Category: Historic magazines and pamphlets
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Bring back The Phoenix Part II: 50+ espionage and dirty trick stories from 2024.
Click on the link below to read a selection of stories from The Phoenix 2024, including: Brig. Frank Kitson’s dirty war; what really happened on Bloody Sunday (not the nonsense in the Savile Inquiry report); Patrick Crinnion, MI6’s spy inside the Gardaí; the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; Barrie Gane of MI6; Freddie Scappaticci; the Kincora…
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Bring back The Phoenix. In the meantime here are approximately 30 dirty trick intelligence stories from 2020 to 2023.
The Phoenix ceased publication in June 2026. The magazine was the only real source of articles about collusion, the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, Kincora, MI5 dirty tricks and attacks on Irish neutrality, etc, on Irish newsstands. It has to be brought back – somehow. Otherwise, we will be relying on The Irish Times and other similar publications…
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From the Vaults: Capt. Robert Nairac.
Many articles, books and documentaries have been written about Capt. Robert Nairac, who was killed by Republicans on 15 May 1977. This article appeared in November 1977. His body has never been recovered. Covert History’s account of his role in the Dublin and Monaghan bombing and the UVF’s Glenanne Gang can be found in the…
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From Russia with Lethality.
By David Burke. In October 1977, Hibernia, a weekly Dublin periodical, published an article by Brian Trench about the assassination of Seamus Costello, Chief of Staff of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The Hibernia article is rich in detail about the feuding between the INLA and the Official IRA. Costello had once been a…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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…
