Eagle’, a reference to Belfast republican Con McHugh who was then verifiably at home in Ireland. See The British media and Ireland, Truth: The first casualty, [London, 1979], p. 38.
172.Newsline, 19 December 1978. See also Republican News, 3 February 1979.
173.The Irish Worker, Bulletin of Clann na hÉireann, Vol. 1, No. 1, February/ March 1979.
174.Republican News, 21 January 1979.
175.Republican News, 21 January 1979. The PAC also campaigned on general issues concerning imprisoned republicans. It commissioned the short documentary ‘Prisoners of War’ which was sold from a Post Office box address in London. Republican News, 10 February 1979. See also AP/RN, 12 May 1979. The film was screened in Conway Hall on 6 April 1979. The Irish Prisoner, No. 5, June 1979, p. 5.
176.See Helen Stevens, ‘Building an anti-war movement in Britain’ in AP/RN, 18 August 1979.
177.Stevens, ‘Anti-war movement’ in AP/RN, 18 August 1979.
178.Special Branch, Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday 23 January 1985, Association of Chief Police Officers (London, 1985), p. 71. An official document noted: ‘The Special Branch enquire into the implications of any offence connected with firearms and explosives unless it is immediately clear that there is no security interest. They also provide information about extremists and terrorist groups to the Security Service or in the case of Irish Republican extremists and terrorist groups to the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’. Ibid.
179.Clarke, No faith, pp. 59–64.
180.Clarke, No faith, p. 63.
181.PAC News, June 1977.
182.See Sr. Clarke, ‘David McQuaid’, Clarke Papers (COFLA). McQuaid, Anthony Walsh and Cyril MacLachlan were all acquitted of the charges for which Liam Baker and Punter Bennett were convicted in 1976. McQuaid was charged with conspiracy to contravene the Explosives Act on 24 November 1975 and cleared of wrong doing in Winchester on 26 November 1976. Ibid.
183.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 51. See Guardian, 26 January 1979.
184.Lost Lives, p. 775.
185.IRIS, 17 February 1979.
186.See HC Deb 18 January 1979 vol 960 cc1998.
187.Paul Holmes, April 2011.
188.December 1977 to April 1978 witnessed concerted efforts to suppress Republican News by the arrest of its writers and printers. In related moves, detention of Sinn Féin members working in the party’s Belfast advice centres disrupted legal political activities by the organization. On 21 February 1979 charges ranging from IRA membership to conspiracy were dropped in relation to the twenty-one persons involved. See TOM, The British media and Ireland, Truth: The first casualty (London, [1979]), pp. 45–6 and Curtis, Ireland and the propaganda war, pp. 266–8.
189.The Irish Worker, Bulletin of Clann na hÉireann, Vol.1, No. 1, February/ March 1979.
190.Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1978 (London, 1979), p. 9.
191.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 50.
192.Guardian, 12 March 1979.
193.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 52. Vince Donnelly coined the nickname for the red headed Clarke when Jimmy Ashe obtained a pair of ‘silver flash’ running shoes. Ibid., p. 53.
194.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 53.
195.See Bell, Secret Army, p. 472. The arrests were by no means ‘Irish luck’. Ibid.
196.Sunday Times, 29 June 1980.
197.Clarke and Johnston, McGuinness, p. 110. See also Irish News, 23 March 1979.
198.Clarke and Johnston, McGuinness, p. 111. Police agent Sean O’Callaghan reportedly ‘co-operated’ with Kathryn Johnston in producing his autobiography in 1998. Johnston and her husband Liam Clarke co-authored the McGuinness biography which advanced the controversial theory of Keenan’s arrest. Clarke wrote for the Sunday Times which defended a libel action taken by Armagh republican Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy with the aid of O’Callaghan and other witnesses. Irish News, 30 April 1998 and Sunday Times, 30 June 1995.
199.Brian Keenan, 26 May 2007.
200.Bell, Secret Army, p. 472. See also Nick Van Der Bijl, Operation Banner, The British Army in Northern Ireland (Barnsley, 2009), p. 112.
201.Guardian, 26 June 1980 and Clarke and Johnston, McGuinness, p. 111.
202.Brian Keenan, 26 May 2007.
203.Irish News, 26 March 1979.
204.Irish Times, 28 May 2008.
205.Alan Simpson, Duplicity and deception, Policing the Twilight Zone of the Troubles (Kerry, 2010), p. 65. Simpson claimed that Keenan was partly motivated by a ‘personal grudge’ arising from his acting as Shop Steward in the Grundig plant managed by Niedermayer. Ibid. In 1959–60 Keenan worked for English Elective (Guided Weapons Division) which manufactured the Thunderbird SAM in Luton. Brian Keenan to ‘Peter Flynn’ (Seamus O Mathuna), 10 December 1983, Private Collection (O Mathuna). See also Bernard Fitzsimons (ed) Weapons and Warfare (New York, 1978), Volume 23, pp. 2489–2490.
