THE IRISH OBSERVER: Book Review, John Crawley, The Yank, 2022, by Vincent McKenna

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Book Review, John Crawley, The Yank, 2022, by Vincent McKenna

The Yank by John Crawley is published by Merrion Press, Dublin. John Crawley presents himself as a former US Marine who joined The Provisional IRA.

The Yank by John Crawley takes the reader through 265 pages which set-out, how a young man, born to Irish parents in America, returned to Ireland as a child with his parents, and how at the age of 18 years, he left Ireland for America to join the US Marine Recon for four years in preparation for his intended membership of The Provisional IRA.

In summary, and armed with my knowledge of The Provisional IRA since its formation in 1969, John Crawley, was, by his own reluctant admission in The Yank, someone who never really knew or understood The Provisional IRA. In the concluding chapters of The Yank, it is clear that John Crawley finally comes to a Truth that many Provisional IRA members had learned many years earlier.

John Crawley certainly joined The Provisional IRA, and he did, like hundreds of others play various roles within The Provisional IRA. It is not unfair to say that John Crawley by his own admissions throughout The Yank, had a very naïve view of The Provisional IRA. John’s naivety, possibly reflected back on John when he first met with Martin McGuinness in early 1983.

While John Crawley initially believed that he had been introduced to the Head of Provisional IRA Northern Command, Martin McGuinness, because of his four-years of training with US Marine Recon and all of the learning from one of the world’s most prized special units. John would discover to his horror that McGuinness had chosen John to go to America and acquire weapons, as John had an American accent and he would not stand out when buying guns across the counter in US gun stores.

I have known the Provisional IRA since it was formed for County Down in my Uncle Sean’s kitchen in Newry in 1969 when I was a small child visiting Sean’s house with my Great Grandfather, Grandfather and Father. I have no idea, and find it incredulous to understand why John Crawley ever believed it would be necessary or even desirable to train with US Special Forces before joining The Provisional IRA.

At page 84 in The Yank, John Crawley does admit, that after his meeting with Martin McGuinness in early 1983, he quickly realized that his four years in US Marine Recon was a complete waste of time, in terms of his value to The Provisional IRA.

My Uncle Sean McKenna Snr and his son Sean McKenna Jnr, both very significant members of The Provisional IRA, certainly shot a few rabbits before joining initially The Official IRA and then the break-away Provisional IRA in 1969, however, I doubt that either ever considered needing to serve four years in special forces.

When I later joined Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA in 1980, I quickly learned that The Provisional IRA was no better at recruitment than The Black and Tans whom they allegedly despised. I knew men and women within the ranks of the Provisional IRA whose only subversive action before being recruited by The Provisional IRA was shop-lifting, stealing knickers of the neighbor's cloth-line or hand-bag snatching. Others recruited had graduated to more serious crimes such as armed robbery and rape, however, once their dark-secret was known to their recruiter The Provisional IRA owned them.

I would also quickly learn after joining The Provisional IRA that there was Policy, Procedure, Infrastructure, Finance and Personnel dedicated to the protection of Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA Rapists, John Crawley appears to have been able to avoid all of this nefarious activity during his time in The Provisional IRA.

Once recruited, Provisional IRA members were given no training or very poor training, and on this point, Crawley and I can agree.

John Crawley states that The Provisional IRA are a secret organization, and Provisional IRA volunteers are not told who is in charge of what. This latter point is part of the process of John Crawley being treated as an outsider on the inside. I moved to Monaghan Town in June 1980, began working in Monaghan Poultry Products on a Tuesday as the Monday was a Bank Holiday, on Thursday night I was training with Na Fianna Eireann in Rossmore Forest Park, and our drill camp was interrupted by Garda Detectives Seamus Fleming and Hugh Brennan. This is why I titled my thesis in 1996, ‘A Fairly Secret Army’, there were few secrets in The Provisional IRA.

John Crawley in The Yank describes south Armagh as an area liberated by The Provisional IRA and devoid of any normal policing activity. John again appears to have been unaware that many within Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA did not want normal policing as such policing would have impacted on their bottom line, he has failed to encounter Millionaire ‘republicans’ such as Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy and Liam Campbell. John Crawley would simply have had to read The High Court case in Dublin brought by ‘Slab’ Murphy against The Sunday Times, to see what a real ‘own goal’ looks like.

John Crawley in his depiction of Boston criminal James Whitey Bulger, casts no blame on Whitey for the capture of tones of Provisional IRA destined guns upon The Marita Anne fishing trawler in 1984, yet Crawley was waved from the shores of America by Whitey Bulgar whom Crawley knew had FBI contacts. John Crawley, like many others, conveniently lays the blame for the capture of the Marita Anne at the door of Sean O’Callaghan and others alluded to but not named traitors within the Leadership of The Provisional IRA.

One of the great truths told to John Crawley, was told to him by Jim Lynagh in prison, when Lynagh told Crawley that when McGuinness sent Crawley to America, he done so to get rid of him. Had Crawley known the Provisional IRA as others did, he would have known that Martin McGuinness, recently deposed as Chief of Staff, did not want some smart-ass Yank depicting McGuinness as an ineffective Leader, who was producing Irish men to ware-house in Long-kesh rather than soldiers who would have longevity in the field.

The only military kudos accredited to Martin McGuinness, was by senior British Army Officers, who were simply boosting McGuinness’s military capacity to explain away the deaths of so many British Military at the hands of a child molester. It was much easier for senior British Military to tell the British public that they faced an invisible and deadly enemy, rather than a rag-bag of rabble who in normal circumstances would have been in jail for rape and robbery.

The Order for John Crawley to travel all the way home with the shipment of weapons on the Marita Anne, came from Martin McGuinness not Sean O’Callaghan, I am not sure if Jim Lynagh passed on that information to John Crawley.

John Crawley tells readers of The Yank that Gerry Adams was trusted to deliver for republicans, yet even before John Crawley published his Book in 2022, there was plenty of evidence that Adams had passed Provisional IRA information to John Hume with the intention of that information reaching The British. In 2021, State Papers released in The Irish Republic showed that Adams had warned Hume about an advanced plan by The Provisional IRA to murder Thatcher in 1990, this some years before Crawley was arrested in England.

One of the most startling revelations by Crawley in The Yank, is the fact that in March, 1994, when Crawley was given day release in preparedness for full release after serving 10 years for gun-running, Crawley says that he and other prisoners laughed when he told them on his return from day release that there was going to be a cease-fire in 1994.

Crawley and other men and women, who had served long sentences in the name of a cause not clearly defined in The Yank, had no clue what their Leadership were planning. However, is this yet another convenient misrepresentation of reality. In February, 1994, I had published in The Irish News and Irish Press, both widely read within Portlaoise Prison the following:

“Men and Women of The Provisional IRA, I ask you to check the motivation of your Leadership, before checking the timer on your bomb”.

John Crawley in The Yank also makes several statements that do not add up to scrutiny, and some simply insult the intelligence of the reader.

John Crawley states at page 205, that The Provisional IRA did “Not torture informer suspects”, he should try explaining that to the family of innocent farmer Tom Oliver, who had every bone in his body broken. Crawley should explain that to the family of school boy Columba McVeigh who was tortured by Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna. Columba was not an informer, and this was admitted to me by Kevin, however, Kevin and Hensey had tortured Columba so badly they decided to murder and bury his body, Columba remains undiscovered.

John Crawley, states that he met Colm Lynagh in Portlaoise Prison, and Colm was also a republican. In fact, we can cover two falsehoods here, Colm Lynagh was not a republican prisoner, Jim Lynagh who was Colm’s brother abused his position in The Provisional IRA by allowing Colm Lynagh onto The Provisional IRA wing of the prison.

Colm Lynagh, along with Barry Kerr had stolen a Provisional IRA weapon and shot dead an innocent civilian at point-blank range. Colm Lynagh had shot dead Gabriel Murphy in front of his family, for nothing more than a personal grievance, remembering that two young men murdered and disappeared by The Provisional IRA had been accused of misusing a Provisional IRA weapon. Colm Lynagh was a convicted criminal, who cost Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA support and votes in north Monaghan.

John Crawley mentions in detail his relationship with Jim Lynagh in prison. At exactly the same time that Crawley was talking to Jim Lynagh inside the prison, I was talking to Lynagh during visits to the prison.

John Crawley states in The Yank that he does not know who attributed a Maoist philosophy to Lynagh’s thinking in relation to creating green zones in Northern Ireland. In fact, it was Lynagh who claimed he was learning his strategy from Maoism, Lynagh was egotistical, he liked to impress younger members of Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA such as myself. Most Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA were poorly educated and were impressed by Lynagh’s talk of international influences. Personally, I had never heard of Maoism until Lynagh starting talking about it, and I then asked Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and he directed me to some books.

John Crawley describes Jim Lynagh as, “A soldier”, however, it did not take a soldier to shot 86-year-old Norman Stronge in the head at point blank range as he sat in his arm-chair. Jim Lynagh was a psychopath who told me that his greatest high was:

“Smelling the blood and guts of the kill”

Crawley describes Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan as a:

“Highly motivated volunteer with extensive operational experience”

In fact, Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan was a serial rapist, whose promiscuity and big mouth cost him his life. At the time of his death, Pete Ryan had left two women and a 12-year-old child pregnant.

While I was visiting Jim Lynagh in Portlaoise Prison in 1985, it was clear that Lynagh had taken a new interest in weapons and weapon types, much of this I had to bring back to Kevin McKenna, who along with Michael McKevitt, was placing orders for explosives and weapons with Gadhafi. Lynagh also wanted a more sophisticated data base of targets, so that we could cause ripples across the frontier. While talking to Lynagh there was no doubt in my mind that he and others had decided to take-out Gerry Adams upon his release in early 1986.

Crawley upon his release from prison in 1994, reported back to the Provisional IRA, however, the ‘cease-fire’ was already in place. When the ‘cease-fire’ broke down, Crowley was back in England with another Provisional IRA team, only to be sold-out once again and serving 35-years in prison, but accepting early release from the British under the terms of his much-hated Good Friday Agreement.

Crawley states that some Provisional IRA Commanders would send:

“Anyone with a pulse to England”

The latter point coming from a man who was sent to America by Martin McGuinness simply because he had an American accent, barely a military pulse. However, I can agree with Crawley, that more often than not, only one member of The Provisional IRA Army Council would know who was going to England on certain operations.

Only one member of The Provisional IRA Army Council was required to sanction any operation, as most operations were routine and were not at variance with Standing Orders. However, in certain cases retrospective majority sanction had to be sought, this was the case in the shooting of Prison Officer, Brian Stack in Dublin and later the Enniskillen Bombing which was retaliation for Loughgall.

It would have been logistically impossible for The PIRA Army Council to sanction every operation. PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, PIRA Quarter Master General, Michael McKevitt and PIRA Finance Officer, Thomas 'Slab' Murphy (Chief of Staff, 1997) sanctioned the majority of operations across the frontier, with Pat Doherty and Martin McGuinness sanctioning operations in Donegal/Derry region. It goes without saying that Gerry Adams was the Boss in Belfast.

The only deviation to this was attacks outside of Ireland, for example, bombing campaigns in England, Germany and so forth had to be sanctioned by Southern Command as the 'English Dept' was under their jurisdiction. An example would be Gerry Adams travelling to Monaghan Town in 1984 to seek sanction from Kevin McKenna to bomb the conservative party conference in Brighton.

In the final chapter of The Yank Crawley’s thinly veiled contempt for, Gerry Adams and Adam’s Counter-Republic, comes to the fore, when Crawley quotes George Orwell:

“Nine out of ten times, a Revolutionary is just a social climber with a bomb in his pocket” pg 263.

FREE e-Books by Vincent McKenna

A History of The IRA

Autobiography: Provisional IRA Hunger-striker Sean McKenna

What is Law? Sex Crime in Ireland

Loughgall Ambush 1987

Retaining the People who Know Your Business

Blog Posts

https://theirishobserver.blogspot.com/2015/09/sinn-fein-arrests-kevin-mcguigan-murder.html

https://theirishobserver.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-john-crawley-yank-2022-by.html

https://theirishobserver.blogspot.com/2022/08/coagh-inquest-2022-michael-pete-ryan.html

https://theirishobserver.blogspot.com/2022/08/public-accounts-committee-national.html