An Enemy of the Crown E-Book

David Burke

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 402

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service, MI6, embarked upon a decade-long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey. The English spymaster believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather, therefore, a threat to Britain. Oldfield was assisted by unscrupulous British agents and by a shadowy group of conspirators inside the Irish state's security apparatus, all sharing his distrust of Haughey. Escaping scrutiny for their actions until now, Enemy of the Crown examines more than a dozen instances of their activities. Oldfield was conspiratorial by nature and lacked a moral compass. Involved in regime change plots and torture in the Middle East, in the Republic of Ireland he engaged with convicted criminals as agent provocateurs as well as the exploitation of pedophile rings in Northern Ireland. He and his spies engaged in dirty tricks as they ran vicious smear campaigns in Ireland, Britain and the US. MI6 and IRD intrigues were deployed to impede Haughey's bid to secure a position on Fianna Fáil's front bench and any return to respectability. London's hateful drive against Haughey saw no let-up after Fianna Fáil's triumphal return to power in 1977 which saw them win a large majority of seats in the Dáil. When Haughey sought a place at Cabinet, Oldfield and his spies devised more dirty tricks to impede him. While Haughey was suspicious of MI6 interference, he had no inkling of the full extent of London's clandestine efforts to destroy him. By circulating lurid stories about him, they played a major part in trying to prevent him succeed Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in 1979. This book attempts to shed light on some of the anti-Haughey conspiracies which took place during the period of the late 1960s right through to the early 1980s.

Leseprobe

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Fred Holroyd and Colin Wallace, two British intelligence whistle blowers who paid a heavy price for resisting the pressure to engage in criminal activity in Ireland. The revelations they made in the 1980s about assassination operations, collusion with loyalist paramilitary gangs and the exploitation of child abuse networks led to a decision by the British government to place MI5 on a legislative footing with a modicum of oversight, something one hopes has curtailed the worst impulses of the people who work for it.

Long may Holroyd and Wallace continue to shine a light on the nefarious activities of British intelligence.

MERCIER PRESS

3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd

Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.

www.mercierpress.ie

www.twitter.com/MercierBooks

www.facebook.com/mercier.press

Cover design: Sarah O’Flaherty

© David Burke, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-78117-821-8

eBook: 978-1-78117-822-5

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Inhalt

Dramatis Personae

Key to terms used

Author’s Note

Introduction

Haughey’s Republican Pedigree

Haughey, the RUC and MI5

A Hate Figure among Republicans

Taking the Gun Out of Republican Politics

The Man from ‘Gloom Hall’

An Ambassador ‘Complicit in Mass Murder’

A Defenceless Community

Haughey and the Diplomat-Spy

The ‘Concerned’ Ex-MI5 Officer at The Irish Times

The TD who Divulged Military Secrets

Diplomatic Arm Wrestling

The Plot to Assassinate a British Spy in Dublin

The Cat Jumps Out of the Bag

The Hamburg Con Artist and MI6

The Dirty Tricks Brigade Descends upon Dublin

The Ambassador who knew Nothing

The Politics of the Bear Pit

A Mouth-watering Stockpile of Intelligence

The Smear Campaign against Jock Haughey

‘Winning Acceptance and Confidence’

The Fireball of the North

Sexpionage

‘The Dublin Press … is the Priority Target’

Spooky Associations

The Smearmeister from Down Under

The FitzGerald-Crozier Collaboration

Smearing John Hume

‘It Has to be Deniable in the Dáil’

The Dublin Molehill

The Spooks in the Castle

A Licence to Deceive

Haughey and the UVF Make a Killing

The Mole who Conned the US Ambassador

Haughey’s ‘Shady’ Land Dealings

‘Sir Spy’

Private Spy Magazine

The Bid to Keep Haughey Out of Cabinet

‘You set People Discreetly Against one Another’

The Full Time Whistle

Overdrive

Moles Inside ‘Government Departments’

Endgame: Winner and Loser

Endnotes

Bibliography

About the Author

About the Publisher

Dramatis Personae

AINSWORTH, Joseph: Garda intelligence chief.

ASTOR, David: co-chair of the British-Irish Association, former officer of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and owner of The Sunday Observer.

BARKER, Thomas Christopher: head of the IRD, November 1971 to October 1975.

BERRY, Peter: secretary to the Department of Justice.

BLANEY, Neil: Fianna Fáil politician. Charged along with Charles Haughey in 1970 for attempting to import arms illegally. The charges against him were dropped at an early stage.

CARRINGTON, Peter: Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence, 1970–1974.

CAVENDISH, Anthony: former MI5 and MI6 officer who was a close friend of Sir Maurice Oldfield. Author of Inside Intelligence.

CHICHESTER-CLARK, James: prime minister of Northern Ireland, 1969–1971.

COLLEY, George:Fianna Fáil politician.

COLLINS, Gerry: Fianna Fáil politician.

COSGRAVE, Liam: leader of Fine Gael, 1966–1977; taoiseach 1973–77.

CROZIER, Brian: a propagandist who worked for MI6, the IRD and the CIA. He was a friend of Maurice Oldfield.

DALY, Michael: head of Chancery at the British embassy in Dublin with responsibility for ‘information’, 1973–76.

DEACON, Richard: a friend and biographer of Maurice Oldfield.

EVANS, Peter: MI6 officer stationed at the Dublin embassy, 1970–72.

EWART-BIGGS, Christopher: British ambassador to Dublin, 1976. An official of the FCO who had extensive dealings with MI6. The Provisional IRA assassinated him in 1976.

FAULKNER, Brian: prime minister of Northern Ireland, 1971–1972.

FITZGERALD, Garret: leader of Fine Gael, 1977–1987, taoiseach 1981–1982; 1982–87

FULLER, Bill: owner of the Old Shieling Hotel.

GALSWORTHY, Arthur: British ambassador to Dublin, 1973–76.

GARVEY, Ned: Garda commissioner, 1975–78.

GIBBONS, James: Fianna Fáil politician, Minister for Defence, 1969–70.

GILCHRIST, Andrew: British ambassador to Dublin, 1966–70.

HAUGHEY, Charles: leader of Fianna Fáil, 1979–92; taoiseach 1979–81; 1982; 1987–92.

Haughey,Jock: brother of Charles.

HAYDON, Robin: British ambassador to Dublin, 1976–80.

HEATH, Edward: Conservative Party prime minister of the UK, 1970–74.

HEFFERON, Michael: director of Irish Military Intelligence.

HILL, Cliff:IRD officer assigned to Stormont Castle in 1971.

HUME, John: SDLP politician.

KELLY, Captain James: an officer of Irish military intelligence (G2).

KELLY, John: a veteran of the IRA’s Border Campaign. He stood trial with Charles Haughey in 1970 for the alleged illegal importation of arms and was acquitted.

KENNEDY, Edward: US senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. Edward Kennedy was a target of the IRD and Brian Crozier of the ISC. His character was called into question alongside that of Charles Haughey in Private Eye magazine.

LAWLESS, Gerry: former member of IRA. Journalist with the Sunday World.

LEAHY, John: a FCO diplomat who served as head of the News Department at FCO in 1971, and under-secretary at the NIO, 1975–77.

LITTLEJOHN, Keith: criminal and MI6 agent [brother of Kenneth].

LITTLEJOHN, Kenneth: criminal and MI6 agent [brother of Keith].

LUYKX, Albert: defendant at the Arms Trial alongside Charles Haughey, Capt. James Kelly and John Kelly.

LYNCH, Jack: leader of Fianna Fáil, 1966–79; taoiseach 1966–73; 1977–79.

McDOWELL, Maj. Thomas: Ex-MI5 officer and managing director of TheIrish Times.

MAINS, Joseph: Warden of Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. He helped run a paedophile network with links to MI5 and MI6.

MALONE, Patrick: head of C3, the intelligence directorate of An Garda Síochána, in the late 1960s until 1971; garda commissioner, 1973–75.

MIFSUD, ‘Big’ Frank: a London pimp who ran the ‘Syndicate’ in West London with his partner Bernie Silver. Mifsud lived beside the Old Shieling hotel, Raheny, Dublin in the early 1970s.

MARKHAM-RANDALL, Capt. Peter:nom de guerre of a British intelligence agent who visited Dublin in November 1969.

MOONEY, Hugh: Foreign Office official who worked for the Information Research Department (IRD).

MOORE, John D: US ambassador to Ireland, 1969–75.

O’DONOGHUE, Professor Martin: Fianna Fáil politician.

O’MALLEY,Desmond:Fianna Fáil politician, Minister for Justice, 1970–73.

Ó MORÁIN, Mícheál: Fianna Fáil politician, Minister for Justice, 1968–70.

OLDFIELD, Maurice: deputy chief of MI6, 1964–1973 and chief of MI6, 1973–78. Northern Ireland Security Co-ordinator 1979–80.

OWEN, David: British Foreign Secretary, 1977–79.

PARK, Daphne: senior MI6 officer and associate of Maurice Oldfield.

PAYNE, Denis: director and controller of intelligence (DCI), 1973–75.

PECK, Edward: MI6 officer, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1968–70.

PECK, John: head of the IRD, 1951–53; director-general of the BIS in New York, 1956–59; British ambassador to Dublin, 1970–73.

PINCHER, Chapman: British journalist with multiple ties to MI5 and MI6.

PIPER, Reuben W.: counsellor at the British embassy in Dublin, 1968–1971.

RANDOLPH, Virgil: political officer at the US Embassy in 1971.

RENNIE,Sir John Ogilvy: chief of MI6, 1968–73. Director of the IRD, 1953–58.

ROWLEY, Allan: director and controller of intelligence (DCI), 1972–73.

SILVER, Bernie: London pimp who helped MI6 set up brothels in Belfast in 1970. He was a partner of ‘Big’ Frank Mifsud. The pair ran the Mifsud-Silver criminal ‘Syndicate’ in West London.

SMELLIE, Craig: MI6 head of station Belfast in the mid-1970s.

SMITH, Howard: Foreign Office official appointed by Edward Heath as the UK Representative (UKREP) to the Stormont government of Northern Ireland. He later became the director-general of MI5, 1978–1981.

STEELE, Frank:MI6 officer stationed in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s.

TUGWELL, Col Maurice: the officer in charge of the IPU in Northern Ireland in early 1970s.

UTLEY, T.E.: journalist with ties to Chatham House and the IRD.

WALSH, Dick:Irish Times journalist and adviser to Cathal Goulding, chief-of-staff of the Official IRA. Negotiated on behalf of the Official IRA during its feud with the Provisional IRA.

WARD, Andrew: secretary of the Department of Justice, 1971–86.

WAUGH, Auberon:Private Eye journalist with ties to MI5 and MI6.

WREN, Larry: head of C3, the intelligence directorate of An Garda Síochána 1971–79; garda commissioner 1983–87.

WALLACE, Colin: psychological operations officer with the IPU at HQNI in the early and mid–1970s.

WYMAN, John:MI6 officer. Served a term of imprisonment in Ireland, 1972–73.

Key to terms used

Ard Fheis: political conference.

BIS: British Information Service. It disseminated IRD propaganda in the USA.

B-Specials: members of the Ulster Special Constabulary, a part- time force disbanded in 1970.

C3: The department that co-ordinated garda intelligence.

CDCs:Citizen Defence Committees.

Dáil Éireann: the lower house of the Irish parliament located in Dublin.

DFA: Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin, Ireland.

DoJ: Department of Justice, Dublin, Ireland.

FCO:Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London, England.

Fianna Fáil: Irish political party led by Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass, Jack Lynch and Charles Haughey.

Fine Gael: Irish political party led by Liam Cosgrave who was succeeded by Garret FitzGerald.

Forum World Features(FWF): conduit for MI6, IRD and CIA propaganda.

G2: Irish Military Intelligence.

Garda Síochána: the police force of the Republic of Ireland [also referred to as garda/gardaí].

GIB:Government Information Bureau (Dublin).

HMG: Her Majesty’s Government.

HQNI: Headquarters NI, British army HQ located at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn.

IPU: Information Policy Unit, the Psy Ops wing of the British Army in Northern Ireland.

IRD:Information Research Department. A propaganda and forgery department attached to the FCO.

ISC: Institute for the Study of Conflict, an outlet for CIA and MI6 propaganda, publisher of the book, The Ulster Debate.

JIC: Joint intelligence committee. The body that analyses the work of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and British military intelligence for the British government.

MI5: Britain’s internal security service, active inside the United Kingdom and her overseas colonies. It is attached to the Home Office.

MI6: Britain’s overseas intelligence service. It is attached to the Foreign Office. Also known as SIS, Secret Intelligence Service.

MoD: Ministry of Defence.

MRF: Military Reaction Force, an undercover unit of the British army.

NICRA: Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

NIO: Northern Ireland Office.

North Atlantic News Agency: conduit for MI6, IRD and CIA propaganda.

Official IRA: the Marxist wing of the Republican Movement which emerged after the split in the IRA in December 1969. Its chief-of-staff in the 1970s was Cathal Goulding.

Preuves Internationales: conduit for MI6, IRD and CIA propaganda.

Provisional IRA: the wing of the IRA which emerged after the IRA split in December 1969 with the intention of ending British rule in Northern Ireland.

PSY OPs: Psychological Operations.

RHC: Red Hand Commando. A loyalist paramilitary organisation led by John McKeague.

RUC:Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force of Northern Ireland.

RUCSB:RUC special branch.

Saor Éire:republican socialist paramilitary organisation respon- sible for an attack on Fianna Fáil’s HQ in 1967 and the death of Garda Richard Fallon in April 1970.

SDLP: Social Democratic and Labour Party – a nationalist political party active in Northern Ireland.

Sibs: a word derived from sibillare, the Latin for whispering. Sibs are hostile or negative comments spread by way of rumour to undermine an opponent

SLO –Senior Liaison Officer: a MI5 officer assigned to assist a police force such as the RUC during an ‘emergency’, typically an anti-colonial insurgency.

SMIU:Special Military Intelligence Unit. SMIU soldiers in Northern Ireland were permitted to perform fieldwork for MI6.

SOE:Special Operations Executive, a British intelligence organi- sation which was created by Winston Churchill during the Second World War to aid anti-Axis resistance forces.

Stormont: seat of the Northern Ireland parliament.

Tánaiste: Ireland’s deputy prime minister.

Taoiseach: Ireland’s prime minister.

Trans World News: a conduit for MI6, IRD and CIA propaganda.

UCD: University College Dublin.

UDA:Ulster Defence Association.

Ultras: a group of right wing MI5 and MI6 officers who were involved in plots against British politicians such as Harold Wilson.

UVF:Ulster Volunteer Force.

Author’s Note

The events of 1969–70, known as the Arms Crisis, were the subject of a book I published in 2020, Deception & Lies. It concerned allegations that two Fianna Fáil government ministers had engaged in an illegal attempt to import arms with the assistance of Irish military intelligence. One chapter of that work focused on the role played by the British Secret Service, MI6, in the affair. Other chapters touched upon other features of their involvement. Some of the information in that book is revisited here. The overlap includes the Markham-Randall affair, the provision of information about Irish military intelligence by an Irish TD, and the attempt to suppress a book about the crisis by Capt. James Kelly. The overlap was unavoidable if a full picture of the MI6 campaign against Charles Haughey is to be understood. While there is an overlap, a lot of new information is supplied in this book about those events.

Introduction

In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service, MI6, embarked upon a decade–long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey of Fianna Fáil.1 Dirty tricks were employed by the Englishman to thwart Haughey’s efforts to revive his career in the wake of his dismissal from cabinet in 1970 after he was alleged to have attempted to import arms illegally. The dismissal was followed by MI6 intrigues to impede his bid to secure a position on Fianna Fáil’s front bench and a return to respectability while his party was in opposition, 1973–77. After Fianna Fáil returned to power in triumph in 1977, with a large majority, there was no let-up in the drive against Haughey by Oldfield. At this juncture, Haughey was seeking a place in Jack Lynch’s new cabinet. Oldfield also played a part in trying to prevent Haughey succeed Lynch as taoiseach in 1979.

While Haughey was suspicious of MI6 interference, he had no inkling of the full extent of Oldfield’s clandestine efforts to destroy him.

The English spy did not understand the intricacies of Irish politics and believed Haughey was close to the Provisional IRA and therefore, in his eyes, a threat to Britain. Oldfield’s obsession with the Irishman can be aptly compared to that of Ahab’s fixation with the whale in Moby Dick.

During the period under review, 1968–1980, Oldfield and his ilk unleashed assassins, bombers, bank robbers, blackmailers, brothel keepers and child traffickers to further London’s interests in Ireland. This book, however, will focus primarily on the manoeuvrings against politicians, especially Haughey.2 The task involved the assembly of massive amounts of information from disparate sources about Haughey and his associates, and tracking the incessant circulation of smears that impugned Haughey’s character on a multiplicity of fronts.

The English spymaster was assisted in his machinations by a shadowy group of conspirators inside Dublin’s security apparatus who shared Oldfield’s distrust of Haughey. They have escaped scrutiny for their actions until now. As this history unfolds, more than a dozen instances of their activities will be described; many of which employed dirty tricks. Crucially, some of these operations involved a high- level official from the Department of Justice (DoJ). In addition, a number of gardaí lent a helping hand.

Oldfield was ideal for the secret world of espionage and dirty tricks. He was conspiratorial by nature and lacked a moral compass. It is no exaggeration to say that he was one of the most noteworthy figures of the early years of the Troubles. He was assisted by an array of spies, ambassadors, diplomat–spies and black propaganda operatives in his campaign to thwart Haughey. The most important of these are outlined below:

Peter Evans who presented himself to the Irish public as the innocuous sounding ‘information’ officer at the British embassy in Dublin, 1970–72. He was in fact one of Oldfield’s most valuable operatives. Insofar as it is possible to disinter the bones of MI6’s activities in Ireland in the early 1970s, he emerges as one, if not the most significant, of the dirty tricks operatives to serve in Dublin.

HughMooney who worked for the Information Research Department (IRD), Britain’s black propaganda and forgery directorate. The IRD worked closely with MI6. Mooney was a key figure in the smear campaigns directed against Haughey and other Irish politicians including John Hume of the SDLP. He was an ideal choice for the task as he had studied at Trinity College Dublin before working as a sub-editor at The Irish Times.

Sir AndrewGilchrist who served as Britain’s ambassador to Dublin, 1966–70. He was what can be fairly described as a ‘diplomat-spy’, as he had a special forces and intelligence background. His actions in trying to unravel Fianna Fáil ministers’ activities during the Arms Crisis will be examined in the first part of this book.

Sir JohnPeck who succeeded Gilchrist as ambassador, 1970–73. He had served as director of the IRD in the 1950s. He was a master of dirty tricks. While at the IRD, he was central to multiple regime change plots including the one that succeeded in ousting the prime minister of Iran in 1953.

There was as much intrigue in Dublin in the 1970s as there was in Berlin, Moscow or Havana. The full extent of it has been buried so deeply that it may never see the light of day. This book is an attempt to shed light on at least some of the conspiracies that took place on this island during the 1960s to the early 1980s. An even fuller picture may eventually emerge if MI6’s files become available one day.

Haughey’s Republican Pedigree

Seán Haughey was one of the most capable and trusted officers who served under Michael Collins during the War of Independence. He was a man to whom Collins entrusted a vital role in a secret mission, one that could have changed Irish history had Collins not perished at Béal na mBláth in August 1922. Seán and his wife Sarah (née McWilliams) were born and reared almost next door to each other on small farms in the adjacent townlands of Knockaneil and Stranagone, near ‘Fenian’ Swatragh, a few miles from Maghera town, Co. Derry. It was deep inside unionist territory. Seán Haughey, who was born in 1897, served as the second in command and later officer in command of the South Derry Battalion of the Irish Volunteers during the War of Independence. Sarah, who was born in 1901, also played an active part during the campaign. A price was placed on Haughey’s head and he was hunted relentlessly by the Black and Tans. One of his hiding places was an underground bunker, where he and his colleagues had to live in cold, damp and wet conditions.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 21 December 1921 and ratified the following January. Yet, hostilities persisted in the north.1 On 19 March 1922, 200 men surrounded the town of Maghera. They cut the telephone wires before attacking the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks from which they removed 17 rifles, 5,000 rounds of ammunition and a sergeant as a hostage. The next day the IRA in Derry attacked a series of mills, sawmills, stables and outhouses. Burntollet Bridge (which would become infamous in 1968) was blown up.

On 30 March 1922, Michael Collins and Sir James Craig attempted to bring about an end to this cycle of violence. In return for a halt to IRA operations, it was agreed that it would be open to Catholics to join the Special Constabulary (B-Specials) and to assume responsibility for policing nationalist areas. In mixed nationalist/loyalists areas, an equal force of Catholic and Protestant officers would be deployed. Meanwhile, mixed units would conduct all searches, with British soldiers in attendance. The B-Specials were to wear uniforms with identification numbers and surrender their arms once they had finished their duties.

On 31 March 1922, royal assent was given to the Free State Bill that would evolve after further deliberations into the new constitution of the Free State. The ceasefire which Collins and Craig negotiated proved a failure. On 2 April 1922, 500 B-Specials swooped across Derry and Tyrone detaining up 300 men for questioning. Only four were found to be in the IRA. The remainder of the IRA membership escaped to Co. Donegal.

By now the IRA was on the verge of a split into pro- and anti-Treaty factions. The volunteers who lived in the new jurisdiction in Northern Ireland were virtually all anti-Treaty. Collins did not intend to abandon them. He arranged to supply them with arms, something that offered him a possible way to prevent a split in the IRA. It also provided an opportunity to covertly undermine the new unionist regime across the new border.

Seán Haughey became involved in the clandestine operation overseen by Collins to smuggle weapons across the new border to nationalists so they could defend themselves.2 Most, if not all, of the arms were supplied by the IRA in Cork. Commandant-General Joseph Sweeney, of the First Northern Division of the IRA in Donegal, revealed that Collins sent an emissary to him ‘to say that he was sending arms to Donegal, and that they were to be handed over to certain persons – he didn’t say who they were – who would come with credentials to my headquarters. Once we got them we had fellows working for two days with hammers and chisels doing away with the serials on the rifles ... About 400 rifles and all were taken to the Northern volunteers by Dan McKenna and Johnny [aka Seán] Haughey.’3

Some of the guns were stored in rural Donegal at the home of George Diver of Killygordon, albeit against his wishes. They were hidden by his daughter Kathleen, under the mattress where she slept. George feared that the family’s house would be burned down if word reached unionists about the guns. Killygordon, a remote rural village, was close to the Tyrone border.4

Another IRA man, Thomas Kelly, collected a consign- ment of 200 Lee-Enfield rifles and ammunition from Eoin O’Duffy, the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the IRA. Many years later, Kelly revealed that the ‘rifles and ammo were brought by Army transport to Donegal and later moved into County Tyrone in the compartment of an oil tanker. Only one member of the IRA escorted the consignment through the Special Constabulary Barricade at the Strabane/Lifford Bridge. He was Seán Haughey, father of Charles Haughey.’5

The death of Collins in August 1922 brought about an end to the arms smuggling operation.6Seán Haughey subsequently joined the Irish Army and rose to become a commandant. He was stationed in Castlebar in September 1925, when his third child Charles was born at the barracks in the town. After he retired in March 1928, the family went to live in Sutton, Co. Dublin, before moving on again in 1930 to Dunshauglin, Co. Meath, where they took up farming on a 100-acre holding. All told, the couple had seven children: Maureen, Seán, Charles, Eithne, Bridie, Pádraig, and Eoghan.

Seán Haughey developed multiple sclerosis, became severely incapacitated and was forced to sell his farm. His family blamed the atrocious conditions at the bunker in which he had camped during the War of Independence for the destruction of his health. In 1933, he moved his family to a small two-storey house, 12 Belton Park Road, Donnycarney, in Dublin. After this, the children were reared in modest cir- cumstances. While they were growing up, they received regular visits from their northern relatives and friends with news and stories about what was going on across the border. In the other direction, Charles and his brother Seán spent extended summer holidays in Swatragh, Co. Derry. Charles stayed with his mother’s parents at Stranagone, about half a mile up the mountain road leading from Swatragh. During these holidays, Charles Haughey and his cousins were sometimes stopped at night by B-Special patrols, something he found unpleasant, sinister and often quite intimidating. These patrols usually intercepted them as they were returning to Stranagone and were made up of men from the neighbouring areas who were known to them, but were never friendly; all were drawn from the loyalist community. They were quick to display their authority. Charles Haughey felt there was an element of ‘croppies lie down’ in their behaviour.7

The threat of violence in Northern Ireland was ever present. In 1935, sectarian rioting cost eleven deaths and 574 injuries in Belfast. In 1938, after a visit to the cinema at Maghera, Charles Haughey, his brother Seán and uncle Owen emerged from the building to witness a riot, during which loyalists fired rifles at unarmed nationalists. The event forged a lasting impression on Haughey. It was, he felt, a visceral experience of what life was like for some nationalists in Northern Ireland; an insight that was shared by very few, if any, of his contemporaries in Dublin, especially the middle-class children he would soon encounter at University College Dublin (UCD).8 Many of them looked down on him as a ‘scholarship boy’.

***

Despite the difficulties his family faced, Charles flourished.9 Having come first in the Dublin Corporation scholarship examination, he went on to study commerce at UCD, and won a bursary. In 1941, at the age of fifteen, Haughey joined the Local Defence Force, the then reserve force of the Irish Army. He rose to become a lieutenant and enjoyed it so much at one time that he considered a career in the army.10

On 7 May 1945, the British government announced that Nazi Germany had surrendered to the Allies. This triggered jubilant celebrations by Trinity College students who raised a string of flags, including a Union Jack, over College Green. Word soon spread to UCD, then located a few minutes’ walk away from Trinity College at Earlsfort Terrace, where Haughey was a student. ‘This generated a wave of anger. The reason we were so furious was because the [Trinity] students were goading and insulting the rest of us’, said Seamus Sorohan, a friend of Haughey’s who later had a distinguished career as a barrister.11 Some of the students on the roof of Trinity were singing ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ while the Irish Tricolour fluttered beneath those of Allied flags, something which provoked criticism from the passing public. In response to the complaints, some of the Trinity students hauled the Tricolour down and set it ablaze, before throwing it onto the ground beneath them. This ‘inflamed the fury’ of Sorohan, Haughey and others from UCD. That night they tore down a Union Jack flag which they found hanging on a lamppost at the bottom of Grafton Street and set it alight. They then congregated on Middle Abbey Street and marched over O’Connell Bridge towards Trinity College, breaking windows in the offices of The Irish Times on Fleet Street en route. They perceived the paper to be pro-British. It was reported the next day that the march was led by a ‘young man [i.e. Haughey] waving a large tricolour hoisted on the shoulder of his comrades’. When they found the gates of Trinity were closed, a group of them tried to scale the railings, but were repelled by the police who baton charged them.

One of the eyewitnesses to the event was a future taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, also at UCD at the time, who recalled watching Haughey leap over bicycles before bolting up Trinity Street. ‘My views and his views would have been different. I was strongly pro-Allied’, he said years later, thereby implying Haughey was pro-Nazi rather than merely infuriated by the burning of the Tricolour.12 The provost of Trinity later apologised for the burning of the Tricolour.

Haughey would dine out on this escapade for decades.

A few years later Sorohan approached Haughey. ‘I was in the IRA. I told him so, and asked him to join,’ Sorohan revealed.13 But he had misjudged Haughey, who declined the offer, albeit having considered – or more likely having pretended to consider – the offer seriously. An indication of his reasoning may be gleaned from a speech he made on 25 March 1958 in the Dáil, extolling the merits of the FCA.14 Haughey felt it gave young men ‘from the ages of 17 to 20 ... an opportunity of being inculcated with patriotism, proper national ideals, a sense of discipline and all the other advantages that go with military training at that early age’. Moreover, he argued the patriotism the FCA inspired in young men offered an alternative to the IRA: ‘A lot of young men who find themselves caught up in movements without realising fully what is involved in the ultimate, would never get into these difficulties if the career of a member of the FCA were made more attractive and interesting.’

According to Sorohan, Haughey ‘discussed the invitation with Seán Lemass’, who was the father of his girlfriend and future wife, Maureen. Not surprisingly, Lemass, a senior Fianna Fáil politician and future taoiseach,15 ‘told him not to join’.16

When Seán Haughey died prematurely on 3 January 1947, his old comrades provided a guard of honour at his funeral. He had remained an ardent supporter of Michael Collins throughout his life, while maintaining an aversion to De Valera and Fianna Fáil. Whether a coincidence or not, Charles Haughey did not become active in Fianna Fáil until after his father’s death.

News of Sorohan’s invitation to Haughey reached the ears of garda special branch officers by the 1960s. The garda version was that Haughey had failed to ‘say no outright’. This is at odds with Sorohan’s recollection. His account of what Haughey said is more likely to be accurate, as he was directly involved in the discussions. Perhaps Haughey was being diplomatic when he said he would consider the offer, knowing all along that he would reject it. ‘That is quite possible’, was how Sorohan replied to this scenario, when I put it to him.17

After UCD, Haughey pursued a career in accountancy, while making a few attempts at securing a seat for Fianna Fáil in the Dáil.18 On 18 September 1951, he married Maureen Lemass, who had also studied commerce at UCD. Together they would have four children: Eimear, Conor, Ciaran, and Seán.

Haughey, the RUC and MI5

In 1920, the ‘Twelve Apostles’, an IRA unit that reported to Michael Collins, killed twelve of a group of eighteen to twenty members of the ‘Cairo Gang’, a British unit, which had been sent to Dublin to gather intelligence and assassinate Collins and his senior commanders. That operation sparked the Bloody Sunday massacre at Croke Park in Dublin in reprisal. British soldiers, the RIC and auxiliaries killed fourteen people. Remarkably, despite the spillage of all this blood, the secret services of Britain and Ireland would begin to co-operate with each other within a few decades.

MI5 helped the Irish state set up the first modern spy agency in Ireland, G2. It came into existence after a secret consultation between Guy Liddell of MI5, and J.W. Dulanty, the Irish high commissioner, in London on 31 August 1938. Joseph Walshe, the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, also attended. At the meeting, Walshe explained that the taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, was concerned about Nazi links to the IRA, a partnership that had been forged in 1935. He wanted to set up Ireland’s equivalent to MI5 to counteract such mischief. This was music to British ears. MI5 offered to assist them in ‘every possible way’.1 It was also agreed that an ‘exchange of information would be made between [MI5] and the Eire counter-espionage department on the activities of Germans in Eire’.

The new organisation, G2, was set up under the auspices of the Department of Defence. It was soon busy disrupting the relationship between the Nazis and the IRA. In addition, Britain’s signals intelligence succeeded in intercepting commu- nications from the German legation in Dublin to Berlin. On 3 May 1943, Clement Attlee, the British deputy prime minister (and future premier) wrote to Winston Churchill describing how G2 was working ‘with our Security authorities’.2

Britain did not have an embassy in Dublin during the Second World War, rather a Representative Office run by Sir John Maffey. John Betjeman took up the post of press attaché in that office in January 1941. This was cover for his real assignment, which was as a propagandist on behalf of the Ministry of Information. His work was performed in co-ordination with the Special Operations Executive (SOE), MI6 and MI5. One of Betjeman’s tasks was to undermine support for Hitler and his Axis partners by nurturing favourable press coverage of Britain’s military successes. Betjeman also recruited ‘agents of influence’ to advance Britain’s cause. One of them was George Furlong, the director of the National Gallery of Ireland, who had strong social links with the Italian legation.3

Betjeman acted for the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) too. It assigned him the task of circulating so-called ‘sibs’, a word derived from sibillare, the Latin for whispering. Betjeman spread ‘sibs’ to damage the image of the Axis forces. Within six months of his arrival, he became ‘a well-known and popular figure, frequently encountered in the pub, and at house parties and literary functions’.4 ‘They used to paint on walls that I was a spy but nobody really believed it’, Betjeman said decades later.5 An IRA plot was hatched to assassinate him. In what is one of the few charming episodes in the entire history of the IRA’s confrontation with British intelligence, the operation was called off because of admiration on the part of a senior IRA figure for Betjeman’s skill as a poet. Betjeman went on to become poet laureate of the UK, 1972–84.6

Cooperation continued between MI5 and G2 after the defeat of Hitler. In the late 1940s, MI5 and the gardaí placed Robert Briscoe, a Jewish IRA veteran, under surveillance because of his links with militant Zionists in Palestine.7

In April 1955, Haughey’s old friend from UCD, Seamus Sorohan, addressed an Easter rally in Galway, at which he called on young men to volunteer for the IRA ‘and be trained in the use of arms to achieve the complete freedom of the Nation’. He was followed by Joe Christle, another IRA volunteer, who told the crowd that the Republican Movement would soon be making ‘the Six Counties so hot that England won’t be able to hold them’. These declarations heralded the IRA’s Operation Harvest (better known as the border campaign), which, as the name suggests, was directed against the security forces of Northern Ireland posted along the border. It began in 1956 and ended in early 1962. At the outset, the British ambassador to Dublin, Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, tried to construct a framework for intelligence co-operation between the UK and Ireland. However, having made his pitch in Dublin, he was politely rebuffed by Frederick Boland, the secretary at the Department of External Affairs, who told him that the 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’.8 Despite Boland’s instinctive preference for informality, a limited degree of co-operation was achieved at the highest levels of power, when the two governments exchanged aide memoires on the IRA in January and February 1956.

In Northern Ireland, the RUC special branch led the campaign against the IRA during the border campaign with assistance from a MI5 Security Liaison Officer (SLO) who was dispatched to Belfast for the duration of the offensive. The secretary of the Department of Justice (DoJ) in Dublin main- tained a direct line of communication to his counterpart in the Home Office in London. According to Joe Ainsworth, a future deputy garda commissioner and intelligence supremo, who worked alongside Garda Commissioner Daniel Costigan, ‘It was as simple as picking up a phone’.9

John A. Costello’s Fine Gael-led government was in power when the campaign began. Insofar as security policy was concerned, the election turned into a wrestling match over who could best crush the IRA. Fianna Fáil criticised Fine Gael for allegedly not taking a sufficiently hard line against the IRA, purportedly because of Seán MacBride’s presence in cabinet. MacBride was leader of Clann na Poblachta, a smaller party which was sharing power with Fine Gael. MacBride was also a former IRA chief-of-staff. During the 1957 general election, Fianna Fáil asserted that it was the only political party with ‘the unity, capacity and will to curb the IRA’. As the campaign intensified, Fianna Fáil pursued the issue with vigour. Gerald Boland of Fianna Fáil accused the government of providing ‘illegal organisations’ with a ‘carte blanche’ to ‘arm, drill, openly recruit, hold public collections … and publish a newspaper’.

Fianna Fáil won the election. De Valera assumed the role of taoiseach again. He moved quickly to suppress the IRA. Sitting in his prison cell in England, an IRA prisoner, Seán MacStíofáin,10 a man who would generate a lot of trouble for Haughey in the future, was convinced that the new Fianna Fáil administration would come down hard on the IRA: ‘We knew, even from the Scrubs hundreds of miles away, what De Valera’s return meant for our comrades in Ireland. The persecution of republicans would now begin in earnest and collaboration with the British forces would be stepped up.’11

Garda-RUC liaison was indeed intensified, while extra police and soldiers were deployed to border areas. Sir John Hermon, who later became RUC chief constable, was a witness to the discreet exchange of information that flowed between the RUC and Dublin Castle during the border campaign. In his memoirs, he described how the sharing of ‘sound intelligence and practical co-operation between the Garda Síochána and the RUC was given tacit approval by the Irish and British governments, much to the mutual benefit of both forces. This relationship, which strengthened over the years, was quickly and warmly extended beyond policing into other areas, including recreational and social activities.’12

De Valera reintroduced internment – arrest and detention without trial – after a cabinet decision in July 1957. The policy encountered a robust legal challenge from an internee called Gerald Lawless, which eventually wound its way to the European Court of Human Rights. The Curragh internment camp was closed in March 1959, long before the Lawless case was determined. Lawless would become a journalist in later life and produce some intriguing reports about British intelligence interference with Haughey’s career.

Seán Lemass succeeded De Valera as taoiseach on 23 June 1959. He resolved to end the IRA’s border campaign ‘by making its futility obvious rather than making martyrs of those who practised it’.

Haughey, who had been elected as a TD in the 1957 general election, was beginning to make a name for himself in the Dáil as a moderniser. He became parliamentary secre- tary (i.e., junior minister) at the DoJ in March 1960. He was promoted to cabinet as the department’s full minister in October 1961. After the European Court of Human Rights condemned aspects of Ireland’s laws on internment, Haughey let it be known that the cabinet felt that the ‘powers of detention should not again be exercised except as a last resort and only where any other effective means of a less repugnant kind were not available’.13

Now, in his late thirties, Haughey was faced with the task of defeating the IRA as it attempted to resuscitate its campaign, without the tool of internment at his disposal. He examined the available options with his officials, particularly Peter Berry, the secretary of the DoJ. Born in 1910, Berry served under every minister for justice from the foundation of the state until his retirement at the end of 1970.14 The IRA in Dublin assassinated the first of these ministers, Kevin O’Higgins. The killing took place in July 1927, six months after Berry’s arrival at the DoJ. Within a decade, Berry became a key figure in the on-going struggle against the IRA. He compiled books on the organisation as well as other groups perceived as a threat to the state. They were circulated within the DoJ and to Berry’s ministers. He maintained the direct line of communication to his counterparts in the British Home Office, the department responsible for MI5.

During the Second World War, Gerry Boland, the Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice, had given Berry the task of co-ordinating and supervising the nation’s security appara- tus. Berry liked the cloak and dagger brief and retained responsibility for it after his promotion to permanent secretary, the position that put him in overall charge of the DoJ. The Irish police force was set up by legislation as an independent organisation and was not controlled by the DoJ. Yet, Berry, through sheer force of personality, managed to exert an enormous influence over it, almost as if it was a subordinate section of his department. Garda commissioners, C3 intelligence chiefs and heads of the special branch liaised with him.15 Berry became particularly close to John Fleming, the head of Special Branch in the late 1960s and early 1970s and they played handball at Garda HQ on Sunday mornings.

The plan Haughey and Berry formulated in 1961 in- volved the reactivation of the Special Criminal Court. He also launched a publicity drive designed to highlight the futility of the IRA’s campaign. The Special Criminal Court sat with military officers and enjoyed special powers. There was no jury. It was empowered to hand down longer custodial sentences than the ordinary courts. Overall, the public accepted its existence, despite attempts by Sinn Féin to incite outcry against it. In its first month, twenty-five republicans were sentenced to a combined total of forty-three years imprisonment. The shortage of manpower was devastating for the IRA. Seán Garland, one of the movement’s leaders, felt that the severe sentences that had been handed down by the court were a decisive factor in the ending of the border campaign.16 In February 1962, the IRA threw in the towel.17

After the IRA announced the end of its campaign, Haughey made a statement during which he recognised the desire in the country to end partition, but condemned what he described as the IRA’s ‘foolish resort to violence’ in furtherance of that aim. Berry deemed the IRA’s collapse as ‘a great personal triumph’ for the young minister. To his intense satisfaction, Haughey had managed to defeat the IRA without turning the volunteers into martyrs, in line with the policy advocated by Lemass.

A Hate Figure among Republicans

By the end of the border campaign in 1962, Haughey had become deeply unpopular in republican circles. Later in 1962, his stock among those camps declined even further with the passing of the Street and House to House Collection Act, 1962, which required individuals and organisations engaged in street collections to apply to the state for per- mits. Republicans refused to request such authorisations, since they did not recognise the legitimacy of the state. This allowed the gardaí to confiscate monies amassed by republicans from such endeavours as the sale of lilies to celebrate the Easter Rising. It also led to the imposition of fines, which objectors refused to pay. One of the collectors, Richard Behal, was incarcerated for a month. He embarked on a hunger strike when he was not recognised as a political prisoner. He survived, but was in a pitiable state when he left prison.

In 1961, Austin Currie became president of the New Ireland Society, a student debating forum at Queens Uni- versity.1 In his autobiography, Currie recalled that among those who spoke to its members were ‘two future Taoisigh, Charles Haughey TD and Liam Cosgrave TD.’2 Haughey spoke at a debate in November 1962, which concerned the future of the ‘Protestant Minority in a United Ireland’. The young minister expressed the view that it would be ‘difficult to conceive of a structure in which individual liberty and religious freedom would be more adequately safeguarded’ than in a united Ireland. Southern Protestants, he stressed, had not suffered discrimination. ‘What is really important,’ he argued, ‘is not that there is no unfair treatment of minori- ties – but the fact that there couldn’t be. There is no longer any argument about it.’

In 1962, Seán Lemass dispatched Haughey and Jack Lynch to Belfast to explore the possibility of free trade with Northern Ireland. The choice of Lynch, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, was obvious; Haughey less so as he was Minister for Justice, a department not involved in trade. However, his credentials as a moderniser and foe of the IRA made him an ideal emissary. Added to this was the fact that Haughey had become an enthusiastic horseman and was acquainted with Brian Faulkner, the Stormont minister (and future prime minister) through the sport.

Around this time, there were further points of friction between Haughey and the Republican Movement. In 1963, he announced ‘that the death penalty for murder generally will be abolished but it will be retained for certain specific types of murder.’ The following year the Criminal Justice Act, 1964, abolished the death penalty for piracy, certain military crimes and most murders, but maintained it for the type of activity in which the IRA could become entangled, if they were ever to return to a war footing.

After the border campaign Haughey remained vigilant against a possible resurgence of the IRA. He permitted the relay of information about the organisation from Garda HQ to New Scotland Yard and the RUC special branch, and sanctioned meetings between the heads of the RUC and garda intelligence.3

Peter Berry was directed by Haughey to meet William Stout, the secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, in secret at Stormont on 4 October 1963. Stout’s minister was William Craig. The latter had claimed publicly that a ‘sizeable splinter-group’ of the IRA was active in the Republic before proceeding to criticise the failure of the ‘Dublin Authorities’ to curtail them.4 According to Berry: ‘I said that within the previous 48 hours I had seen Chief Superintendent Moore and Superintendent [Philip] McMahon [of the special branch] and I had had the most categoric assurances that the Gardaí were not aware of any activities in Border counties. I told them that the Gardaí hadn’t a shred of evidence which would lead them to think that a Border campaign would be reopened this winter.’5

Berry suspected that the RUC was acting on false infor- mation from deceitful informers about the IRA, a problem that plagued both the RUC and the gardaí. Sources often invented stories to extract more money from their handlers. ‘I suggested that somewhere along the line somebody was passing false information,’ Berry wrote.6

Craig said he was greatly relieved to hear what Berry had conveyed to him and would give this matter serious consi- deration. Berry, however, felt Craig ‘was not convinced that the IRA were not actively preparing for a fresh campaign but that he did accept the suggestion that newspaper publicity should be avoided. I formed the impression that the Minister (and the Secretary) knew very little about the IRA and the police machinery for dealing with the organisation.’

As he was about to embark on his return trip to Dublin, Stout ‘came out in the rain, bareheaded, to see me to my car but, nevertheless, I could discern no warmth. I think that he was nervous of being seen alone with me.’7