THE IRISH OBSERVER: Gerry Adams Dead

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Gerry Adams Dead

In 1985, Jim Lynagh was in Portlaoise Prison in the Irish Republic, I would travel from Monaghan Town and visit Jim as and when possible. My visits with Lynagh were an exchange of information, I would learn about the latest thinking from those within the prison wall, and Jim would learn what was happening in Monaghan/Tyrone.

In 1985, Jim Lynagh was convinced that Gerry Adams was selling out the Republican Movement, Jim believed that Adams and those around him were diverting money away from The Provisional IRA and into their own political ambitions and bank accounts.

Lynagh was flirting with the idea of setting up a new armed organisation with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh as a figure head at the helm, Lynagh was convinced that Gerry Adams was toxic and that he would have to be removed. Lynagh had developed a plan that would focus more military actions against the Protestant community while at the same time maintaining political cover with attacks on RUC and British Army bases. The latter would ensure a continued supply of money from Irish America.

While it can be said that Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA were engaging in a policy of Ethnic Cleansing from 1969, particularly with their focus in the border region of targeting and murdering the only son of Protestant farmers and so forth, Lynagh wanted that campaign to be more systematic. Lynagh wanted to create Green Zones, where both the British Military and their Protestant supporters would be driven out.

When Lynagh was released from prison in 1986 he began to put in place a plan to Assassinate Gerry Adams. Lynagh was surrounded by a very tight group of Provisional IRA killers, however, only his most trusted comrades would be on the inside of the plan to Assassinate Gerry Adams.In the picture below, Lynagh is to the right of the coffin in monkey hat, he would later say that he was temped to put a couple of rounds in the back of Adam’s head as Lynagh had a pistol in the belt at the back of his trousers.

While the Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA Leadership in Belfast sanctioned the expansion of the target base in the summer of 1986, this was still not enough to quench Lynagh’s thirst for Protestant blood. Martin McGuinness arrived in Monaghan in October 1986, to sanctioned an official policy of Ethnic Cleansing, however, McGuinness’s arrest and quick release following that meeting, simply made Lynagh more paranoid of the Northern Leadership.

Prior to Loughgall Jim Lynagh had been building his own private army that would take control of the Border Brigades of The Provisional IRA following the disappearance of Gerry Adams. Others associated with Lynagh believed that they would reach high office within Sinn Fein/PIRA once Adams was disappeared. For over a year Lynagh had left me to collate a number of data-bases of targets, one data-base would be UDR, another RUC and alongside these soft military targets, would be even softer Protestant targets.

On September 13, 1986, I was arrested in Aughnacloy by the RUC under a 7 Day Detention Order, when I was released without charge the RUC delivered me to Crumlin Road Jail, to serve time for an outstanding fine from 1981 related to an arson attack. Jim Lynagh thought that I had been charged and so he assembled his Unit and opened fire on the RUC at Aughnacloy Sunday 21 September, 1986.

The Plan was to continue to demolish British bases and this action would continue to give Sinn Fein/PIRA cover for their real ambition which was to drive Protestants from the border region and create liberated Green-Zones. Enniskillen and Teebane would have fitted nicely into this Plan, although both were the dying throws of such ambitions, as Monaghan/East Tyrone fell back into line with the Adams project.

Lynagh wanted to create a ripple effect across the frontier, that would ebb and flow, while military targets would be hit in order to give political cover and ensure a continued flow of cash from America. In the under-belly of this intensified campaign, civilian Protestants would be hit harder than ever before, and Sinn Fein/PIRA would fraudulently claim that they had believed that the dead Protestants were members of the security forces or in some way supporting the security forces.

Following Loughgall An Garda Siochana raided my house in Monaghan as they knew I was Lynagh’s Intelligence Officer. Following the raid, I wrote to Garda Inspector, Tom Curran, and complained that material had been stolen by the Garda raiding party. I got a reply from Tom, and when the PIRA asked me for the data-base of targets, I was able to say that the Gardai had taken them during the raid, in fact the Gardai had not taken them, I had burned them.

Without the data-base Sinn Fein/PIRA basically had to start from scratch again, and they put me in charge of Intelligence for Monaghan/East Tyrone. This did not mean that I had access to all planned operations, sometimes, plans would be brought direct to Kevin McKenna, and he would sanction them.

Lynagh quickly exploited a feud that was taking place between factions of the INLA, Lynagh secured weapons from Tony McCloskey who was the OC of The INLA in Monaghan Town, warning Tony that if the weapons ended up in the hands of Dessie O’Hare the INLA in Monaghan would face severe consequences.

Tony McCloskey would also provide several bottles of Hydrochloric Acid to Lynagh, upon Lynagh’s request to do so, although McCloskey would not have known that the Acid was to be used in the disappearance of Gerry Adams. Tony McCloskey in picture below with beard behind his young son as he walks on the wall.

At the time of his Murder in February 1987, Tony McCloskey was the Foreman in Clonkeen Mushrooms, and within that complex there was a small laboratory for testing the compost as it went through a pasteurisation process. This small lab used Hydrochloric Acid for its processes, and it was from this lab that Tony McCloskey secured the Hydrochloric Acid which was stored in large bottles.

Kevin McKenna, Jim Lynagh, Paddy Kelly, Padraig McKearney, Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan, Laurence McNally, Tony Doris and others planned to lure Gerry Adams to Monaghan, ambush Gerry Adams and those travelling with him, execute them, and then take the body of Gerry Adams to a prepared location out the Cootehill Road outside Monaghan Town, where his body would be dissolved in a bath using Hydrochloric Acid, and the rumour would begin that Gerry Adams had been disappeared by the British Security Services, with whom he was secretly working.

The plan took on new momentum when in November 1986 over one-hundred Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA members walked out of Sinn Fein's Ard Fheis in Dublin after a majority voted to end the long-held policy of abstentionism from Dail Eireann in Dublin. This move by the Gerry Adams lead Northern Leadership was viewed as treacherous by Lynagh and his co-conspirators.

Following the decision to end abstentionism, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and I organised a fund-raising event in Clontibret in County Monaghan, to rally the troops. Jim Lynagh and I were standing together at the function in Clontibret when Jim asked me if he should make a speech about the split that had just occurred with Republican Sinn Fein, I said yes. Lynagh was fairly drunk, when he got up on the stage, took the microphone from the group playing music, and announced that there is only “One Sinn Fein/PIRA”.

As Lynagh was making his speech Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin hurried over to me and asked me why I had not stopped Lynagh getting up on the stage. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said, “The best form of defence is attack” and so Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin took to the stage and tried to reassert his authority by stating there is only “One Sinn Fein/PIRA”, and order was restored.

Lynagh by making his ill-considered speech was simply giving himself cover for the Plan to execute Gerry Adams. Following Loughgall a few months later, Sinn Fein/PIRA could quote Lynagh’s speech at Clontibret as evidence that Lynagh supported the Adams Project, which he did not.

Gerry Adams was to be assassinated in the aftermath of Loughgall, when Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA would be on a high due to the clear military direction being provided by Kevin McKenna, Jim Lynagh, Paddy Kelly, Padraig McKearney and others. Lynagh was convinced that once Adams was disappeared, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, Michael McKevitt and Martin McGuinness would abandon any process that could bring about the surrender of militant republicanism.

Gerry Adams did arrive in Monaghan post-Loughgall, but it was to deliver the oration at Lynagh's funeral and send a very clear message to those gathered;

"Those who do business with the British Government, The Freestate establishment or the SDLP, are fools, because they have all sold out the Irish people".

It would soon transpire that Lynagh had been correct in his analysis of Adams doing business with the British, however, Lynagh'c co-conspirators, including Kevin McKenna, who lived on after Loughgall jumped back into bed with Adams. Others such as Pete Ryan, Laurence McNally, Tony Doris and so forth who continued to express dissatisfaction with Adams would soon be taken out by the SAS.

While there has been much speculation that Gerry Adams set up the Loughgall Ambush, in order to remove the threat from McKenna, Lynagh, Kelly and McKearney, that speculation, originates in State papers released in the Irish Republic in 2017.

In those State papers it is stated that Fr Dennis Faul, a Catholic Priest from Dungannon, County Tyrone, advised an Irish Government official that there were rumours that Gerry Adams had set-up the Loughgall Ambush.

The priest, who had taught Padraig McKearney, one of the IRA men shot dead at Loughgall by the SAS in 1987, at St Patrick’s Academy in Dungannon, said the theory doing the rounds was that “the IRA team were set up by Gerry Adams himself”. Fr Faul said he was “intrigued” by the theory.

However, the very rumour that Fr Dennis Faul passed onto the Irish Government official, had come from one of the conspirators against Adams and based in Monaghan Town. This Monaghan based conspirator had used his wife, who was originally from Dungannon to carry the rumour to the ears of Fr Dennis Faul and the republican community in Dungannon.

While there is no question about the plan to assassinate Gerry Adams in the aftermath of a successful Loughgall, the reality is that Gerry Adams had not set-up Loughgall, because Adams had no prior knowledge about Loughgall.

Jim Lynagh was reckless, he had openly told Sinn Fein/PIRA members in Monaghan, who had no part in Loughgall, about the Loughgall operation. Lynagh made no secret of the fact that he was moving to a Safe-house in Coalisland in preparation for Loughgall, that Safe-house was well known to the security services. A Monaghan Town based Informer put the final nail in the coffin of those who died at Loughgall, that Informer is known and has been protected by a higher ranking Informer.

Following Loughgall, the Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA Leadership, were critical of Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, Brian Lenihan Snr for not condemning the SAS killings at Loughgall, however, Brian Lenihan knew very well that there was a plan to assassinate Gerry Adams, and therefore Lenihan had taken the view that Adams could yet surrender The Provisional IRA.

When Jim Lynagh, Patrick Kelly and Padraig Kearney were shot dead at Loughgall, their co-conspirators in the plan to murder and disappear, rowed back in behind the Adams leadership. However, by 1990, Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan, Laurence McNally and Tony Doris (Michelle O’Neil’s cousin) had regrouped with others and the 1987 plan to murder and disappear Gerry Adams once again was activated.

By 1990, I was right at the heart of the Provisional IRA leadership in Monaghan, Provisional IRA, Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna (my cousin), had sent me to London in 1989 to target Mrs Thatcher, and it was Kevin’s hope to bomb the State Opening of Parliament in 1990 with the intelligence that I had gathered.

In 1990, I was the Foreman in Clonkeen Mushrooms, Tyholland, Monaghan, close to the border with Armagh. This is where Tony McCluskey had been Foreman up to the point when he was murdered by Dessie O’Hare in 1987. Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan, Laurence McNally, Felim Gildernew (Michelle Gildernew’s uncle) and so forth, made up a strong Provisional IRA presence in this small rural area. Many of the Provisional IRA meetings relating to this ‘PIRA flying column’ led by Pete Ryan, took place in my presence in the yard over which I had control

Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan asked me to secure hydrochloric acid from the small lab at Clonkeen Mushrooms, as it was his intention to fulfil the exact same plan as Lynagh, Kelly and Kearney in 1987. Gerry Adams would be lured to Monaghan Town, kidnapped, murdered and then disappeared and the British security services would be blamed.

A couple of days before Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan, Laurence McNally and Tony Doris were shot dead by the SAS in County Tyrone, I had warned Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan that I had seen suspicious activity in Monaghan Town as I cycled home from work at around 4am. Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan told me not to worry about it.

By 1991, few Provisional IRA volunteers were putting themselves forward for operations as Loughgall had effectively scared the live out of them. Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan and Laurence McNally had to ask a civilian female to drive them to their final destination, such was the lack of volunteers.

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