: Irish Republican Army (IRA) informers and dealing with Northern Ireland conflict legacy, 1969-2021, 15-Year Old Bernard Teggert Was Not An Informer, Grey Is the New Black: Covert Action and Implausible Deniability, The Role and Effectiveness of Intelligence in Northern Ireland, Informers, Informants and Information: The Secret History of the 1790s Reconsidered, A Taxonomy of Victims and Perpetrators: Human Rights and Reconciliation in South Africa, The Son Raymond Gilmour Hadnt Seen for 33 Years Tells of His Relief at Death of the Supergrass, UKs Troubles Amnesty Plan Goes Further than Pinochets, Study Says, Government to Introduce Statute of Limitations on Troubles Prosecutions, You Will Be Responsible to the GOC: Stovepiping and the Problem of Divergent Intelligence Gathering Networks in Northern Ireland, 1969-1975, Countering Terrorism in Northern Ireland: The Role of Intelligence, Was the IRA Defeated? The British policy of interning persons suspected of involvement in the IRA and the killing of 13 Catholic protesters on Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972) strengthened Catholic sympathy for the organization and swelled its ranks. For my teachers in the 1970s and '80s, "West Brit" was the worst term of abuse in an Irish-speaking school. READ MORE: The IRA Assassination of Lord Mountbatten: Facts and Fallout. It enables them to maintain silence, safety or narratives about the morality of their actions. 122. IRISH TROUBLES, AMERICAN MONEY. For the state, to obtain tomorrows informers, it is imperative to protect todays and yesterdays. Lots of them. Barker thanked Gilmour and other agents for helping to save lives.128 DUP MPs also wrote to the Northern Ireland Secretary of State in 2012 demanding Gilmour and other agents receive support.129, Multiple reasons including self-preservation could explain the states (in)action. Both sides felt they were fighting for their country. They are about past injustices and are not concerned with countering current political opponents. OCallaghan believed all but one of the supergrasses was motivated by selfish interests.144 Army agent Carlin sees distinctions too: An informer turns on their comrades like Denis Donaldson I was not betraying my cause.145 Various motives and perspectives on informing by those accused and self-confessed creates different views on how to deal with legacy. He added some informers cannot expect a welcome home because they got people killed.69 In response to Gilmours claims that British intelligence abandoned him, Morrison commented [t]here will be no sympathy when British intelligence are finished with people they discard them.70 During the conflict, Republicans publicly warned British intelligence are using the informer to suit their needs, and if this means sacrificing him or her then this will be done.71 With IRA amnesties offered on occasions to informers, Republicans saw no reason to offer Gilmour sympathy.72 Sinn Fin would have risked challenging their past and present ideology and justification for the IRAs campaign if they empathised with Gilmour, who spoke against them continuously.73. 92. The standout revelation came in 2003. In this 5 minute history, an introduct. Did the Ulster Loyalists do that? Contemporary political and reputational reasons are an important explanation, but there are also legal considerations and communal pressures at play. by Lindsay Maizland Academic and Higher Education Webinars, C.V. Starr & Co. Ardoyne Commemoration Project, Ardoyne, 364367. It never deflected the course of Irish history, but gave rise to ordinary suffering and long-lasting grief.115, For pro-peace process Republicans, Stakeknife resembles British security forces unethical and immoral behaviour in collusion cases with Loyalist paramilitaries in certain Irish civilian deaths.116 They believe Stakeknife further demonstrates the continued illegitimacy of British rule.117. the July 1972 bombing spree known as Bloody Friday, in which downtown Belfast was rocked by twenty-two bombs in seventy-five minutes, leaving nine dead and 130 injured; the 1979 assassination of Lord Mountbatten, Queen Elizabeth IIs uncle and the last Viceroy of India; the 1984 bombing of a Brighton hotel where then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet were meeting, which wounded several British officials and killed four other Britons; a 1993 car bombing in Londons financial district, Canary Wharf, that killed one person and caused $1 billion of damage; mortar attacks on the British prime ministers residence and Londons Heathrow Airport in the early 1990s; bombings of civilian targets, including pubs, shops, and subway stations, in Northern Ireland and Britain throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. 136. The purpose was allegedly to cover his informing. 112. It appears the Republican community does not contest Sinn Fins continued hostile narrative towards Gilmour. by Lindsay Maizland DeValera refused to vacate Irelands claim to the North and steered a strict neutral course in world affairs during the decades in which he would remain in power in the Republic of Ireland, as the Free State became known. 4.99 1916 Easter Lily Flower Badge. 121. Republican Sinn Fin (RSF) was formed in 1986 when Sinn Fin announced that, if elected, it would take its seats in the Irish parliament - ending its longstanding policy of abstentionism. Counsel for the PSNI told the tribunal that naming past informers beggars belief and could seriously damage the flow of information from current informers.122. These include: MI5; Metropolitan Police Special Branch before the early 1990s in an attempt to repel IRA activities in England; Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch (RUC SB), the Northern Irish police special branch prior to being reformed after 1998; and intelligence organisations associated with the British Army, including the Military Reaction Force (MRF) in the early 1970s and thereafter the Force Research Unit (FRU). which was a key participant during the 1969-1998 Troubles in Northern Ireland. Part of HuffPost News. date published. The group resulted from the merger of the Real Irish Republican Army, Republican Action Against Drugs, and several smaller dissident republican groups. 20. Human nature says that the man is going to throw a pint at him at least.88 Contemporary political concerns alongside long-term Republican community anger towards certain informers explains why these cases are not seen as being about correcting past injustices. This group of self-confessed informers significantly differs from the celebrities. Recruitment began in Great Britain in January 1920 and about 10,000 men enlisted during the conflict. By the summer of 1921, Ireland's bid for independence from Great Britain had all but reached an impasse. Attacks on them should be discouraged because the conflict was over. At the same time, Aldrich and Cormac believe the neither confirm nor deny ambiguity is partly to enable powerful state narratives to be sustained.130 Ambiguities in international and national law facilitate state silence over the recruitment, actions and treatment of informers to some extent.131 State omniscience combined with secrecy about most informers makes it difficult for self-confessed informers to challenge state narratives. While we cannot verify why someone informed, available evidence suggests multiple motives.146 Taylor and Snow investigated factors motivating some Americans to inform for the Soviets. OK then. It is possible to be both a freedom fighter and a terrorist, or to be one but not the other. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. 115. For McConville see Leahy, Intelligence War, 1213, 8384; for McVeigh see Still Missing: Columba McVeigh The Disappeared of Northern Ireland; see also Engagement with WAVE Trauma Centre, Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, 9 December 2021. Officials sought independence through peace, while the provisionals used violence to further its efforts, which resulted in an estimated 1,800 deaths, including more than 600 civilians. This ideological element, which fermented a disagreement over the form that Irish unity should take, complicates a purely tactical explanation for some of the splits (e.g. The agreement paved the way for peace talks that led to the IRA's first ceasefire in 1994 and the 1998 Good Friday peace accord. Examples include neither confirming nor denying whether someone informed. True, some of the families of the disappeared have protested against Republicans continuing to accuse their relatives of being informers, and for failing to return all the disappeared. Both engage with certain cases, whilst overlooking others. Perhaps humanitarian reasons motivated the state. For the IRA, see for detailed studies by Edwards, Agents of Influence; Matchett, Secret Victory; Leahy, Intelligence War; Frampton, Agents and Ambushes; Taylor, Provos; Harkin and Ingram, Stakeknife. The UK government and intelligence services potentially see dealing with specific informer allegations as presenting minimal risk to the states conflict narrative and intelligence practises today. They pose a serious threat to collective social values and Republican conflict narratives. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Executive Summary. 140. Whilst Republicans may not have revelatory power compared to the state, state secrecy (even if for legitimate security concerns) enables Republicans to maintain their narratives about most informers being coerced or criminals. James Connolly. 2 During the recent conflict, publicly available information shows that overall the UK state . Assisted by extensive funding from some Irish Americans, the IRA procured weapons from international arms dealers and foreign countries, including Libya. Members of the Irish Republican Group described the shooting in Derry as a 'military operation' with 'all volunteers returned to base' after a statement was attached to a wall close to the . Nonetheless, Dudai suggests: memoir-writing informers are not necessarily representative of other informers. He suggests reasons for this stance include Republican leaders trying to maintain Republican group cohesion against dissenters (those against the peace process), with the latter viewing some informer revelations (such as the Donaldson case) as evidence for leadership duplicity during the peace process.35 But this view does not fully account for why Republican leaders engage with other alleged informer legacy cases. Aldrich and Cormac, Grey is the new black, 478, 484, 489494. The IRA were less interested in killing people, but they absolutely still did. He highlights how inadequate legal accountability and oversight with informers in various scenarios including Northern Ireland enabled some informers to commit serious illegal acts before 1998.36. The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Bowcott, IRA Mole, The Guardian, 8 July 2014. ** Editors Note: A previous version of this article erroneously named the rejectionists as the victors of the Irish Civil War. Informer Comes Forward, An Phoblacht, 19 August 1999. 71. The IRA conducted attacks until its cease-fire in 1997 and agreed to disarm as a part of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which established the basis for . 1. The IRA was created in 1919 as a successor to the Irish Volunteers, a militant nationalist organization founded in 1913. Furthermore, Dudai adopts the folk devil term from Cohens work. February 22, 2023 Furthermore, public consensus on the UK mainland about Northern Ireland being a place apart assists state secrecy over its intelligence practises there.132. From its inception, however, the IRA operated independently of political control and in some periods actually took the upper hand in the independence movement. In Brief "The IRA" redirects here. Alongside contemporary political concerns, Republican leaders and supporters remain angry towards some informers for their past actions. 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