Gerry McGeough Exposing the OTR Cover-Up.

By AM Monday, March 31, 2014

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John McDonagh (JM) and Sandy Boyer (SB) interview former IRA Volunteer Gerry McGeough (GM) via telephone from Co. Tyrone about the on-the-run cover-up and controversy.

Radio Free Éireann

WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio

New York City

Saturday 8 March 2014


JM: There's one particular topic that we've been covering for over twenty years and that is the plight of Irish Republican Gerry McGeough from Co. Tyrone.

We covered it when he was gaoled in Germany. He was put into the same places where the Baader-Meinhof were kept.


He was gaoled here in the United States for Irish Republican activity and when he went back to Ireland he had sought out to say: Can I return to Co. Tyrone (and) raise my family?

And he was told: Sure! Come back.

And lo and behold Gerry goes back. He wants to get involved with politics. He goes to run for office. Coming out after voting in an election in The Six Counties he was arrested and eventually did two years because of the Good Friday Agreement.

This was an agreement negotiated by Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, you could say two corner boys from Belfast and Derry who were running sort of a neighborhood watch scheme in their two areas because both of them really said they were never in the IRA.

And so what they negotiated was that they would turn over their weapons in order to administer British rule in The Six Counties. That part has really worked.

But they also made other promises ... that people that were on-the-run –

you know ...

we'll find out if you can come back ...

And if you support the peace process we'll get you a letter from the British government and you can come back...

But Gerry, the whole hypocrisy of all this that's going on is that this was covered many, many years ago in your trial – about these letters - and the Loyalists are running around saying: we never heard about these letters - we never heard about pardons from the Queen.

How do you feel now about the letters being revoked and that people are going to be charged now that have come back?

GM: First of all, Hello, John! How are you? It's a delightful coincidence that today, March the 8th, actually marks the seventh anniversary of my arrest in 2007 as I left the Count Centre in Omagh Co. Tyrone having stood as an independent candidate in that election – a Republican candidate - and among the many ironies involved was that they said when they arrested me ... when asked why they didn't arrest me sooner...like over the previous number of years when I lived in Tyrone ... they said they couldn't find me! Even though I was probably the most high-profile candidate in that particular election itself.

First of all, I certainly feel vindicated. And I'd like to extend that I think, to yourself, Sandy and Kate and my good friends, Helen McClafferty and Martin Galvin, and all of those in the AOH and all their supporters should all feel absolutely vindicated by this.

Because we have been saying all along that there was a cover-up.

That these immunities – for want of a better term - these letters of comfort as they're calling them over here - these pardons, whatever you want to call them – that they existed!

And yet that was being denied.

Denied so that I could be railroaded into gaol.

Kept in prison under the most horrific of circumstances.

Now bear in mind most of the time I spent there was during a dirty protest and as you know I have seven stents in my heart. I had to undergo heart operations while in prison and return to a wing where excrement was smeared all over the cells. Where urine/faeces mixes were laying in puddles all around the wings.

I honestly believed these people hoped that I would die in there. But thanks be to God we survived it.

And lo and behold all their lies and corruption is now being exposed.

And I think this is really at the heart of the whole thing: the cover-up that has been going on.

At any given time during that whole nightmare which my family and I went through the Sinn Féin leadership could have put an end to it.

They easily could have done it.

We had asked for Gerry Kelly to come into court during the various hearings and had he done so - within five minutes the case would have collapsed - had he done what he eventually did in the Downey case in London a few weeks ago.

So they effectively sacrificed me. I became a political sacrifice in the interest of secret deals.

And of course when we pointed that out at the time - and you know this yourself John and Martin and Helen and all of the rest know it - and I'm actually only beginning to find out the details now because having been in prison I was very much cut off from what was going on – but - letters were published in the United States to the effect that we were being silly in saying what we were saying.

And now as it transpires it's exactly correct what we had been saying.

And it is the Irish-American community which must take the credit here.

Because over here in Ireland people living under the yoke of Sinn Féin and the British and the loyal Unionists and all the rest of it cannot be speaking out or are afraid to speak out – you guys have no fear! And you said what had to be said. And you repeated it and you shouted it over and over again. And now the egg on their faces because that's exactly what has happened.

And of course the whole reason behind this was to ensure that there be no political alternative. That there be no political voice in opposition to Sinn Féin, which is of course controlled by the whole British system and all the rest of it.

But as it has transpired that voice has been able to echo and survive over in the United States and elsewhere. And now around the world people are beginning to redeem the courage that is traditional in the Irish psyche and speak out again.

Because freedom will not be denied.

We must have our freedom in this country. And that's what this is all about. The Irish nation deserves to exist.

The English establishment needs to go home. Go back to England where they belong.

Continue with all their filth and corruption over there but leave us alone.

And we, the people in the Nation of Ireland and our great Diaspora around the world, we can run our own affairs. And no amount of cover-ups, no amount of sleaze and corruption is going to prevent that from happening. Sooner or later – that's going to happen.

Now I'm a very patient man. I endured the slings and the arrows of character assassination, of smear and you name it ... but we persevered.

And I'd like particularly, particularly to thank yourself John, and Sandy and Kate and all of WBAI because I know, and you know as well, that you came under tremendous pressure not to have me on your programme and you balked against that and you went ahead.

Part of the smear campaign against me ... and give me a minute to say this because this is very, very important and I want to put this on record:

Before I was arrested in 2007, there had been months upon months of deliberate character assassination/smear on the internet and all the rest of it. One bozo, a pseudo-journalist by the name of Scott Millar - a reputed worshiper of Gerry Adams - wrote an article, a piece in a rag called Searchlight - which is known over here to be a front for MI5, British intelligence – in which he smeared and attacked me. He called me a fascist. He called me a racist ... all those things.

Anyone who knows me knows that's not true and I'm happy to go on record here by saying: I am not a fascist. I'm not a racist. My wife is from Spain and I do not tolerate ... I am a very decent Irish Nationalist and Irish Republican and I listen to everybody and anyone who knows me can testify to that.

But nevertheless they ran that campaign against me. And in his nonsensical article this guy Scott Millar, who had mentioned my being gaoled in The States, said that I had been in touch with the Aryan Nation while being a Republican prisoner in America.

But he didn't check his facts too well because he said that I was in touch with them while in Louisiana.

Now if anyone wanted to find it out - Oakdale, Louisiana – the prison I was in there when I was in the United States for Irish Republican activities - was peopled only by non-Americans, by foreign prisoners, finishing off their sentences and awaiting deportation. I was there with a few other Irish Republicans from South Armagh and that was the end of it. It would have actually been physically impossible to meet Aryan Nation people there. It was absolutely and totally impossible.

So this is the kind of smear that was run against me. Everything they could do to commit character assassination in the hope that I would back down. But I refused to do so. I ran for elections later on and all the rest of it's history.

So they finally railroaded me into gaol through a corrupt show trial using a British Diplock court.

And throughout that whole period Sinn Féin could have had me released but they sat quietly.

And this is the crux of what this is all about.

The NIO refused, the Northern Ireland Office which is part of the British government, refused to disclose information that they had, effectively denying that they had it, saying that these immunities existed.

And one of the British Secretaries of State, Shaun Woodward, when we, through the good offices of Suzanne Breen, an excellent journalist, broke the story in The Sunday Tribune on March 7th I think it was (in) 2010; she broke the story about this particular series of pardons and so forth. He immediately dragged himself out of bed on a Sunday morning, went on the radio and said it was utter nonsense! - and this was an English Pro-Consulate Secretary of State over here.

But of course it turns out now it was the truth.

So there has been an enormous cover-up. An absolutely enormous cover-up.

And as I have stated earlier and you guys have stated: it was done as part and parcel of ... I was a political sacrifice to be sacrificed in the interest of the deal between the British government, Sinn Féin and with the acceptance of the Unionists. Whether they care to deny it or not is neither here nor there.

SB: Gerry, thank you..

GM: And this obviously leaves me feeling personally vindicated but as I said I have no sense of anger or jeering or bitterness or anything of that nature.

As an Irish patriot I know we have a long journey to make. We have to be courageous. Sometimes we'll be isolated. Sometimes we'll be mocked and smeared but that's no excuse not to get going on. We have to progress further. We will now need to start thinking clearly here.

We need to say to ourselves: Do we want this stinking carcass of Sinn Féin blocking the road to Irish unity? Because that's effectively is what it's doing.

What we must do now as Irish patriots and as part of the Irish diaspora is decide among ourselves: Are we going to remain fragmented? Are we going to spend our time arguing amongst ourselves? Or are we going to form ourselves into some cohesive, political grouping that can affect change? Real change.

And that change ultimately has to be the English establishment leaving Ireland.

And the bitter irony of all of this is the fact that here in The Six Coounties we, the Nationalist people, are the majority.

But there's just a bundle of clowns representing us who are serving their own interests and they won't take on the English establishment or the planters who are effectively blocking that Irish unity.

And people are beginning to get very, very impatient here but, having said that, we still must adopt a strategy. And I think I can see it coalescing, slowly but surely. If you look to the Bogside years ago they could see what we were up to. A political victory was going to coalesce around while the actual election itself was really neither here nor there...

JM: Gerry, I'm going to have to cut-in now because we're in fund raising. But listen, I thank you for coming on and when we get back to normal programming we're going to have you back on again.

GM: Thank you, John and God bless!

JM: And that was Gerry McGeough talking about how he royally got screwed by Provisional Sinn Féin who negotiated this deal to bring back people who were on-the-run from The Six Counties. And it just shows how the British government took Sinn Féin to the cleaners – cleaned their clock – that they now have them administering British rule in Ireland, that their former supporters cannot go back to The Six Counties and Long Kesh – which they hoped to make into a museum like you have down in Dublin - the funding's been all cut by that from the Loyalists. So you see the dilemma now that they're in and about what their supporters are going through. (ends 1:49 PM EST)