Anthony McIntyre ✒ Twenty-two years ago today in West Belfast’s Ballymurphy estate, the Provisional IRA carried out a shoot to kill operation

Its target was Joe O’Connor, a senior figure in the city’s Real IRA. O’Connor was killed as he sat unarmed in a car talking to a relative. His companion was unharmed. The killing was discriminate. The IRA got who it came for. To this day it has not admitted its role.

A few days later myself and Tommy Gorman wrote in the Irish News that it was a state killing, albeit one carried out by the Provisional IRA. Our reason for characterizing it as such was that Martin McGuinness at the time was on the army council that authorised the killing while simultaneously serving in the Stormont state administration as the education minister for the North.

That is not to say he was personally responsible. But the structural links between the IRA leadership and the Stormont state administration coupled with the corporate responsibility that cannot be evaded by individuals at the top of corporations made our suggestion that it was a state killing an arguable case.

In recent days, that assertion, now two decades old, has even more to buttress it.

The family of the late Joe O’Connor has launched a legal action against the office of the Police Ombudsman on the grounds that it allegedly failed to investigate the role of a person the family believes to have been a British state agent. The Ombudsman’s office was first requested in 2012 to examine the circumstances surrounding the killing and last year was asked to focus specifically on the alleged role of a person referred to as Agent Christine. The Irish News reported that Agent Christine was alleged to have been “one of the main protagonists” in the daylight execution. 

It was also reported by the paper that the solicitor representing the family, Michael Brentnall, had claimed that his office was in receipt of information:

that an RUC Special Branch asset was involved in the murder of Joseph O’Connor. We believe this information came to light as a result of the break in at Castlereagh Special Branch Offices in 2002. We are informed that the individual held the codename Christine … we are now aware that this individual rose to further prominence within the republican movement after the murder and subsequently was involved in serious criminality.

The legal firm went on to detail more accusations against the person.

Immediately after Joe O’Connor was killed, the Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein and the RUC all moved to close down any speculation as to what body might have been responsible. Within hours the RUC raided the offices of Republican Sinn Fein in what was a diversionary tactic. The IRA denied any culpability and offered its condolences to the dead man’s family - a deception tactic. From the mutual entanglement of shared interests both institutions were parents of a strategic subterfuge.

IRA leadership figures visited my home in a vain bid to coerce my silence on the matter. After briefing journalists with spin, Sinn Fein placed mobs outside my own home and that of my co-writer of the Irish News piece, Tommy Gorman.

At the inquest into Joe O’Connor’s death the coroner criticised the RUC for not having made a single arrest after the killing. The force was obviously not interested in investigating those behind it. Even though we would not have cooperated, it never once approached me or Tommy Gorman for the purpose of ascertaining who we had spoken to that enabled us to identify with certainty the organisation responsible. Contrast that with how the PSNI hared off in pursuit of the Boston College tapes, ostensibly as part of an investigation into another killing which, previously, it had shown no interest in.

The behaviour of both the Provisional Movement and the RUC around the killing of Joe O’Connor suggest that this was collusion on tour. While collusion is not an illusion, it is a term that causes confusion. There are some who think it means the state forces colluding only with the loyalist agencies.

The identity of the person alleged to be Agent Christine is an open secret in Ballymurphy and wider afield. He is said now to cut an isolated figure, with many of his closest erstwhile companions having concluded that he is a “wrong one”. Agent or not, he was party to:

  • the Sinn Fein led mob picketing of our homes
  • the distribution of leaflets which led to the PSNI arriving at our door with a warning that it considered us to be under threat
  • dissuading members of the community turning out in traditional community solidarity in July 2003 during an unlawful police search of our home
  • smearing us at public meetings in West Belfast

In my experience this is consistent with the modus operandi employed by other agents in their bid to protect the Provisional leadership from probing or scrutiny. It is not, however, conclusive proof.

Is this individual Agent Christine? Although, I continue to mull it over, I cannot be definitive about it. If he was working for the British state, he was hardly alone in that role within the ranks of the Ballymurphy IRA, as the RUC killing of Pearse Jordan in November 1992 would strongly suggest.

Two killings in the same street, in the same week but thirteen years apart, of a grandfather and his grandson, both homicides seemingly involving agents of the British state. That was a seriously loud fuck you to the supposed rule of law, in essence amounting to a brazen assertion of the rule of law enforcement. 

Thirty-five years after the first and twenty two after the second, the family of both slain men is resolute in its determination not to be sent round the Mulberry Bush. Instead through its legal action it has opted to unearth the poisonous roots at the bottom of the bush which have nutrified its noxious special branch.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Agent Christine

Anthony McIntyre ✒ Twenty-two years ago today in West Belfast’s Ballymurphy estate, the Provisional IRA carried out a shoot to kill operation

Its target was Joe O’Connor, a senior figure in the city’s Real IRA. O’Connor was killed as he sat unarmed in a car talking to a relative. His companion was unharmed. The killing was discriminate. The IRA got who it came for. To this day it has not admitted its role.

A few days later myself and Tommy Gorman wrote in the Irish News that it was a state killing, albeit one carried out by the Provisional IRA. Our reason for characterizing it as such was that Martin McGuinness at the time was on the army council that authorised the killing while simultaneously serving in the Stormont state administration as the education minister for the North.

That is not to say he was personally responsible. But the structural links between the IRA leadership and the Stormont state administration coupled with the corporate responsibility that cannot be evaded by individuals at the top of corporations made our suggestion that it was a state killing an arguable case.

In recent days, that assertion, now two decades old, has even more to buttress it.

The family of the late Joe O’Connor has launched a legal action against the office of the Police Ombudsman on the grounds that it allegedly failed to investigate the role of a person the family believes to have been a British state agent. The Ombudsman’s office was first requested in 2012 to examine the circumstances surrounding the killing and last year was asked to focus specifically on the alleged role of a person referred to as Agent Christine. The Irish News reported that Agent Christine was alleged to have been “one of the main protagonists” in the daylight execution. 

It was also reported by the paper that the solicitor representing the family, Michael Brentnall, had claimed that his office was in receipt of information:

that an RUC Special Branch asset was involved in the murder of Joseph O’Connor. We believe this information came to light as a result of the break in at Castlereagh Special Branch Offices in 2002. We are informed that the individual held the codename Christine … we are now aware that this individual rose to further prominence within the republican movement after the murder and subsequently was involved in serious criminality.

The legal firm went on to detail more accusations against the person.

Immediately after Joe O’Connor was killed, the Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein and the RUC all moved to close down any speculation as to what body might have been responsible. Within hours the RUC raided the offices of Republican Sinn Fein in what was a diversionary tactic. The IRA denied any culpability and offered its condolences to the dead man’s family - a deception tactic. From the mutual entanglement of shared interests both institutions were parents of a strategic subterfuge.

IRA leadership figures visited my home in a vain bid to coerce my silence on the matter. After briefing journalists with spin, Sinn Fein placed mobs outside my own home and that of my co-writer of the Irish News piece, Tommy Gorman.

At the inquest into Joe O’Connor’s death the coroner criticised the RUC for not having made a single arrest after the killing. The force was obviously not interested in investigating those behind it. Even though we would not have cooperated, it never once approached me or Tommy Gorman for the purpose of ascertaining who we had spoken to that enabled us to identify with certainty the organisation responsible. Contrast that with how the PSNI hared off in pursuit of the Boston College tapes, ostensibly as part of an investigation into another killing which, previously, it had shown no interest in.

The behaviour of both the Provisional Movement and the RUC around the killing of Joe O’Connor suggest that this was collusion on tour. While collusion is not an illusion, it is a term that causes confusion. There are some who think it means the state forces colluding only with the loyalist agencies.

The identity of the person alleged to be Agent Christine is an open secret in Ballymurphy and wider afield. He is said now to cut an isolated figure, with many of his closest erstwhile companions having concluded that he is a “wrong one”. Agent or not, he was party to:

  • the Sinn Fein led mob picketing of our homes
  • the distribution of leaflets which led to the PSNI arriving at our door with a warning that it considered us to be under threat
  • dissuading members of the community turning out in traditional community solidarity in July 2003 during an unlawful police search of our home
  • smearing us at public meetings in West Belfast

In my experience this is consistent with the modus operandi employed by other agents in their bid to protect the Provisional leadership from probing or scrutiny. It is not, however, conclusive proof.

Is this individual Agent Christine? Although, I continue to mull it over, I cannot be definitive about it. If he was working for the British state, he was hardly alone in that role within the ranks of the Ballymurphy IRA, as the RUC killing of Pearse Jordan in November 1992 would strongly suggest.

Two killings in the same street, in the same week but thirteen years apart, of a grandfather and his grandson, both homicides seemingly involving agents of the British state. That was a seriously loud fuck you to the supposed rule of law, in essence amounting to a brazen assertion of the rule of law enforcement. 

Thirty-five years after the first and twenty two after the second, the family of both slain men is resolute in its determination not to be sent round the Mulberry Bush. Instead through its legal action it has opted to unearth the poisonous roots at the bottom of the bush which have nutrified its noxious special branch.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

4 comments:

  1. A wise man(often vilified by the 'camp staff) once told me how the resulting GFA would play out. I.e 'they would go into stormont but tell you they plan to wreck it although they'll endeavor not to; they'd accept the RUC but tell you it's a ploy; they'd decommission; and they'd kill anyone who challenges their influence and the State would allow them. How true he was. P.s I recall the blank faces from some camp staff when the GFA was announced I.e they honestly hadn't a clue it was going to materialize........great visionaries and tacticians they were! Perfect fodder to be duped as well by cuter hoors.

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  2. Good luck to Joe,s family ,but as someone who rarely gambles I,d be prepared to take a punt that they more chance of not getting wet while pissing into the wind than ever getting justice for Joe or his grandfather,but like paul Quinns family they should pursue those responsible at every twist and turn ,like all these state murders Bloody Sunday Ballymurphy etc the state and its agents and that of course includes PIRA just want this all swept under the proverbial carpet,thats why outlets like the quill are so vitally important , keep her lit Anthony keep telling it as it is , your not on your own ,

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  3. Good article. Not much use to Joe Joe, his family or his friends, or indeed to yourselves Anthony but the truth is coming out about it all. A credit to all of those who swam in pretty dangerous waters to ensure the truth is coming out. Maith sibh.

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