Stakeknife ✏ The Case Of Jimmy Young

Seamus Kearney ✍ James Young took the oath of allegiance to the IRA in 1974, while living in the tiny fishing village of Portaferry, at the mouth of Strangford Lough, County Down.

He only played a minor role until 1975, the year in which his life changed, after he was ordered to partake in an armed robbery to raise funds for the purchase of weapons. His role as an active service volunteer ended in the Spring of 1976, when he was arrested and charged with robbery and possession of incendiary devices, thanks to the information of an informer.

On 11th November 1976, Jimmy was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment, but was released within 4 years due to the 50 per cent remission clause. He returned to his home in Beechwood Avenue, Portaferry, determined to resume married life.

However, in August 1981 he was involved in a car accident, deemed to be his fault and told to report to Newtownards RUC station. When Jimmy arrived he was met by two Special Branch officers and blackmailed into becoming an informer. If he refused their offer, then it was indicated to him that he could be returned to prison, to serve out the remaining 4 years of his sentence. He agreed to work for them under duress.

From November 1981, Jimmy Young was under orders from Special Branch, along with Military Intelligence, to rejoin the local PIRA unit and to become much more active. He passed on details of a co-ordinated bombing campaign in County Down, which resulted in operations being abandoned, along with a number of IRA volunteers being killed or captured.

By the end of 1983 the IRA were aware that many of its operations were known to the British, so an internal investigation was launched, with a field of suspects being narrowed down, one by one. By the end of the first week of February 1984 the IRA believed the culprit was none other than Jimmy Young. The PIRA investigation team ascertained that Young had been turned as a result of the car accident in 1981 because he had never been arrested since that time. The question for them now was how to get Young out of the sleepy village of Portaferry and into the ' Bandit country' of South Armagh, where an in depth interrogation could commence.

After the IRA told Young to attend a meeting, he in turn told his handlers, who gave him two phone numbers in case he was walking into a trap. However, he never got the chance to phone anyone as he was quickly transported to South Armagh, and handed over to the IRA 's special interrogation and execution unit.

As was standard procedure at the time, the IRA Internal Security Unit, or ISU, was requested, not by South Armagh, but by Northern Command to oversee the interrogation of James Young. When Freddie Scappaticci and his superior, the former British Marine, arrived, they began asking questions of Young which aroused suspicion from the tightly knit South Armagh Brigade men. It was the type of questioning levelled at Young, in which Scap would want to know about every IRA volunteer in the County Down area and the operations they carried out, along with the location of arms dumps, which raised eyebrows from others in the room.

Young broke under 3 days of IRA interrogation and confessed that he was an agent, working for Special Branch and British Military Intelligence. He revealed that he had tampered with explosive devices to ensure they did not detonate and had transported a sub-machine gun to Belfast the previous month, January 1984, with the help of his handlers. This alerted the IRA to the possibility that the sub- machine gun could be bugged, or a tracking device inserted in the butt of the weapon, which had happened before.

As was standard practice with Freddie Scappaticci and his superior, who were both working for the British, Scap with the military Force Research Unit and his superior for RUC Special Branch, they vacated the safe house in the Irish Republic, a few miles from Jonesborough, in South Armagh, 24 hours prior to the execution.

Scappaticci, aka Stakeknife, informed his handler of exactly the circumstance with Jimmy Young, along with the address etc. The handler in turn, through his SB50 form, quickly submitted it to the Task Co - Ordinating Group ( TCG), the body of senior RUC / Military personnel, with the power over life and death, similar to the Roman Emperors overseeing the gladiatorial contests, giving a 'thumbs up, or thumbs down' to the combatants in the arena.

On this occasion and for no apparent reason, the TCG made the absolutely rare decision to send the cavalry, and informed the Gardai of the whereabouts of Jimmy Young.

Tragically for Jimmy, the Gardai cordoned off the little cul de sac of houses, but stormed into the wrong house looking to rescue him. Once the IRA volunteers realised what was happening, they immediately grabbed Young and sprinted out the rear door, frog marching him across the neighbouring fields. The two remaining IRA volunteers walked out the front door and leisurely climbed into their car, but were stopped by the Gardai patrol in the cul de sac. One Gardai officer approached their vehicle and recognised the IRA driver, then stated' " You have a hell of a cheek defending anyone in a court martial". The car was then flagged on.

Subsequently, on February 13th, 1984, Jimmy Young was executed by South Armagh Brigade and he was found lying face down by a stone wall on a roadside near Crossmaglen. He had been shot once in the head. Young left a wife and four children behind.

The South Armagh Brigade, based on what had transpired at the Gardai check point and the raid on the cul de sac, blamed Scappaticci for the compromise. A report was sent to Belfast and Northern Command but for some inexplicable reason nothing was done. As a result Scap and his superior in the Special Boat Service ( Royal Marines) escaped and lived to fight for the British for another day.

As for the bugged submachine gun, it was moved to an arms dump in Dunloy, County Antrim. The IRA reckoned that the submachine gun was bugged and a tracking device had been inserted. As it turned out, they were correct: a covert unit of SAS were heading toward Dunloy, to ambush an IRA unit in possession of the bugged weapon. Two IRA volunteers, Henry Hogan and Declan Martin, were informed about the situation and moved into position, armed with an Armalite rifle and a 12 bore sawn - off shotgun. In the ensuing fire fight, both IRA volunteers were killed along with a decorated SAS trooper, 26 year old Sergeant Paul Oram, with a second SAS trooper badly wounded.

Thus ended the saga of a man called Jimmy Young.

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.