A History of Undercover Military Units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976
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COUNTER-GANGS: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976 Margaret Urwin A joint publicationCounter-gangs: by Spinwatch, A history of Justice undercover for themilitary Forgotten units in Northern and the Ireland Pat Finucane 1971-1976 Centreå s å About the Author Margaret Urwin has worked with Justice for the Forgotten, the organisation representing the families and survivors of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, since 1993 and, over the last decade, with the families of other cross-Border bombings. Justice for the Forgotten merged with the Pat Finucane Centre in December 2010. A native of County Wexford, Margaret is a graduate of the Open University and NUI Maynooth – MA (Hons) Local History, 2001. Her publications include: A County Wexford Family in the Land War: The O’Hanlon Walshs of Knocktartan, (2001), Four Courts Press; ‘The Murder of Charles Daniel Boyd’ in Hanging Crimes, (2005), Mercier Press; ‘The Effects of the Great Famine (1845-9) in the County Wexford Parish of Bannow/Ballymitty’ in The Journal of the Wexford Historical Society, 1996. Counter-gangs: A history of undercover military DISCLAIMER units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976 Views and opinions expressed in this publication November 2012 are those of the individual contributors and do British Cataloguing-in-Publications Data. not necessarily reflect those of Public Interest Investigations, Spinwatch, The Pat Finucane Center, A catalogue record for this report is available from the or Justice for the Forgotten. British Library. ISBN 978-0-9570274-1-1 ORDER COPIES This report is available to download free of charge via [email protected] Spinwatch website: spinwatch.org Printed and bound in the UK To order hard copies, order online on the Spinwatch COPYRIGHT bookshop: www.spinwatch.org/book-shop E-mail: Public Interest Investigations © 2012 [email protected] All rights reserved. Write to: No part of this publication may be reproduced, Spinwatch stored or transmitted in any form of by any Box 1, c/o Govanhill Baths Community Trust means without the prior permission from the 99 Calder St, Glasgow G42 7RA copyright holder. å s åSpinwatch Contents Foreword 4 Counter-gangs: a history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976 5 Military Reaction Forces 6 The shooting of the Conway brothers 8 The murder of Patrick McVeigh 9 The Shankill Road shooting 10 The Glen Road shooting 10 The case of William Black 12 The Bawnmore Road incident 14 The Leeson Street shooting 15 The New Lodge gun battle 15 The murder of Daniel Rooney and wounding of Brendan Brennan 15 Other unresolved murders in 1972 that may possibly be attributed to the MRF 17 The Four Square Laundry incident, Gemini Massage Parlour and the abduction of Kevin McKee and Séamus Wright 18 The Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) 20 Arrest of Martin Watson 24 New Lodge murders 24 Derry shooting 25 Ranger Louis Hammond and other ‘Freds’ 25 Controversial shootings at Shaw’s Lake and Mowhan Post Office, County Armagh 30 Links between the Special Reconnaissance Unit (Four Field Survey Troop detachment) and the Glenanne gang 32 Conclusion 33 Endnotes 34 Counter-gangs: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976å s å Foreword t is now widely acknowledged a contemporary significance beyond that state collusion and violence Northern Ireland given the renewed Iplayed a significant role in the influence of counter-insurgency theory in Northern Ireland conflict.* The the era of the War on Terror, not only on findings of the Saville Inquiry the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but into Bloody Sunday represent an also on domestic counter-terrorism. important acknowledgement of one This pamphlet inaugurates a wider State crucial episode. Nevertheless, a full Violence and Collusion Project, being accounting for state violence in the pursued as a collaboration between Troubles appears some way off. Spinwatch and the Pat Finucane Centre, Given the British Government’s decision and made possible by an initial grant to rule out a Truth Commission, the from the Scurrah Wainwright Charity. prospects for a comprehensive process to deal with the legacy of the Troubles The project aims to use the internet to remain uncertain. In the absence of official collate and disseminate research on the will to address the issue, victims’ families, role of state violence and collusion in the investigative journalists and support Troubles. To this end a dedicated portal groups such as Justice for the Forgotten has been established at Spinwatch’s and the Pat Finucane Centre have been at PowerBase wiki (at http://powerbase. the forefront of uncovering the past. info/index.php/State_Violence_and_ Collusion_Project). In this pamphlet, Margaret Urwin of Justice for the Forgotten presents the results of While the project does not aspire to be this research in relation to one key actor a comprehensive account of the issues in the early Troubles, undercover British raised by the Troubles, it does aim to Army units such as the Military Reaction facilitate the valuable research currently Forces and their successor, the Special being done, which we believe will make Reconnaissance Unit. a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process for all the victims of the Troubles Her findings have implications for many inevitable. incidents of the Troubles in the 1970s, including the most lethal, the Dublin- Tom Griffin, Monaghan bombings. They also have Spinwatch * See Stevens Inquiry: Overview and recommendations, 17 April 2003, Sir John Stevens QPM, DL., Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/collusion/stevens3/stevens3summary.htm; British Irish Rights Watch (1999) Deadly Intelligence: State Involvement in Loyalist Murder in Northern Ireland (summary). London: British Irish Rights Watch. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/birw0299.htm; Amnesty International (2000) United Kingdom – Patrick Finucane’s killing: Official collusion and cover-up, 1 February, www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR45/026/2000/ en/83f047ba-dfc0-11dd-8e17-69926d493233/eur450262000en.pdf (accessed 24 October 2012). å s åSpinwatch Counter-gangs: a history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976 n the aftermath of World War Two The British Army’s General Sir Frank the British state was involved in Kitson2 did not invent concepts of Ias many as fifty major colonial counter or pseudo-gangs3 and pseudo counter-insurgency campaigns operations, but he and Brigadier Richard where they confronted subversion Clutterbuck4 undoubtedly brought the and insurgency by using covert, issues to a wider audience through their undercover methods or ‘low intensity academic publications on low-intensity operations’.1 Examples of these techniques and methods. Kitson served campaigns include Malaya, Palestine, in several of the colonial campaigns, Kenya, Cyprus, Oman and Aden. which convinced him that conventional Counterinsurgency in Malaya Counter-gangs: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976å s å warfare was on the way out, partly destroy the terrorists’. The IRA because of the nuclear stalemate, and has the initiative and is causing partly because the covert kind was disruption out of all proportion to the proving to be so effective.5 He is credited relatively small numbers engaged. with introducing the pseudo-gang This is not to credit the IRA with technique into Kenya, using defectors to any unusual skill; it is the normal great advantage. pattern of urban guerrilla activity when the guerrillas are not opposed By 1970, when Kitson was posted by a ruthless and authoritarian to Northern Ireland as commander governmental machine.9 of 39 Brigade in Belfast, Britain had accumulated significant experience and ‘Q squads’ was the description given had developed methods and tactics to the mobile undercover unit of the that they were able to bring to their new Palestine Police and ‘Q patrols’ were theatre of conflict. Counter-insurgency used in the Cyprus conflict whose methods were introduced as early as members were used to hunt and capture 1971 including psychological warfare or kill members of EOKA.10 and the use of black propaganda with the creation of the Information Policy Military Reaction Forces Unit at Army Headquarters, Lisburn. In late 1971 the plain-clothes teams In 1972, the British Army took overall that had been formed at Easter were responsibility for security in Northern reformed and expanded as Military Ireland.6 Reaction Forces (MRFs) without RUC Tony Geraghty claims that, in Northern participation.11 They were divided Ireland by the spring of 1971, the British into units of around 15, assigned to a authorities were desperate to penetrate particular area, and worked in squads ‘the terrorist network and they did so of two to four travelling in a single by adopting the counter-gang tactics unmarked vehicle. developed by Kitson during Kenya’s Mau Martin Dillon describes their purpose as Mau campaign.7 His claim was confirmed being ‘to draw the Provisional IRA into in a defensive brief from NIO to the Prime a shooting war with loyalists in order Minister, dated 2nd April 1974, that plain- to distract the IRA from its objective of clothes teams, initially joint RUC/Army attacking the Army.’12 patrols, began operating in Northern Ireland around Easter 1971.8 The MRFs were similar to the ‘Q’ patrols described above. It is not known how In a military appreciation document widely these units were dispersed, but prepared by Army General Staff in we have incontrovertible