Shankill Bomb 1993
At the funeral of Sinn Fein
Councilor and Provisional IRA, Commander, Jim Lynagh in May, 1987, Gerry Adams
told those of us gathered;
“Anyone who does business with
the British, the Freestate establishment or The SDLP are fools because they
have all sold out on the Irish people”.
I personally began to work
with Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Leader John Hume from 1992, and
John was clear that he had been talking to Adams by means of intermediaries and
face to face from mid-1980s. With latter talks, later described as the Hume/Adams
Initiative lasting approximately eight-months.
My personal view was and remains that someone had to talk if the wholesale murder of our citizens was to end. However, Sinn Fein/PIRA had been brought to the talks table from a position of weakness and had to be treated as such, an endless shopping list of concessions did not have to be entertained.
In 1993, I found myself in a
very interesting position, I was working quietly with John Hume and I was in a separate
role, engaged as a Runner between my cousin PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna
and Martin McGuinness who was Head of PIRA Northern Command.
I was appointed Runner by
Kevin McKenna as he trusted me and I also had a genuine reason for being in
Monaghan, where Kevin was based, and Derry where Martin McGuinness was based,
each week.
I could write a book on this period;
however, I have over the years learned to compartmentalise epochs of history or
I would be writing morning to night for the rest of my life.
In April 1993, I was a Runner
between Kevin McKenna and Martin McGuinness, and I was working quietly with
John Hume. John Hume and Kevin McKenna had one key trait in common, neither
trusted McGuinness. Kevin McKenna thought that McGuinness was simply talking to
PIRA Northern Command, and that ‘peace talks’ were the preserve of Hume/Adams.
John Hume was of the opinion
that McGuinness was actually talking to MI6 and that McGuinness would do a
Dirty-Deal with MI6 that would abandon the Catholic community in Northern
Ireland to the coercive control of Sinn Fein/PIRA. John was correct.
Kevin McKenna was weary of
McGuinness and believed McGuinness would allow decommissioning to be offered to
the British in exchange for minimal concessions such as release of prisoners,
de-militarisation and so forth, and no substantive move would be made on Irish
Unity or "Those Orange Bastards"..
In April 1993, I meet with
McGuinness at a Safe-house on the Culmore Road in Derry, I was simply
delivering a Communication from Kevin McKenna, this was a Comm, message written
on cigarette paper and sealed in cling-film.
McGuinness was never happy
simply taking the Comm from me and going about his business, he always wanted
to chat and find out how Kevin McKenna was dealing with the loss of so many men
under his Command and so forth. At one point during a meeting McGuinness went
to the bathroom, and left his jacket hanging on the back of a
chair.
When McGuinnes went to the
bathroom I searched his pockets to establish if he was wired for sound, if he
was recording our conversation, instead I found the communication below and I placed
it in my pocket.
The communication had been hand-written by Oatley and then typed up by another Officer, Robert, so that Robert could remove Oatley’s name from the bottom of the Communication and McGuinness’s from the top.
When I had worked out the
significance of the Communication from Oatley to McGuinness, I decided to leak
it to trusted journalists. This leaking would have a two-fold impact, it would
make the public aware of the duplicity of the British Government who were
denying that they were talking to Sinn Fein/PIRA, and secondly it would ensure
that future talks would be more transparent.
When I leaked the Communication
between Oatley and McGuinness, Sinn Fein/PIRA were in a spin, Gerry Adams had
told Kevin McKenna that the there were only exploratory talks between himself
and Hume, there was no acknowledgement of contacts between McGuinness and MI6
at that time.
Eventually, Sinn Fein/PIRA put
McGuinness forward for an MI6 inspired television documentary where McGuinness
explained away his contact with MI6 as part of the talks process, this was a comprehensive
lie, McGuinness was in fact an MI6 Agent, an Informer, however, Adams needed to
keep McGuinness on board or he could have lost Derry to the whispered ‘dissent’
in south Armagh/East Tyrone in 1993.
The Communication that I
leaked was denied by Sinn Fein/PIRA, however, many years later they would place a copy/version of the Communication on their website and claim it was part of a
sanctioned talks process, it was not. They do not have the original, I have, and it is signed with R.
As the debate raged over
secret talks, the next big question for Adams to answer to the ‘dissenting
voices’ was ‘Decommissioning’, had Adams offered ‘Decommissioning’ to the
British in return for minimal concessions. Adams vehemently denied that he had
ever spoken of ‘Decommissioning’ with the British.
The British were absolutely
certain both McGuinness and Adams had offered ‘Decommissioning’ and the effective
surrender of The Provisional IRA in return for minimal concessions.
On the 10th of
October, 1993, Sir Patrick Mayhew spoke to RTE Radio and made it absolutely clear
that Sinn Fein/PIRA had offered ‘Decommissioning’ and Provisional IRA surrender
so that they could engage in multi-party talks.
Gerry Adams felt slighted by
Sir Patrick Mayhew’s RTE Radio interview, that interview reaching the ears of
many loyal followers that Adams had told that there would be no surrender of
PIRA weapons.
As a result of Sir Patrick’s interview on RTE 10th October, 1993, Adams was being told that there was serious opposition to his plans from areas such as south Armagh and East Tyrone.
Adams and the Belfast Leadership needed to send a clear message to
Kevin McKenna and the men and women under his control that the Belfast
Leadership had not sold-out and a clear message to the British Government that their
leaking of information would not be tolerated, Adams and those around him
ordered The Shankill Bomb.
The Shankill Bomb was a
suicide mission, Thomas Begley was sacrificed to keep south Armagh and East
Tyrone on board the Adams project. The Shankill Bomb sent a clear message to
the British Government;
“They have not gone away you
know” (Gerry Adams, 1994)
The Shankill Bomb convinced
Kevin McKenna that Adams had not sold-out, and in a rare interview, Kevin
McKenna told Eamon Mallie, Downtown Radio, 1994;
“As long as the boys with the
balaclavas are at the table, I am happy enough”
This was Kevin McKenna making it clear in the public domain that The Provisional IRA, in the persons of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were at the table.
Shankill Bomb 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 Honour 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 aspects of 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.
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.
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