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 of the United Kingdom until 1921, and even today, some citizens do not fully recognize the legitimacy of Irish governments. Feuds stemming from the civil war that followed independence still linger. Political bias in appointments is common, fostering jealousy that undermines loyalty to the regime or even to the state itself. [MI6’s] challenge has never been finding agents, but limiting them to those with the best contacts and greatest potential.‘

I spoke to Lindsay once, in 1989, when he quite openly disclosed the name of another legendary media figure whom he said was working with MI6 and the CIA, a story for another day. For the moment, I will say that Lindsay was 100% correct about this individual.

The primary focus of Lindsay’s book was the shooting of William Black, a reserve member of the UDR. Lindsay argued that Black was shot by undercover British forces to preserve the secrecy of a clandestine Mobile Reaction Force (MRF) operation upon which Black had stumbled. Once again, Lindsay’s sources were accurate. In 1990, Archie Hamilton, the UK’s Armed Forces Minister, admitted soldiers had shot Black and compensated him for the near fatal injuries he had suffered.

Part 1: A bloodsoaked start, after which cooperation was achieved.

2. From the elimination of the Cairo Gang to intelligence cooperation.

These lethal and bloody differences were soon set aside. In 1938, MI5 played a key role in establishing Ireland’s first modern spy agency, G2. This development came about following a secret meeting on 31 August 1938, attended by Guy Liddell of MI5, J.W. Dulanty, the Irish High Commissioner in London, and Joseph Walsh, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs.

At the meeting, Walsh revealed the concern of the Irish premier, Eamon de Valera, over Nazi activities in the South and his desire to create a department similar to MI5 to counteract them. This was welcome news to British ears, and MI5 offered to

‘assist them in every possible way and promised to supply a memorandum on the subject. Walsh said that the new Eire [i.e. Irish] counter-espionage Department would be under the Eire Department of Defence, and it was agreed that an exchange of information would be made between [MI5] and the Eire counter-espionage Department on the activities of Germans in Eire.‘

G2’s cooperation with MI5 reassured London that Ireland could disrupt Nazi-IRA links, which had begun as early as 1935. Additionally, GC&CS (the forerunner to GCHQ) intercepted communications from the German Legation in Dublin to Berlin. On 3 May 1943, Clement Attlee, then Deputy Prime Minister and future Prime Minister, wrote to Winston Churchill, describing how G2 was working ‘with our Security authorities.’

‘The actual information which the German Minister [in Dublin] has so far been able to collect and telegraph [to Berlin] does not suggest that hitherto he has been able to secure any information seriously likely to hamper or injure our operations. The close watch which the Irish Security authorities keep on his movements and contacts, in co-operation with our Security authorities, can go some way to prevent his having much greater success in the future.‘

3. Spying on a Zionist TD for MI5.

This co-operation continued after the war. In the late 1940s, MI5 and the Gardaí placed Robert Briscoe, a Fianna Fáil TD, under surveillance due to his links with militant anti-British Zionists in Palestine.

At the outset, the British Ambassador to Dublin, Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, sought to establish a framework for intelligence co-operation between the UK and Ireland. His efforts were likely inspired by the strong relations forged during World War II and joint efforts against Jewish rebels connected to the IRA. However, after making his proposal in Dublin, Clutterbuck was politely rebuffed by Frederick Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs. Boland insisted that liaison between the police forces of both countries:

‘would continue to be of the personal and informal character that he thought at present existed between individuals in the two police forces, and that the more informal it was and the less that was known about it, the better.‘

Despite Boland’s preference for informality, a limited degree of co-operation was achieved at the highest levels when the two governments exchanged aides-memoire on the IRA in January and February 1956.

Charles Haughey, the Irish Minister for Justice in the early 1960s, became a key figure in ending the campaign. He introduced military courts to deal with the IRA.

Haughey impressed the formidable Secretary of his department, Peter Berry, with the decisive nature of his intervention against the IRA.

Haughey became a hate figure in Republican circles. As recently as 2025, Des Long, who joined the IRA in the late 1950s (and subsequently helped set up the Provisionals) was still hostile and scathing in his criticism of Haughey.

Within a decade of the end of the Border Campaign, Berry would try to put Haughey behind bars on false charges backed by perjury and an altered witness statement. I will return to this episode in due course. (Berry’s deceit is also addressed in greater detail in three of my books which deal with these events.)

This webbook will focus on a dark and sinister motive which may have driven Berry to these extremes.

Part 2. An aristocratic spy ring.

5. ‘It was as simple as picking up a phone.‘

Whether Frederick Boland was aware of it or not, a communication channel already existed within the Department of Justice, connected to the British Home Office. There, the Secretary maintained a direct line to his counterpart in London. According to Joe Ainsworth, a future Deputy Garda Commissioner and intelligence supremo who worked alongside Garda Commissioner Daniel Costigan during the Border Campaign, ‘It was as simple as picking up a phone.‘

One of those who picked up the hotline during the Border Campaign was Thomas Coyne. He served as Secretary of the Department of Justice from 1949 to 1961. Born in 1901, Coyne did not participate in the War of Independence as a young man; instead, he joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1918. The RFC was the precursor to the RAF and included notable figures such as the superspy Sir William Stephenson, head of British Security Coordination during World War II who later helped establish the CIA. Another member was Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists.

Coyne subsequently worked with MI6—a connection that will be explored later in this webbook. In other words, the most senior official in the Department of Justice (DoJ) during the Border Campaign was an MI6 asset.

Coyne was not the only one.

Coyne was in a position to recruit, place and promote other moles.

He also seeded Garda intelligence with informants.

Who is to say when – if ever – MI6’s infiltration of the Department of Justice came to an end?

6. The Earl of Granard, aristocratic spymaster.

Thomas Coyne was part of an MI6 network which included senior members of the Ascendancy.

Arthur Forbes, the 9th Earl of Granard (10 April 1915 – 19 November 1992), was another British spy who lived and operated in the Free State and, later, the Republic of Ireland.

His father was the 8th Earl, and his mother was an American socialite who was the daughter of Ogden Mills.

The Forbes family belonged to the ruling elite on both sides of the Irish Sea. Upon reaching maturity in 1895, the 8th Earl took his seat in the House of Lords under his junior title, Baron Granard. When the Liberals came to power in 1905 under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Granard was appointed Lord-in-Waiting to Edward VII (a government whip in the House of Lords) and Assistant Postmaster-General, holding these posts until 1907 and 1909, respectively. In 1907, he was admitted to the Privy Council and appointed Master of the Horse, an office he retained until 1915.

The 8th Earl was also involved in Irish politics. He served on the Irish Food Convention and was Food Controller for Ireland in 1918, the same year he was admitted to the Irish Privy Council. He was a member of the short-lived Senate of Southern Ireland in 1921 and the Senate of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1934. He again held the post of Master of the Horse between February 1924 and 1936, although by then it was no longer a political office. Granard also served as Vice-Admiral of Connaught and Lord Lieutenant of Longford.

The 9th Earl, the focus of these events, was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. Forbes was appointed Air Attaché to Romania on 31 October 1939 and earned the rank of wing commander. He famously transported diplomats and politicians fleeing newly Nazi-occupied Poland from Romania to Greece aboard his personal Percival Q6 aircraft. These included British subjects and other diplomats who had escaped from Poland during the German invasion, travelling from Cernăuți in Northern Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) to Bucharest and onward to Greece or Turkey.

On 30 October 1940, he was appointed deputy Air Attaché to Greece. Later in the war, his expertise was sought as an adviser to Britain’s Minister of State for the Middle East.

The Earl undoubtedly worked with one or more of Britain’s intelligence agencies, most likely MI6 (the overseas spy agency) and MI9, which operated behind enemy lines to create escape networks.

His decorations included the Air Force Cross, the French Legion of Honour, and America’s Legion of Merit.

Lord Granard was married to Marie-Madeleine Eugénie, Princess of Faucigny-Lucinge (d. 1990). She was the daughter of Jean Maurel and the first wife of Prince Humbert de Faucigny-Lucinge, brother of Prince de Cystria—both descendants of Louis IX of France. Together, Marie and Lord Granard lived at Castleforbes Demesne, the largest estate in County Longford, and had two children.

From 1972 to 1990, Forbes was a director of Texaco, which operated in the Republic of Ireland. He also served as a director for the Nabisco Group Ltd, manufacturer of food goods and confectioneries such as Oreos, and Martini & Rossi, producers of various alcoholic beverages.

Forbes died at his home in Morges, Switzerland, in 1992, aged 77. His nephew Peter inherited the title and remains its holder.

Part 3: Seeding Garda Intelligence with MI6 moles.

7. Thomas Mullen, the second MI6 mole at C3.

Remnants of Britain’s upper class in Ireland helped MI6 steal Irish state secrets. They were part of a network that reached inside An Garda Síochána (the Irish police, also known as the Garda or Gardaí).

Forbes and Coyne were part of a network which enabled Garda moles to pass Irish intelligence secrets to MI6. This sensitive information was held by C3, the nerve centre of Garda intelligence, located at the organisation’s headquarters in Phoenix Park.

Sergeant Thomas Mullen of C3, who lived in Milltown, Co. Dublin, was MI6’s mole inside the unit in the 1950s, i.e. during the Border Campaign. Born around 1902, Mullen was not the first mole at C3: he had at least one predecessor, whose name unfortunately remains unknown.

Mullen assumed the role following the retirement of his predecessor.

8. Patrick Crinnion, the third MI6 mole at C3.

The only Irish official ever convicted of charges related to espionage for Britain in the Republic of Ireland is the late Detective Patrick Crinnion of C3, about whom I have written a book titled The Puppet Masters.

In ‘The Puppet Masters’, I suggested that Crinnion had a deferential attitude towards the Ascendancy—a trait likely stemming from his mother’s role as a housemaid at Powerscourt House, Co. Wicklow.

The family lived in an estate cottage on Boghall Road, Bray. After the book’s publication, a new source came forward with information revealing that Crinnion had also spent a formative part of his youth in Co. Longford, working on the Earl of Granard’s Castleforbes estate.

‘It was conveyed to Crinnion—either when he was associated, in whatever way he was, with policing in England, or when he later joined An Taca Síochána, whether directly or indirectly by the Earl, or someone else—that he should respond cooperatively when, one day, he would be ‘approached’ career-wise.‘

In other words, Crinnion became a ‘sleeper agent,’ awaiting activation.

Having joined An Taca Síochána, Crinnion passed his Garda exams and, on 10 May 1955, officially joined the force. Despite being at the bottom rung of the Garda ladder, he audaciously sued the Garda Commissioner over a sum of money he found while on patrol and handed to his desk sergeant. After no one claimed it within a year, Crinnion put in his claim for the money but was told he was not entitled to it. He took legal action against the Garda Commissioner. This action could have harmed his career, but instead, he was soon assigned to Dublin Castle’s Special Detective Unit (SDU).

Philip McMahon was in charge of the SDU when Crinnion joined its ranks.

10. Crinnion takes his orders from Thomas Coyne.

While working under Philip McMahon, Crinnion received an extraordinary summons to a clandestine meeting with Thomas Coyne.

Coyne was preparing Crinnion to succeed Thomas Mullen as MI6’s mole inside C3.

According to Dolan, ‘Tommy Coyne’ asked Crinnion to meet him at the offices of the Department of Justice on the top floor of Government Buildings. There, Crinnion ‘received instructions from Coyne’ and was

‘informed that he was going to be assigned to duty with whichever Garda division handled security, in the Depot at Phoenix Park. He would start at the clerical bottom, inform himself, be efficient, become valued, and maintain confidentiality about his meetings with Mr Coyne. The Department of Justice did not want direct contact from him. He might hear from the Department, and if so, the expectation was that he would be appropriately productive and cooperative. [Crinnion] did not elaborate further in his [1973] letter to the Taoiseach.‘

Crinnion soon began working with John Wyman of MI6. Dolan further explained:

‘[Crinnion] maintained, when interrogated in 1972, that transactions such as those with [John] Wyman were ‘ordinary’ practice within the Garda. My recollection, such as it is, suggests he implied these activities fell under his understanding with Mr Coyne.‘

Part 4: A Veil of Secrecy.

11. Shock at the Department of Justice but a cover-up ensues.

My interpretation of this passage is that Crinnion was telling Jack Lynch that his superiors at C3 were aware of his contact with MI6. At the time of his arrest, Larry Wren was heading C3, serving from 1971 to 1979.

Coyne and Berry were part of a tight-knit unit, or ‘nucleus.’

Berry approached Jack Lynch a few days later to inform him about the attempted arms importation. Lynch pretended he was unaware of the operation. To Berry’s dismay, Lynch chose to cover up the matter. (The reasons for Lynch’s decision to conceal the existence of the operation are described in ‘The Puppet Masters’ and ‘Deception & Lies’.)

Crinnion demolished the cover-up by delivering a note to Liam Cosgrave of Fine Gael, then leader of the opposition. (See ‘The Puppet Masters’ for details.) Cosgrave successfully challenged Lynch’s cover-up. Political chaos erupted.

Berry propagated the same falsehoods circulated by Crinnion and MI6 —that the arms were destined for the IRA, rather than being part of an Irish military contingency plan.

Berry pushed for the prosecution of ministers Haughey, Blaney, and others, despite Lynch’s Attorney-General advising against it.

Berry altered the witness statement of Col Hefferon of G2, reshaping it to send innocent men to prison. The colonel was urged to commit perjury by Minister Jim Gibbons (who was not being prosecuted for his part in the affair).

Col. Hefferon refused to buckle and told the truth at the Arms Trial. Gibbons was exposed as a perjurer and the Arms Trial defendants – including Haughey – were acquitted.

The Arms Crisis removed three ministers from Lynch’s cabinet: Blaney, Haughey and Kevin Boland. These ministers were perceived as hardliners by London. MI6 would go to great lengths to prevent their return to office.

Viewed through the lens that Berry was Coyne’s successor as MI6’s man at the Department of Justice, his actions gain a somewhat clearer logic.

15. Britain’s delicate source, June 1970

In 1970, G2, Ireland’s military intelligence, was dispatching undercover operatives across the border. British officials were aware but hesitant to confront the Irish government, fearing exposure of their information source within it.

On 17 June 1970, Ronnie Burroughs, the UK Representative to the Stormont government, wrote to the Foreign Office referencing a delicate ‘source’ who had supplied intelligence on G2’s activities in Northern Ireland:

‘If the function of these [Irish military intelligence] officers is as innocent as suggested, their work can be carried out by ordinary political observers openly. If there is a clandestine element, then I do not see how we can tolerate them. We certainly would not do so in any other part of the UK… Due to the delicacy of the source, it would not be possible to reveal to the Irish their own acknowledgement of the presence of these officers.‘

The ‘delicate source’ held a senior position within Irish State security. While one might suspect an officer in the Irish Army or Department of Defence, C3 liaised closely with G2 and was well-informed of their activities. Thus, the source could have been Crinnion or a more senior Garda officer or DoJ official.

On 18 May a rather gullible Randolph III sent an eight-page confidential assessment of the IRA to Washington. It was drawn up in coordination with the US consul general in Belfast. Dealing with the lead-up to the fracture in the IRA, he stated that he understood 

‘from an authoritative source in the Irish government that in the autumn of 1969 the Irish Minister for Agriculture, the unreconstructed Donegal man and powerful Fianna Fáil politician Neil Blaney, began beefing up his own political machine in the Republic and in Northern Ireland, ostensibly to further the Fianna Fáil interest but actually to further his own… Prime Minister Lynch, unable to curb Blaney’s free-wheeling activities, which involved the diversion of Irish government and Fianna Fáil party funds to his supporters, waited for an opportunity to quash Blaney and his “Private IRA”.’

Under the sub-heading, ‘the Gun-Running Plot’, Randolph had more bunkum to impart, namely that:

‘it now seems established that during the spring of 1970 Neil Blaney sought to give muscle to his political ambitions by arranging for the illegal importation into Ireland of a substantial quantity of arms and ammunition for delivery to his Republican friends on both sides of the border. Despite the failure of the attempt to smuggle arms to Blaney’s “Private IRA”, a quantity of guns and ammunition as well as money (some apparently from Irish government appropriations for “Northern relief”), seem to have trickled into Northern Ireland during 1970, mostly into the hands of the IRA  “Provisionals”.’

For the avoidance of any confusion, Randolph III was claiming that Blaney’s IRA was a wholly separate organisation to that of the Officials and Provisionals. He described how, in January 1971, ‘a responsible Irish government official’ had estimated the

‘combined active membership of both IRA groups [i.e. Officials and Provisionals] in the Republic at about 1300, with an additional half that number operating in Northern Ireland. These figures exclude Neil Blaney’s “Private IRA”, which may number a hundred men or so.’

Randolph III referred to Ruairí O Brádaigh by his English name, Rory Brady. According to the American,

Randolph III had more poppycock for his readers:

‘In this connection, it should be noted that Fianna Fáil has very carefully avoided any confrontation with the IRA “Provisionals” and the “Officials” as well. In fact, the Lynch government has turned a blind eye at clandestine “Provisional” IRA training activities in the Republic.’

Why would a ‘government’ official pedal these ludicrous yarns to the American Embassy?

What was his real agenda?

The source was likely Crinnion or a senior official in the DoJ. It is hardly fanciful to suggest that the source was handed a script by the two propagandists at the British Embassy, Peter Evans and John Peck, and instructed to relay its content to the U.S. Embassy to blacken Blaney’s name in Washington. Peter Evans was either an MI6 officer or an officer of the Information Research Department (IRD), which ran black propaganda operations. John Peck was Britain’s ambassador and a former Director of the IRD, involved in the lethal MI6-CIA-IRD regime change in Iran in 1953 and a myriad of other murderous dirty tricks around the globe.

Evans and his colleagues were also busy circulating verbal smears (‘sibs’) about Haughey in Dublin, including one that he was friendly with KGB officers sent to Dublin to help the IRA.

Blaney’s star shone brightly after the Arms Crisis and its sequel the Arms Trials but it fizzled out amid bouts of internal feuding which convulsed Fianna Fáil during 1971. He was expelled from the party in the first half of 1972, never to return. On 24 August 1972, David Blatherwick sent a confidential report to the FCO in London and Frank Steele, a senior MI6 officer in Belfast, among others. It stated that while the Arms Crisis was

‘now part of the past and seems likely to be treated as such in the Republic … Mr Blaney’s political career in Fianna Fáil has collapsed. Mr Haughey is still doing good deeds in the political wilderness.’

Henceforth, and with Blaney essentially no longer in contention for a leadership role in Fianna Fail, MI6 and the IRD’s attention would focus on Charles Haughey.

The 1973 Mountjoy Letter was sent by Dolan to Lynch after being found in Crinnion’s cell, but it is not clear if Lynch ever received it.

Andy Ward, who succeeded Peter Berry as DoJ Secretary from 1971 to 1986, was aware of the 1973 Mountjoy Letter but seemingly took no action. If any inquiry occurred, it was kept from the public, and no evidence of such has ever surfaced.

Author Dermot Keogh, who accessed Jack Lynch’s archives while researching his biography of Lynch, did not find Crinnion’s letter among the documents, supporting the notion that Lynch never received it.

They did not send anyone to debrief him either.

More than fifty years later, making sense of these events remains challenging. However, it is possible to identify the involvement of a senior government official in the deception, likely a mole within the DoJ. It certainly was not Crinnion, who had fled into exile by February 1973.

This official either met Moore personally or relayed information to him. Moore trusted the intelligence due to the high status of the source.

After absorbing the lies of the Irish official, Moore sent a cable to Washington in April 1973. The cable alleged that the new government had learned that senior Fianna Fáil figures were involved in a conspiracy with the IRA to bomb Belfast and subsequently buy the damaged properties at reduced prices. Patrick Cooney, Fine Gael’s Minister for Justice from 1973 to 1977 was mentioned in the cable as having been aware of the Haughey bomb plot. He has dismissed these claims as nonsense.

Crucially, the cable identified the ‘source’ as someone close to the Cosgrave government:

‘Source close to new Govt, however, tells us that Cosgrave expects to make some major announcements and disclosures in the near future… Some of the info is sensitive. Please hold carefully… Senior figures in previous [Fianna Fáil] government had formed a ring to buy bombed-out property in Northern Ireland at low prices, using an American businessman as a front for purchases… Disclosures will inevitably raise suspicions that Dublin-based profiteers were collaborating with IRA bombers… Source says that he has seen some of the files on the case and found them ‘extremely unsavoury.’

Moore could only have accepted these lies if he believed the source had access to highly classified information. Both the Special Branch and Department of Justice had such means of knowledge.

The cable further stated:

‘Government is likely to follow with full disclosure of scandal, though some in Government believe that news should be withheld because it reflects badly upon the entire Irish Nation.’

This statement shows a cunning strategy, since the fictitious events the source predicted were never going to materialize. This caveat offered a way out for the Department of Justice mole to maintain credibility when nothing happened. He could claim that Cosgrave and Minister Cooney were engaged in a cover-up in the national interest.

The cable also alleged that Minister Cooney had:

‘Found much evidence, hitherto undisclosed, implicating members of the previous Fianna Fáil government in the arms-smuggling scandal of 1970.’

Cooney was Minister for Justice, which increases the likelihood that Moore was deceived by a Department of Justice official able to impersonate or cite Cooney’s views. If this analysis is correct, a very senior official was involved, not a Garda.

Cooney, of course, found no such evidence. Nevertheless, the cable insisted:

‘Outgoing government had made off with files on this and similar embarrassing topics, but a few career men kept personal photocopies which have now been turned over to the new government. According to source, Justice Minister [Cooney] believes that evidence is sufficiently incriminating to allow a new arms trial, with formal charges against three previous ministers: Haughey, Lenihan, and one other whom source did not recall. (This is the first time we have heard that Lenihan may have been deeply involved in the arms-smuggling episode).’

No further trial occurred. Again, the reference to ‘career men’ above suggests the source who was misleading Moore was a senior Department of Justice official.

The cable’s recommendation to Washington was that

Daly predicted that O’Reilly’s ownership of regional newspapers might counter Haughey’s attempts to secure support among Fianna Fáil’s grassroots throughout the country.

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[1] Daly later went to serve in Nicaragua (during the Contra era), Chad, Costa Rica and Bolivia.

[2] Sunday Business Post, 1 January, 2006.

[3] Ibid. In 1984 O’Reilly acknowledged that:  “in many cases we [in Independent Newspapers] try to lead public opinion, not follow it. See Matt Cooper, The Maximalist: The Rise and Fall of Tony O’Reilly (Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 2015) p., 159.

In the early 1970s, the British Secret Service, MI6, established a station at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn, near Belfast. By 1973, the station was headed by Craig Connell Smellie, a fifty-year-old Scot who bore a resemblance to the actor Robert Morley. Smellie’s extensive career included postings in volatile regions such as Alexandria, Baghdad, and Khartoum, experiences that seemingly prepared him well for his role in the rain-swept landscape of Ulster. His last African posting before taking charge at Lisburn was in Tripoli in 1966.

Captain Holroyd recalled having six to eight meetings with Garvey and another man who can only be identified as Larry Wren. Holroyd’s predecessor, Bernard ‘Bunny’ Dearsley, had enjoyed a similar working relationship with the pair.

In April 1975, Holroyd was accompanied to one of his meetings with Garvey by Frank Murray of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). A significant portion of this meeting took place in Garvey’s office at Garda Headquarters in Phoenix Park.

In later years, Ned Garvey claimed to have no recollection of this April 1975 meeting. However, Judge Barron, in his report on the 1974 Dublin bombings, confirmed that:

‘The visit by Holroyd to Garda Headquarters unquestionably did take place, notwithstanding former Commissioner Garvey’s inability to recall it. [..] On the Northern side, there is conflicting evidence as to how, why, and by whom the visit was arranged. Regrettably, Garda investigations have failed to uncover any documentary evidence of the visit, or to identify any of the officers involved in arranging it from the Southern side.‘

There were, however, some valuable nuggets about G2 among the hodgepodge. Devine described how:

‘In the first (and current) issue of the magazine ‘This Week’, it is reported that Irish Army intelligence officers and British Army intelligence have exchanged visits into each other’s territory. Whatever about the British, the Irish certainly have been visiting the North regularly since October 5 last (1968).’

He proceeded to relay how an ‘agent’ of

‘Messrs Haughey, Blaney and Boland, has been conducting .. military intelligence personnel (Captains Doolan and Duggan) on trips behind the barricades’.

***

Gilchrist’s interest focused on the allegation that Haughey and his associates had prepared lists of civil rights ‘Defence Units’ (sic) in Northern Ireland and of their requirements ‘for self-defence’ should ‘further disorders break out’. This was a fair stab at what G2 was up to, save that G2’s tendrils were reaching out to the CDCs, not civil rights groups, albeit there was an overlap between the two.

Gilchrist proceeded to explain how, according to O’Brien, the Monaghan organisation was hoping to provide support to the defence units ‘by way of weapons, radio sets and personnel’. O’Brien also reported that, ‘numerous weapons have already been supplied, not on the responsibility of the [Monaghan] organisation itself but by people who have been given access to its lists.’  This however, was unconfirmed, ‘being only my own attempt to reconcile conflicting rumours and reports’.

Gilchrist relayed O’Brien’s analysis of what was afoot to the FCO. According to the ambassador, O’Brien felt the enterprise was a political stunt which would be brought to ‘public knowledge’ so it could ‘bolster the image of Fianna Fáil as the patriotic party, still fighting for Irish unity’.

But what did Gilchrist himself think? He wrote that O’Brien ‘may be right but we should keep our eyes open to this threat on our flanks’.

On 4 November 1969, he advised London that there ‘has certainly been some very considerable gun-running for the benefit of the Catholics in the North, but it is by no means sure that the IRA as an organisation is responsible for it’.  This was an accurate assessment. According to John Kelly, an IRA veteran who would later stand trial with Charles Haughey and Captain Kelly at the Arms Trials:

‘people all around the Twenty-six Counties contributed weapons at this period, and it was not just Fianna Fáil supporters – people aligned to Fine Gael, traditionally seen as strongly anti-IRA, also helped out. Whatever they had, shotguns, old rifles, Mausers going back to the First World War, were handed over’. [2]

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[1] O’Brien was the Labour Party’s then spokesman on Northern Ireland, and later, a government minister in the FG-Labour coalition, 1973–77.

On 12 June 1973, Crinnion wrote directly to Garret FitzGerald and Conor Cruise O’Brien, who were then ministers in the new government. In his letter, he asserted:

The Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) and future President of Ireland, Erskine Childers, was one of the embassy’s established contacts. As Gilchrist recorded the

‘three Irishmen with whom I can talk most freely and frankly about Irish politics are moderate men, and they know very well  what side they are on. They are General Collins-Powell, Mr David Neligan, & Mr Erskine Childers’.

David Neligan had set up the Special Branch but was at that point enjoying his retirement.

General Sean Collins-Powell, also retired, understood the thinking of the Irish Army.

Childers, who served as Tánaiste in Jack Lynch’s first Cabinet, was born in London in 1905, educated at the University of Cambridge and became an Irish citizen in 1938.

His father – once a British naval intelligence officer – was executed in November 1924 by the Free State Government. Such was the son’s abiding resentment of the Irish Army, when he became president in 1973, he attempted to dismiss his military aide. This antipathy may account for the hostility he displayed towards Haughey whose father Sean had been an officer in the army which had executed his parent. Childers had once offered cigarettes from an open package to each one of his Cabinet colleagues while clutching it firmly in his hand as he went from one to another. He pointedly ignored Haughey when he reached him.

Childers enjoyed a cordial relationship with the British embassy, not merely by virtue of his birth, but on account of his second marriage to Rita Dudley. She met him in 1952 while he was Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. They married in Paris later that year.

Since Childers was asserting that each member of the jury – without exception – had been approached ‘to his certain knowledge’, we can conclude that he was, at best, fantasising;   at worst, lying. The claim that the entire jury was suborned by anyone, let alone Jones, is manifestly untrue. Some of the jury had sided with the defendants before the trial had ended. After John Kelly wound up his speech from the dock, he received the applause of at least one member of the jury.

Furthermore, the acquittal was reached quickly and unanimously. After the verdict, a number of the jurors rushed to shake hands with the defendants, again, hardly the act of people who had been intimidated.

Gerry Jones, the man maligned by Childers, was a charmer, not a thug. He was involved in shipping and engineering enterprises.

Serious consequences would flow from Childers’ deception: during the 1970s the IRD would provide a series of briefings to media figures during which Gerry Jones was named as a member of a group which was assisting ‘US suppliers of firearms to the PIRA’. This was a lie and placed his life in danger.

Yet, behind Childers’ back, the embassy was scathing of the faction of which Childers, Lynch and Gibbons were members. On 24 August 1972 David Blatherwick, sent a confidential report to FCO in London, Frank Steele, the senior MI6 officer in Belfast, and others, stating of the Arms Crisis and Arms Trial that Capt. Kelly was:

‘the fall guy, and Gibbons, by means of lying and eventually perjury preserved his head .. Mr Lynch and Mr Gibbons, the villains of the piece, continue to enjoy the fruits of a very dirty victory’.

The allegation about jury intimidation later appeared as part of a series of smears in Private Eye magazine. Many of the stories printed by Private Eye were based on smears concocted by black propagandists at Stormont Castle in the 1972 (further details of which can be found in ‘An Enemy of the Crown’).

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[1] PRO FCO 33 1207. See also The Arms Conspiracy Trial by Angela Clifford, p. 683.

[2] Michael Heney, The Arms Crisis, The Plot That Never Was, (Head of Zeus, London, 2020), p. 320.

A Fianna Fáil campaign was launched after the eruption of violence in August 1969. George Colley, with full Cabinet approval, supervised a team of press secretaries which was dispatched around the globe with briefs which were critical of British policy in Ireland.

Gilchrist’s view of George Colley, as expressed at the end of September 1969, was that he was part of a group of ‘hawkish’ ministers which included  Blaney and Boland. [1] 

Gilchrist described the propaganda offensive to Oliver Wright, a British diplomat stationed in Belfast, as a process of ‘emitting poisonous propaganda’.

On 7 November, 1969, Gilchrist boasted, that:

‘There is a general tendency in Dublin to regard the whole thing as a mistake, a concession made at the time to hot-heads, something best forgotten. The newspapers on the whole have been critical, sometimes scathing; and there have been questions in the Dáil (some of them stimulated by your humble servant – tell it not in Gath, publish it not on the streets of Belfast) which have made the Government decidedly uncomfortable.’[2]

Gilchrist was referring here to questions which had been raised in the Dáil on 22 October, 1969, by Gerry L’Estrange TD of Fine Gael who had asked why there was a need for the new government information service.

Later, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Garret FitzGerald would pose further questions.[3]

---

[1] Angela Clifford, The Arms Conspiracy Trial (A Belfast Magazine, ISBN 1 874157202)(2009), p. 660.

[2] Angela Clifford (2009), p. 665

Browne led the investigation into the Monaghan bombing of 1974.

McCoy was also a central figure in the Monaghan investigation.

At the time of the Monaghan attack, Fred Holroyd was attached to the Special Military Intelligence Unit (SMIU) of the British Army, in its 3 Brigade area, which included Portadown. The UVF bomb gang responsible for the Monaghan bombing had a heavy presence in Portadown.

Holroyd also worked for Craig Smellie, the MI6 head of station, based at Lisburn. It was MI6 which put Holroyd in touch with this network of gardaí  stationed along the Border.

Holroyd got on well with Browne. On one occasion he crossed the Border into Monaghan where he was picked up in a car by Browne. Shortly afterwards, they spotted an IRA man who was wanted in the north, but not in the Republic. Holroyd climbed of the vehicle, crept up behind the IRA man and whispered into his ear: ‘I am an SAS man and I am going to kill you.’ Holroyd was amused by the prank and returned to the car in high spirits. Browne was puzzled and asked: ‘What did you say to him; he is terrified’.

On the Northern side of the Border, Holroyd monitored the UVF and owed Browne a lot of favours. Holroyd was in fact the perfect resource for Browne to progress his inquiry into the Monaghan attack. Yet, Holroyd has no recollection whatsoever of Browne ever asking him whom he suspected of the Monaghan bombing, even informally.

Some of the information supplied by these gardai was used to help British undercover forces kidnap and murder people in the Republic.

That same year journalist Brendan O’Brien, asked McCoy if he was aware that some of the intelligence he had supplied had been used for cross-border kidnappings and possibly assassination. McCoy replied:

‘I wouldn’t lose any sleep over retaliation or tit-for-tat in some cases but I would if innocent people got killed’.

Brendan O’Brien’s interview with the Badger was published in the Irish Independent on 20 January 1987. In it, the Badger told O’Brien that between 1972 and 1983, he had maintained contacts with six British military officers including Bernard Dearsley, Fred Holroyd, David Delius of MI5 and Peter Maynard.

Later, when the senior officer was reassigned to Dublin, he took the Monaghan file with him. It was the one which contained all the known information along with the original copies of statements. This was an unusual step as the original file should have been kept in Monaghan.

Patrick Crinnion remains the only individual working in security, intelligence or as an official of the Irish government to face charges connected to the activities of British intelligence in Ireland.

David Burke is the author of four books published by Mercier Press.

These books can be purchased here: 

https://www.mercierpress.ie/?s=Puppet

https://www.mercierpress.ie/?s=Kitson

https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/an-enemy-of-the-crown

‘On  this  account I got an encyclopaedic knowledge of subversive elements  and  the  process of writing and re­writing in preparation for the printed volumes imprinted in my memory a great deal of information which was to prove very useful to Ministers in the course of Dail debates and so on.

‘In 1938 I became Private Secretary to the Minister, Mr. Ruttledge, and  in  September  1939  to his successor, Mr. Gerald Boland.

‘In June 1940 the Minister signed warrants for the detention of 500 alleged members of the IRA (the fall of France had occurred in May) and an Intelligence Division, consisting of a Principal Officer and a Higher Executive Officer – formerly Mr. Ruttledge’s private secretary – was established to advise the Minister and to sift the value of police recommendations. Mr.  Boland had a very healthy question mark  placed  over  every recommendation for a detention order and he was not satisfied to keep a person in detention without trial on police recommendations alone.

‘In  the next eight  months he became increasingly dissatisfied  with the lack  of independence  from  the police of the Departmental advice and he insisted on a change of personnel. On  the Secretary’s advice the Minister assigned me to the job.

‘I  had daily, sometimes hourly, contact with the Minister during the War years and attended him in the Dail debates on political matters and when he was receiving deputations. I signed all correspondence in connection with matters such as  parole and came to be recognised in political circles as the Minister’s eminence grise.

‘When things got slack I carried on with my research with a result that a second printed volume was produced for the years 1941/47 to supplement the volume for the years ending in 1940 in relation to the IRA. I also produced a dossier in manuscript form in relation to commu­nist activities for the same period. The period 1948/51 of a Coalition Government, the period 51/54 of Fianna Fail and another period of 54/57 of Coalition Government were quiet years, politically, but on 12th December 1956 the Border Campaign erupted and it was to continue until February 1962.

‘From February ’48, on the change of Government, until March ’57 when Fianna Fail took over once again I retained custody of the confidential papers although I was in higher ranks and  dealing with broader Departmental matters: it suited everybody, in particular the new Secretary and Asst. Secretary, to have  somebody  around who could  reel off facts and figures or turn up precedents from memory.

‘During the Border Campaign of 1956/’62 I was one of a  team  of three, the  others being the Attorney General (Andrias O Caoimh) and the Legal Adviser of the Department  of External  Affairs, who prepared the case  against Lawless which came before the Human Rights Commission and  the  International  Court  of Justice  at  Strasbourg.  I attended the hearings. My part was to make up the dossier of facts,  theirs  to  deal with the legal aspects. Again the writing and re-writing of the history of IRA activities to justify the Government’s use of the powers of detention without trial imprinted on my mind details which time has not erased.‘

‘In the course of the Strasbourg hearings I got to know the Head of “S Branch” (Phil McMahon) very well as he had been subpoenaed as a witness before the Commission of Human Rights and I formed a great respect for his in­tegrity and knowledge of his subject: at the time he was being described in Tim Pat Coogan’s book, “Ireland since the Rising” as “the Nemesis of the IRA”. And so he was.

‘Through experience I found, at times, that information emanating from the field workers in the “S Branch’ had taken on a different emphasis after it had passed through Garda HQ and I was not happy with some of the HQ in­terpretations which tended to make mountains out of molehills.

‘My direct contact with the Head of the “S Branch an my general knowledge of the subject stood me in good, stead for instance when I  found that, without the Minister’s knowledge, a radio network was being strung along the Border in anticipation of an outbreak of IRA violence on the occasion of the 1966 Commemoration Ceremonies of the Rising of 1916: Garda HQ went off at half cock and were taking preventive measures just in case … while in my judgement the installation on Garda barracks along the Border of a radio network might prove to be a provocation. I took the responsibility of cancelling the installation Waterford City and other centres had been stripped for the purpose — and I was proved right, in the event.

‘Indeed, the Garda action might have had more far flung results as I had a personal letter from the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland (Greaves) ask­ing for a meeting between our respective Ministers for a joint plan against anticipated IRA violence. The meeting was avoided but the projected action  from Garda HQ might have led to acute embarrassment for Government. This was only one of several occasions on which Garda HQ, always kicking for touch, gave advice in policy matters which was not justified by the facts.

‘In later years, early in 1970 for instance, I found that information communicated to me verbally on a Thursday, simultaneously with communication to Garda HQ, had not been reported to the Minister in writing by the following Tuesday when he intended to bring the matter to the notice of a Government meeting. On the Tuesday the Commissio­ner denied any knowledge of the serious matter as did his senior officers but when a search was made it was found that the report had been received in Garda HQ on the Fri­day and had not been dealt with because the officer con­cerned was “house-hunting”. These are some of the rea­sons why I felt that Government would be best served by a continuation of my personal supervision in policy matters of a political nature.

‘In my time as eminence grise to Gerry Boland and, later, when in positions of additional paper authority as Assis­tant Secretary and Secretary of the Department for a span of over 13 years I ran foul of Minister after Minister and quite a number of Members of the Oireachtas in refusing to accept their nods and winks to turn a blind eye to irregula­rities.‘