THE IRISH OBSERVER: Mrs Thatcher, IRA, Murder

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Mrs Thatcher, IRA, Murder

Margaret Thatcher A Plan to Murder

When I was a child, Kevin McKenna who was much older than I, would cycle into our small town and give me a lift on the cross-bar of his bike to my Grandparents house. Kevin McKenna was simply known to me as a cousin and he would in later years become a notorious sectarian serial killer.

Kevin McKenna speaking Carrickmore early 1970s

In 1989, Provisional IRA, Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, who was based in Monaghan, was under extreme pressure, the SAS were wiping out units under his command with regularity, serious questions were being asked about his ability to continue to hold his position as Chief of Staff.

Kevin McKenna needed a spectacular to put him back on the map, McKenna knew only too well that Martin McGuinness wanted his old job as Chief of Staff back. McGuinness was an MI6 Agent, a puppet, rather than a caricature of James Bond, and his bosses were unhappy that the position of Chief of Staff remained outside of their reach.

Martin McGuinness's handler, MI6 Officer, Michael Oatley

In 1989, I was viewed as extremely trustworthy within Kevin McKenna’s tight circle, this trust came from a decade of service to Sinn Fein/PIRA, a significant attempt by the RUC to recruit me in 1988, and the discovery by the PIRA that the Gardai were paying a lad to watch my house. All of the above, in the eyes of the PIRA, added up to someone who had not been compromised.

Christmas Card from Provisional IRA Commander, Jim Lynagh, most senior PIRA killed by the British.

In 1989, the PIRA in Monaghan had literally died the death, following Loughgall very few were putting themselves forward for active service. Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan and a handful of others were murdering a few Protestants along the border, but beyond that it was all very hit and miss.

I was once asked to describe Kevin McKenna’s leadership at this time, and I said, he was like a small child standing in the middle of a frozen lake, that lake covered in thin ice. If McKenna, the small child, moved even one step in the wrong direction, the ice would crack and break open and consume him.

Targeting Thatcher 1989

In 1989, I was extremely busy, I was in the running club, I was working full-time in Monaghan Mushrooms and a host of other activities. Kevin McKenna approached me, Kevin asked me if I would be prepared to go to London on active service. I was surprised by Kevin’s request, as the dogs on the street knew that the PIRA were finished. However, I kept my thoughts to myself.

Kevin McKenna told me to take some time to think about his request and get back to him. I knew that if I did not take up the request, then someone else would probably be sent to England. I went back to Kevin and told him I would go. Kevin McKenna explained what he wanted me to do, he wanted me to target British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Interestingly, State Papers released in 2020, show that Gerry Adams warned John Hume that the PIRA might murder Thatcher. Adams surely knew that Hume would pass this information onto his contacts in both the British and Irish Governments.

Gerry Adams with Provisional IRA, Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna.

“In relation to the Gow death, Adams rather oddly said that he was worried that ‘they will kill Thatcher’,” Hume told Gallagher, according to the Memo, just released into the National Archives under the 30-year rule in 2020. State Papers 2020

I find this action by Adams in 1990 quite extraordinary as it clearly placed the lives of PIRA Volunteers at risk, particularly as the SAS were wiping out PIRA Units with regularity. Interestingly, it was Gerry Adams who had sanctioned the plan to Murder Mrs Thatcher at Brighton in 1984 and Adams had personally travelled to Monaghan Town to have the plan ratified by PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna.

Brighton Bomb 1984

In the summer of 1984, I was Managing the Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA Advice Centre and Shop at 21 Dublin Street, Monaghan Town, this can be confirmed with any member of An Garda Siochana who was serving in Monaghan at that time. The European Elections were due to be held on the 14 June, 1984 and we were running Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.

In early June, 1984, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin told me that three senior members of Provisional IRA Northern Command, including Gerry Adams would be arriving later that day. I ensured the place was clean and tidy, that chairs were arranged upstairs and that there was tea/coffee, milk and digestive biscuits.

When Gerry Adams arrived his two colleagues were wearing black leather jackets, all a bit urban I thought, I was introduced to Gerry Adams by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and I then positioned myself downstairs at the front door to alert the meeting upstairs if there was any Garda activity on Dublin Street.

The Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA Office at 21 Dublin Street is very small, it was initially a small domestic dwelling. There was one room upstairs that was positioned exactly above the one room shop downstairs. There was a small staircase that led upstairs and every word spoken upstairs echoed downstairs. The only time I could not fully understand what was being said upstairs was when Gerry Adams and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin spoke Irish, although I had a good idea what they were saying, as I was attending Irish Classes at that time.

While Gerry Adams and his two comrades used the cover of the European Elections for their visit to Monaghan and they had some interest in the elections. Gerry Adams had arrived to personally advice Provisional IRA, Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, that the Conservative Party Conference was going to be targeted later in 1984, in the hope of killing British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The British Security Services were on high alert for the conference, however, as the plastic explosive was wrapped in cling-film, which was normal, the sniffer dogs did not detect the bomb.

Gerry Adams and Provisional IRA Northern Command had an obligation to notify both The Chief of Staff and Southern Command of any planned activity in England as such activity fell under the Jurisdiction of Southern Command. The bomb exploded at Brighton, 12 October, 1984, at the Grand Brighton Hotel. Patrick McGee would later be convicted of the bombing as he had left his finger-print while staying in the hotel under a pseudonym, Roy Walsh, in September, 1984.

Kevin McKenna was desperate to up stage Martin McGuinness, he had not trusted McGuinness from at least 1986, when McGuinness was arrested after leaving Kevin’s house in Smithborough, County Monaghan, but released a short time later. It would later transpire that MI6 Officer; Michael Oatley had sought McGuinness’s release in 1986. Kevin McKenna had Gardai reporting to him, but I have no idea if he knew about MI6 intervention at that point.

Kevin McKenna, believed that if he could succeed where Adams and McGuinness had failed, the failed murder attempt on Thatcher in 1984 at Brighton, then McKenna would remain unchallenged as Chief of Staff.

Targeting Mrs Thatcher

Kevin McKenna wanted me to go to London, find work, keep my head down and establish a means by which Thatcher could be targeted. I was also to look at other potential targets such as the Channel Tunnel that was under construction at that time, House of Commons and so forth, but my key focus was to be Thatcher.

I was to spend as long as it took to put together a plan that had a realistic chance of success. I arrived in London, having told my wife I was simply going to seek work on the Channel Tunnel that was well paid, this was not an easy decision, but I had a job to do.

I arrived in London in 1989, I secured work in Kingston Upon Thames on the construction of the new John Lewis department store. I initially lived on a light-weight fibre-glass house boat on the Thames close to the site on which I was working. I piloted the boat into central London on three occasions, I wanted to get up close pictures of The House of Commons, and to establish if there were any storm drains or sewer pipes coming from the House of Commons into the Thames, pipes into which a high-explosive bomb or mortar might be placed.

On my first scouting mission into central London with the boat, I thought I was being pursued by the River Police when they came up behind me with siren blazing and blue light flashing, however, they went straight past me as a Disco Boat called the Marchioness had been sunk by a dredger and 51 people had been killed. The Marchioness had taken only thirty-seconds to sink.

The summer of 1989 was a scorcher, and in normal circumstances this was a very beautiful part of the world, however, my task was to plan murder.

The boat, orange and white, that I lived on belonged to the main building contractors Mowlam's, it can be seen here harbored beside the John Lewis site.

John Lewis Department Store, Kingston Upon Thames, London

On the building site I worked as a labourer under my own name, although most simply called me Paddy, which I had no problem with, most Irish were called Paddy by non-Irish. The two main foremen were from Glasgow and so we got on well together, they were called 'Jock', they placed me with an English man and his two sons, all three of them were brick-layers. I would labour to them and if there was some block work to be done, I would lay some blocks.

I got on very well with Colin and his two sons, we all worked hard, and at lunch time we would have some lunch and a glass of beer at the Cutters Wharf, we could take our lunch out to the picnic tables that sat along the Thames. We talked about work and the site we were working on, this was a new build, but during initial excavation, an eight-hundred-year-old Kingston Bridge, dating back to 1150, had been discovered and preserved.

I got to know some of the other people working on what was a very large building site, some of the English brick-layers and labourers were Territorial SAS, which meant they were weekend soldier’s, but it reminded me that I was no so far dispatched from the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

I knew that I would be subject to at least some surveillance by the security services if they were aware of my presence in London, before leaving Ireland I had been arrested under anti-terrorist legislation on many occasions. With this security issue to the fore of my mind I engaged in a number of simple anti-surveillance techniques.

At night I secured work in Burger King, this meant that I could hop on and off buses without drawing too much attention. I also befriended a gay couple who were from Glasgow, they were cleaners at various locations all over London, they had a car and knew London extremely well. One of the premises that they cleaned was British Aerospace, to which I had unfettered access.

I travelled to the Channel Tunnel once, simply so I could take pictures and have train receipts to prove to Kevin McKenna that I had actually visited the site. The site in Kent was massive, they had effectively built a town at the tunnel entrance.

I simply had to say to Jimmy and John, that I would love to see Downing Street or the Tower of London and they would simply ask when. On evenings that I was not working or scouting into central London, I would enjoy a beer in The Royal Oak Pub. I always expected to be approached by the security services, but they never did.

The British economy was booming in the summer of 1989, sports cars lined the streets and Rolex watches hung off the wrists of quite ordinary people.

On Friday, 22 September, 1989, I arrived early on the building site, my brick-layers wanted to get away early as they were doing a nixer for one of the foremen, I got the bricks set-out and the site prepared for a day’s work. I was working hard with my Brick-layers, we had the radio on and were building large decorative brick flower-beds on the road outside the John Lewis site.

It was a beautiful Friday morning, house boats and pleasure boats were passing by on the Thames, the sun was shining and all appeared well. However, the early morning sun was about to be eclipsed by the breaking news on the radio, a short distance away at Deal in Kent the PIRA had exploded a bomb killing a number of Royal Marine Bandsmen. I could see that my fellow workers, the Englishmen, looked at me almost accusingly, not that they knew anything about me, but simply because I was Irish. There was no Google back then.

PIRA Bombing in Deal in 1989

The news of the bomb in Deal and the carnage and death caused, left me in a precarious position, however, I would simply have to continue as normal. When we returned to work on Monday, 25 September, 1989, the massacre at Deal was old news, we continued to work as normal.

The John Lewis department store was an incredible piece of architecture, a four-lane slip road was constructed straight through the main site, it was simply an incredible fete of engineering. I remember one day a convoy of black cars led by a siren blaring police vehicle went through the tunnel, the sound was electrifying, the convoy was simply carrying Princess Margaret to a local Church service.

By the end of 1989 the British economy was in difficulty, and my reconnaissance work was almost done. I would continue to work on the site into 1990, however, the British economy was going into a deep recession that would last for five quarters and was the deepest UK recession since the Second World War.

While the recession did not impact on my decision to return to Ireland, it was sad to see so many people lose their jobs in a very short period of time. My English brick-layers had plenty of work for me, but I had to leave and we had a farewell drink.

I returned to Ireland in 1990 and gave Kevin McKenna a detailed outlay of my reconnaissance work in London. Kevin McKenna was again impressed by the level of detail that I provided, and he told me to continue to work with another member of East Tyrone PIRA.

Part of a comprehensive Intelligence Report that I presented to Kevin McKenna

When I returned to Ireland in 1990, it was clear that The PIRA was finished, the truth be told, the PIRA were finished after Loughgall. While the PIRA could set bombs of in London and murder people, the question had to be asked, who was in control, it was my view that the security services were controlling a lot of people.

I was lucky to get my job back in Monaghan Mushrooms, where I was promoted to Foreman by Mr Lesley Buckley who would later work with Ireland’s leading businessman, Mr Dennis O’Brien.

Writing to Mrs Thatcher

Having lived in London 1989-90, and seeing the British economy go from boom to bust, I felt that I might write to Thatcher and ask her to reconsider her approach to Northern Ireland. When writing to Thatcher, I was well aware that her tenure as Prime Minister was going to come to an end one way or another very shortly. However, if Thatcher did survive all of her enemies, she would still be a powerful force in relation to British policy relating to Northern Ireland.

Original letter sent to Mrs Thatcher 1990

In 1991, the fatal blow was struck against the PIRA in Monaghan when the SAS shot dead Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan, Laurence McNally and Tony Doris. This unit led by Ryan had been involved in a series of sectarian murders and human bomb attacks and this was the dying throws of the PIRA in Monaghan. Pete Ryan and Laurence McNally had to ask a civilian to drive them to their final destination, that is how desperate The PIRA were in Monaghan.

In 1992, I left Monaghan Town and moved to Armagh City. I was quickly introduced to John Hume and I began to work on what would become known as the ‘peace process’ and the Good Friday Agreement. Kevin McKenna knew about my work with John Hume and he had no issue with the talks between Adams and Hume, however, he simply did not trust Martin McGuinness.

Meeting Mrs Thatcher

In 1999, I was in London to brief MPs on continued Human Rights abuses by Sinn Fein/PIRA. I was invited to meet with a member of the House of Lords, to which I agreed.

As I was walking into the private rooms at the Lords, I meet Mrs Thatcher on the corridor, I was star struck, I was introduced to Mrs Thatcher and she was as I had expected, pleasant but stern. I blurted out that I had written to her in 1990 about Northern Ireland, she said she still had the letter, and that my letter had helped her to reconsider her position in relation to Northern Ireland.

O Maggie©

Verse from Song I wrote in 1981: My cell is icy cold, I am alone, my body it has turned almost to bone, but to the end, I know I must fight, for I know now, I will died before the night…(Tune: Snipers Promise)

Chorus from Song I wrote in 1981: O Maggie, O Maggie, can’t you see, don’t you know, these awful things they don’t have to be, and if you take these H-Blocks cells away, I promise you I will have no more to say (Tune: Snipers Promise)