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 trap’ for paedophiles.
The second article was one we wrote about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974. It linked the Loyalist perpetrators of the attack to British intelligence. It also considered the attack as part of MI5’s plot to bring down the NI Power Sharing Executive and thereby discredit the competence of Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
The article was based on information from a number of sources. The most important was Fred Holroyd, a Special Military Intelligence Unit (SMIU) operative, who had worked with the British Secret Service, MI6. MI6 is attached to the Foreign Office).
When MI5 (which attached to the Home Office) took over from MI6, Holroyd grew increasingly aghast at evidence of MI5’s collusion with Loyalist murder gangs. He was convinced MI5 was behind the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan attacks.
Fred produced a book in 1989 which opened the door to MI5’s sponsorship of the 1974 atrocities.
Fred was able to provide a lot of information about a British army bomb expert he believed may have had information about the devices used in 1974 bombings. We called him ‘Rupert’ in the article which appeared in NOW magazine in May 1990.
The pool of dirty trick bombers associated with cross border operations involving MI5 at the time was tiny.
‘Rupert’ was the only candidate any of us had for manufacture of the bombs used in the 1974 attacks.
In many cases, media investigations of this nature were ignored by the mainstream media in the Republic of Ireland. After a slow start, this one was taken up by the heavy weights on both sides of the Irish Sea. Yorkshire television produced ‘Hidden Hand: the Forgotten Massacre’ in 1993. It broke significant new ground based predominantly on the research of Joe Tiernan.
Readers can view the ‘Forgotten Massacre’ by clicking the link in the next paragraph:
RTE’s Prime Time followed this up two years later with another excellent documentary called ‘Friendly Forces’. The programme was presented by Brendan O’Brien and featured an interview with Fred Holroyd.
The Prime Time documentary can be found via the link in the next paragraph:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VtMBDfepae4
Don Mullan produced a book on the bombings in 2000 in which he was kind enough to acknowledge the NOW story. Mullan’s book is one of those ‘must reads’ if you are interested in this important part of Irish history. (His book on Bloody Sunday is also highly recommended. He also wrote a book on the scandalous treatment of Dónal de Róiste at the hands of the Irish army. Dónal de Róiste has only just received a government apology. The book is called ‘Speaking Truth to Power’.)
So too is Joe Tiernan’s 2000 compelling book on the issue (and more besides).
Paul Larkin (who was part of the Prime Time team that made RTE’s 1995 documentary) added to the pool of information in his book, ‘A Very British Jihad’ in 2004.
As the years have tumbled on, the role of MI5 in the attacks has become far clearer. Margaret Urwin, Anne Cadwallader and their colleagues at Justice for the Forgotten have done – and continue to do – tremendous work.
Cadwallader and Urwin have also produced superb books on the links between the UK’s intelligence services and Loyalist murder gangs (and much more besides). Anne’s book is called ‘Lethal Allies’; Margaret’s is called ‘A State in Denial’.
All told, it is now abundantly clear that the Loyalist terrorists who drove the cars to Dublin were RUC Special Branch agents. MI5 controlled the RUC Special Branch. There is simply no possibility that an operation of this magnitude could have escaped their attention before it went ahead. I have no doubt whatsoever that this was an MI5 operation from start to finish with the Loyalists paramilitaries such as Robin Jackson acting as foot soldiers.
The British government has steadfastly refused to release its files on the attacks. The reason for this is now plain: MI5 planned the attacks from start to finish and there is enough evidence in the files to prove this.
This is a scandal which will not go away. The full truth will emerge one day.
[Author’s note: Lt Col John Morgan of G2, Irish military intelligence, also helped with the NOW story. He alerted me to a series of incidents involving the harassment he and others were receiving from the Special Branch for pursuing the MI5 link. He advised me to use a pen name. I did. I wrote the article with Frank as ‘John Byrne’. John Morgan later added to the library of books on the attack in 2013.]
‘Rupert’ went on to become a colonel in the British army.
(A copy of the NOW article can be found in the next paragraph. Some readers might find that there is a blank space between this paragraph and the pdf. Click on the box marked ‘Download’)