Big Boys’ Rules
The Secret Struggle against the IRA
MARK URBAN
For
Dana, Leah and David
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Chronology
Preface
PART ONE: 1976–1979
1 First Blood
2 The Security Establishment
3 PIRA
4 Watchers
5 A Question of Allegiances
6 Lethal Confusion
7 Undercover Soldiers and the Law
PART TWO: 1979–1982
8 A Change of Mood
9 Warrenpoint
10 Special Branch in the Ascendant
11 Human Sources
12 ‘Jarking’ and the Technology of Terror
13 Beyond Ireland
14 Hunger Strikers and Supergrasses
15 Reasonable Force
PART THREE: 1982–1984
16 Stalker
17 ‘Ambush’: A Matter of Interpretation
18 The Group in Action
PART FOUR: 1984–1987
19 Soft Targets
20 The Strabane Shootings
21 Disaster at Newry
22 Acceptable Levels
23 Tyrone Brigade
24 Loughgall, 8 May 1987: Prayers and Tapdancing
Conclusion
Appendix I
Appendix II
Select Bibliography
Index
Map
Plates
About the Author
Copyright
List of Illustrations
1 IRA Derry Brigade members (Pacemaker)
2 Royal Marine Close Observation Platoon members in south Armagh (Photopress)
3 A member of D Squadron 22 SAS in 1976 (Photopress)
4 A member of the Parachute Regiment Close Observation Platoon
5 Army patrol emerging from a Lynx helicopter (John Voos, Independent)
6 Member of an RUC special firearms unit (Pacemaker)
7 An RUC patrol with accompanying soldiers (John Voos, Independent)
8 Republican suspects being searched by troops (Photopress)
9 A vehicle checkpoint in Fermanagh (John Voos, Independent)
10 Inside an overt observation post (John Voos, Independent)
11 A patrol vehicle designed to jam radio command bombs
12 The aftermath of an SAS ambush at the Gransha hospital in 1984 (Pacemaker)
13 An aerial view of Loughgall police station (Pacemaker)
14 The scene at Loughgall before the press were allowed to see it
Chronology
1969 August British Army is sent to Northern Ireland by Harold Wilson’s government after RUC lose control of nationalist rioting and loyalist backlash. 1970 October Hunt Report criticizes RUC handling of previous year’s riots. 1971 August Disastrous policy of ‘internment’ of terrorist suspects starts. 1972 January Thirteen civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by members of Parachute Regiment in ‘Bloody Sunday’.June Partly to atone for internment, special category status is granted to paramilitary prisoners. 1974 14 April First member of 14 Intelligence Company, Captain Anthony Pollen, is killed on active service. 1975 February Labour Secretary of State Merlyn Rees engineers short-lived ceasefire with IRA.August Three members of Miami Showband are killed by UVF loyalist terrorists.
1976 Under Chief Constable Kenneth Newman, and the new policy of ‘Police Primacy’, the RUC begins to take overall responsibility for security in Northern Ireland.January First SAS troop of twelve men is deployed in Ulster.March Special category status for paramilitary prisoners ends. IRA member Sean McKenna is arrested after alleged abduction by SAS from Republic of Ireland.April Peter Cleary is killed by SAS near Forkill.May First republican protest in the H-Blocks of the Maze prison begins. Eight armed SAS men are arrested by Gardai after ‘accidentally’ entering the Republic. 1977 Major General Dick Trant is appointed CLF.May Captain Robert Nairac is captured and killed by IRA.July IRA man Seamus Harvey is shot dead by SAS in Culderry.December INLA member Colm McNutt is killed by 14 Company lance-corporal in Londonderry. Corporal Paul Harman of 14 Company is killed by IRA in Belfast. 1978 January Bessbrook SAS Squadron’s area of deployment is extended from south Armagh to the whole of Northern Ireland.February Two IRA men are ambushed by SAS near Ardboe; one, Paul Duffy, is shot dead.April Republican ‘dirty protest’ begins at the Maze prison.20 June Three IRA men and one Protestant bystander are killed by SAS and RUC special forces in Ballysillan postal depot incident.September Protestant James Taylor is mistakenly shot by SAS soldiers.24 November IRA member Patrick Duffy is shot dead by SAS at arms cache in Londonderry. 1979 February Major General James Glover is appointed as Commander Land Forces.
March IRA starts terrorist campaign on the Continent with the killing of the British ambassador to the Netherlands.30 March Airey Neave is killed in Westminster by an INLA car bomb.27 August Eighteen soldiers are killed by IRA bombs at Warrenpoint. On the same day Lord Mountbatten and three others are blown up by a bomb on board their boat near Mullaghmore.October Maurice Oldfield, former chief of SIS (MI6), is appointed Security Co-ordinator in Northern Ireland. 1980 Summer Maurice Oldfield is removed from post (dies in March 1981).September SAS apprehend two IRA members from Dungannon at an arms cache in Tyrone.27 October H-Block republican prisoners begin their hunger strike (suspended on 18 December).Autumn James Glover is succeeded as CLF by Major General Charles Huxtable. 1981 January Jim Lynagh’s IRA gang murder Sir Norman Stronge and his son at Tynan Abbey.14 March Seamus McElwaine and three other IRA members are captured by SAS near Rosslea.5 May Bobby Sands, MP for Fermanagh and S. Tyrone, dies of starvation in the Maze.28 May 14 Company officer shoots two armed IRA men dead and wounds another in Londonderry.3 October Hunger strike is called off, after eight IRA and three INLA members have died.November Christopher Black, to become most celebrated of the ‘supergrasses’, is arrested. 1982 August IRA member Raymond Gilmour turns supergrass, severely compromising IRA organization in Londonderry.
27 October Three IRA men are killed by police firearms squad near Lurgan, in the first of three incidents leading to the Stalker inquiry.24 November Michael Tighe shot dead by police undercover unit near Lurgan.12 December Unarmed INLA members Roddy Carroll and Seamus Robinson are shot dead by HMSU member Constable Robinson. 1983 February One INLA member Liam McMonagle is shot dead, and another (Liam Duffy) wounded, by plain-clothes soldier in Londonderry.August Thirty-five of thirty-nine charged are found guilty on Black’s evidence.25 September H-Block prisoners stage an escape from the Maze; sixteen are recaptured, but twenty-two remain at large.October Republican ‘informer’ Robert Lean holds press conference causing severe embarrassment to RUC about their handling of supergrasses.4 December SAS shoot dead two IRA members in ambush near Coalisland, the first such fatalities for five years. 1984 14 March Assassination attempt in Belfast by UFF gunmen seriously injures Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.24 May John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, is appointed to the ‘shoot-to-kill’ inquiry.September Douglas Hurd succeeds as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.19 October SAS ambush IRA team at Tamnamore as they prepare to kill a UDR officer: IRA gang escape, and bystander Frederick Jackson is accidentally killed by SAS.1 December SAS soldiers are involved in gunbattle with IRA at Drumrush Lodge, near Kesh, resulting in the deaths of an SAS soldier and IRA man.
6 December Two IRA men are killed by SAS in ambush at Gransha hospital, Londonderry. 1985 23 February Three IRA members
