THE IRISH OBSERVER: SAS, Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein, Loughgall

Sunday, January 10, 2021

SAS, Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein, Loughgall

The Impact of SAS Operations on the PIRA Leadership

While The PIRA in Monaghan/East Tyrone were able to continue to carryout operations and new recruits filled the ranks following each attack by The SAS, the psychological impact on The PIRA could not be underestimated.

Following Loughgall, few members of The PIRA were putting themselves forward for operations, by 1991, this demoralisation had reached breaking point, and is highlighted by the fact that Pete Ryan and Laurence McNally had to ask a civilian to drive them to their final destination, where they were picked up by Tony Doris, and then all three meet with their deaths at the hands of The SAS.

In 1986 when Seamus McElwaine was shot dead by the SAS, we within the ranks of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan were told that it was bad luck, nothing more, no need to take it beyond that, bad luck.

Jim Lynagh with back to camera, OC at McElwaine's funeral 1986, John 'Dinger' Bell with poorly fitted balaclava.

In 1987 when the most senior member of The PIRA ever killed by British Security forces, Jim Lynagh was shot dead at Loughgall (Operation Judy) with seven other members of The PIRA, those who set them up, had their story ready for the fools within the ranks of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Monaghan Town.

The morning after Loughgall I walked into Monaghan Town with a member of East Tyrone PIRA who was On-The-Run and living in Monaghan.

Jim Lynagh's funeral passing through Emyvale, John 'Dinger' Bell acting OC, balaclava fitting better.

Normally when an operation appeared to have gone wrong, we would gather at The Sinn Fein/PIRA Office, 21 Dublin Street, Monaghan Town, to try and get the most up to date news. As I walked down Dublin Street with my East Tyrone PIRA associate, we decided to go into The Shamrock Bar that was owned by another member of East Tyrone PIRA and who was On-the-Run.

When we entered the bar, the story had already been told:

“The SAS were lying around all the remote RUC stations; it was just bad luck”

This explanation for the wipe-out of a PIRA Unit that included Jim Lynagh and Paddy Kelly, was not credible, but I said nothing, that was always the smart thing to do, let the smart boys think you believed them. The person who offered this explanation for the slaughter at Loughgall was simply a messenger, feed a line by an Informer.

Following Loughgall, there was anger in Monaghan, Jim Lynagh had been a Sinn Fein Councilor and was popular among the most fearsome killers and young people alike. Jim had made enemies among older members of Sinn Fein/PIRA, Jim wanted to push boundaries, challenge the established protocols, bring the war to the British and the Protestants who supported them.

Kevin McKenna was The PIRA Chief of Staff and had been based in Monaghan from the early 1970s, Kevin was a sectarian bigot who simply enjoyed Murdering Protestants, but he was smart enough to know, that American money would dry up very quickly if the Sinn Fein/PIRA campaign was viewed as being purely sectarian.

Following Loughgall, Kevin McKenna was under extreme pressure to reassert his authority, Kevin knew that Martin McGuinness was breathing down his neck as McGuinness tried to retake his position as Chief of Staff. Kevin McKenna had meet McGuinness while both were imprisoned in The Irish Republic in the 1970s, McKenna while initially fond of McGuinness, eventually became suspicious of McGuinness.

This suspicion of McGuinness was heightened in 1986, McGuinness had arrived in Smithborough in County Monaghan, where Kevin McKenna lived and was On-the-Run. McGuinness had brought welcome news, an Official Policy of Ethnic Cleansing had been sanctioned by Provisional IRA Northern Command.

When Martin McGuinness left this meeting with Kevin McKenna, McGuiness was arrested by Garda Special Branch Officers in Monaghan. However, much to the disappointment of Gardai in Monaghan word was sent down from Garda Headquarters that McGuinness was to be released without charge. MI6 Officer, Michael Oatley had contacted the Head of Garda Special Brach in Dublin to ask that McGuinness be relased.

Neither, An Garda Siochana nor Garda Special Branch would have been aware at that time that Kevin McKenna had a small number of Garda Officers providing him with information. However, Kevin McKenna could simply take the information provided with a cautionary, as there was always the possibility that Special Branch did know McKenna would be told about MI6, be it true or not.

McGuinness’s claim to have quit the PIRA in 1974 was “disingenuous”. Brendan Duddy who was a Derry based businessman and the UK Government’s ‘secret liaison’ with the PIRA, who also died in 2017, believed McGuinness to be an “aggressive militarist” and a “Little Hitler”, who wanted supreme, island-wide control.

Rumors began in Monaghan/East Tyrone that Gerry Adams had set up the PIRA at Loughgall, however, anyone with any knowledge of how The PIRA operated in Monaghan/East Tyrone at that time, would know that Adams would not have had any prior-operational knowledge of Loughgall.

In November 1987, Enniskillen was chosen as a deliberate act of sectarian retaliation for Loughgall, Kevin McKenna wanted to send a very clear message to Protestants that they would not dance on the graves of PIRA Volunteers.

After Loughgall, Monaghan/East Tyrone PIRA were in disarray, the lie about ‘bad luck’ had run out, and a search was launched within Sinn Fein/PIRA for a well-placed Informer.

That internal investigation was assisted by Gerard Harte who spoke to some of those associated with The Loughgall operation. However, the internal Loughgall investigation came to a halt when Gerard and Martin Harte died along with Brian Mullin when the SAS ambushed them near Drumnakilly in 1988.

Once the Harte Brothers and Brian Mullin were shot dead by the SAS, Loughgall was basically written into history, it was time to move on. While it has been stated by Dark-Forces that Tony Gormally was an RUC Informer, he was not, in later years, and by pure chance I meet RUC men from that area, and they told me clearly that nobody who died at Loughgall was an informer. Furthermore, Sir John Hermon told me personally that no informer died at Loughgall.

Kevin McKenna was on thin ice and he knew it, the continued deaths of PIRA Volunteers under his command, the growing number of compromised operations was not going unquestioned in Belfast and Derry.

Before Jim Lynagh was killed at Loughgall, information had been brought to Monaghan identifying Buses carrying British Troops in the Ballygawley area of Tyrone, the SF/PIRA member who brought this information to Lynagh was an elected Sinn Fein member, in the aftermath of Enniskillen this information about British soldiers was an opportunity to bury the memory of the sectarian murder in Enniskillen.

In August, 1988, eight soldiers died near Ballygawley when the Provisional IRA detonated a large roadside Semtex bomb.

Kevin McKenna was now hungry to keep the slaughter going, Kevin wanted a spectacular, a big kill, that would finally stamp his authority on The PIRA Leadership. The kill was going to have to out do Martin McGuinness who had murdered 19 British soldiers in 1979 when he was Chief of Staff.

Kevin McKenna decided to hit a target close to home, a place he knew well, the Spectacular, that PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, had planned to hit, was expected to result in the Murder of 40-60 British Military personnel.

The target was to be the British Army/UDR base in Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. The key problem for such an attack was that the base was set in the middle of an exclusively Protestant area. No Sinn Fein/PIRA member could be seen close to the base or suspicions would have been raised and arrests made.

C-Bty 3rd Royal Horse Artillery Regiment

Kevin McKenna, had one person he believed he could trust with the task of measuring up the base for a mortar attack, and the same person would keep his mouth shut if arrested. Kevin McKenna did not ask his cousin directly; he sent another member of East Tyrone PIRA to ask his cousin to set-up the British Army base for an attack.

Kevin McKenna’s cousin agreed to set-up the British Army base for a Mortar attack. Kevin McKenna’s cousin arrived in Aughnacloy with the task of going into a Protestant area to measure the British Army base. As so often happened, solutions presented themselves.

Kevin McKenna’s cousin was walking down Moore Street in Aughnacloy when a young relative mentioned the Wilfred Clarke who owned the min-market on Moore Street was building a new house on the Benburb Road. Kevin’s’ inquisitive cousin asked his young relative if she would show him the house as he would like to see it. This would be the cover story if stopped by The RUC.

Kevin’s cousin and his young relative walked down past the front of the British Army base, across the Dungannon Road and up the Benburb Road. All the time, Kevin McKenna’s cousin was counting his steps, the number of steps from the front gate of the British Army base to a good firing point on the Benburb Road.

This process of measuring was repeated on the return walk back to Sydney Lane. The inside of the British Army base was known to Kevin McKenna’s cousin, as he had played inside the base when he was a child, often being allowed to climb into the helicopters that had landed.

Kevin McKenna’s cousin continued to work on the plan to set-up the British Army base as he visited his native Aughnacloy on several more occasions. Only three members of Sinn Fein/PIRA knew about the developing plan to carryout a Mortar attack on the British Army base, Kevin McKenna who was Chief of Staff, his cousin and another member of East Tyrone PIRA who was On-the-Run in Monaghan at that time.

If information leaked about this operation, at this planning stage, it would not be difficult to find the leak. Any PIRA who was arrested were always debriefed by Sinn Fein/PIRA after their release, so ears were listening for anything that could indicate that the British had any idea about the plan to target the British Army base in Aughnacloy.

When Kevin McKenna’s cousin finally delivered his plans for the mortar attack on the British Army base to his East Tyrone PIRA contact, that contact was amazed at the amount of time and detail that had been put into the plans.

The plans had not simply been drawn out in detail on the back of a roll of wall paper, but Kevin McKenna’s cousin had created a 3-D type model of the plan using various items including the houses and hotels from the board game Monopoly.

However, with all of the careful planning, Kevin McKenna’s cousin said he had a problem with the measurements that he had stepped out, he was unsure if the steps were accurate enough. The East Tyrone member said he would report back the concerns raised and see.

The plan was simple, if the measurements could be confirmed. The Mortars would come towards Aughnacloy from Blackwater Town, a PIRA Unit directed by a well-known PIRA member. The Mortars would be parked in front of a house on the Benburb Road belonging to a family called McMasters.

The Mortars were to be directed to the top of a tree that stood to the back of a small red tin house on the Dungannon Road, that was directly in front of the radio mast within the base, the mortars would be fired and expected to land to the base of the radio mast and in that general area, and take out the accommodation blocks which accommodated large numbers of soldiers.

C-Bty 3rd Royal Horse Artillery Regiment

Similar attacks had been successful in Newry and so forth over previous years, resulting in large numbers of deaths.

Kevin McKenna had previously sent a Human Bomb into The British Army base in Aughnacloy. Kevin McKenna had led a PIRA Unit across the River Blackwater armed with rifles and a 500LB bomb, packed into creamery cans. The PIRA gang made their way to the home of Mrs Norman Wilson, an elderly widowed lady who lived on the family pig farm outside Aughnacloy on the Caledon Road.

When the PIRA gang arrived in the yard of Wilsons pig farm, they held everyone in the house hostage, including Robert John McCready who owned a furniture factory in Emyvale, County Monaghan and who employed a Catholic workforce. Mrs Wilson was held at gun-point and her son Norman Wilson was ordered to drive the 500LB bomb to the British Army base.

The 500LB bomb exploded and caused wide-spread damage to the British Army base but also dozens of houses which were mainly occupied by Protestants, a fact that would not have escaped Kevin McKenna. Norman Wilson and the British Army on duty survived.

The accommodation Blocks inside British Army base Aughnacloy

Had this planned attack on Aughnacloy succeeded, it would certainly have placed Kevin McKenna in a very strong position, and it is unlikely that any talk of a 'cease-fire' or 'peace-talks' would have been entertained for at least another decade.

By 1992, Kevin McKenna's Leadership was finished in real terms, he was simply stumbling along, and so in 1992, Kevin McKenna went for another purely sectarian Mass Murder which resulted in the Murder of eight Protestant workmen at Teebane in County Tyrone. This slaughter fitted in with the Official Policy of Ethnic Cleansing sanctioned by McGuinness and Northern Command in 1986.

The Compromise

The East Tyrone member, to whom Kevin McKenna’s cousin was answerable, was keen to prove that he could do as good a job as Jim Lynagh, and so he involved another person in the planned Mortar attack.

The East Tyrone PIRA member asked a person based in Tyrone to source old maps of The Clogher Valley Railway Line, as the British Army Base was built where the old Railway Station was located.

Using the maps, the East Tyrone PIRA member, was able to confirm to Kevin McKenna’s cousin that his measurements were in fact very accurate

It was this search for the old Railway Maps that alerted the RUC to the plan to Mortar the British Army/UDR base, when the PIRA mortar team arrived the area was saturated with British Military and RUC, and they had to abandon the operation.

Photos: 5-8 Courtesy of C-Bty 3rd Royal Horse Artillery Regiment in Northern Ireland

Foot Note: Martin McGuinness

On the 14 January, 2021, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, added Martin McGuinness to its listing, and in that McGuinness is well summed up.

He became “increasingly brutal” as time wore on, leading to such atrocities as Bloody Friday in 1972 when the IRA in Belfast detonated 22 bombs within an hour and a quarter, killing nine people, followed by the triple bombing of Claudy village 10 days later, also killing nine people.

It describes his claim to have quit the IRA in 1974 as “disingenuous” and quotes Brendan Duddy – the UK government’s secret liaison with the IRA, who also died in 2017 – as believing him to be an “aggressive militarist” and a “Little Hitler”, who wanted supreme, island-wide control.

“Over time, as some of his ‘trusties’ were found to have betrayed him, he drew an ever-tighter clique around himself and showed absolute ruthlessness in having informers tortured and murdered,” the biography reads.

“According to other IRA members, McGuinness often conducted the actual shooting himself, ‘to show he was still prepared to do so’.”

It also states he personally went to New York to purchase guns on “at least” one occasion.

It goes on to add: “McGuinness faced such a tsunami of criticism after the ill-judged murder of a female census enumerator in Derry, Joanne Mathers, in April 1981 that he was panic-stricken.

“He tried to assuage his critics by glibly claiming the census was an intelligence-gathering exercise by the government and stressing that the IRA did not set out to kill civilians.

“Not for the first time, his straight-faced explanations were widely derided.”

The publication of the biography comes a week after a documentary on Mr McGuinness aired on TG4 (funded by about £120,000 of public money), which described him as a “fighter, negotiator, politician” and was criticised for its lack of focus on IRA victims.