Twenty-seven-year-old Micky Devine, from the Creggan in Derry city, was the third INLA Volunteer to join the H-Block hunger strike to the death.
Micky Devine took over as O/C of the INLA blanket men in March when the then O/C, Patsy O’Hara, joined the hunger strike but he retained this leadership post when he joined the hunger strike himself.
Known as ‘Red Micky’, his nickname stemmed from his ginger hair rather than his political complexion, although he was most definitely a republican socialist.
The story of Micky Devine is not one of a republican ‘super-hero’ but of a typical Derry lad whose family suffered all of the ills of sectarian and class discrimination inflicted upon the Catholic working-class of that city: poor housing, unemployment and lack of opportunity.
Micky himself had a rough life.
His father died when Micky was a young lad; he found his mother dead when he was only a teenager; married young, his marriage ended in separation; he underwent four years of suffering ‘on the blanket’ in the H-Blocks; and, finally, the torture of hunger-strike.
Unusually for a young Derry nationalist, because of his family’s tragic history (unconnected with ‘the troubles’), Micky was not part of an extended family, and his only close relatives were his sister Margaret, seven years his elder, and now aged 34, and her husband, Frank McCauley, aged 36.
CAMP
Michael James Devine was born on May 26th, 1954 in the Springtown camp, on the outskirts of Derry city, a former American army base from the Second World War, which Micky himself described as “the slum to end all slums”.
Hundreds of families – 99% (unemployed) Catholics, because of Derry corporation’s sectarian housing policy – lived, or rather existed, in huts, which were not kept in any decent state of repair by the corporation.
One of Micky’s earliest memories was of lying in a bed covered in old coats to keep the rain off the bed. His sister, Margaret, recalls that the huts were “okay” during the summer, but they leaked, and the rest of the year they were cold and damp.
Micky’s parents, Patrick and Elizabeth, both from Derry city, had got married in late 1945 shortly after the end of the Second World War, during which Patrick had served in the British merchant navy. He was a coalman by trade, but was unemployed for years.
At first Patrick and Elizabeth lived with the latter’s mother in Ardmore, a village near Derry, where Margaret was born in 1947. In early 1948 the family moved to Springtown where Micky was born in May 1954.
Although Springtown was meant to provide only temporary accommodation, official lethargy and sectarianism dictated that such inadequate housing was good enough for Catholics and it was not until the early ‘sixties that the camp was closed.
BLOW
During the ‘fifties, the Creggan was built as a new Catholic ghetto, but it was 1960 before the Devines got their new home in Creggan, on the Circular Road. Micky had an unremarkable, but reasonably happy childhood. He went to Holy Child primary school in Creggan.
At the age of eleven Micky started at St. Joseph’s secondary school in Creggan, which he was to attend until he was fifteen.
But soon the first sad blow befell him. On Christmas eve 1965, when Micky was aged only eleven, his father fell ill; and six weeks later, in February 1966, his father, who was only in his forties, died of leukaemia.
Micky had been very close to his father and his premature death left Micky heartbroken.
Five months later, in July 1966, his sister Margaret left home to get married, whilst Micky remained in the Devines’ Circular Road home with his mother and granny.
At school Micky was an average pupil, and had no notable interests.
STONING
The first civil rights march in Derry took place on October 5th, 1968, when the sectarian RUC batoned several hundred protesters at Duke Street. Recalling that day, Micky, who was then only fourteen wrote:
“Like every other young person in Derry my whole way of thinking was tossed upside down by the events of October 5th, 1968. I didn’t even know there was a civil rights march. I saw it on television.
“But that night I was down the town smashing shop windows and stoning the RUC. Overnight I developed an intense hatred of the RUC. As a child I had always known not to talk to them, or to have anything to do with them, but this was different
“Within a month everyone was a political activist. I had never had a political thought in my life, but now we talked of nothing else. I was by no means politically aware but the speed of events gave me a quick education.”
TENSION
After the infamous loyalist attack on civil rights marchers in nearby Burntollet, in January 1969, tension mounted in Derry through 1969 until the August 12th riots, when Orangemen – Apprentice Boys and the RUC – attacked the Bogside, meeting effective resistance, in the ‘Battle of the Bogside’. On two occasions in 1969 Micky ended up at the wrong end of an RUC baton, and consequently in hospital.
That summer Micky left school. Always keen to improve himself, he got a job as a shop assistant and over the next three years worked his way up the local ladder: from Hill’s furniture store on the Strand Road, to Sloan’s store in Shipquay Street, and finally to Austin’s furniture store in the Diamond (and one can get no higher in Derry, as a shop assistant).
British troops had arrived in August 1969, in the wake of the ‘Battle of the Bogside’. ‘Free Derry’ was maintained more by agreement with the British army than by physical force, but of course there were barricades, and Micky was one of the volunteers manning them with a hurley.
INVOLVED
At that time, and during 1970 and 1971, Micky became involved in the civil rights movement, and with the local (uniquely militant) Labour Party and the Young Socialists.
The already strained relationship between British troops and the nationalist people of Derry steadily deteriorated – reinforced by news from elsewhere, especially Belfast – culminating with the shooting dead by the British army of two unarmed civilians, Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie, in July of 1971, and with internment in August. Micky, by this time seventeen years of age, and also politically maturing, had joined the ‘Officials’, also known as the ‘Sticks’.
He became a member of the James Connolly ‘Republican Club’ and then, shortly after internment, a member of the Derry Brigade of the ‘Official IRA’.
‘Free Derry’ had become known by that name after the successful defence of the Bog side in August 1969, but it really became ‘Free Derry’, in the form of concrete barricades etc., from internment day. Micky was amongst those armed volunteers who manned the barricades
Typical of his selfless nature (another common characteristic of the hunger strikers), no task was too small for him.
He was ‘game’ to do any job, such as tidying up the office. Young men, naturally enough, wanted to stand out on the barricades with rifles: he did that too, but nothing was too menial for him, and he was always looking for jobs.
Bloody Sunday, January 30th, 1972, when British Paratroopers shot dead thirteen unarmed civil rights demonstrators in Derry (a fourteenth died later from wounds received), was a turning point for Micky. From then there was no turning back on his republican commitment and he gradually lost interest in his work, and he was to become a full-time political and military activist.
TRAUMA
Micky experienced the trauma of Bloody Sunday at first hand. He was on that fateful march with his brother-in-law, Frank, who recalls: “When the shooting started we ran, like everybody else, and when it was over we saw all the bodies being lifted.”
The slaughter confirmed to Micky that it was more than time to start shooting back. “How” he would ask, “can you sit back and watch while your own Derry men are shot down like dogs?”
Micky had written: “I will never forget standing in the Creggan chapel staring at the brown wooden boxes. We mourned, and Ireland mourned with us.
“That sight more than anything convinced me that there will never be peace in Ireland while Britain remains. When I looked at those coffins I developed a commitment to the republican cause that I have never lost.”
From around this time, until May when the ‘Official IRA’ leadership declared a unilateral ceasefire (unpopular with their Derry Volunteers), Micky was involved not only in defensive operations but in various gun attacks against British troops.
Micky’s commitment and courage had shone through, but no more so than in the case of scores of other Derry youths, flung into adulthood and warfare by a British army of occupation.
TRAGIC
In September, 1972, came the second tragic loss in Micky’s family life. He came home one day to find his mother dead on the settee with his granny unsuccessfully trying to revive her.
His mother had died of a brain tumour, totally unexpectedly, at the age of forty-five. Doctors said it had taken her just three minutes to die. Micky, then aged eighteen, suffered a tremendous shock from this blow, and it took him many months to come to terms with his grief.
Through 1973, Micky remained connected with the ‘Sticks’, although increasingly disillusioned by their openly reformist path. He came to refer to the ‘Sticks’ as “fireside republicans”, and was highly critical of them for not being active enough.
Towards the end of that year, Micky, then aged nineteen, got married. His wife, Margaret, was only seventeen. They lived in Ranmore Drive in Creggan and had two children: Michael, now aged seven and Louise, now aged five.
Micky and his wife had since separated.
In late 1974, virtually all the ‘Sticks’ in Derry, including Micky, joined the newly formed IRSP, as did some who had dropped out over the years. And Micky necessarily became a founder member of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), formed to defend the IRSP from murderous attacks by their former comrades in the sticks.
In early 1975, Micky became a founder member of the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) formed for offensive operational purposes out of the PLA.
The months ahead were bad times for the IRSP, relatively isolated, and to suffer a strength-sapping split when Bernadette McAliskey left, taking with her a number of activists who formed the ISP (Independent Socialist Party), since deceased.
They were also difficult months for the fledgling INLA, suffering from a crippling lack of weaponry and funds. Weakness which led them into raids for both as their primary actions, and rendered them almost unable to operate against the Brits.
Micky was eventually arrested on the Creggan. In the evening of September 20th, 1976, after an arms raid earlier that day on a private weaponry, in Lifford, County Donegal, from which the INLA commandeered several rifles and shotguns, and three thousand rounds of ammunition.
ARRESTED
Micky was arrested with Desmond Walmsley from Shantallow, and John Cassidy from Rosemount. Along on the operation, though never convicted for it, was the late Patsy O’Hara, with whom Micky used to knock around as a friend and comrade.
Micky was held and interrogated for three days in Derry’s Stand Road barracks, before being transported in Crumlin Road jail in Belfast where he spent nine months on remand.
He was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment on June 20th, 1977, and immediately embarked on the blanket protest. He was in H5-Block until March of this year when the hunger strike began and when the ‘no-wash, no slop-out’ protest ended, whereupon he was moved with others in his wing to H6-Block.
Like others incarcerated within the H-Blocks, suffering daily abuse and inhuman and degrading treatment, Micky realised – soon after he joined the blanket protest – that eventually it would come to a hunger strike, and, for him, the sooner the better. He was determined that when that ultimate step was reached he would be among those to hunger strike.
SEVENTH
On Sunday, June 21st, this year, he completed his fourth year on the blanket, and the following day he joined Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Thomas McElwee and Paddy Quinn on hunger strike.
He became the seventh man in a weekly build-up from a four-strong hunger strike team to eight-strong. He was moved to the prison hospital on Wednesday, July 15th, his twenty fourth day on hunger strike.
With the 50 % remission available to conforming prisoners, Micky would have been due out of jail next September.
As it was, because of his principled republican rejection of the criminal tag he chose to fight and face death.
Micky died at 7.50 am on Thursday, August 201h, as nationalist voters in Fermanagh/South Tyrone were beginning to make their way to the polling booths to elect Owen Carron, a member of parliament for the constituency, in a demonstration – for the second time in less than five months – of their support for the prisoners’ demands.
THOMAS McELWEE, aged 23, was born in Bellaghy, south
Derry, on 30 November 1957.
Thomas was arrested following a premature explosion in an
IRA operation in October 1976 in which he lost the sight of one eye. His
younger brother, Benedict, was arrested in the same incident. Thomas received a
20-year sentence in September 1977.
He spent 62 days on hunger strike from 8 June. He died on
8 August 1981.
The death of Thomas McElwee
• Thomas McElwee’s eight sisters – Kathleen, Mary,
Bernadette, Annie, Enda, Nora, Pauline and Majella – carry the coffin of their
brother
Thomas McElwee, at the age of 23, was the tenth man to
join the 1981 Hunger Strike. From Bellaghy in south Derry, he was imprisoned in
1976 after a premature bomb explosion in which he lost an eye.
Thomas was a cousin of another hunger striker, Francis
Hughes, also from Bellaghy. They had been boyhood friends, both going on to
join the IRA. On 10 August 1981, for the second time, Bellaghy was visited by
thousands of mourners gathered to pay their respects to a deceased Hunger
Striker.
McElwee died on 8 August on the 62nd day of his fast.
Francis Hughes had died three months earlier, on 12 May.
The RUC and British Army converged on the roads around
Bellaghy and six British Army helicopters hovered overhead. Thomas’s brother,
Benedict, had been denied a visit with his brother the previous week and was
then callously asked to identify the body when he died.
IRA and Cumann na mBan guards of honour lined the path to
the McElwee home as the coffin was carried out by his eight sisters. A volley
of shots was fired as the cortege reached the road. The crowd in the fields and
hillsides cheered as the firing party disappeared out of range of the British
crown forces.
Two pipers led the cortege along the five-mile route to
the church for Requiem Mass. Thomas’s brother, Benedict, was allowed 10 hours
parole for the funeral. In another instance of church interference in the
Hunger Strike, the priest at the Mass in Bellaghy Parish Church criticised the
Hunger Strikers and called for an end to the fast. Some women in the
congregation got up and walked out, disgusted that the priest would use the
pulpit on such a tragic occasion to deliver an insulting political speech.
Thomas McElwee’s dying wish was to be buried beside
Francis Hughes.
The graveside oration was given by Danny Morrison, then
Sinn Féin Director of Publicity.
Thomas McElwee has been described by friends as being
“sincere, easy-going and full of fun”. He was also intelligent and determined,
something Morrison captured in his remarks on the young Volunteer:
“I know that the McElwee family will understand, just as
the families of other dead Hunger Strikers will know what I mean, when I say
that their son was invincible from beginning to end, in life as well as in
death.”
• IRA Volunteers prepare to fire a volley of shots
over the coffin of Thomas McElwee
Morrison went on to criticise the Catholic Church and the
SDLP for cultivating defeatism throughout the Hunger Strike rather than pressurising
the British Government to come to a just resolution of the protest. He referred
back to the sermon delivered earlier at Thomas’s Requiem Mass.
“Those of you who were able to hear Fr Flanagan’s sermon
today will have been struck by what is wrong with the Church’s politics. We
were asked to pray for an end to the Hunger Strike, for an end to violence and
for peace,” he remarked, adding that certainly people should pray for those
things. “But there is a bigger prayer which we have to make, and that is a
prayer for an end to the cause of violence: the British occupation of our
country. It is time the Church prayed and called for that.”
In his oration, Morrison also called for decisive and
effective action at ambassadorial and international levels on the part of the
Irish Government, who, he said “like many other influential bodies in Ireland
which represent the vested interests, have not got the welfare of the prisoners
at heart and would quite frankly like to see the hunger strike collapse”.
Morrison also noted and condemned the increasing tendency
at the time to blame the republican leadership for the crisis.
“For some time now it has been open season for
apportioning blame for the continuation of the Hunger Strike on the leadership
of the Republican Movement.” This was, he said, just a variation of former
Secretary of State Roy Mason’s theme in 1976 and 1977, in which the implication
was that those on the outside had forced the prisoners onto the Blanket
Protest.
Identifying the real cause of the problem, Morrison said:
“The roots of the Hunger Strike were built into the
British H-Blocks, into the British policy of criminalisation which forced the
men on the Blanket five years ago and which led ultimately to republicans
resorting to the traditional weapon of hunger strike as the ultimate means of
gaining their demands.”
Nor was Danny in any doubt as to the continued
determination of the republican POWs in the H-Blocks.
“Their determination has not waned,” he said, stressing
that neither should their supporters on the outside lose resolve. “Despair is
easy, our enemies want us to despair; to struggle on is a harder task but the
reward is there at the end of the road – and Thomas McElwee will be proud of
us, as we are proud of him, if we play our full part in winning this prison
struggle, in winning, as he set out to win, Irish freedom from the ruins of
British rule.”
Garda Assistant Commissioner Michael McElgun, pictured here in 2022. RollingNews.ie
A demand was issued last night, August 4, to expel Russian diplomats, after a senior Garda revealed Russia is spying on Ireland and attempting to spark unrest and anger here.
Garda Assistant Commissioner Michael McElgunn, who is in charge of the unit for State security, claimed that some “states are involved in spying activities on sovereign soil with malign intent.”
He said the nations which are spying are attempting to create mistrust of Ireland, both domestically and internationally.
Mr. McElgunn explained the intent is to “influence, create distrust in Government and support extremist groups within a state with that same end goal in mind.
“They will involve themselves in trying to steal secrets from the State, or steal secrets from industry within the State which undermines the reputation of a country.”
Mr. McElgunn said: “That activity is of concern, we closely monitor individuals who we believe to be involved in that activity.
“We work very closely internationally in that regard because a lot of these hostile state agents will move and we work with our colleagues to have an understanding of who might be in our state from time to time and to manage entry in and out of the state by people of that nature.”
Mr McElgunn said he was “cautious in what he said” because Ireland maintained diplomatic relations with the countries.
“However, if we look at the [2018 poisonings] in Salisbury in the UK, if we look at other events there, if we look at events in Europe and we look at the Russian Federation invasion of Ukraine, I don’t think too many will be surprised if I were to say Russia is one of these states.”
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Former deputy head of the Army Ranger wing turned Independent TD for Kildare South Cathal Berry has called for Russian diplomats to be expelled from Ireland, given the threat posed by Moscow.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail on Sunday night, Mr. Berry said that while the numbers operating in the Russian embassy in Dublin have dropped from about 30 to 14 in the past two years, there is “absolutely” a need to reduce it further.
He added: “Absolutely grounds for further reductions, it should be matched numbers, so only the same amount as we have in our embassy in Moscow.
“Russia is carpet bombing every social media account in Ireland right now, finding impressionable accounts and feeding them more information that confirms their bias.
“Ireland is a playground for Russia, we sit between three of the Five Eyes [intelligence community consisting of USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany], member of the European Union, and geographically you couldn’t think of a better place to conduct hybrid operation [from a Russian perspective].
These activities include the weaponization of migration, election interference, attacks on infrastructure, airports or influencing social and mainstream media.”
Mr. Berry pointed to the lack of National Security Strategy, as a major flaw in the Irish security apparatus. He said: “We’re one of the few countries that don’t have one. Our entire intelligence architecture is decades behind any peer country, any advanced western democracy.”
Queried about the activities of China, Mr. McElgunn said it had good relations with Ireland.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week programme, he said that the EU views China as an economic competitor, as a systemic rival on the world stage.
He added: “But, I would say China is a huge global superpower as well. Having said that, we have good relations with China.
“China’s worldview is a little different from what it is in the western world and, as a consequence of that, elements of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy are of interest to many, if not the majority of western intelligence agencies.”
Earlier this year, French officials warned the Department of Foreign Affairs about efforts by Russia to extend its disinformation activities into Ireland in the run-up to June’s European elections.
The network of Russian websites and social media accounts was first revealed last February when French security officials from Viginum, a newly formed agency, alleged Moscow was using it to sow discord in France and other EU countries by exploiting grievances around divisive issues such as immigration.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman previously said it was aware of the “pro-Russian Portal Kombat campaign recently uncovered by Viginum,” and said such activities were “completely unacceptable.”
The spokesman added that the Department was in ongoing contact with other Government departments on the issue of foreign interference, and that Ireland worked closely with other EU states on the issue.
Speaking last month, Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said fake ads that featured him started in Russia.
He confirmed he was still investigating the advertisements.
Claire Dignam’s husband Johnny was killed by the IRA for being a suspected informer
Of all the sounds that still echo in my memory from 50 years of covering the conflict in Northern Ireland, one above all still haunts me.
It’s not the sound of bombs and bullets but the banging of a pan.
On recordings made by the IRA’s notorious Internal Security Unit (ISU), that noise was the signal for suspected informers to begin confessing they had been working for the “Brits”.
The tapes were delivered to families as alleged proof of their betrayal. The penalty for the informers was – as Martin McGuinness, the IRA leader at the time, told me – “death, certainly”.
These chilling recordings are crucial evidence in a seven-year police investigation known as Operation Kenova. Its interim findings will be published later this week.
Kenova’s focus is the activities of the British agent codenamed “Stakeknife” – real name Freddie Scappaticci – the army’s most highly placed source at the top of the IRA.
Freddie Scappaticci pictured at an IRA funeral in 1987
Scappaticci, who died last year, was the personification of the dirty war secretly fought between Britain’s intelligence agencies and the IRA.
In addition to spying for the British army, he was also the ISU’s chief interrogator, in which role he is believed to have been involved in 17 murders.
Kenova is also examining the legacy of Stakeknife and the ISU – the dozens of grieving families whose loved ones were interrogated as suspected informers and then brutally murdered by the IRA.
“This investigation now gives those victims, those family members, the opportunity to tell their story,” said Jon Boutcher, the former Chief Constable of Bedfordshire and now head of Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), who oversaw Kenova for seven years. He has been succeeded by the former head of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone.
Secret killer and super-spy: the Stakeknife inquiry leads Peter Taylor to revisit the brutal covert war between Britain and the IRA. Chilling tapes and victims reflect the horror.
It will also be shown across the UK on BBC Two at 23:15 on Thursday 7 March.
The most egregious example of this undercover war came to light on 1 July 1992 with the discovery of three naked bodies, covered in bin bags, dumped on lonely border lanes in what was known as the bandit country of south Armagh. They had been interrogated for nine days, confessed to being informers and then been shot through the head. This was why the ISU became known as “the nutting squad”.
When I learned about the bodies at the time, I knew I had to hear, and if possible, get hold of the tapes of their so-called confessions to try to piece together the jigsaw of the dirty war. It took several months of tense and secret negotiations before the IRA was prepared to let me listen to them.
I was hidden under a blanket in the back of a car and driven to an abandoned cottage in south Armagh, where masked and armed IRA men played me sections of the tapes. I had no doubt they were genuine and carefully edited to excise the interrogators’ voices.
One of the three suspected informers was Johnny Dignam, a 32-year-old IRA member and former Republican prisoner from Portadown. Shortly after his murder, I went to see his wife, Claire, who was pregnant with the daughter he would never see. She could not believe her husband was an informer.
“I can’t see him working for the police,” she told me. “I couldn’t believe it, knowing Johnny and living with him. He didn’t die for what he believed in. He didn’t die for the cause of Ireland.”
Johnny Dignam fell under suspicion as an informer and was killed by the IRA in 1992
She showed me the last letter the IRA had permitted him to write. It was heartbreaking.
“I have only a matter of hours to live my life,” he wrote. “I only wish I could see you and the kids one last time. I have done nothing but think of you. Tears are streaming down my face. Pray for me, look after my grave and visit when you can. Cherish this lock of hair and letter for the rest of your life.”
At the end of last year, I went to see Claire again. She said she still had the lock of hair and the letter, but she did not keep photographs of Johnny around the house, because of the memory: “It just brings up dark, dark times and it never goes away.”
Claire remembers the night Johnny disappeared.
“When he didn’t come home that Saturday night, I knew something definitely wasn’t right,” she said.
“He always went in to kiss the two kids goodnight. And he didn’t.”
At this point she broke down: “If he had been working for security forces, they could have saved him.”
No rescue effort was made – something that mirrored dozens of other cases in which suspects were interrogated and then murdered by the IRA.
West Belfast 1985: The IRA was clear about the punishment for suspected informers or “touts”
Informers had been given assurances that they would be rescued if they were compromised. The former head of the British Army – and Northern Ireland veteran – General Sir Mike Jackson told me that these assurances were sincere, but that it could be “a very, very tricky operation” to spring an agent.
Only two or three rescues of suspected informers were ever successfully carried out.
I started to play Claire a brief extract from her husband’s interrogation, having warned her it would be difficult to listen to. The sound began with the banging of the pan. It was too much.
“Oh no, I don’t want to hear that,” she said, standing up and putting her hands over her ears. “I don’t know if I can cope with that.” She then walked out of the room. I feared it might be the end of the interview.
A few minutes later, Claire returned, composed and ready to carry on.
“It’s alright,” she assured me, lifting her glasses to wipe away the tears. “Honest to God, don’t worry about it.”
Claire Dignam: “It’s been a dirty, dirty war, and people like myself are suffering”
Claire thanked me for doing the interview. She said it was as if a great weight had been lifted.
“This is healing. It’s healing for me,” she said.
Claire described the trauma she has suffered for the past 30 years: “It’s been a dirty, dirty war, and people like myself are suffering. I wish my kids had their daddy. I really, really wanted to live a normal life, so I put my kids first. It was hard but with help we got there and we’re here now.”
There was a further shock to come. Claire told me she had been approached after her husband’s death by an army officer who tried to recruit her.
“He was a British soldier who was pretty high up and spoke with marbles in his mouth,” she said. “He tried to ask me who I knew within the IRA. Why not come and tell us what you know?”
I also revisited Dorothy Robb in Londonderry, whom I first met in 1986. Her partner, Frank Hegarty, had been killed, shot in the head in 1986. He was an IRA member who was suspected of revealing the location of a cache of arms from Libya.
Dorothy Robb says her partner was lured into a trap by the IRA
Frank had fled to England, but Dorothy said he was lured back to Northern Ireland by Martin McGuinness, who said he would be safe if he told the truth.
She told me Frank thought he could put up a convincing performance and convince his interrogators of his innocence. He failed, made a recorded confession and ended up as another body in a lonely country lane.
Dorothy said McGuinness rang – she recognised his voice – and told her she would never see Hegarty again.
An Orange parade which was banned from marching down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown during the GAA All-Ireland final on Sunday passed off without incident.
Portadown Orange District LOL 1 had applied to march down the controversial route during Armagh’s game against Galway.
It had claimed it would “bring the least impact on the majority of the community that live there as most will either be away to Croke Park, or will be in clubs, pubs or at home watching and supporting their County, Armagh GAA playing in the final of the All-Ireland”.
The Parades Commission denied the application, saying that while some local residents might attend the All-Ireland final in person “there is no evidence to indicate that the proposed time of the parade means that resulting disruption to the life of the community would be significantly reduced”.
Its determination added the demographic of the Garvaghy Road area has changed in recent years and data demonstrates “that a very significant percentage of the population indicated ‘Irish only’ as their identity”.
Around a dozen lodge members carried out their weekly parade and protest from the Drumcree Road, where they were met by PSNI officers. It took place at 1pm, hours before throw-in at Croke Park.
A prayer service was held outside Drumcree Parish Church during which a member of the Orange lodge said they had been “denied their civil rights” by being banned from marching down the Garvaghy Road.
In a statement issued this week, the Portadown lodge said it was disappointed by the decision from the Parades Commission to restrict the parade.
