This work looks at the influence Martin McGuinness brought to bear on the Provisional IRA from its early tumultuous origins to its public capitulation at the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The incentive to continue reading is to see whether the book addresses competently, and concludes authoritatively, on the simple but salient question, Cui bono? Who benefitted from that undeniable influence, the British or the IRA?
As with his previous work concerning the IRA in Tyrone, Trigg has displayed a capacity for solid research and a demonstrable record of interviews with key players from all sides which in itself offers a valuable insight into events of those times. Referencing Dorothy McArdle’s immense work The Irish Republic is always an encouraging indicator of proper groundwork.
The deficiency with his previous work, Death in the Fields: The IRA in East Tyrone, from a republican perspective, is that the British Military take on the IRA campaign is depressingly apolitical, more focussed on the wherewithal of ‘events’ as opposed to their political implications. The hoped for difference in this work is that because its core subject was to the fore in shaping those political implications more light would be shed on their consequences and how they evolved.
The first one hundred pages or so set out in stark terms the chaos that was the Six Counties in the early to mid seventies for both British and republican forces. British soldiers in the main hadn’t a clue as to what their initial function was once deployed. Even less was their own understanding of the politico/religious dynamic that drove the deep divisions within that region of Ireland, which they were told was British.
From the republican perspective the IRA was caught short most notably in terms of manpower and weaponry for the defence of nationalist areas besieged by loyalist mobs, fully backed by the Unionist hegemony and their paramilitary forces in the RUC, B-Specials and the UDR.
It was also an era of haphazard warfare; bombings in urban settings with parochial led strategies of attacking economic targets with a high attrition rate of civilian and volunteer deaths. Basic training and equipment at best coupled with a naive understanding of guerrilla warfare.
The British side fared little better. Squaddies and grunts sent over to keep the warring factions apart. Hated by one side for killing theirs and hated by the other for not killing enough of them. A purely reactionary war which would take a huge casualty toll before it evolved into a more intelligence and strategy led conflict, on both sides.
Like in other operational areas highly effective volunteers emerged, most notably in rural commands and in this instance South Derry, more specifically the village of Bellaghy. The emergence of volunteers Francis Hughes, Dominic McGlinchey and Ian Milne - and their operational record - coincided with, or had influence on, the emergence of what the author calls the ‘cynical and prophetic’ policy of Ulsterisation.
In a deliberate policy of trying to depict itself as an honest broker the British government placed local security forces in the front line, relegating the British Army into a supporting role. Cynical in the sense that the British were anything but neutral and prophetic in the sense that by defining the conflict in terms of nationalist against unionist the British were ensuring the future parameters for a purely internal settlement.
At times the war is reduced to a list of casualties and their marital and parental status, reminiscent of a BBC/RTE news report, a groundhog day of repetitive condemnations with not an iota of political insight. But every so often the mantra is punctuated by a political observation that the author must be lauded for unearthing. The first case in point was a comment by John Hume directly after Bloody Sunday which in its simplicity defined precisely what constitutional nationalism was willing to settle for and what Irish republicans were gifted to achieve.
At this remove the influence of Martin McGuinness is portrayed as almost spectral, aloof, leadership via third parties. Even his elevation to the position of Chief of Staff is portrayed as detached from the day to day workings of the Derry IRA. The dearth of detail regarding his involvement in the Seventies in the chapters before the photographs provokes an expectation that the influence of McGuinness is to be given more scrutiny in the chapters which follow.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that the chapter which bridges the two halves is one set aside for informers, agents and supergrasses whose debilitating impact on the IRA in the region is bluntly acknowledged and detailed by the author.
Raymond Gilmour, an early supergrass within PIRA ranks, is introduced as a petty criminal, the brother of petty criminals punished by PIRA for their activities. His motivations for working for the British, before he joined any republican group, apparently stems from a punishment beating received by a close friend. Whether this is true or not it seems incredulous that such an individual could be recruited into republican ranks to the degree that he could cause the damage which he did.
Without question there was a serious informer/infiltration problem in the Derry Brigade area. A comprehensive list of compromised operations, ambushes by the security forces and munitions seizures in the text certainly adds considerable weight to this conclusion. However, what is absent is a prudent analysis as to why this was the case within this specific command.
Informers are one thing, bad security is another. The former can be shot, the latter is like trying to pick up mercury with the proverbial fork. Why recruit petty criminals like Raymond Gilmour is a good starting point but the book does not delve into this type of inquiry which is deeply disappointing because if the book concerns itself with the influence of Martin McGuinness on this operational area it must also look at his influence on matters of internal security, and not simply from the accusation point of view, but from the better practice of insisting on good common sense security. Blaming informers on all your ills is a very dangerous deception.
It is irritatingly odd that the influence of Martin McGuinness is kind of addressed in the final and shortest chapter. The niggling accusations against McGuinness are met head on, both from republican and security sources, but the opportunity to give a more detailed context to those accusations is missed because, quite simply, the book does not gauge that influence in the preceding chapters.
Accusations of Martin McGuinness being a British agent are simply that, accusations. And as the author correctly points out in an organisation like the IRA, and in a conflict scenario, such accusations can have tactical agendas to serve a multitude of vested interests. Key players interviewed from the republican side are adamant that he was. They cite specific incidents to demonstrate culpability but they do so from a position of anonymity which devalues to a degree the charge. From the British side accounts are more hazy, raised eyebrows stuff which if it was put forward as evidence would struggle even in a Diplock Court. How did he escape the clutches of a supergrass undoubtedly known to him?
That said, the tree is known by its fruit; the politician for what they negotiated and settled for. And as stated from the outset Cui bono? The British or the IRA? Was it agency or incompetence that explains Powell’s Equation?
Jonathan Trigg, 2025, Death in Derry: Martin McGuinness and the Derry IRA’s War Against the British. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: 978-1785375477
⏩ The Fenian Way was a full time activist during the IRA's war against the British.
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