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.
Senator Charles Schumer, who played a decisive role in persuading the United StatesNavy to name its latest Arleigh-Burke class destroyer after Vietnam War hero and Mayo native Patrick “Bob” Gallagher has hailed the the christening of the ship which takes place Saturday at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.
Said Schumer’s office in a statement of greeting to the event: “After a years-long, all-out effort, that included arranging a critical meeting on Long Island between the family of Marine Corps hero Corporal Patrick Gallagher and then-Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer successfully pushed the U.S. Navy to name a destroyer, the Arleigh Burke-class DDG-127, in honor of USMC Corporal Patrick “Bob” Gallagher, and today he is proud to announce that the ship is being christened in Bath, Maine on Saturday, July 27.
Schumer paid special tribute to then-Secretary Spencer for honoring Corporal Gallagher with the naming of USS Patrick Gallagher.
“Without the speedy, professional and decisive response of Secretary Richard Spencer, we would not be here today to make yet another wonderful announcement. Secretary Spencer knew that Patrick Gallagher’s is a compelling story that fits deeply with the very best traditions of the United States Marine Corps and the way the United States Marine Corps honors its heroes,” said Schumer, New york’s senior senator and majority leader in the U.S. Senate.
Added the statment from Schumer’s office: “Corporal Patrick Gallagher was an Irish immigrant from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo who settled on Long Island in 1962, volunteered on the senate campaign of Bobby Kennedy and later chose to serve in the Marines Corps of his adopted nation – before he was a citizen. While serving in Vietnam, Corporal Gallagher was awarded the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest military award, for his extraordinary heroism during a surprise attack he survived, in which he dove on a live grenade and saved his comrades from injury and death. Tragically, after receiving the Navy Cross directly from General William Westmoreland, Corporal Gallagher was killed in a firefight just days before the end of his tour of duty.
“In September 2017, joining a robust chorus of supporters on both sides of the Atlantic, Schumer wrote to Secretary Spencer and asked that the Navy pay tribute to Corporal Gallagher’s sacrifice and willingness to serve his adopted nation by naming a ship in his honor. Soon after, Schumer personally invited Secretary Spencer to Long Island to meet the Gallaghers and again made the case for the ship naming in his honor.”
Added the senator: “The christening of USS Patrick Gallagher is another great day for America and Ireland and all Irish Americans, who have contributed so mightily to the greatness of this nation,” said Schumer.
“There are few things more special than to know the story of Long Island’s Patrick Gallagher, an Irish immigrant who simply loved America—died for America—and is rightfully honored by America with a U.S. Navy destroyer adorned with his name.
“Corporal Gallagher’s breathtaking bravery and selflessness has long-deserved to be memorialized and naming a ship in his honor is the perfect tribute to recognizing this Irish-American hero from our very own Long Island. The courage and bravery of our fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, including those immigrants who have made the ultimate sacrifice even before receiving citizenship, is the American dream manifest.”
Patrick Gallagher was an immigrant from the Irish town of Ballyhaunis in County Mayo and moved to Long Island in 1962. Four years later, Corporal Gallagher chose to serve in the Marines and was stationed in Vietnam.
“The green and red of Mayo, which was never far from his heart, was replaced by the red, white and blue of Old Glory when Patrick Gallagher became a US Marine for his adopted nation,” said Schumer.
THe statment from Schumer’s office continued: “One night, during the first year of his tour in Vietnam, Corporal Gallagher was involved in a surprise attack by enemy fighters. While his fellow Marines slept, adversaries invaded the area and lobbed grenades into the middle of their camp.
“Heedless of the risk posed to himself, Gallagher kicked a grenade away from the area in which his fellow Marines were sleeping. When another grenade followed, Corporal Gallagher threw himself on the deadly grenade in order to absorb the explosion and save the lives of his comrades. Using his quick wits, Corporal Gallagher was able to throw the grenade he was lying on into a nearby river, and escape the situation without injury. Corporal Gallagher was awarded the Navy Cross – directly by General William Westmoreland – for his bravery during the surprise attack incident.
In 1967, Corporal Gallagher was tragically killed in action on one of his last scheduled days in Vietnam. Gallagher is one of more than 30 Irish citizens killed in the Vietnam War.”
Continued Senator Schumer: “And now, in the tradition of other Long Island heroes, like Lt. Michael Murphy, the USS Gallagher will soon set sail and make our nation proud.”
In his September 2017 letter and phone calls and meetings with Secretary Spencer, Schumer demonstrated there is precedence for honoring heroic immigrant service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Schumer explained that a Navy destroyer had been named after fallen USMC hero Rafael Peralta, also a recipient of the Navy Cross, for heroic actions that very closely parallel those of Corporal Patrick Gallagher’s.
“The USS Patrick Gallagher pays rightful tribute to Corporal Gallagher’s sacrifice, to his willingness to serve his adopted nation, and will serve as a permanent reminder to all of his bravery, selflessness and patriotism,” Schumer noted.
Schumer had said that the naming of a destroyer for Corporal Gallagher was consistent with the Navy’s policy of naming destroyers for ‘distinguished heroes who are deceased members of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.’
Schumer was not alone in his plea for a Navy ship to be named after Corporal Gallagher. A petition, started in 2013, surpassed its goal of 10,000 signatures.
There was bitter criticism in republican circles about the way relatives of men held at the Maze Prison, Long Kesh, were treated after yesterday’s abortive escape attempt by Gerry Adams by switching places with a visitor.
Belfast Comhairle Ceanntair Kevin Street Sinn Féin said that not only were relatives refused visits, but were subjected to the worst harassment yet from security forces at the camp.
A statement said that a list of people injured during a massive security clamp-down had been drawn up. The most seriously injured was Mrs Margaret Slane, from the Belfast Divis Flats.
The statement claimed that Mrs Slane, who three weeks ago gave birth by caesarean operation, was “mauled by guard dogs”, resulting in the wound reopening. She had been struck in the face by a soldier.
A woman, named only as Mrs O’Neill, suffered a mild heart attack.
Mrs Grace Gartland, from Short Strand, also had dogs set on her, the statement said. But for her own quick reactions and intervention by several male visitors, she would have been seriously injured. She was later treated by her doctor for severe shock.
“Not content with this, and while visitors were being set upon by dogs, soldiers and army policewomen were pillaging the parcels office. They destroyed or ate every food parcel, besides letting dogs walk over food which had been tumbled out of parcels.”
By the end of 1975, almost 2,000 people had been interned at the Long Kesh internment camp
The statement added: “Merlyn Rees [Secretary of State] speaks of the ‘violent men’ who are interned to justify the retention of internment, but he should look to the violent men of the British Army who vent their spleen on innocent women and children.”
The Sean McCaughey-James Saunders Sinn Féin Cumann, in a statement, also condemned what it called “the Gestapo-type tactics” used on visitors to the Maze yesterday. Many of them had to receive first aid after their ordeal.
Gerry Adams, who has previously attempted to escape from the camp where he is a detainee, is believed to have shaved off his beard and cut his hair a short time ago and begun wearing a false beard and wig.
Apparently his idea was to switch places with a clean-shaven visitor, who would then wear the disguise until 25-year-old Adams had left the camp with other visitors. But the plot was uncovered by a prison officer who noticed the switch-over.
After internee Gerry Adams’s failed attempt to escape, prison authorities resorted to extreme measures, including severely rough handling of visitors. In 2020, Mr Adams had two convictions for attempting to escape the camp overturned in the Supreme Court after his detention was ruled unlawful.
