Military Intelligence Reports 🕮 (August 1969

Christopher Owens 🔖 Say what you want about Athol Books, their dedication to the minutia of Irish history is to be commended.

Through various publications on the United Irishmen, the Siege of Derry, the War of Independence as well as various tomes about Irish links to the French Revolution and the First World War, it is a truly fascinating publishing house.

So it’s not a big surprise that they have published material relating to the Arms Trial.

A hugely controversial (and fiercely debated) incident in Irish history, it remains a Rorschach test for those in the north: to nationalists/republicans it was the final proof that the south would kowtow to the British government at the first opportunity and, for unionists/loyalists, it was ample evidence that Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution were not rhetorical.

There have been a variety of books over the years arguing about how much Jack Lynch knew about what was going on, and how much blame the government deserves for helping to form the Provisionals. Writing to the Irish Examiner in 2006, Conor Lynch reminded readers that:

Within hours of the death of Charles Haughey the leader of the Labour Party again brought up the infamous Arms Trial. He forgets that Mr. Haughey was cleared of any wrongdoing. And he was cleared on the basis that he was implementing Government policy. If there was any wrongdoing, and I don’t believe there was, the man responsible was the Taoiseach and not Haughey.

Pat Rabbitte and I come from the same stable. He cannot be unaware that our former leader Cahal Goulding along with my father, who was then on the IRA Army Council, met with Mr. Haughey and pleaded with him to get weapons and to get them quickly.

Mr. Rabbitte may be ashamed of his past, though he has not accounted for it. Those of us who attempted to arm the minority in the North which was under siege from marauding B-Specials and RUC take pride in our past. Rather than being a stick with which to beat Charles Haughey, the Arms Trial was one of his finest hours. He was not prepared to stand idly by.

Of course Goulding, ever the spin doctor, opted to use this event as a way to gloss over the fact that his policy of slowly running down the IRA (despite prior warnings from Belfast veterans) had led to the humiliation of August 1969. So, through this series of events, he was able to depict himself as an unwitting pawn in the Irish state’s attempt to rid itself of Marxist threat by arming the reactionary (read ‘Rosary bead brigade’) elements that would begin to coalesce at the end of that year. This view became a permanent fixture of Official IRA/Workers’ Party ideology (although it didn’t stop them from going into government with Fianna Fail under Haughey’s leadership).

The one figure who undoubtedly suffered the most in this ordeal was Captain James Kelly. Head of Army intelligence, it was he whom the Lynch government gave the job of drafting reports to when the pogroms of August 1969 occurred. Apparently this was purely by chance as Kelly was visiting his brother, who resided in Belfast at the time.

And so, for the first time, those reports have been collected together in this 86-page book. They paint a fascinating picture of how not only nationalists, but government officials were struggling to process such seismic events as they happened in real time.

Kelly reports how, on the 17th August 1969, he was approached by a member of Clann na nGael about the possibility of “…setting up a guerilla force to operate in the Six Counties…” who “…saw the force as avoiding battle, especially with the British forces…on the Vietnam model.”

Although Kelly makes it clear that he believed that such an organisation would exist with or without help from the south, it was clearly an informal approach for support. Later on that day, Paddy Kennedy and Paddy Devlin (both Stormont MP’s) contacted Kelly and requested weapons for defence purposes, with Kennedy stating that he would get weapons whatever it took (unsurprising considering his Republican Labour credentials).

This report, although undated, demonstrates that Lynch’s statement about not being able to stand by and see innocent people killed and injured was interpreted as a smoke signal to both those involved in the coalface of defence and those with a more conspiratorial agenda. Angela Clifford argues that Lynch had talked the talk when it came to reunification and so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him.

Other reports discuss the likes of Jim Sullivan (“a nut and a dangerous man”), the UVF (Desmond Boal and William Craig are listed as leader and second in command respectively), People’s Democracy (Bernadette McAliskey is reported as having let the side down by “trotting to the continent getting mixed up with anarchists…”) and Cathal Goulding (John Kelly, who would be part of the squad that had a shouting match with Billy McMillen, is quoted as saying that he was inclined to think of Goulding as a republican. Yet, two days later, it is reported that word was received that morning that Goulding was a Communist).

How accurate these are, who knows? But, as period pieces, they are undoubtedly fascinating.

Closing with a denunciation of Lynch, a reiteration of the stances took by members of the Irish Communist Organisation (of which Athol Books emerged from) and a defence of Captain Kelly, Clifford deserves praise for compiling these reports as they not only let us know how those involved interpreted events before they amalgamated into a more digestible tale for future generations, but also proves that the Irish government (in the words of Muddy Waters) had allowed their mouth to write a cheque that their tail couldn’t cash.

Kudos to Athol Books for their work.

Captain James Kelly, Angela Clifford, 2024, Military Intelligence Reports (August 1969 – January 1970). Athol Books ISBN-13: 978-1874157250

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.