh remained a local phenomenon, mainly isolated to one area of Tyrone. The IRA kept a close watch, warned off republicans, and criticised Kelly for causing division.

One morning in November 1955, Kelly and a raiding party including Connie Green attacked the RUC barracks in Rosslea, County Fermanagh. Placing a mine by the guardroom window blowing it in, they swept the ground floor with gunfire and moved into the barracks.

Upstairs RUC Sergeant WR Morrow snatched a Sten gun from the rack. Looking downstairs into the clouds of dust he saw movement and heard someone shout for surrender. Morrow fired his Sten into the movement below. Creeping down he found Constable Knowles wounded by gunfire.

The RUC had no idea who had attacked, if they had suffered any casualties, or what the future held. At the time it was not generally realised that there were two militant republican groups at work. Nor did the public or the IRA know that Connie Green, who had formerly served with the British Army and was a member of the Saor Uladh attacking party, had been shot in the raid.

Connie Green's death and the irregularities surrounding the inquest, caused such a storm that Saor Uladh was finally forced to issue a statement, in the Fianna Uladh journal Gair Uladh on 16 December, accepting responsibility for the raid.

Rumours published in the Sunday Independent on 28 November persisted that one of the attackers had been shot in the raid and buried secretly in Monaghan after an inquest had been held and a coroner had made the usual order for burial. After enquires by journalists the Government Information Bureau in Dublin made the following announcement:

"In answer to enquiries it was ascertained through the Government Information Bureau that on Saturday afternoon the Coroner for North Eastern Monaghan was informed that the body of an unknown man who appeared to have died from gunshot wounds was lying in a farmhouse in his district. An inquest was held in the evening when it was found by the jury that the unknown man had died from shock and haemorrhage and that there was no evidence to show how the injuries had been received."

The GIB refused to make further comment but journalist, John Healy got the coroner, Dr Thomas Leonard, to talk to him. He revealed that the man had died on the morning following the attack. He had been attended by a local doctor who had sent for a priest to give the man the last rites.

That afternoon the doctor and two other men called on Leonard, told him that a man had died and asked him to hold an inquest. Leonard then got in touch with the Gardaí and was visited by a Superintendent who at first said he knew nothing about the affair. He later returned and told Leonard that he would be called for at 8pm to carry out an inquest.

Leonard was taken to a farmhouse where he found the body of a 'fine looking man' already in a coffin, and six men ready to act as jurors. Leonard swore them in. The Superintendent presided and the inquest was held in his presence and that of a solicitor, a detective, the owner of the farmhouse and the doctor who had examined the man while he was dying. Uniformed Gardaí and detectives were stationed outside.

Evidence was taken from the owner of the farmhouse and from the doctor, who said that the dead man had had a bullet wound in his left side. A verdict that death was due to shock and haemorrhage was returned.

Leonard went home and made out the death certificate which he described as a "most unusual one. There is no name. I could not say if the man was married or single, what occupation he had. In the age column I wrote 'about 30'. That was all."

The body was buried the following morning at Carrickroe Cemetery, about 12 miles north of Monaghan, with full church rites.