A case study on how a revolutionary movement was defeated from within. Quintessential Perfidious Albion.
On 8 May 1987 I was in the Rock Bar on the Falls Rd in occupied West Belfast, the ‘Rock’ was a hotbed of revolutionary Irish Republicanism, a great place to discuss the military occupation with like-minded souls opposed to the 800-year occupation of Ireland, strategise on how to end it politically and to relieve the stress of living through an urban guerilla war. All this whilst Armoured Landrovers and Saracens drove by with soldiers in their turrets pointing automatic weapons at the bar and patrons.
Loud Irish Republican music and creamy Guiness were our accompaniments, along with copious servings of Gallows Humour, all oriented around drowning out important discussions and grief.
Word came in that a large contingent of the East Tyrone Brigade of the P.I.R.A. had been slaughtered in a British “Shoot to Kill” operation/ambush that Brit intelligence had known of since it’s planning stage. They had ten days to arrest the plotters and confiscate the explosives and weapons but chose instead to allow the op to proceed, to give them the opportunity to assassinate the brigade, one of the most feared by the occupying army.
A detail I noticed about the young Brits pointing their weapons at us, was that they always looked scared, from the moment they were on duty and when behind the barracks walls, they were ‘on edge’, hence why they were so ‘trigger happy’! The van the ASU were traveling in was hit with 1400 rounds, fired by belt fed machine guns manned by the SAS! It was literally ‘perforated’.
A civilian was also killed and another wounded by the SAS after unwittingly driving into the ambush zone and being mistaken for IRA attackers, had the brigade been arrested whilst planning the op, these victims of “The Troubles” would have made it home to their families and been spared the trauma.
Everyone stood in shock listening to the local media gloating at our loss, rivers of tears and more Guiness flowed, revenge was plotted.
A parallel was the murder of three unarmed volunteers shot on the streets of Gibraltar. Sean was shot 18 times. “Farrell, Watson said, “was hit by five bullets to the face and neck and three in the back. . . . Danny McCann was shot twice in the head and twice in the back.” 18 Bullets hit IRA man inquest told.
Executed in a public street when they could have easily been arrested. Sprayed with automatic weapons fire from behind, shot in the face and neck whilst bleeding out on the ground. Gone but never forgotten comrades.
“The IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade was active mainly in eastern County Tyrone and neighbouring parts of County Armagh. By the mid-1980s it had become one of the IRA’s most aggressive formations. Members of the unit, such as Jim Lynagh and Pádraig McKearney, advocated a strategy of destroying bases and preventing them being rebuilt or repaired in an attempt to “deny ground” to British forces. In 1985, Patrick Joseph Kelly became its commander and began implementing the strategy. In 1985 and 1986, it carried out two major attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary bases. The first was an attack on the RUC barracks in Ballygawley on 7 December 1985, in which two police officers were shot dead. The second was an attack on an RUC base at The Birches on 11 August 1986. In both attacks, the bases were raked with machine-gun fire and then severely damaged with homemade bombs. In the attack at The Birches, they had breached the base’s perimeter fence with a digger that had a bomb in its bucket; it was planned to use the same tactic in an attack on the lightly manned Loughgall base.” The paragraph above: Via Wikipedia
In the video above Volunteer and my esteemed friend and comrade Anthony McIntyre’s name comes up as the instigator of the incredible Boston College Tapes. ‘Macker’ has documented much of our history, the good, the bad and the ugly, at his website: The Pensive Quill.
Steaknife was the cover name for Freddie Scapaticci, a MI6 agent that had unbelievably been appointed as head of “Internal Security” of the IRA, even after doubts had been raised with McGuiness, Adams and the Army Council as to his integrity/loyalty.
Now we know why: Adams and McGuiness had been ‘turned’. In hindsight we now know that all these people were colluding with the Brits, they had been since they allowed 10 brave men to starve themselves to death in 1981, whilst plotting surrender.
How and why, they turned against the ideals of the struggle, and their erstwhile comrades can’t be known for certain but large sums of money, an amnesty from trial and in Adams’s case, committing a crime by covering up his brother’s pedophilia, could well have played a role.
A crucial detail about Adams knowing about his brother’s pedophilia is that he allowed it to go on for years, sickening complicity in the crime. I joked on social media that had I known that Adams was a ‘tout’ on the few occasions I met him, I would have stabbed him in the throat! BAM, suspended, cry me a river. Regrets, I have a few.
“Gerry Adams has told the trial of his younger brother that during a meeting between the two men 13 years ago, Liam Adams admitted sexually abusing his own daughter.”
“He said: “I had a long walk with Liam. We had a number of conversations. During the course of that, he acknowledged that he had sexually abused Aine. He said it only happened the once.” Source: Gerry Adams: Brother Liam ‘Admitted Sex Abuse’
Let’s now dive deeper into the exposure of “Steaknife”
“Seamus continues his story at the point where he is caught and arrested by the RUC for a job gone-wrong. He tells us about the physical and mental torture inflicted by the prison guards in Long Kesh (H Blocks) and the lengths that Seamus and his colleagues went to during the “Blanket Protests” or ‘Dirty Protests”.
“Seamus describes the inhumane methods employed by the guards to break the IRA prisoners and end their fight for political-prisoner status during his 10 year detainment in Long Kesh.”
“He shares the tragic story of how his brother, Michael, was falsely labeled an informant after being interrogated by the IRA internal security unit which included the now-infamous British agent Freddie Scappaticci, better know as “Steaknife”. This began a decades long journey by Seamus to clear his brother’s name and expose the British Intel handlers who he believes are responsible for planning and orchestrating his brother’s stitch-up in order to protect their own informants within the Provos.
Seamus reveals new uncovered internal IRA documents from that he says will expose the “dirty-war” methods of British Ministry of Defence.”
The three paragraphs above from this podcast interview with my friend and comrade Séamus Kearney: H-BLOCK TORTURE, CLEARING HIS BROTHER’S NAME & EXPOSING STEAKNIFE’S UNIT| Seamus Kearney’s story Part 2/2
Just digest those last few paragraphs, what Seamus and his family went through and what former comrades were learning about the treachery in their midst. One shining light in the darkness was that Seamus cleared his brother’s name whilst his mum was still alive. Antoin O’Hara found me on Facadebook not long after I went public about Patsy O’Hara Place in Auckland, I was told it brought Peggy, their long-suffering mother enormous joy that her sons sacrifice was immortalized in Aotearoa NZ.
I didn’t get much right, but I nailed that one!
Seamus has written a brilliant book on his mission to clear his brother’s name titled: “No Greater Love: The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney”
In the above podcast Seamus mentions discussing the corruption in the Belfast brigade with Brendan Hughes, known by the name afforded him by the Brits: “The Dark”.
“What the IRA and Sinn Fein have done is just become another middle-class party and dropped all the things we fought and died for.” Brendan Hughes speaks openly about Sinn Féin
It pains me enormously that I wasn’t around to support The Dark in his hour of need. I will write a new article about “The Dark” in the near future.
Below are two interviews where Seamus discusses his mission to clear his brother’s name and expose the corruption in the P.I.R.A.
Consider the dudes courage, after many years on ‘active service’,10 years on the blanket in Long Kesh, then he dedicates his life to clearing his brother’s name, exposing the collusion between the Brits and the P.I.R.A. Army Command. I live in awe of the courage of my comrades, way too many to single any one in particular, but this story is one of the most important in our fraught history.
H-BLOCK TORTURE, CLEARING HIS BROTHER’S NAME & EXPOSING STEAKNIFE’S UNIT| Seamus Kearney Part 2/2
EX-IRA MAN EXPOSES Ministry Of Defence | Operation Kenova, Stakeknife & IRA INTERNAL FILES uncovered
This post is not about me; it’s about infinitely more important people than myself but I have written about my own time in the occupied six counties: Adventures of a Member of the Diaspora in Occupied West Belfast and the fact that I named a road in Aotearoa NZ after I.N.L.A. Hunger Striker Patsy O’Hara. My Tribute to My Comrade Patsy O’Hara and His Family
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I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
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