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Contents:
The objective of this magazine is to unravel Anglo-Irish history from decades of dirty tricks, disinformation and deceit. The website receives over 100,000 visits annually. The topics covered include the activities of the MI5, MI6, MRF, RUC, SAS, FRU, IRD, IRA, INLA, UVF and UDA. There are also articles about Operation Clockwork Orange, Collusion, the…
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Covert History’s ‘Webbooks’
Covert History Ireland and the UK magazine is the home of the long read. Many of the writers who appear on these pages are published authors. The website receives over 100,000 visits annually. The ‘Webbooks’, in the illustration above are exclusive to this website. They are all available to read by clicking on the link…
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Burnham
In the early 1970s, Colin Wallace tried to expose the horrific abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home. For doing so, he was driven from his posts as Senior Information Officer and Psychological Operations Officer in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. His case has been raised in Westminster. The Calcutt Inquiry vindicated many of the issues surrounding it. Paul…
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Troubles Bill
Christopher Stanley is the Domestic and International Human Rights Advocate with Relatives for Justice. He is a Times Lawyer of the Week and a LALY/LAPG Public Law Lawyer of the Year Nominee. The views expressed in the article are his own. An analysis of the British Labour government Troubles Bill. This Bill was introduced as…
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From the Vaults, 1990: The Smear Campaign against Charles Haughey.
In the early 1970s, Maurice Oldfield of Britain’s Secret Service, MI6, began a decade-long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey. Oldfield rose to head MI6 in 1973 and served until his retirement in 1978. Yet the campaign failed: Haughey became Taoiseach in December 1979. In October 1979, Oldfield was recalled to intelligence…
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Kerr
INTRODUCTION: THE BOY WHO FOUGHT THE DEEP STATE AND WON. No one has damaged the reputation of the British Secret Service — MI6, or SIS — more in recent decades than Richard Kerr. MI6 is part of the Foreign Office. Equally, no one has done more to expose the debauchery of MI5, the Security Service,…
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Donaldson Dossier
Introduction: A brutal lesson in real-life politics for slow learners. The Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal erupted in 1980. It has never gone away. Today, it reverberates loudly in the case of Jeffrey Donaldson, the former DUP leader. Donaldson was arrested in 2024 on child abuse charges, and convicted in 2026. Donaldson himself…
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‘C’.
When Sir Alex Younger, a former chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service — MI6 — died on 2 June 2026, aged 62, the British media lined up to hail a legendary spymaster: a man who had operated undercover in the field and brought a new culture of openness to his organisation. But behind the glowing…
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BBC.
Chris Moore posted a story on Ed Moloney’s Broken Elbow website in 2023. It blew the lid off attempts by MI5, the RUC, and BBC management to suppress vitally important facts about the Kincora scandal. The story subsequently appeared in his new book on the Kincora scandal, ‘Kincora, Britain’s Shame‘ (2025). MI5 had plenty of…
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Armageddon.
There is a memorable scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove where the leaders of America and Russia find themselves locked into a catastrophic war because of the existence of a doomsday machine originally designed to enforce world peace. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer now faces a potential doomsday scenario of his own. He is trying…
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Double Standard
Introduction. In Dáil Éireann, Taoiseach Micheál Martin called on the British Government to name Agent Stakeknife, who he says is known to be Freddie Scappaticci. This transparency and openness, Martin believes, will help relatives of those killed by the IRA’s brutal Internal Security Unit, led by agent Stakeknife, among others. His appeal followed calls by…
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Epstein and Maxwell were in a position to blackmail a British prime minister over a ‘threesome’ involving Maxwell.
By David Burke. The general public is beginning to wake up to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein worked for at least two Western intelligence services. One of his tasks was to collect sexual ‘kompromat’ about important people. This is particularly disturbing in light of the revelations that a former British prime minister engaged in a…
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Sir Garret
Introduction. Charles Haughey of Fianna Fáil and Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael took very different approaches when dealing with Britain’s covert intelligence services and the more questionable diplomats assigned to the Dublin embassy. While FitzGerald was happy to dance with Her Majesty’s emissaries and spooks, Haughey recoiled. This contrast was never more apparent than when…
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The Smearmeister from the Irish Times
Hugh Mooney, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, worked at The Irish Times before becoming the UK’s foremost black propagandist in the early 1970s. Among his many successes, he distorted the truth about what happened on Bloody Sunday, the bombing of McGurk’s bar and circulated smears about John Hume. The Bloody Sunday and John Hume…
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Ed Moloney murder plot.
Ed Moloney, who passed away last October, served as Northern editor of The Irish Times, 1981-85. He wrote a weekly column titled ‘Northern notebook’ for the paper. On 21 October 2025, The Irish Times lauded Moloney and quoted a family statement revealing that he ‘was briefly a member of the Official IRA – in its political phase –…
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Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil are promoting a book on FF’s ‘Bulletin’ newsletter which claims some of its ministers tried to arm the Provisional IRA. Here, IRA veteran Des Long debunks this as a ‘fairy tale’.
In this interview, Des Long debunks the myth about Charles Haughey and the Provisional IRA, as a ‘fairy tale’. It is one that has resurfaced in a new book, ‘Charlie v Garret’, which is being promoted on Fianna Fáil’s ‘Bulletin‘ newsletter. Long starts the interview by providing a brief outline of his career in the…
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The Mac Bride Principles: Genesis and History
An Army of Principles Will Penetrate Where an Army of Soldiers Cannot—Thomas Paine 1. I want to set out here for the historical record how the Irish National Caucus initiated, proposed, and launched the Mac Bride Principles. This is all the more important since there have been some attempts at revisionism. I will have to give…
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Spoiler alert.
Introduction: ‘Nobody’s Girl‘, the memoirs of the late Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts), has just been published. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked Giuffre to Andrew Mountbatten Winsor for sexual abuse as a minor. She committed suicide last April. On the same day her book appeared, a slew of similar-looking publications went on sale on Amazon…
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The Resistance Men.
© Deirdre Younge. Introduction. ‘What were they trying to do around here .. create civil war?‘ (Willie Frazer, referring to the intelligence services operating in the 1970s in Armagh. (2016)) During the ‘Troubles’ Armagh, Tyrone and Down were the cockpit of a vicious war which descended into sectarianism fuelled by collusion. Intelligence material submitted to…
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FG’s ‘flawed pedigree’.
1. Smearing ‘the bejaysus’ out of Catherine Connolly. When Ivan Yates spoke about ‘smearing the bejaysus’ out of Catherine Connolly, he was merely saying out loud what members of his party have whispered from the shadows for decades. Yates made remark on his Newstalk podcast ‘Calling It’. He outlined what he would do if his…
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Psyop.
In November 2025, a British ‘security expert’ inadvertently disclosed the broad outline of a British-led psychological operation (PsyOp) to undermine Irish neutrality to London’s Financial Times. The paper revealed that an anti-neutrality campaign was underway, although ‘still far from fruition and would have to be extremely carefully managed‘. The purpose of the operation was to…
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Flying Under the Radar.
Part 1: Jim Gavin 1. Air Intelligence officer. Fianna Fáil’s presidential candidate, Jim Gavin, served as an Air Intelligence staff officer in the Irish Air Corps during an exemplary 20-year career with Óglaigh na hÉireann. He was one of the most accomplished pilots in the Air Corps and rose to become Chief Flying Instructor at…
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Jean McConville
‘It is like peeling an onion, and the more you peel them away, the more you feel like crying. There are two laws running this country: one for them (the intelligence services) and one for the rest of us,’ Miller told Paul Foot in ‘Who Framed Colin Wallace‘, p246. The chief suspect for the role of Jean…
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Marie and Noel Murray. By Eddie Walsh.
On 11 September 1975, Noel and Marie Murray participated in a bank raid in Dublin. Garda Michael Reynolds from Galway was shot dead as he gave chase to the robbers. The Murrays were arrested and charged with involvement in the robbery. They were sentenced to death, though their sentences were later commuted to lengthy prison…
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Hi-tech.
© Deirdre Younge 2025. ‘Fergus directs me around the streets of Omeath until we pull up outside a bungalow, “hang on there”, he says and strides inside purposefully. Seconds later, he emerges with someone called Johnny, a bomb making graduate. ‘”Follow us”, says Johnny, and we do, along the winding back roads around Carlingford Bay,…
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Nest of Spies.
1. Introduction. I remember being struck by a passage in the late Kennedy Lindsay’s book, ‘The British Intelligence Services In Action’ (1981). Lindsay, a Unionist politician, alleged that MI6: ‘has numerous agents and informants [in the Republic of Ireland], including many at high levels in the civil service, police, and armed services. The territory had been part…
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“It’s me or your bloody boyfriends”
Andrew Lownie’s latest book, ‘Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York,’ confronts the controversial life of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, particularly his association with Jeffrey Epstein and the subsequent fallout. It follows in the same vein as two of Lownie’s previous works, ‘The Mountbattens’ (2019) and ‘Traitor King’ (2021). ‘The…
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A VOICE FOR THE LOST BOYS SILENCED BY STATE SANCTIONED ABUSE.
Christopher Stanley reviews “Kincora: Britain’s Shame: Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys’ Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up” by Chris Moore. Published by Merrion Press (£17.99 Paperback) 276 pages. To the memory of Stephen Waring who committed suicide or was murdered. [1] In 2020 I published an opinion piece called The Accused and the…
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The Prince and the Pauper.
Introduction: The Boy on the Meat Rack Alan Kerr was sexually abused by three men at Williamson House, a Belfast Corporation Welfare Department care home in Belfast. He was only six years of age when it started. One of his abusers was Eric Witchell, the Officer-in-Charge of the home. Witchell was a friend of both…
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Kneeling Nation.
1. The Pervert Prince, Epstein and Prince Andrew. According to ‘Entitled’, the latest book by Andrew Lownie, Jeffrey Epstein was stunned by what he learned about Prince Andrew’s sexual perversity. Lownie records Epstein’s remark that: ‘From the reports I’ve got back from the women we’ve shared, he’s the most perverted animal in the bedroom. He…
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Kincora
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.” Proverbs 31:8-9 (NLV) Judge Hughes said of his inquiry into Kincora Boys’ Home and other care homes, in the 1980s that, “The conduct of the police, or…
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The Irish Paedophile Priest.
Late in 1999, I received an approach from a Californian law firm that were seeking the location of a paedophile priest. It was understood that he had returned to his native Ireland. But the lawyers were worried. They knew Ireland was a largely Catholic country and feared an agency such as mine might not want…
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Running Stakeknife
The Operation Kenova report on Stakeknife makes it clear MI5 were aware of Scappaticci’s activities from his initial recruitment. They were involved in briefing and tasking him via his FRU handlers. MI5 broke into Kenova’s document safe while they were working in the Services offices. Kenova is a PSNI commissioned report, authored by two former…
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Roy Garland.
In the 1960s Roy Garland played a part in setting up TARA alongside William McGrath. McGrath was a leading figure in the Orange Order. McGrath became the commander of Tara. Garland later discovered that McGrath was abusing children and risked his life trying to halt the abuse perpetrated at Kincora Boys’ Home by McGrath. This…
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Church of England.
“We are the Hollow Men” (T S Eliot). The Hollow Men are those individuals who are spiritually empty, devoid of meaning and purpose, and trapped in a state of despondency. They are characterized by their lack of individuality, identity, and connection to something larger than themselves, existing as mere shadows of their former selves. * Annus…
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Mountbatten exposed, 1990.
Introduction: In April 1990, a five page cover story in NOW magazine revealed how: ‘An English upper class gay network abused boys at orgies in Irish country homes and castles, according to new claims which link the vice ring with the notorious Kincora Boys Home in Belfast. The network included royal uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten,…
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The Vanishing Broker. By Ian Withers
Dublin in 1996 was not exactly a hotbed of Russian activities, I had been on a few occasions to their Embassy to get visas to travel to Moscow, always rather dour staff, polite, efficient and never smiling, they carefully questioned the purpose of going to Russia, and if one had sufficient financial resources to cover…
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The complexities of Loyalism. By Roy Garland.
A ginger group in the Orange Order known as “Cell” was led by Canon Ernest Long who said “Cell” was taken from the idea of a small seed that could influence a larger group. I assume the larger group was the Orange Order. William McGrath joined Cell in the 1960s and Canon Long, was uncomfortable…
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The strange death of Harry Breen. By Deirdre Younge.
In April 2017, Village magazine published this article by Deirdre Younge which revealed another side to Chief Superintendent Harry Breen of the RUC. Breen was shot dead by the IRA in 1989. He served as Commander H Division (Armagh and parts of Down) from March 1988 to ’89. His death was the subject of the…
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The Gathering Storm.
In this article, Roy Garland explains how Loyalist leaders such as William McGrath were making dire predictions about the intentions of the IRA as the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising approached. Roy Garland witnessed these developments at first hand. Soon, he was dedicating himself to the peace process believing in the “interconnectednes between everyone…
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From the Vaults: Ted Heath 1971
This is how This Week, an Irish magazine, perceived Ted Heath and his policy for Ireland in 1971. Heath was then in his second year as Britain’s prime minister. The article can be read and or downloaded by clicking on the link below:
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A Walk on the Dark Side. [WebBook.]
Part 1. British Agents in Ireland. The PPS in Northern Ireland will not charge an unnamed agent who worked undercover in Northern Ireland for UK intelligence services. This is despite the fact he admitted to carrying out murders in the course of working undercover. The agent’s admission was made while instructing intelligence officers in spycraft.…
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Running with Wolves. The questions the former RUC will face over their failure to prevent the Omagh massacre. MI5 appears undaunted. [WebBook]
Introduction: Peter Keeley and the Omagh Bomb. Q – Can I put it to you: he is a bit of a Newry wide boy who was involved in the IRA …And the reason he was involved in the IRA was because he was a Newry wide boy? A – Most likely. Q – And the…
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Hooded men.
Introduction. 1. No one shouted ‘Stop’. The brutality displayed by Soldier F and Soldier G of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday, in Derry, on 30 January 1972, was not an aberration. After murdering a string of unarmed civilians, they transported a large group of other perfectly innocent people to Fort George, where they beat many…
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Martin O’Hagan and the Official Republican movement. By Eddie Walsh
Eddie Walsh was born and grew up in Tralee. He joined the Republican movement in 1969, and became a lifeling supporter of the Workers Party. In this article, he describes how he met Martin O’Hagan through their mutual membership of the Official Republican movement. O’Hagan went on to become a high profile investigative reporter with…
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Tara’s roots.
In this article, Roy Garland describes the origins of Tara, an armed Loyalist paramilitary organisation. Garland was once a member of Tara. It was led by William McGrath. Tara was once part of the Orange Order. It had supporters in the Republic of Ireland and later linked up with the UVF. There were also international…
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Congo CIA.
The JFK assassination files which have just been declassified cover a wide range of topics including murder plots, coups and dirty tricks the world over. The declassified CIA files also expose the early steps the CIA took to murder Patrice Lumumba of the Congo. The initial plan was to poison him. The newly released CIA…
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JFK. [WebBook]
1. E. HOWARD HUNT, THE CIA OFFICER WHO ADMITTED HE WAS PART OF THE PLOT TO MURDER JFK. There was a time when E. Howard Hunt would make the news simply by showing his face in public. Hunt ran the ‘Plumbers’, the dirty tricks unit that broke into the Watergate building in 1972, and sparked…
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The Judicial Fixer.
1. Brigadier Frank Kitson subverts the law. Brigadier Frank Kitson of the British Army was a so-called counterinsurgency guru. He was sent to Northern Ireland in 1970 to tackle the IRA. The following year, his astonishingly indiscreet book, ‘Low Intensity Operations’ appeared on the bookshelves. In it, he explained that there were two ways of administering…
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Returning the Serve, the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974. [WebBook]
1. London will not share MI5 and MI6’s files with Dublin. 2. The Corbet Lough conspiracy. 3. 2024: A Legal action is being pursued by families and survivors of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. 4. The President who spelt it out. 5. The Government has Garda surveillance records of the people who campaigned for the…
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LBC
Roy Garland joined TARA as a young man. TARA was a paramilitary organisation commanded by William McGrath. Garland was also asked to join the mysterious ‘London Belfast Committee’ by McGrath. Very little is known about it. Garland turned down the offer and, hence, did not discover its inner workings. Nonetheless, he suspected it was an…
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From the Vaults (1987)
In 1987 Eamon McCann visited Libya where he interviewed Col Muammar Gaddaffi for In Dublin magazine and Channel 4’s Diverse Reports programme. McCann published his account in the 19 February 1987 edition of the magazine. It is reproduced in full below:
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Omagh.
The Real IRA bombed Omagh in 1998. Twenty-nine people perished. Deirdre Younge, a former Current Affairs Editor in RTE, wrote this article for Village magazine in November 2021. Since then, the British Government has established an inquiry into the atrocity. It is being chaired by Judge Alan Turnbull. Peter Keeley, a British agent who had…
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The Mountbatten Dossier. [WebBook]
. UPDATE: 30 June 2026: Richard Kerr, a victim of child sex abuse perpetrated by Lord Louis Mountbatten and others, has accepted the sum of £100,000 in compensation from the UK state. Richard Kerr was abused by Mountbatten at Classiebawn, Co. Sligo, in 1977. Kerr’s case was that a paedophile ring subjected him to years…
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Hart Report
When I first read parts of the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, led by Sir Anthony Hart, I was shocked at the amount of disinformation in it. I spoke with the late Brian Garrett, a lawyer who was nearby. I told him I intended to take legal action against the Inquiry, but he said…
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False flag.
In the September 2019 edition of Village magazine, Deirdre Younge described how MI5 fabricated a Loyalist arms importation to frighten the Dublin government. The MI5 ‘false flag’ operation was launched in 1993, on the verge of an IRA ceasefire Deirdre Younge was a reporter with Hibernia magazine and a Current Affairs Programmes Editor in RTE…
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Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 1 [WebBook.]
By David Burke. Introduction: the fish rots from the head. The United Kingdom is paying a ghastly price for the decades during which the State turned a blind eye to a wide spectrum of sexual offences committed by the elite of British society. At least three forces became the instruments of amoral politicians and their…
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Shooting to kill? [WebBook]
Author Michael O’Connell has long had an interest in the Stalker affair. He had the opportunity of discussing it at length with John Stalker during a visit the latter made to Nottingham in 1989, after his retirement from the Manchester police. O’Connell had developed his own sources about the killing of the six civilians described in this…
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Sir Richard White’s black heart.
Introduction. In 1971, 342 people were swept up by the British army and interned, i.e. subjected to indefinite detention without a trial. Britain’s intelligence community was looking for people they hoped would be able to provide them with information about members of the IRA. 14 men were chosen for ‘special treatment’ and taken to a secret…
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Birmingham Six. [WebBook.]
The author of this article, Michael O’Connell, arrived in Ireland with his family from England in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War. He was then two years of age. After returning to England he was educated by the Marist Fathers and then at the Inns of Court Law School in London. He…
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Diverting Smithwick. By Deirdre Younge.(2016)
In December 2013, the Smithwick Tribunal produced a report into alleged Garda collusion with the IRA in the murder of two RUC officers, Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan. It made a finding of ‘collusion’ yet failed to provide the name of the alleged ‘colluder’. Deirdre Younge’s 2016 Village article delved into the bizarre finding. Her article…
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Prince Philip’s illicit sex life was monitored by Soviet spies. [WebBook]
Introduction. The Russian secret service, the FSB, has access to a set of dusty old KGB files. They describe the sexual antics of the British aristocracy, including those of the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. The information was gathered by Soviet-era spies in London during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1972,…
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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s mentor.
1. THE CONVICTED CHILD RAPIST WHO LED THE DUP. On 22 June 2026, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 2021-24, was found guilty of eighteen historical sex offences, including one count of rape and thirteen counts of indecent assault against two women when they were children. The abuse spanned twenty…
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Stakeknife, the spy with no name
Iain Livingston who now heads Operation Kenova since Jon Boutcher was appointed Chief Constable, is in the bizarre position of not being able to name the alleged British Army/MI5 superspy, ‘Stakeknife‘. Livingston took over Operation Kenova after Jon Boutcher was appointed Chief Constable of the RUC. He is now appealing to the British Government to…
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From the Vaults: Billy Wright, 1996
In October 1996 Fortnight magazine published an article which asked: “What does Billy Wright think? Since the Combined Loyalist Military Command gave him the choice of exile or death, Wright has maintained that it is his thinking that got him into trouble with organisations he previously supported. Although he consistently denies that he is a…
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Gusty Spence
I met friends of Gusty Spence in the mid 1960s when I ran a small business that dad had formed in the early 1940s after I was born. I joined the Orange Order in the early 1960s, and often sat beside Gusty’s brother, who thought highly of him and said of someone who had criticised…
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Old Bailey bombing.
I woke with a start; an eye watering stench was catching in the back of my throat! My brother was sitting on the end of his bunk looking quite sullen, before I said anything, he pointed his finger at me and said, “Don’t say a bloody word!” I lay still, my body aching from another…
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From the Vaults: ‘The INLA Death Wish’ by Derek Dunne (February 1987).
In 1987 the Army Council of the INLA authorised an interview with investigative journalist Derek Dunne of In Dublin magazine. The full report can be downloaded below.
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Orange and the Green.
ROY GARLAND is the author of ‘Gusty Spence’, the acclaimed biography of the former UVF leader. Spence changed his ways and became a key participant in the peace process. Here, Roy Garland, who knew many of the key Loyalist figures of the Troubles, describes some of the preliminary steps taken on the long road that…
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From the Vaults (1987): The Workers Party and the Official IRA. By Derek Dunne.
In 1987, journalist and author Derek Dunne wrote a piece for In Dublin magazine in which he pointed out that the Official IRA was still in existence. At that stage, the Official Republican movement had transformed itself into the Workers Party and was holding itself out as an organisation which was dedicated to peace. In…
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Kincora death threats.
Introduction: Roy Garland was an associate of William McGrath, the infamous housefather of Kincora Boys’ Home. Garland discovered McGrath’s true nature long before McGrath was sent to work at Kincora. McGrath was a paedophile and sexual predator. Garland discovered this through his involvement in Faith House in Belfast where McGrath ran a Christian mission. Garland…
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From the Vaults: General Election 1987.
In a report in Hibernian magazine, in February 1987, which was entitled the ‘Battle for Dublin South-East’, John McGee asked: ‘Traditionally a Fianna Fáil stronghold, Dublin South-East is also the constituency of the present Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. Will the electorate reflect the general anti-Government feeling, or will the Progressive Democrats make inroads with their party…
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Our Man in Dublin. [WebBook]
1. Introduction. There was a deeply clandestine aspect to the Troubles. It involved the manipulation of public opinion via propaganda. All of the parties involved in the conflict participated in the process to one extent or another. Britain’s Foreign Office was by far the most successful. The British Secret Service (MI6) and the Information Research…
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Read and destroy
1. “A certain degree of guidance”. In October 1969, Maj. Thomas McDowell, an ex-British army officer from Belfast, asked the British Ambassador to Dublin, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, for “guidance, in respect of which lines were helpful and which unhelpful” for publication in The Irish Times. McDowell and a number of his colleagues owned the paper.…
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Hidden agendas.
1. The Irish Times gave a platform to the Official IRA during the Troubles. Dick Walsh, the political correspondent of The Irish Times during the Troubles, was an adviser to Cathal Goulding. Cathal Goulding was chief-of-staff of the IRA and, after it split in 1969, he held the same position with the Official IRA. The…
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Dining for Her Majesty.
Introduction: The Irish Times apologetically sought guidance on what to report from London. In an earlier article in this series – which looks at British intelligence propaganda operations and The Irish Times – I outlined how Maj. Thomas McDowell, the Belfast-born Unionist, ex-British Army, ex-MI5, owner of the paper, had approached 10 Downing Street in…
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MI6 smeared John Hume. He was also placed under MI5 surveillance in Dublin with the assistance of the Gardaí. [WebBook]
An ebook by David Burke. An official portrait of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume is to be unveiled in Westminster today. A sculpture of him was put on display at the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this year. The new portrait by Colin Davidson – which is magnificent – will hang in Portcullis…
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Whitehall sought dirt on John Hume.
By David Burke. A memo released from Britain’s National Archives in 2020 revealed discussions at the apex of the British government about salacious rumours relating to John Hume’s private life. It was sent to Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary to John Major’s government, and also to Major’s private secretary, Sir Alex Allan. Allan is not…
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Libya
The British Government are refusing to directly compensate victims of IRA Libyan supplied weapons and semtex explosives out of the former overthrown leader Muammaur Gaddafi’s funds frozen in British banks. They also refuse to publish a report they commissioned on the issue of compensation from ex-journalist and member of the Charity Commission, William Shawcross.The PSNI…
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The politicians, police officers and judges who protected a child rape network for MI5.
1. A David and Goliath battle involving the survivor of child rape. The Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal has tarnished, if not demolished, the reputations of an array of people, including politicians, who have tried to cover it up. (See section 8 below.) Some of them will be remembered by history for nothing…
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Hyde Park
I first ‘blew in” to Ireland in 1965, to hunt down the alleged gay sexual partner of British Politician and Liberal Party leader, Jeremy Thorpe. I developed an affinity to Ireland, and later opened offices in both Belfast and Dublin providing the whole spectrum of PI services to the legal profession, industry and commerce and…
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The child sex abuse at Faith House has never been investigated. By Roy Garland, who knew William McGrath.
1. Faith House – where the future ‘house father’ of Kincora abused boys. Fewer than 30 boys are thought to have been abused at Kincora whereas one of the abusers, William McGrath, had earlier abused an unknown number, perhaps more than a hundred, and a lesser number of women, at his independent Christian Mission in…
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The Collusion Spectrum. By Deirdre Younge.
In 2019 the BBC’s investigative ‘Spotlight’ programme added significantly to a body of evidence exposing widespread collusion across the Loyalist spectrum from the DUP to the UVF to MI5. Deirdre Younge revealed more in an article in Village magazine. It can be downloaded here:
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New Beginnings.
Roy Garland is the author of the biography of Gusty Spence, a founding member of the modern era UVF. After decades of violence, Spence embraced the peace process. In this article Roy Garland writes about some of the unlikely relationships which he saw blossom between former Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries, including Gusty Spence and Billy…
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From the Vaults (1989): How the US Helps Maggie Listen to Irish Calls. By Frank Doherty.
In August of 1989, Frank Doherty, editor of Now in Ireland magazine, revealed details of the technology GCHQ, Britain’s electronic eavesdropping intelligence service, was using to monitor calls made by people in Ireland. One shudders to think what the snoops at GCHQ are capable of capturing now in terms of mobile phone calls, internet searches,…
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The concealed roots of the Kincora scandal.
Introduction. A lot has been written about William McGrath, especially of his role in the Kincora Boys’ Home scandal. McGrath was convicted for some of the crimes he committed at Kincora in December 1981. The mainstream media coverage has tended to focus on McGrath’s role at the home while ignoring his long track record as…
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The DUP, God’s Soldiers. [WebBook]
Introduction. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was founded by Ian Paisley in 1971. It became – and remains – the most popular and successful Unionist party in Northern Ireland. In the 1960s and 1970s Paisley preached that the Pope was spearheading a conspiracy against the Protestants of Ulster. In his mind, the Pope was the…
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Donaldson and Molyneaux.
Sir Jeffery Donaldson described James Molyneaux MP (later Lord Molyneaux of Killead), as one of ‘greatest’ politicians with whom he ever worked. Molyneaux led the dominant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), between 1979 and 1995. The praise appeared on Donaldson’s official website. Donaldson served as Molyneaux’s Personal Assistant in the 1980s. The other figure Donaldson admired…
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Abuse of Privilege.
In April 2000 Jeffrey Donaldson, the former leader of the DUP, stood up in the House of Commons and made the heinous allegation on live television that former Special Branch sergeant in Dundalk Garda Station, Owen Corrigan, had colluded in the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, Commander H Division, and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, while…
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From the Vaults: Blown Away. Fortnight magazine, March 1996. 13 page report on the breakdown of the NI ceasefire.
The March 1996 edition of Fortnight magazine reported on the breakdown of the Northern Ireland ceasefire. A copy of the cover story can be read and or downloaded by clicking on the graphic below.
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The ABC sex scandal. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge were used as pawns in the cover-up of a transatlantic paedophile network.
Virginia Giuffre (nee Roberts), the victim at the centre of the ABC scandal, took her own life in April 2025, but not before completing her memoirs. They were published in October 2025 and provide further insights into the ABC scandal. The affair involved the exploitation of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, as pawns…
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Scappaticci’s true barbaric value to MI5.
Contents: 1. Scappaticci, a sexually deviant, sadistic torturer and mass murderer. Operation Kenova Inquiry took seven years to complete its indisputably botched and misleading interim report. The document appeared in March of 2024. It looked at a string of crimes committed by Alfredo ‘Freddie’ Scappaticci, yet was unable to state that Scappaticci was Agent Stakeknife.…
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Killusion.
This story, published in Village magazine in November 2016, provides details about the career of Peter Keeley, a British Intelligence mole in the Provisional IRA. Keeley wrote a book under the pseudonym Kevin Fulton. A pdf copy of Killusion can be downloaded by clicking on the link below. Some readers may find there is a…
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Life and Death in South Armagh. [WebBook.]
Deirdre Younge is a former journalist and Current Affairs Programmes Editor in RTE Television. She is now a writer and media production consultant. Part 1. Garda Sergeant Owen Corrigan, a victim of conflicting – and false – claims he was an IRA mole. This is a story about deception that runs through decades. It shows…
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Dirty Linen.
A Review Essay by Christopher Stanley of “Dirty Linen: The Troubles in My Home Place” by Martin Doyle. Published by Merrion Press (€24.99/£22.99 Hardback) 368 pages.. Christopher Stanley is Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast and was a Legal Aid Practitioner Group/Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Public Law Lawyer of the Year Nominee 2017…
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Collecting kompromat. [WebBook.]
Introduction. Donald Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, was a paedophile who abused boys on both sides of the Atlantic, including a victim from Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, called Richard Kerr. Cohn selected Kerr in Belfast and had him trafficked to Venice for sexual abuse. Kincora Boys’ Home, where Kerr lived, was run by…
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Blackmailing Thatcher.
Peter Wright CBE, formerly of MI5, defeated Margaret Thatcher in a volcanic legal battle in Australia in the late 1980s. Thatcher tried – and failed – to injunct the publication of Wright’s book, Spycatcher, in Australia. The publication cast MI5 and MI6 in a deplorable light: little more than organisations riddled with traitors and immersed in…
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From the Vaults: Kitson’s War with the I.R.A by Sean Boyne.
Sean Boyne, the Dublin-based author of the highly regarded volume, ‘Gunrunners, the Covert Arms Trail to Ireland 2006’, had a distinguished career as an investigative journalist. In 1972 he was writing for This Week magazine. On the 8th of June that year, he produced the cover story, ‘Kitson’s war with the I.R.A.’. People reading this…
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‘Get him’, the British Prime Minister ordered. By Kevin O’Connor.
Author and broadcaster Kevin O’Connor reflects on a declassified UK file about his fellow Limerickman, Sean Bourke. O’Connor is the author of Blake and Bourke & the End of Empire (2003), the story of Sean Bourke, the Irishman who staged one of the most audacious prison breaks in Britain’s history, that of George Blake. Blake…
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A supplement to ‘A State in Denial’, taking the story of collusion to the 1990s. By Margaret Urwin. [WebBook.]
Margaret Urwin (née Kelly) has worked with Justice for the Forgotten, the organisation representing the families and survivors of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, since 1993 and, for more than a decade, with the families of the victims of other cross-Border bombings. Justice for the Forgotten affiliated with the Pat Finucane Centre in December 2010.…
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Kincora’s darkest secret.
By David Burke. Kincora Boys’ Home was demolished in 2022. One part of the complex, however, was taken down and removed decades ago, the ‘tool shed’ at the rear of the premises. It hid what I fear is the darkest of Kincora’s many black secrets, one MI5, the RUC – and now – the PSNI,…
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Fergal Keane – The Madness – A review by Kevin O’Connor.
Fergal Keane was born in London, grew up in Dublin and Cork. He went into journalism and became the BBC’s foreign correspondent. His work earned him numerous awards, but at a cost to him personally. He was the overall winner of the Amnesty International Press Awards in 1993 and won an Amnesty television prize in…
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Scappaticci’s Dublin Payday.
‘He was the Golden Egg, something that was very important to the Army. We were terribly cagey about Fred’ – General Sir John Wilsey ex GOC N.I 2012. Jon Boutcher’s first report for Operation Kenova, an investigation into an agent called Stakeknife or Steaknife, now known to be the late Freddie Scappaticci, has passed the security…
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Download a pdf copy of Operation Clockwork Orange by David Burke.
A pdf copy of Operation Clockwork Orange by David Burke can be downloaded by clicking on the link below. Some readers may find there is a space between this paragraph and the download link. David Burke is the author of three books published by Mercier Press: – ‘Deception & Lies, the Hidden History of the Arms…
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Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 4: The Never Ending Cover-Up. MI5 will never admit what it did in Ireland.
By David Burke. [Volumes 1-3 of this ebook can be found by clicking on the top section of this page (purple lettering) which will return you to the home page.] 167. The Cabinet Office knew the report into the sex abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home by Sir George Terry contained a lie. While David Calcutt…
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Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 3. Margaret Thatcher and William Whitelaw cover-up child abuse.
By David Burke. Chapter 8. Framing Colin Wallace for Manslaughter. 113. The Home Secretary (former NI Secretary) and Deputy Prime Minister. On 7 July 1980, Jeff Edwards of London’s Evening News, revealed the Metropolitan police had passed files to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Twelve men faced up to 350 sexual offences including allegations…
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Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 2.
By David Burke. Chapter 4. A Clash of Interests. 040. Stepping on the toes of MI5. The British Army was not aware that William McGrath, the commander of Tara, a Loyalist paramilitary organisation, was a critical player in MI5’s endeavours to spy on Unionist paedophiles. To the military, he was a terrorist and, therefore, a…
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From the Vaults (1989): The Riddle of Garret FitzGerald’s missing Dalí. By Frank Doherty.
Netflix is currently broadcasting a documentary on Salvador Dali, the celebrated Spanish artist famed as an exponent of surrealism. The Dalí film brings to mind the controversy – or, more accurately, the non-controversy – about Ireland’s missing Dali. The Irish state was presented with a Dalí picture (some say a sketch) by the Spanish government…
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From the Vaults: NOW magazine May 1990. Linking MI5 agents to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974. By Frank Doherty and David Burke.
At the end of the 1980s, the late Frank Doherty set up NOW magazine. It published a number of stories about MI5 malfeasance. Two of them stick out in my mind. First, one which linked Mountbatten to the abuse of boys at Kincora which Frank and I wrote together. MI5 ran Kincora as a ‘honey…
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ABC
1. Prince Harry lets his enemies at Buckingham Palace off the ABC sex scandal hook When Prince Harry appeared on Netflix recently, he complained about a whispering campaign directed against him and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, by a cabal of racist officials at Buckingham Palace. He asserted that the cabal turned…
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The Spy in Leinster House. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris cannot be asked to investigate due to a conflict of interest. Harris used to work with MI5. By David Burke.
1. The British agent in Leinster House. The Joint Support Group (JSG) ran British agents in the Republic of Ireland for British military and civilian intelligence agencies during the Troubles. A former British military intelligence agent known by the pseudonym, Sam Rosenfeld, has alleged that a senior Irish government figure has served as an agent…
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Has Jon Boutcher, the head of Operation Kenova, passed through the shark infested waters of British Intelligence? (Kenova Part 3.) By Deirdre Younge.
Chief Superintendent Jon Boutcher and Operation Kenova’s first report on Agent Steaknife aka Freddie Scappaticci, has now, surprisingly, been approved by the British Cabinet Office without redactions or changes. It is now being considered by the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) of Northern Ireland. Boutcher seems optimistic that the report will be published soon. [Since this…
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Blackrock College.
Part 1: The Catholic Church and its Friends in High Places in Ireland. 1. Godless charlatans. There were at least three types of priests in the Holy Ghost Order: the good, the bad and the grotesquely ugly. The ‘good’ were those who had a true vocation. They were – and are – men of unfathomable decency.…
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McGurks:
Fifteen civilians – including two children – were massacred in a no-warning UVF bomb attack on 4 December 1971 at McGurk’s Bar Massacre. Even before all the victims were identified, the British state briefed the media with lies about the massacre and its innocent victims. They claimed the pub was controlled by the IRA and that…
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Irish America:
On 9 September 2016, James O’Shea of the Irish Central published a report which revealed that British spies had penetrated Irish-American groups in the 1980s. The strap under the title declared: “Recently released British/Northern Ireland Office (NIO) State Papers have given further insight into how the British Embassy spied on Irish-Americans.” The story is reproduced…
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From the Vaults: Britain’s lies about the Irish National Caucus (INC) and MacBride Principles.
The article reproduced below was written by Fr. Sean McManus, President of the Irish National Caucus. It first appeared in the Irish Echo on 19 October 2016. Fr McManus has kindly granted us permission to republish it. The “Dublin Government, all of the parties in the South, plus the SDLP, and for a while Sinn…
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Defence:
Introduction. As the lights begin to go off in Europe, the State continues to abdicate responsibility for national defence and is failing to fulfil its key obligations as an independent entity in international law. The geopolitical situation continues to rapidly deteriorate yet the government is engaged in a massive PR exercise ostensibly celebrating the centenary…
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Operation Kenova Part 1.
UPDATE: Freddie Scappaticci has passed away but Operation Kenova’s work goes on. Jon Boutcher’s first report is completed and on the PSNI’s ‘desk’. Now he is Chief Constable of the PSNI, Boutcher has left a decision on its publication to a designated police officer. SECOND UPDATE: The PSNI have announced they will publish Operation Kenova’s…
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Technology neutralises our neutrality. Irish infrastructure used in US Drone strikes. By David Waldron.
Margaretta D’Arcy found herself jailed in January 2014 on the back of a protest she mounted at Shannon Airport in 2012. What was she protesting about? US troop aircraft using Shannon as a stopover on their journey to the warzones of Iraq and Afghanistan among other things. D’Arcy is a rare stalewart against the steady…
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According to Sir George Terry’s report, the children at Kincora derived “sexual satisfaction or pleasure” from being raped. By David Burke.
The Terry Report (1983) has resurfaced despite claims that all copies of it had been destroyed. Aside from the fact it contained blatant lies and covered-up the abuse of children at Kincora Boys’ Home with the knowledge of MI5 and MI6, Terry engaged in a bout of victim blaming – in this instance blaming the…
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The deceitful Terry Report into Kincora.
Judge Anthony Hart published his lamentable and error strewn report into the Kincora scandal in 2017. It received little or no coverage in the media as it appeared on the same day that Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the US. The report was littered with mistakes. It even managed to contradict itself.…
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An appalling vista: disturbing indications of Kitson’s foreknowledge of a third massacre of innocent civilians.Tragedy took fifteen lives including two children. By David Burke.
New evidence has emerged about the UVF’s bombing of McGurk’s Bar in Belfast in December 1971. The explosion caused the entire structure of the premises to collapse, killing fifteen Catholic civilians – including two children – and wounding seventeen more. It was the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles. Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank…
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Spying on the prodigal prince and his American wife. Harry and Megan are surely the targets of surveillance by His Majesty’s secret services. MI6 reported to his mother, Queen Elizabeth II for 70 years. By David Burke.
Introduction. Queen Elizabeth II received briefings from fifteen chiefs of the British Secret Service during her 70 year reign. In the modern era the communications of Prince Harry and his American wife are surely being monitored by Britain’s vast espionage network, in particular, GCHQ. 1. Royal briefings. Richard Moore, the Chief of the British…
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A reckless disregard for our security. By Gerard Humphreys, former army officer.
The Constitution of Ireland declares Ireland to be a sovereign independent democratic state. This declaration of sovereignty means that the State is not subject to any power or government. But sovereignty to be recognised in International Law brings with it rights and duties. International law is based upon the concept of the state and the…
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Parallels in ‘Perversion’: RUC and MI5 informers and the Arlene Arkinson and Richard Kerr cases. By Donal Lavery.
While they would seem worlds apart, their fates were all the more alike. This refers of course to the tragedies which befell young Arlene Arkinson and Richard Kerr starting when both of them were youths and culminating in two destroyed lives. Arlene was a pleasant teenage girl who seemed well-liked by her family and friends…
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Silent Defenders. By Ciarán MacAirt.
In a whitewashed barn decked out with Ulster flags, Union Jacks and pictures of the Queen, their leader in charge of this meeting sat at an old table. He pressed a button on a tape recorder. A voice boomed out: I address you as the commander in chief of the organisation, Silent Defenders. Author Ciarán…
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