Brothers In Arms

By AM Monday, July 12, 2021

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James Kearney ✒ In the early hours of July 12th 1979, my brother, Volunteer Michael Kearney, Irish Republican Army, was executed by members of the IRA and his lifeless body left on a border road in County Fermanagh.

The people involved in his execution were members of the Internal Security Unit, an IRA squad which had been formed the year previous in the Autumn of 1978 and had been infiltrated by the British Intelligence Services. The man in charge of the unit initially was working for the RUC Special Branch, while the 2nd in command was to become a British Military Officer with the Force Research Unit, known simply as FRU. He had a codename, Stakeknife, and is currently under investigation in Operation Kenova.

Volunteer Michael Kearney was set up by the British Security Services in June 1979 while under arrest in Castlereagh Interrogation Centre in East Belfast. He had been involved in a major IRA military operation in March 1979, delivering 42 explosive devices to a lock up in the Short Strand area of Belfast. He had been under surveillance since being compromised by an agent and was arrested while on Active Service in the Andersonstown area of Belfast.

At a high level meeting in Castlereagh it was decided that rather than charge Michael with the possession of the 42 bombs and other offences, he was instead to be set up for execution as an informer to save at least two agents who had themselves compromised the Short Strand operation. One of those agents was later executed in 1986 after running his course and falling foul of his Special Branch handlers. In typical British skulduggery style, his name was leaked to the IRA by Special Branch who had decided to jettison him due to his behaviour.

Michael, for his part, was released from Castlereagh on June 23rd 1979 and immediately reported back to his unit and was debriefed. However, his OC was ordered to hand him over to Internal Security. But he was reluctant to do so, explaining to Brigade that Michael had already been debriefed. Nonetheless, he was forced to hand him over, and Michael was taken into the hands of Internal Security and driven over the border to Dundalk. 

While in Dundalk from Monday June 25th to July 12th 1979, Michael was interrogated by Stakeknife and at least two other senior members of Internal Security, one of which is now deceased. The main topic of interest was the Short Strand operation and the attempt by them to label Michael as an informer in relation to the seizure of the 42 bombs. Michael resisted and defended himself against any attempt to label him as a paid agent of the State, hence the long duration of his captivity.

Stakeknife, as an observer for the British, reported back to his handler on exactly the situation and identified the people involved in Michael's interrogation within the house in Dundalk. The handler, as is standard practice, wrote out a Contact Form which was handed into the Task Coordinating Group, (TCG) and stored at Castlereagh. Despite the RUC destroying all Contact Forms in later years, mainly due to the Stevens Inquiry etc - to erase a paper trail back to them - a Master copy, or the Miser as its internally called, was produced by MI5 and held in Whitehall Headquarters in London. Michael Kearney's master copy has been retrieved by Operation Kenova, identifying all those involved in his interrogation and eventual execution.

Michael was told by those agents, masquerading as IRA personnel, that he was cleared and was going home. However, he was driven from Dundalk to a country road near Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh and then told that he was to be executed. The IRA volunteer who carried out the execution stated later that Michael accepted his fate and made one last request, to be allowed to recite a prayer before leaving this world. As he was praying, the volunteer shot Michael twice in the back of the head. He died instantly on the 12th July 1979. As for the IRA volunteer himself, he was killed along with two others in an SAS ambush in 1991.

 
After a number of painstaking attempts to find out what had happened to my brother, I eventually set up a strategic group of former IRA comrades in 2001, with the sole intention of persuading the IRA leadership to launch an investigation into the circumstances surrounding my brother's death. We were successful and the investigation commenced in October 2001, revealing its findings in January 2003.
The IRA leadership effectively cleared Michael from any suggestion that he was a paid informer and also dismissed any inference about him compromising the Short Strand operation.

However, his story continues to this day and is with Operation Kenova whose findings are to be released to the family in due course.

Michael was a brave soldier of the Irish Republic and died while on active service in a clandestine way at the hands of the British State, working in conjunction with traitors who were posing as IRA personnel. As a family, we will always speak his name with pride and cherish his memory. Rest in peace brother, my brother in arms.

Postscript. 

Brother.
Thinking of the happy times we shared when we were small,
Always brightens up my day in the nicest way of all.
Although we had our ups and downs, as families often do, 

I have always known without a doubt, 

brother, 

that I could depend on you.
I am so glad that you're my brother, 

and in my heart I know,
Those happy memories will stay with me wherever I may go.
I love and miss you brother. X

⏩ James Kearney is a former Blanketman.