The Smithwick Tribunal also revealed much about British state infiltration of the IRA, Sinn Fein and the Garda. The study looks back to the early 1970s and the infamous Four Square Laundry operation by the controversial Military Reaction Force unit of the British army, right up until the unmasking of double agents Denis Donaldson and Freddie Scappaticci, the informer known as Stakeknife, more than 30 years later. Former IRA hunger striker Gerard Hodgins says British have 'permanent eyes and ears' inside terror organisations The IRA leadership’s isolation from grassroots volunteers made infiltration challenging. He became involved in petty crime, which brought him to the notice of the RUC. The council’s decisions were, they said, influenced by IRA insiders who were also secret British agents. The signing of a peace treaty by IRA leader Michael Collins and others led to a split in Irish nationalism and the IRA. The commanding officer accepted that someone must have informed on him but denied that the IRA … The third reason is the IRA leadership was elusive and challenging to infiltrate. Did spies within its own ranks bring the IRA in from the cold? The Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent, socialist republic encompassing all of Ireland. Amazingly, perhaps half of all senior IRA members, and a quarter of all IRA members overall, worked for intelligence services during the ‘Troubles'. It worked alongside existing intelligence agencies the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and MI5. ... County Down, where British soldiers frequently drank after what was generally a football match between the prison wardens. Began to work as a double agent for MI5 but left the pay of the British secret service after the war and lived the high life in for a while in London. File photograph: Paul Faith/PA. At its height both sides fought with a great deal of professionalism. ... and the Irish Republican Army of the anti-treaty forces on the other. His was among the most elusive I’ve come across, because “Martin” told me he was a spy who brought RUC special branch deep within the IRA and Sinn Féin. "Sometimes when these memoirs are released there is substantial attention given to their influence, I tried to look at them geographically in terms of activity during that time period. In … Brian Rowan. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group seeking to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and unify Ireland, shared intelligence with the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany.. "So looking at Belfast and Derry city after early 1970 there was a larger brigade battalion structure, which was easier to infiltrate, once they sized that down after 1974 it did help the IRA to compartmentalise things.". Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. The Belfast Newsletter reported that 7/10 UDR had been infiltrated by the IRA. The teenage spy, Martin McGartland, who infiltrated the IRA and saved at least 50 lives. For various reasons, including some difficulties with infiltration in Belfast, the IRA altered its units in Belfast and Derry city into smaller cells by the mid-1970s. Second, the tight-knit and semi-autonomous nature of rural republican units helped prevent significant infiltration. For republicans, the scale of infiltration within the IRA raises uncomfortable questions. While his book The IntelligenceWar Against the IRA does not contain any major revelations and relies mainly on already public facts and statistics, it does give a comprehensive overview of the scale of the intelligence war. Hodgins said the recent IRA and ONH bombings across Northern Ireland over the last 18 months, "played into Sinn Féin's agenda". It exposes the reality of the dark, claustrophobic world of the Provisionals: the iron grip they hold over their communities; their ruthless and cynical disregard for human life; the single-minded professionalism of some IRA volunteers — and the rank incompetence of others. Speaking to The Irish News Mr Leahy said he became interested in the analysis by many historians as to why the peace process occurred when it did. 13 Martyn Frampton believes that these high-level spies assisted the British forces in preventing various IRA operations from the 1980s. However, both were agents of the British state. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. Martin Mc Gartland - Life - Infiltration of The IRA. Fulton, whose real name is Peter Keeley, infiltrated the IRA for the Army's Force Research Unit (FRU) in the late Seventies. In the course of one of our meetings, Martin opened up about the late Denis Donaldson, whom he had known when Donaldson was Sinn Féin’s head of administration in Stormont. Buy Dead Ground: Infiltrating the IRA First Edition by Gilmour, Raymond (ISBN: 9780316879675) from Amazon's Book Store. 197 likes. The Provisional IRA emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in 1969, partly as a result of that organisation's perceived failure to defend Catholic neighbourhoods from … They tell them to me in their homes, coffee shops, cars and parks and, more often than not, they are alone. He cannot be identified because he fears for his safety, but he’s not anonymous to me. At one point you say of the British infiltration of the IRA that, as messy and morally dubious as it may have been, "There's this: it worked." From the late 1960’s and for almost 3 decades, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) waged a bloody terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland, Britain and Europe. Stories that people are often reluctant to admit they know. Sean O'Callaghan, a prominent former IRA informer, worked as a consultant to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and was often interviewed as a media pundit, and wrote op-eds for British newspapers. The Provisional IRA argued for a complete abstention from the political process until a unified Ireland was achieved… Emerging stronger after the split, the Provisional IRA is the group we now commonly know as the IRA. His activities also attracted the attention of the IRA; on several occasions he narrowly escaped local disciplinary squads. The author found that the British army "came into Northern Ireland blind in intelligence terms" and so relied on the RUC who initially lacked any adequate intelligence. I t would seem on the face of it that the Provisional IRA had good reason to murder Donaldson, upon whose head blame was laid for almost the entire infiltration of the IRA … Membership: The IRA is thought to consist of up to 400 members and several thousand auxiliary supporters and sympathizers who could be called upon in emergency circumstances. Fred Holroyd, a former British Military Intelligence officer, once told me that during training he had been told "the best way to defeat the enemy is to be the enemy." Martin McGartland the teenage spy who infiltrated the IRA. British security services concluded the IRA had enough weapons to persist for the foreseeable future. Infiltration of The IRA. Last week the BBC news and current affairs programme, Spotlight, broadcast a series of interviews and dramatic reenactments with a man they called "Martin", the pseudonym of a supposed British spy in the ranks of the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army. At the start of June 1987 three attacks were made against soldiers of the same company of 7/10 UDR including Private Joe Tracey who was shot dead as he started a new job on apartments off the Lisburn Road, Belfast. Over months, I listened to Martin, I never stopped asking him questions and I corroborated as much detail as possible without compromising him. Get the day's headlines delivered directly to your inbox. The Troubles IRA and saved at least 50 lives Irish republicanism and the Garda (... To have kept its structure intact since 1994 of self confessed informers as part of British strategy the. A number of self confessed informers as part of the anti-treaty forces on the other a. 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