Anthony McIntyre  ✒ The three part RTÉ documentary Crimes and Confessions focusing on a group of Garda torturers known as the Heavy Gang is worth the watching.

For the uninitiated, people who think police fighting criminals rather than police being criminals, the viewing may prove unsettling.

The first in the series was about those tortured and wrongly convicted after the murder of Una Lynskey in 1971. The second examined the narrative of those who underwent a similar experience in 1976, having been falsely accused of the Sallins train robbery. The concluding episode looks at the the Kerry babies case, where gang members again flouted justice and extracted admissions of guilt under duress from vulnerable people in their custody.

Torture, forced confessions, prosecutions, imprisonment and finally vindication. "The abuses ranged from pushing and shoving to severe beatings, and food and water deprivation.It was as bad as anything the British authorities in the North or the UK could conjure up. Flashes of the Hooded Men and Birmingham Six shoot across the mind's eye while watching reenactments of experiences endured at the hands of the Heavy Gang. 

The Irish state put considerable time and effort into taking the British government to the European Court over its use of torture in 1971. Yet it allowed torture to take place in its own jurisdiction. It wants the British hauled before the European Court (never a bad idea) but steadfastly ignores the elephant in its own room.


In an era where there have been so many institutional abuse cases, it seems an incongruity that the activities of the Heavy Gang have escaped similar scrutiny. There is no equivalent of a Ferns Inquiry into Garda torture. 

Set up on the watch of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition in the mid 1970s, the Heavy Gang was given the green light from the very top. The no jury Special Criminal court colluded with Garda torturers and sent innocent people down on spurious evidence. The government of the day ignored public concerns including those expressed by Amnesty International and individual garda,

To this day there is no official acknowledgement of what took place in Garda stations throughout this society. Interrogators still deny the existence of a Heavy Gang. Gerry O'Carroll claims "I never saw anyone been beaten, as true as God..." Given that God is not true that sounds almost like a guilty plea.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Justice Martin Kenny has called for both an apology and an inquiry.

It seems that a small number of this Garda ‘Heavy Gang’ were repeatedly promoted to powerful ranks within the policing service, which gave credibility to the brutal tactics they employed...  Garda management have never acknowledged the use of these tactics, which led to many of the false confessions detailed in this series. There are likely to be hundreds of low profile cases around the country where similar tactics were used against often vulnerable individuals over the decades.

All very well, but Sinn Fein - unless it is in office - will be ignored because of all the Northern conflict related activities it does not want inquiries into. If it does get into office, it, rather than be ignored, will do the ignoring. Any inquiry is likely to move off the agenda as more “pressing matters” are dealt with.

Heavy Gang, Light Government concern. Nothing gonna change anytime soon.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Heavy Gang

Anthony McIntyre  ✒ The three part RTÉ documentary Crimes and Confessions focusing on a group of Garda torturers known as the Heavy Gang is worth the watching.

For the uninitiated, people who think police fighting criminals rather than police being criminals, the viewing may prove unsettling.

The first in the series was about those tortured and wrongly convicted after the murder of Una Lynskey in 1971. The second examined the narrative of those who underwent a similar experience in 1976, having been falsely accused of the Sallins train robbery. The concluding episode looks at the the Kerry babies case, where gang members again flouted justice and extracted admissions of guilt under duress from vulnerable people in their custody.

Torture, forced confessions, prosecutions, imprisonment and finally vindication. "The abuses ranged from pushing and shoving to severe beatings, and food and water deprivation.It was as bad as anything the British authorities in the North or the UK could conjure up. Flashes of the Hooded Men and Birmingham Six shoot across the mind's eye while watching reenactments of experiences endured at the hands of the Heavy Gang. 

The Irish state put considerable time and effort into taking the British government to the European Court over its use of torture in 1971. Yet it allowed torture to take place in its own jurisdiction. It wants the British hauled before the European Court (never a bad idea) but steadfastly ignores the elephant in its own room.


In an era where there have been so many institutional abuse cases, it seems an incongruity that the activities of the Heavy Gang have escaped similar scrutiny. There is no equivalent of a Ferns Inquiry into Garda torture. 

Set up on the watch of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition in the mid 1970s, the Heavy Gang was given the green light from the very top. The no jury Special Criminal court colluded with Garda torturers and sent innocent people down on spurious evidence. The government of the day ignored public concerns including those expressed by Amnesty International and individual garda,

To this day there is no official acknowledgement of what took place in Garda stations throughout this society. Interrogators still deny the existence of a Heavy Gang. Gerry O'Carroll claims "I never saw anyone been beaten, as true as God..." Given that God is not true that sounds almost like a guilty plea.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Justice Martin Kenny has called for both an apology and an inquiry.

It seems that a small number of this Garda ‘Heavy Gang’ were repeatedly promoted to powerful ranks within the policing service, which gave credibility to the brutal tactics they employed...  Garda management have never acknowledged the use of these tactics, which led to many of the false confessions detailed in this series. There are likely to be hundreds of low profile cases around the country where similar tactics were used against often vulnerable individuals over the decades.

All very well, but Sinn Fein - unless it is in office - will be ignored because of all the Northern conflict related activities it does not want inquiries into. If it does get into office, it, rather than be ignored, will do the ignoring. Any inquiry is likely to move off the agenda as more “pressing matters” are dealt with.

Heavy Gang, Light Government concern. Nothing gonna change anytime soon.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

10 comments:

  1. Will these be on RTE I-Player for viewers to watch outside the Republic? Would love to watch them, Anthony.

    Cousins of mine in County Leitrim told me of brutal beatings in Garda stations after the Don Tidey shoot-out in Derrada Wood, near Ballinamore.

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    Replies
    1. I don't know Barry - they provide a window on the sinister. But this is a matter that should have been dealt with long ago. The very fact that torturers were promoted up the ranks indicates that the practice was institutionalised.

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  2. Barry you're never a cousin of John Gilheany!

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    1. Not that I am aware of Henry Joy.

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    2. In some strange way that's a kind of a relief Barry.

      Met a John Gilheany in Ballinamore in my time, just on an occasion or two. Whenever I met him he was in the company of McGirl or Martin Kenny's ould man. Fine tall upright man with a pleasant manner.

      (You'll be able to access RTE Player from the UK if you have a VPN. I have used one to access the BBC Player from here and while travelling. You can buy access to such a service on a short one month contract for probably about £10).

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  3. The twenty-six county state used the Sallins train robbery as a pneumatic hammer to smash, or try to destroy, the Irish Republican Socialist Party. A perfectly legitimate political organisation which ressurected the states worse fears, the political ideologies of James Connolly which may, if not crushed, prove popular. They failed, but it was costly for the IRSP, is this the fear socialism presents the state with?

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    Replies
    1. They ill treated everybody Caoimhin, not just the socialists. A gang of thugs

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  4. True Anthony, they were a bunch of bastards, but the erps seemed to come in under their microscope more than any other political party. Maybe I'm taking a partisan view, and I am not suggesting the IRSP were the only ones. Just the magnitude of "erps bashing" seemed greater.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    Replies
    1. I never saw it that way Caoimhin. O'Carroll boasted last night about putting the fear of God into the Provos. They were involved in a lot of brutality against non political people as well. The IRSP was in their sights but so too was everybody else.

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  5. Author of Nights in Armour, former RUC man Sam Thompson, was seconded with the Guarda in the 00s. He said that in many ways, the working culture was similar to the RUC in the 80s; sexist, hierarchical and so on.

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