[…] army briefing paper titled ‘Army Plain Clothes Patrols in Northern Ireland’. The briefing states: “Plainclothes teams, initially joint RUC/army patrols, have operated in Northern Ireland since the IRA bombing campaign in Easter 1971. Later in 1971 the teams were reformed and expanded as Military Reaction Forces (MRFs) without RUC participation. In 1972 the operations […]
[PDF file]: […] the Brigadier, I considered Wallace the most valuable member of Army Information Services, who throughout the time I was there launched many very damaging stories against the IRA and other extremists.’ Here, in contrast, is Mooney in a 1992 letter to the Information Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – IRD’s successor organisation: […]
[…] of the 1970s: essentially Brigadier Frank Kitson’s attempt to use the methods developed in Kenya and Malaya – pseudogangs, assassination and false flag attacks – against the IRA. What comes through most 45 Straw’s comment was exhumed by Peter Oborne in a splendid attack on the ‘secret justice’ proposals. See 46 ‘Bog-wogs’ was the […]
[PDF file]: […] Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns.’45 This is reminiscent of Colin Wallace saying that the IRA was fourth on the British Army’s enemies list in Northern Ireland; and the sentiment is probably familiar to anyone who has been a member of a […]
[PDF file]: […] questions: (1) What if Callaghan had called the election in ’78? (2) Or a few more Argentine bombs had hit British ships in 1982? (3) Or the IRA bomb had been an inch nearer the rafter in the hotel in Brighton? Despite all the debate that followed Thatcher’s death no one put out a […]
[PDF file]: […] Soviet global conspiracy: Ireland was ‘the next Cuba’. But after the re-election of the Wilson government in 1974 they also began trying to show support for the IRA from a Labour Party influenced by the CPGB.197 Although we know quite a lot about IRD’s structure, we have evidence of some of its techniques, and […]
[PDF file]: […] have long been claims that elements in the Army and British government were behind a widespread propaganda campaign throughout the early 1970s mostly aimed at undermining the IRA.’ Nearly 30 years after this story was first discussed, when we know a great deal about the operations and personnel, the BBC is still talking about […]
[PDF file]: […] of the 1970s: essentially Brigadier Frank Kitson’s attempt to use the methods developed in Kenya and Malaya – pseudogangs, assassination and false flag attacks – against the IRA. What comes through most strikingly in this account are: the sheer incompetence of it all – again and again these units shot the wrong people and […]
[PDF file]: […] William McGrath. A prominent Orangeman and right-wing Protestant zealot, he exerted a powerful influence on the development of Loyalist politics in the 197Os and 198Os as the IRA campaign of violence escalated. McGrath was the leader of a loyalist paramilitary organization called Tara and had two expressed hatreds: the Roman Catholic Church and Communism. […]
[PDF file]: […] Collon in the Irish Republic, run by Nikolai Couriss from 1932 to 1977. Couriss was also a close friend of Sean MacBride, Chief of Staff of the IRA. Dame Elizabeth Hill, professor of Slavonic studies and formerly director of the Joint Services School for Linguists, would send her students to him. The elderly survivors […]
