A Secret History of the IRA Read online

  Trapped in a state not of their choosing, the Catholics were bitter, resentful, and full of foreboding. Abandoned by their Southern co-religionists after 1921, confronted by arrogant, superior-seeming rulers, and subjected to intermittent salvos of pogrom-like violence, they knew they could look only to themselves for protection, and trust only their own. Each community feared and distrusted the other, and in such circumstances it would have been odd had bigotry and discrimination not shaped the politics of Northern Ireland or had this not, in the end, been the cause of a tremendous conflagration.

  Thirty years after they exploded, the Troubles have ended in what is arguably a most definitive fashion, an ending that marks not merely the closing of a war but rather the conclusion of the historic conflict between Ireland and Britain.

  They have ended with the leadership of the Provisional IRA accepting Britain’s neutrality in Northern Ireland. No longer do its leaders preach that London is a colonial, occupying power, usurping the right of the Irish people to decide their own future. Instead, the republicans have accepted a political process whose foundation stone is the principle of consent, an acknowledgment that unionists cannot be forced into a united Ireland against their wishes. In their turn, unionists, with varying degrees of commitment and enthusiasm, have accepted that Northern Ireland must become a warmer and more welcoming place for Catholics. In a sense the two communities have struck a bargain—the Catholics agreed to abandon the goal of Irish unity in return for a secure place within the state, while the Protestants consented to behave toward their neighbors in a more civilized way.

  None of this would have been possible without the proactive cooperation of the Provisional IRA leadership. Indeed it is the central thesis of this book—and its principal revelation—that it was that organization’s dominating figure, Gerry Adams, who launched, shaped, nurtured, and eventually guided the peace process to a successful conclusion. Many excellent accounts have been given, in written and televised form, about the peace process; without singling any out for mention, it would be fair to say that they have all dwelt mostly on the negotiations and high-level talks that characterized the latter stages of the process. None have examined, or been able satisfactorily to explain, the events that took place much earlier within the IRA and Sinn Fein which made all this possible, or to tell how they happened.

  This book attempts to redress that deficiency, tries to delve deep within the belly of the beast—or as deep as any outsider can go—to expose the entrails for examination. The conclusion is unavoidable. The Irish peace process was not a spontaneous phenomenon, tossed around by forces outside its control, nor was it forced upon its architects by the fortunes of war. The process was a little like a precooked dinner whose basic menu had largely been decided long before most of the diners knew the meal was planned, even if the table settings, the guest list, the size and shape of the crockery, cutlery, and condiments, and so on were not. The peace process was, in other words, an exercise in management toward an already decided outcome, as much as it was anything else. There were many delays and threats to the event, but at the end there was little doubt that people would sit down to eat, and eat well.

  After twenty years of reporting on, writing about, mixing with, and observing the IRA at close quarters, I had come to a number of conclusions about the Belfast-based leadership that came to power in the 1970s. Principal among these was that the people guiding the organization were longsighted, bright, talented, dedicated, determined, pragmatic, cunning, and all too often duplicitous. They were also utterly ruthless in their mission, which above all else was to survive and prosper, and were devoted to their leader and inspiration, Gerry Adams. The idea that he or the people around him would allow any but one of their own to control and direct their journey was so absurd that it was not even worthy of consideration. The facts about the peace process revealed in this book substantiate that assumption.

  A Secret History of the IRA is as much about Gerry Adams as about the organization he dominated for so long. He is, indisputably, one of the largest figures in Ireland’s long and sad history, a revolutionary leader who deservedly ranks alongside those competing founders of Irish independence Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, and a man whose qualities, both negative and positive, are fit to be measured alongside theirs. Collins, de Valera, and Adams all left indelible marks on the Ireland of their day, but whereas the veterans of the 1916 Rising and the subsequent Anglo-Irish war could allow much of their story to be told while they were still alive, Adams has not been able to. In December 1998 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to David Trimble and John Hume, the leaders respectively of Ulster unionism and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), for their contribution to the success of the peace process. Standing alongside them, sharing in the glory, should have been Gerry Adams and—arguably— Father Alec Reid, who between them kick-started and sustained the process. But while others have collected plaudits and the glittering prizes, Adams has been forced to stay silent, biting his lip lest by accepting the praise of the establishment he undermine the peace process in the eyes of his supporters. The truth was withheld to sustain the project, a fact to which Adams’s own less than enlightening autobiography pays painful testament. This book is also an attempt to rectify that, although not many of his friends will thank me for it.

  I do not claim this work to be an exhaustive account of this extraordinary period in Irish history. Many blank spaces remain to be filled in, but perhaps now that task will look a little less onerous. The job of a correspondent, after all, is to inform and increase understanding. If this book has helped make the Irish peace process more intelligible to the outside world, then surely that can only be for the good.

  Ed Moloney

  New York

  February 2002

  Acknowledgments

  This book has taken about four years to research and write, mostly in secret. I have little doubt that, had it been more widely known that I was involved in this enterprise, the research would have been made much more difficult to conduct, perhaps impossible, and the book would probably have been stillborn. I must, therefore, first of all thank those people who knew what I was doing but kept silent, and, equally, I must apologize to others I was obliged to mislead or behave evasively toward. This was done not out of any malice or lack of trust but in the knowledge that to ask a person to carry someone else’s secret is often to ask them to shoulder the most onerous of burdens.

  Officially, the leaders of the Provisional republican movement did not cooperate in the research for this book, nor was their cooperation sought. They had made it abundantly clear to me, and to other journalists, on several occasions in the past that they had no interest in talking about, much less in assisting anyone in writing a book on, the genesis of the peace process. Having completed the research on this period, I can understand why. This work, however, is about more than the peace process. It is also a history of the Provisional IRA and as such reflects some twenty years of reporting the organization in Hibernia, Magill, the Irish Times, and the Sunday Tribune. For much of that time I kept notes of conversations and exchanges with many of the IRA’s current leaders, and these have proved to be an invaluable aid in this undertaking, not least in illuminating the explanation for the peace process which was deemed fit for public and internal IRA consumption. Those among them unhappy to see this book appear can at least console themselves with the knowledge that I have not betrayed their confidence after all these years.

  Many republicans, past and present members of both the IRA and Sinn Fein, were, however, happy to speak to me, and it is no exaggeration to say that without the information and insights they gave me, this book would have been impossible to write. They all know who they are. They spoke to me in the greatest secrecy, and I pledged never to compromise them. For that reason they must be nameless here, but nevertheless I must acknowledge the debt I owe them. A number of past and present officials in, and members of, the British and Irish governments added hugely
to this story, and their contribution was likewise invaluable. Tom King and Peter Brooke were both generous with their time and information, but others asked to stay unnamed and I must respect their wish. So did members of the British army, community workers, and clerical figures of both faiths in Northern Ireland who also helped me enormously. I thank them all. The day may arrive, perhaps, when such people will be able to speak freely and openly about the part they played in the historic events chronicled in this book. But I fear that day is still a long way off.

  Thankfully there are some to whom I can express gratitude by name. Many of my former colleagues at the Sunday Tribune offices in Dublin gave support and encouragement to me both before publication and afterwards. To them and to Seamus Dooley of the NUJ, I express my gratitude. In particular I would like to thank the paper’s former news editor, Helen Callanan, whose decision to seek a more fulfilling life at the Bar has been a great loss to Irish journalism, who urged me to persevere at an early and critical stage, while Harry McGee, also of the Tribune, was generous with advice and morale-boosting comments. Dr. Anthony McIntyre gave me access to a number of embargoed IRA interviews he conducted for his doctoral thesis, which filled important gaps in the early history of the Provisionals. Frank Millar read the early drafts in London, and his positive response encouraged me to seek a larger publisher. Patrick Farrelly, Kate O’Callaghan, Sandy Boyer, and Terry Golway, all in New York, gave me encouragement, also at an early stage when it might have been easier to choose another path. Bob White and Kevin Mickey, both of Indiana University, helped obtain some beautiful maps, and while all the Irish photographers whose work is featured in the book were enormously helpful, I must thank Kelvin Boyes for going that extra mile. It is said that no book on the Troubles is complete without an acknowledgment of the part played in its production by the staff and management of the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. This book is no exception. In particular I owe much to the generous assistance of Yvonne Murphy and her staff in the library’s priceless political collection. Joan McKiernan worked hard and long to compile a most comprehensive index, and for that I thank her.

  I have been extremely fortunate to have been published by two most distinguished houses—Penguin, in the UK and Canada, and W. W. Norton, in the United States. I would like to single out Simon Winder at Penguin in London for particular thanks. He was the first to recognize the importance of this book, and his support for it has been wholehearted. He is lucky to have such an impressive team to draw upon, and I would like to thank Ruth Killick, Rosie Glaisher, Jennifer Todd, Mark Scholes, Pippa Wright, Louise Wilder, Clare Needham, and Andrew Stephenson for their sterling work. My gratitude also to Cynthia Good at Penguin (Canada) and to my editor in Toronto, Michael Schellenberg. At W. W. Norton in New York, I am indebted to Bob Weil and Jason Baskin, who had the unenviable, day-to-day chore of dealing with the author. Fate and geography decreed that the daunting task of editing this book would fall to Bob Weil, and I wish to pay him a special tribute. His efforts, characterized by patience and good humor, transformed a passable work into something to which I am pleased to attach my name. His is a unique talent. W. W. Norton also provided an enormously impressive team and to each of them—to Otto Sonntag, Nancy Palmquist, Rene Schwartz, Andrew Marasia, Louise Brockett, and Dan Deitch—I give my thanks. To my agent, Jonathan Williams, in Dublin, must also go a special appreciation for tirelessly and so successfully generating interest in the book. It goes without saying that without him, none of this would have been possible.

  Finally, I must thank members of my family who helped and encouraged me. My sister, Michelle, and her husband, Tom Bray—not to mention young Lawrence and Liam—were generous with their hospitality during my trips to England, while, as always, Joan and Ciaran were the lights in my life.

  A

  SECRET

  HISTORY

  OF THE

  IRA

  Prologue

  There was only one thought in Gabriel Cleary’s mind, and it chilled him. As he checked the firing unit linked to the twelve explosive charges placed beneath the Eksund’s waterline, the signs of sabotage were unmistakable. With a growing sense of horror the IRA’s director of engineering realized that the most ambitious gunrunning plot ever in the IRA’s long war with Britain had been betrayed.

  Cleary’s fears had been growing ever since the Eksund had left the Libyan capital, Tripoli, some two weeks earlier, as he later told an IRA inquiry in messages smuggled from a French prison.1 The Panamanian-registered vessel had been loaded with some 150 tons of modern, sophisticated weaponry at Tripoli dockside by sailors from Colonel Qaddafi’s small naval service on October 13 and 14, 1987. Although that part of the operation had gone smoothly, Cleary was uneasy. This was the fifth trip since August 1985, but the four earlier cargoes, amounting in total to another 150 tons of weapons and explosives, had been safely and secretly transferred to IRA boats from a Libyan vessel off Malta, well out at sea and far from the sight of hostile, prying eyes.

  This operation had to be handled differently. The Eksund’s cargo was as large as the four other shipments put together. The sheer size and bulk of weaponry involved meant that the loading process would be lengthy, and that made an operation at sea simply out of the question. With the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies taking an ever-greater interest in Libyan affairs, the chances of being spotted by satellite surveillance were too great. The Eksund’s manifest was breathtaking: 1,000 Romanian-made AK-47 automatic rifles, a million rounds of ammunition, 430 grenades, 12 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with ample supplies of grenades and rockets, 12 heavy Russian DHSK machine guns, over 50 SAM-7 ground-to-air missiles capable of downing British army helicopters, 2,000 electric detonators and 4,700 fuses, 106 millimeter cannons, general-purpose machine guns, anti-tank missile launchers, flame throwers, and two tons of the powerful Czech-made explosive Semtex. With a cargo like that to load there was no option; the work had to be done in Tripoli itself.

  The Libyan harbor was a dangerous place for IRA men on a mission to smuggle weapons. The Tripoli docks were regularly jammed with ships unloading consumer goods, as a result of a massive oil-financed consumer boom; the bustling labor force was a mixture of Arabs drawn from nearly every country in North Africa and European expatriates lured by the high salaries offered in this former Italian colony.

  Although the nearby British embassy was closed, emptied of its staff following a major diplomatic row with Qaddafi, everyone, IRA and Libyans alike, assumed that the British had left their spies behind. Some could easily be mingling with the crowds down at the harbor or at the nearby souk where traders bought and sold gold and silver and exchanged gossip.

  The Libyans took precautions. The Eksund was loaded at nighttime to reduce the chances of being spotted, and the boat was moored in the military section of the dockside for added security. But even so, Cleary was glad when the Eksund finally weighed anchor.

  Within hours of setting sail, however, the IRA commander’s doubts returned. A plane flew directly over the Eksund, and Cleary suspected it was an RAF spotter aircraft. Every day of the voyage thereafter a similar aircraft would perform the same maneuver. There seemed little doubt that someone was keeping a very close eye on the Eksund’s progress. Off Gibraltar the plane swooped down so low that the pilot was visible. Cleary grew more and more nervous.

  As the Eksund passed the Brittany coast and veered left for Ireland, the boat ran into a different sort of trouble. The fifty-year-old vessel, which had shipped grain most of her life, had endured a difficult journey out to Malta. At one stage the vessel had to dock in England for engine repairs, and at another point the steering failed.

  The steering problem struck again on October 27. The crew tried to make repairs but with no success, and the Eksund drifted closer and closer to the French coast. The next day Cleary realized the mission was doomed and took the fateful decision to scuttle the ship and sink its precious freight before it ran aground. His orders had been precise: on no a
ccount must the British learn of the IRA’s arms-smuggling operation; the very outcome of the war depended on secrecy being preserved.

  As he assembled the crew on the top deck to prepare the inflatable dinghy that would take them ashore, Cleary started the process of triggering the timing device that would set off the bombs and slowly sink the Eksund. This was the job Cleary had been chosen for.

  The colorful Dublin businessman Adrian Hopkins, who had found and purchased the Eksund, captained the vessel as he had the two other ships used by the IRA to facilitate the Libyan venture. The IRA had provided two sailors to assist him, James Coll and James Doherty, both of them County Donegal trawlermen. Hopkins’s friend and sometime business partner Henry Cairns, the man suspected of having introduced Hopkins to the IRA, was along for the ride.

  Cleary had spent most of his adult life in the Provisional IRA and had become one of the organization’s most skilled bomb-makers. From the Tallaght area of Dublin, a vast sprawling working-class housing estate on the southwest edge of the city, he rose in the IRA engineering department, that part of the IRA which had the job of manufacturing homemade explosives and devising the organization’s impressive range of improvised and homemade weaponry. Although well known to the Irish Special Branch, he had managed to avoid imprisonment. Only once had the authorities come near to pinning him, and that was eight years earlier, in 1977, when he beat a charge of making bombs in Kildare. By the time he was appointed to oversee the Eksund voyage, Cleary had advanced to the top of the IRA’s military elite and was in charge of its vital engineering department. He was a natural choice to head the Eksund operation.