MAP OF DERRY CITY
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
| AOR | Area of Responsibility |
| ASU | Active Service Unit |
| Bleep | Slang term for a Royal Signals radio operator at a JCU-NI Det |
| Box | MI5 |
| Brownie | Slang term for a photographer attached at a JCU-NI Det |
| CIRA | Continuity IRA |
| CMOE | Covert Methods of Entry |
| CO | Commanding Officer |
| Det | Slang term for a JCU-NI outpost, short for ‘Detachment’ |
| ELINT | Electronic Intelligence |
| FLIR | Forward Looking Infra-Red |
| FMB | Forward Mounting Base |
| FoS | Foreman of Signals – Warrant Officer in charge of all technicians at a unit |
| FRU | Force Research Unit |
| GPMG | General Purpose Machine Gun |
| Handler | British Army Intelligence Officer who handles informers within paramilitary organisations |
| HMG | Heavy Machine Gun |
| IED | Improvised Explosive Device |
| IVCP | Illegal paramilitary checkpoint |
| JCU-NI | Joint Communications Unit-Northern Ireland |
| JTF-HQ | Joint Task Force-Headquarters |
| LEWT | Light Electronic Warfare Troop |
| LVF | Loyalist Volunteer Force |
| MLA | Member of Legislative Assembly |
| MOD | Ministry of Defence |
| MRF | Military Reaction Force |
| NCO | Non-Commissioned Officer |
| NLJD | Non-Linear Junction detector |
| OC | Officer Commanding |
| OOB | Out of Bounds |
| PIRA | Provisional Irish Republican Army |
| Pronto | Slang term for a Royal Signals NCO in charge of all radio communications at a JCU-NI Det |
| PSNI | Police Service of Northern Ireland |
| RCG | Regional Co-ordination Group |
| ROE | Rules of Engagement |
| RPG | Rocket-propelled grenade |
| RSM | Regimental Sergeant Major |
| RUC | Royal Ulster Constabulary |
| RUF | Revolutionary United Front |
| SAS | Special Air Service |
| SBS | Special Boat Service |
| SCT | Special Communications Troop |
| Shakey | Slang term for an SBS Trooper serving at JCU-NI |
| SLA | Sierra Leone Army |
| Spanner | Slang term for a Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineer (mechanic) at a JCUNI Det |
| Spook | Slang term for an Intelligence Corps officer at a JCU-NI Det |
| Squadron OC | Officer Commanding Squadron |
| Sugar | Slang term for an SAS Trooper serving at JCU-NI |
| TCG | Tasking and Co-ordination Group |
| TSCM | Technical Surveillance Counter-Measures |
| UDA | Ulster Defence Association |
| UDR | Ulster Defence Regiment |
PROLOGUE
HOW THE HELL DID I END UP HERE?
It was approaching 2100 hours on Sunday, 17 February 2002, and darkness had settled in completely over Northern Ireland. Three Tyrone men – Donald Mullan from Dungannon, and Seán Dillon and Kevin Murphy, both from Coalisland – moved blindly through a field in Coalisland, carrying what we suspected was an RPG 22 rocket launcher complete with warhead, something they were later acquitted of in court. A fourth – Brendan O’Connor from Pomeroy – sat in a grey Peugeot car in a nearby car park. They had target designations of ‘Charlie One’ through to ‘Charlie Four’ and were suspected members of an East Tyrone Real IRA active service unit.
Though they didn’t know it at the time, they were not alone that night and had not been for quite some time. JCU-NI operators, combined with SAS (Special Air Service) and SBS (Special Boat Service) troopers, had had the four men and the location under intense surveillance for over a week before this. And the darkness made no difference to them now: they had night-vision capabilities as part of their kits. So too did the two video-surveillance cameras positioned in the surrounding ditches, beaming images forty miles away to the operations room in Shackleton Barracks, Ballykelly, where the operations officer sat in front of his bank of monitors, ready to give the order.
As for me, I was four miles from the action, watching it all on my own personal ‘feed’ from the surveillance cameras and closely monitoring the radio network for signs of trouble. I was a nervous wreck and wondering to myself how the hell I had ended up in this situation, me, an innocent fella from Cork caught between sympathising with the nationalist community in the North and helping the British army outsmart its enemy.
1 UP THE ’RA
The Sinn Féin office in Cork city at that time was located on Barrack Street, just across from a pub called Nancy Spain’s, which was a favourite drinking haunt for us UCC students. In spite of my naivety, I wasn’t daft enough to just walk in there and ask to join the IRA. I actually did a bit of digging first and got the name and phone number of a local Sinn Féin figure whom I was told would be able to help. We arranged to meet on a Sunday morning in April 1995.
I got up that morning having spent the whole night going over in my head what I was about to do. I had never been in trouble with the law, hadn’t even had so much as a bad report home from school, and yet here I was with a half-baked plan to join one of the most notorious terrorist organisations in the world.
The closer the time came to leave for the meeting, the more insane the idea seemed.
*
There weren’t many clues in my past that I would end up where I did.
I was born in 1975 in a small village in Co. Cork, into a family of six girls and three boys, a good Irish Catholic family. In the old days, as the youngest son, I might have been sent off to join the priesthood.
Back in November 1968, my parents had returned to Cork from London, where they had met and married two years previously. They were both from families whose roots were firmly in Cork and it was practically inevitable that they would end up there themselves. My oldest brother was the only one of us to be born outside Ireland, the rest of us were Cork-born and bred.
My father got a job in the booming textile industry that had sprung up all over the county, and seemed set for life. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t last, and in 1981 he was made redundant. That was the last proper job I remember him having: he spent the rest of his days on the dole, occasionally picking up some work on the fishing boats, either with his brother or another crew, but it was never steady work. In these circumstances, like so many other men of that era, he took to drinking, and the responsibility of providing for the family fell to my mother. She worked a variety of cooking, cleaning and secretarial jobs over the next thirty years, and it was all down to her that we got by and that my siblings and I all managed to get decent educations.
Growing up in the 1970s and 80s
