A traitor. A British spy who infiltrated the IRA as part of Britain’s dirty war. His victims deserve our thoughts and support.
An eminently fair suggestion given what was inflicted on those he killed and their families.
Unless she says otherwise, it would be wrong to read into Murphy’s comment that those who died at the hands of Scappaticci were exclusively victims of the British state and its dirty war. They were also victims of the IRA army council and its war, which too was frequently dirty and which those of us who were members of the organisation cannot wash our hands of. Rage at the leadership as much as we wish but many of us nodded our approval of Gerry Adams when he said of the late Charles McIlmurray, killed in 1987:
The Army Council sanctioned Scappaticci to carry out the acts he did. It is difficult to think of a single killing carried out by him that would have happened without the approval of the Army Council. He was not someone who infiltrated the IRA to do only the bidding of the British. He was a longstanding member before the British turned him. Each of the killings he carried out was cleared at the highest levels of the IRA. All had the imprimatur of both the British state and the IRA Army Council. When he was exposed in 2003 there was no shortage of IRA and Sinn Fein figures lining up to shield him from public scrutiny. My view now is much as it was in 2017:
Unless she says otherwise, it would be wrong to read into Murphy’s comment that those who died at the hands of Scappaticci were exclusively victims of the British state and its dirty war. They were also victims of the IRA army council and its war, which too was frequently dirty and which those of us who were members of the organisation cannot wash our hands of. Rage at the leadership as much as we wish but many of us nodded our approval of Gerry Adams when he said of the late Charles McIlmurray, killed in 1987:
Mr McIlmurray, like anyone else living in West Belfast, knows that the consequence for informing is death.
Like the Catholic Church hierarchy in sex abuse cases, the IRA leadership acted to protect themselves and their own reputations by covering up the truth about Stakeknife, rather than reaching out to help those who had been wronged.
In short, they colluded in covering up what the British state’s dirty war actually meant for its victims. This was not the result of ignorance of his activities but was borne from a wilful intent. Danny Morrison has claimed that from as early as 1990 the leadership had been aware that Scappaticci was a wrong one. Morrison did not share that with his co accused who might have found it valuable for their defence in court. Despite claiming to have been aware for thirteen years of Scappaticci’s treachery, Morrison and the leadership went along with his denials of the British state homicides in which he was deeply complicit. Morrison dismissed the allegations as "bizarre and without any proof." Gerry Adams when asked for his view of Scappaticci’s refutation that he was a British agent responded "I have to accept that." Perhaps having forgotten to tell his co-accused, it never occurred to Morrison to mention it to Adams either.
All of this invites deliberation on how the mechanism by which Andree Murphy’s laudable support and thoughts for those left bereaved by his actions is to be enacted. Lash the Brits out of it for sure, but to the public ear it is one hand clapping.
One option would be an acknowledgement by the IRA leadership, or those who comprised it at the time, that all those killed by its Internal Security Department merit a posthumous pardon, that they were the victims of a travesty of justice and wrongly killed. That is not to say that they were innocent in the way that Volunteer Michael Kearney was, but merely to accept that the evidence against them was so corrupted and contaminated that the findings by the Army Council that they were informers who rightly suffered the consequences, death, can no longer have merit.
If the British judiciary can overturn its verdicts in cases like the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, hubris should not get in the way of the Army Council doing the same thing. In making the same suggestion in 2017, I argued that, 'surely the IRA leadership is not going to continue to rely on the evidence of a British agent?'
None of this would restore the life of one single victim but it would go some distance towards restoring a peace of mind to the grieving families whose loved ones had their lives snuffed out in a morbid joint enterprise.
It would at least remove from the loved ones the mark of Cain which they have been compelled to carry within the communities where they lived. For all the talk of there being no hierarchy of victims, within the republican caste system the informer has the status of the untouchable.
Thoughts and support for the victims of Scappaticci will insist that they be exonerated now, that the terrible ignominy he inflicted on them and their families be buried alongside him, never again to see the light of day.
Who appointed the nutting squad? Were they all approved by the AC?
ReplyDeleteGHQ would have appointed its leadership. The go ahead for it killing people came from the AC.
ReplyDelete@ Steve R
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't already read it, Killing Rage by Eamon Collins gives an insight into the machinations of the Nutting Squad. It benefits from being written prior to Stakeknife entering common parlance.
With hindsight, it's interesting that Collins was recruited to the Squad - I wonder if Scap's handlers had plans for him.
Cam Comments
DeleteBrandon,
Having met Collins as he walked the yard in the Crum I can tell you that he was despised by all. A person that it was easy to dislike and so angry at how his life had turned out. It was everyone else’s fault except his. He was so arrogant and aloof about his treatment by his handlers and the IRA. He was an agent long before Scappaticci had crossed over so his inclusion in the nutting squad was definitely a move by the Brits and I think that they had plans for Scap rather than Scap had plans for Collins. When Collins was 'invited' to join would be dependent as to when Scappaticci became an agent but it may well have been orchestrated by agents higher up. Collins became an agent back in the top half of the 1970s. He went on a trip to Russia with his handler and had a mental breakdown around the same period -
certainly wasn't brought on by guilt!
He had a photographic memory so there was very little detail he wouldn’t have been able to recall. But, as for his writings, they would have been written with a view to justify his role throughout and making him the victim - you would have to be very careful at what he has written because of his arrogance
His personal life was wrought with immoral activity also so when I hear in the media what a hero and family man he was I cringe! Eamon Collins was all about Eamon Collins - no-one else mattered only him, not even his family or his long suffering wife.
PS While walking the yard he would joke about how long he would do in prison and that we would all be old men by the time he got out but he knew that he was never going to do a day extra in prison.. - his choice of psychiatrist, most likely a person hand picked by his handlers, was going to get him off and keep him from spilling any beans that they preferred he didn't. Look up to see who his psychiatrist was and there in lies the answer to his release.
Are there any sources for Eamon Collins being compromised since the 1970s? His book omits a lot but that's hard to reconcile with his the RUC recruiting him as a supergrass as if he had no previous cooperation with the them.
DeleteCam,
ReplyDeleteI believe that. In the Network First programme, there’s a moment where Collins reads the order from the IRA putting him out of the country. When finished, Collins remarks “That’s what I got, after giving 8 years of my life to the IRA”, which demonstrates the ego he had. He was lucky he wasn’t killed straight away!
Self-absorbed, self-aggrandising and with a huge chip on his shoulder, it's ironic that his squalid death has been written out of the official narrative of this country.
Eamon Collins, did he work as a HM Customs Officer? Or have I got the wrong bloke?
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
same guy
DeleteREVERSE FOR PROVOS (Evening Echo 16 August 1974)
ReplyDeleteThe Provisional I.R.A. in Northern Ireland has suffered a number of reverses in the past wo days.
Paul Magorrian, (21), adjutant of the Provo's South Down Brigade, was shot dead by troops in Castlewellan on Wednesday might.
Today it was learned that two more Brigade Staff officers one in Belfast, the other in Derry - have been captured...
Fred Scappaticci, (27), was picked up as he walked along The street near his home in Bel- fast's Lower Falls. He has served detention before and was freed from The Maze only in November.
Across the North, Andy Stephenson, (38), has been arrested by troops in the Bogside. A security source said today "Of the four main Provo Brigades in Northern Ireland, three have lost important personnel. It is a tremendous coup for us."
The Belfast Telegraph has named ISU member Paddy Monaghan as working for the British:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/third-ira-leader-exposed-as-an-agent-in-ruthless-but-riddled-nutting-squad/733395829.html
I'm always a bit suspicious when a rash of people are named as agents or informers, particularly when they're dead.
There are state documents pertaining to informants from the War of Independence period that the British government still refuses to declassify. Even a century on the narrative of history as popularly understood is too sensitive to tamper with. I doubt anyone reading this blog will live to see the full truth of the Troubles.
DeleteJohn Ware, obliquely, referred to him as an informer in 'No Stone Unturned'.
Delete@ Bleakley, Cam
ReplyDeleteI don't think Eamon Collins was working for the British state before, or after, his tenure as a "supergrass."
I have to say that the rest of Cam's comment sound entirely credible, though.
Cam Comments
DeleteBrandon,
If he wasn't an agent Brandon, how did a known member of the IRA become a ranking officer in HM Revenue and Customs?
While Collins was at college (Queen’s I think…the auld brain matter isn’t what it used to be!) reading law he was recruited…something tells me he never finished his law degree and I think that was down to the beginnings of his mental breakdown….one of his lecturers was the same person who took him on a trip to Russia, Moscow I believe, and who was also a British secret service agent….now just what agency he belonged too I’m not sure but Collins was definitely approached and most likely ‘turned’ at that point in Moscow…he even at that time had mentioned that due to the approaches made by his lecturer he believed he was an MI5 / MI6 agent yet he still went off to Moscow with him….I don’t believe that he held an authoritarian position within the IRA at that particular time but the British saw the potential in him, enough to want him as an agent for them….his mental breakdown led to a time-out in the wilderness and for some unexplainable reason the IRA in South Down / Louth decided that he was OK to bring back in to the fold…quite a bizarre decision to make consider his mental health and his potential liability under interrogation….he relished his role and quickly rose through the ranks no doubt assisted by his handlers but I think that at some point he may have been operating without passing on his involvement to his handlers and may even have gone rogue on them…there was always something quite odd with Collins…I always felt after talking to him that he was playing a double agent role…always felt that the IRA must have known he had been recruited by the British and decided to use him…I think that at some point something had occurred and the IRA grew tired of his role, he was quite arrogant and demanding, that at some point the IRA had decided that he had to go and he realising this turned to his handlers for help and they also growing increasingly wearisome of his behaviour and demands offered him the supergrass path which he took…the rest is public record!
As for working for them after – he was so arrogant Brandon that he actually believed that approaching the volunteers he had arrested under the supergrass period would not entail a process of forgiveness since he had nothing to be forgiven for, forgiveness was never mentioned for he had done nothing wrong in his mind…he had been an agent (quite possibly a double agent)…for Ireland, don’t they understand that!!!!, but completely opposite, they would welcome him with open arms once he was released….It was a really bizarre attitude to have considering that he had broken those brigades wide open and those who weren’t arrested were scattered across Louth on the run…as for the British, who else would he have turned to after his release…he became a constant thorn in the side of PIRA in S Armagh and S Down and yet all he had to do was keep his mouth shut….but Eamon Collins was not Eamon Collins if he was quiet and not talking aloud about himself!
@ Cam
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply - you're right that he initially went to study law, and that he went to Moscow with one of his lecturers (an English man). Collins and his lecturer were both committed communists, and if one or both were turned I don't think it would have been by the British - I wouldn't rule out that one or both were working with support from the then powerful Soviet regime, but I can't see the game plan from a British perspective of allowing the IRA to develop units in Newry and Queens University - both of which caused them serious headaches.
Collins worked briefly for the MOD (going from memory) in London in a clerical role, before returning to Ireland. He joined Customs & Excise prior to joining the IRA.
I find your observations of him very interesting, and astute. I read once that Collins "could start a fight in an empty room."
Collins wrote that his breakdown occurred in 1985, following interrogation following the lethal mortar attack on Newry RUC. Do you think it occurred earlier than he wrote?
A fascinating case all in all. I can't really fathom why he continued to live in Newry after giving evidence against Slab Murphy, and his articles in the press.
I can't find the source, but I'm fairly sure he tried to get a complaint upheld against a newspaper for calling him an "informer."
"I can't really fathom why he continued to live in Newry after giving evidence against Slab Murphy, and his articles in the press."
DeleteArrogance. He probably felt that his public profile made him untouchable.
Cam Comments
DeleteYou’re 100% right, he is a fascinating case. Brandon, most of my information comes from my direct experience of him, from those in the Crum because of him, those from S Armagh, Newry and S Down and Louth too….some of those were very friendly with him before he committed himself to acting as a witness for the Crown….so the information they provide has to take in to account their personal grudges they held against him and how that could affect the veracity of it…aspects like that but all in all when I talked to the various people involved their information tended to cross-over quite a bit….as for his time in the MoD…when I worked in London in the late 1990’s I worked with the following people:
Ex British Army squaddies (Scottish, English and Welsh…no Irish at all), ex British Intelligence (Army intelligence, MI5 and MI6 and few other lesser known ‘Intelligence Departments’ that the others didn’t like at all), SAS and 3COM who I drank with in Windsor, MoD department of electronic developments – toys for the boys type stuff – this guy who was from that department created the yellow cap you see on the end of the rifles when they are playing their war games…he had some great stories to tell and was a really nice fella to know, RAF squadron leader who was an absolute gentleman – I’ll never forget him, MoD admin people and the company even sent me on a training course to Israel where I went through training that was conducted by ex MOSSAD agents…..I also lived in Ascot with an ex-army chef (Scottish and a complete lunatic who was married 3 times and a boy soldier – may be that is what attracted me to his company!!!) and an ex-army intelligence officer also Scottish and about 6’ 8” in height….he was huge and freely talked of his escapades around the Fermanagh/Cavan/Monaghan border and Prince Andrew’s back garden backed on to ours…Pinochet was under house arrest at the time in Wentworth Golf course which was literally just round the corner from us…….
@ Christopher Owens
ReplyDelete"John Ware, obliquely, referred to him as an informer in 'No Stone Unturned'."
Paddy Monaghan?
I'll need to re-watch No Stone Unturned.
Brandon,
DeleteTimestamped for your convenience.
https://youtu.be/AuZfe5iyaXw?t=3618
Cam Comments
DeleteAnd all the people I met never once asked who I was….at one point I lived in a house close to Camberley and which backed on to Sandhurst…..
Collins breakdown in 85 was probably another episode of his deteriorating mental health that had begun back in the 1970’s….I think it was around 1977 ( not sure about that date) that he went to Moscow and when he returned he had his first mental health issue which most likely led to him not finishing his law degree….he was definitely about the IRA then but in what capacity I don’t know…I think that the Brits had the idea that they could supplant him so that he rose through the ranks to the top with their help of course and where they could then take control just as they did with Scappaticci…Collins actually recruited IRA volunteers within his Customs department and carried out an attack on his boss who was a part-time member of the UDR…not sure if it was a successful attack or not, can’t remember…..I suppose it was another alternative method of achieving promotion at work!!!!!!!
The weird aspect of Collins is that his behaviour didn’t seem to raise any red flags both within the IRA or within British intelligence…he seemed to be immune to both….he wasn't arrested very often at all as that would have alerted Revenue and Customs...can you imagine his boss' reaction to finding out he was a a potential terrorist and runing the show in to the bargain!!!!!!
It must have been hell for his wife and family to go through an ordeal like that and then for him to begin it all again on his release….the man was so self-centred that he failed to see the psychological damage he was doing to his family…can you imagine every time his wife went out to a shop the people would stare and say ‘that’s Collins, you know the supergrass, that’s his wife’ and as for his children, can you imagine the taunting that went on at school or the birthday parties they were never invited too and then when he is released he starts that all over again! Christ they never got a break…I really pitied them at the time and still do….I suppose we will never know the truth about Collins, not even he knew who Eamon Collins really was.
CAM, The attack on his boss in Revenue and Customs was "successful"; his victim was UDR member Ivan Toombes. In "Killing Rage", he writes about coming under the influence of an English member of the Law Faculty at Queen's University, Belfast who belonged to the far left sect the Revolutionary Communist Party (subsequently reinvented as the Institute of Ideas and later Spiked Online) which then unconditionally supported the Provos as their preferred class war agents. This academic is reputed to have set up his colleague Edgar Graham for murder in December 1983 and to have been a collaborator in other ASU actions on the campus.
ReplyDeleteBarry,
DeleteI hate to be all Judea People's Front, but it was the RCG Ewins was a member of. From the missing chapter of Killing Rage:
"Ewins was selling the magazine Hands Off Ireland!, a publication of the tiny ultra-left Revolutionary Communist Group - one of the few British groups to give unconditional support to the IRA. Ewins told Collins he wrote for that magazine and its equally unambiguous, exclamation-marked sister publication, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!"
Cam Coments
DeleteBarry, never, ever came across any of my people sources ever mentioning any of that. In fact, they all pointed to the lecturer being British Intelligence….If I had heard that I would have mentioned it. If he was unconnected to British Intelligence he would have come to the attention of MI5 Special Branch very quickly as the IRA had more than one tout in their midst and he would have been easy prey for the Castlereagh interrogators then…..Why was the lecturer never arrested for such actions? He may very well have been attached to all those you refer to but that certainly doesn’t rule out who his original paymasters were or what his objectives were.
@ Cam
ReplyDeleteIn the Network First documentary Christopher mentioned earlier, Collins noted that part of the deal he struck with the RUC was that the lecturer wasn't to be arrested/charged with anything. The lecturer subsequently fled across the border.
It's well worth checking the documentary out.
Your observations of Collins I think are totally accurate, but I don't believe he, or his lecturer friend, were working for the British.
Eamon Collins documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsfM_kXUU5c
More on the lecturer: https://thebrokenelbow.com/2018/03/07/eamon-collins-more-voices-from-the-grave-part-one/