Bridget Rose Dugdale: Criminal, Thief, Liar, Betrayer, Fantasist

Following the March 1973 capture of “The Belfast 10” at Heathrow Airport shortly after they had planted car bombs at The Old Bailey and New Scotland Yard, the IRA wanted to erase the embarrassing loss of so many Belfast IRA Volunteers with a swift resurrection of some more London bombings – this time with a new twist – the IRA bomber or bombers would not immediately flee the capital after one or more bombings but would instead stay on in the city to continue bombing…

The haste to reignite the London bombings was intended to reassure a far off Arab dictator – Muammar Gaddafi – that the IRA could make good on its promise the previous year to bomb London and England in return for donations of weapons, explosives and millions of petroDollar$.

While ‘The Belfast 10’ were undergoing an unexpected arrest and interrogation in London on March 8, IRA leader Joe Cahill and others were already aboard a ship [‘The Claudia’] loaded with Libyan arms and explosives that was making its way from Libya to the Irish coast to deliver Gaddafi’s gifts to the IRA.

A double embarrassment was to hit the IRA’s budding relationship with the Libyan dictator – not only had the IRA lost its 10 London bombers, but The Claudia was intercepted on March 28 along with IRA leader Joe Cahill and all of the cargo of Libyan arms and explosives.

So, within a period of 3 weeks, the IRA had lost both its Gaddafi-impressing London bombers and also its Gaddafi-grant of weapons and explosives along with the IRA leader – Joe Cahill – who had only just met Colonel Gaddafi and shaken his hand.

Rarely had the IRA appeared so amateurish and ineffectual.

After the arrest of The Belfast 10 and the interception of The Claudia, the first expendable cannon-fodder teenager sent over to London to bomb it was an injured 18 years old IRA E.O. [“explosives officer”] who had been blown up by the premature explosion of a letter bomb he had only recently developed.

Still bearing hand and eye injuries, the teenager was nevertheless hurriedly packed off to London to satisfy ultimately Arab Dictator Gaddafi’s support by means of the headline-grabbing letter bombs, however crude those were.

I was the 18 yrs old injured bomber hurriedly sent off by Kevin Mallon and Martin McGuinness to London to bomb it.

The summer ’73 London bombing campaign – executed by a single IRA Volunteer – was more successful than anyone in the IRA could believe.

When I returned to Ireland at the end of the summer, I was told to wait at a “safe house” in Gaeltacht Park, Whitehall, Dublin – the Dempsey home at 106 – to be met by the Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey who wanted to personally congratulate me.

At midnight, “Thumper” Twomey arrived at the Dempsey home in a car with some security. He met me at the door and congratulated me for a one-man job done without any arrests. He wasn’t at the Dempsey home for more than a few minutes before he was driven off.

[He was called “Thumper” because he thumped the table when shouting at people who annoyed him or disagreed with him.]

After some months of other activities on behalf of GHQ personnel, and mostly at Martin McGuinness’ elbow on various travels and at various meetings, I was once more asked to return to London to bomb it again over the Christmas/New Year period from December 73 into the first few months of 74.

This time I was told by the newly appointed GHQ Director of Operations – Kevin McKenna – that I would have help in London and would no longer be asked to perform “a solo run”.

I would be assisted by a Donegal IRA volunteer, Eddie Gallagher, and a female comrade of his – Gallagher had a shady IRA background which is probably why the IRA heaved him over to England.

Having successfully made my way back to London in November, I went to meet my new helpers outside a central London railway station.

Gallagher & Dugdale

From a distance I saw a strongly-built guy with fair hair and wide shoulders in a dirty anorak.

As I got closer, the guy appeared to be dirty and unkempt – noticeably so in a central London street to a degree that attracted attention.

Beside him was a smaller, wiry person with long black wavy hair – probably, I thought, his girlfriend.

To my surprise on introducing myself, the taller well-made guy with the wide shoulders was a woman, Bridget Rose Dugdale.

I remember her with mannish rough hands and dirty nicotine-stained fingernails.

The much smaller, thin wiry person with the long, black wavy hair was Eddie Gallagher – who appeared neat and tidy and tiny beside the masculine Dugdale.

The conversation was short – they announced they were fleeing London. They were not going to get involved with or help the IRA’s London bombings.

They saw their future as in the safety of the Irish Free State behind the Irish border.

So Gallagher and Dugdale were going in the opposite direction to that desired by the IRA – they were going to base themselves in Southern Ireland where there was no active IRA campaign.

Gallagher appeared to be doing this without the IRA’s knowledge or agreement.

All of Dugdale’s intimate knowledge of England and London and her cash and contacts – which would have undoubtedly helped the IRA’s England campaign – were to be confined in the sanctuary of Southern Ireland.

Not for Dugdale and sidekick Gallagher the ordinary risks of the England bombing campaign – with the prospect of the associated long prison sentences in English prisons – no – Dugdale was a cut above all that and worthy of generating action behind the relative safety of the Irish border – where there weren’t supposed to be any IRA actions.

Eddie Gallagher – for his part – was seeking an IRA career solely in the 26 Counties immediately after having been asked to participate in the London bombings.

Here, already, was Dugdale’s exercise of special treatment to which she felt entitled and which she convinced Gallagher to enjoy also.

Criminal Thief Dugdale – “They Made Me Do It”

It was only after Gallagher and Dugdale left me alone without the promised support that I later learned that Rose Dugdale had been all over the newspapers in the previous four months in a trial for burglarising and robbing her parents’ family home to the tune of between £80,000 and £100,000.

Dugdale had been having an affair with a married man and ex-British soldier, Coldstream Guardsman Wallace Heaton, who had 12 previous criminal convictions and had served prison sentences for ‘actual bodily harm’ and embezzlement.

Police later said that ‘Wally’ Heaton was screwing Dugdale to keep himself and his wife and children in the style to which they had become accustomed, relieving Dugdale of her family’s money.

While having the affair with Wally Heaton, Dugdale demanded and got her share of her family’s then finances – some £90,000 from a family trust – a great deal of which she handed to Heaton.

£90,000 in 1973 is equivalent to some £630,000 today.

Not content with that amount of cash, Dugdale suggested a robbery of her parent’s home and Heaton got together other criminals for the burglary.

However, after their arrest and during their trial for the burglary, Dugdale suddenly realised that she was facing a prison sentence and quickly betrayed her gang pals claiming that they had threatened her – “they made me do it…”

One gang member, Thomas Card, had already pleaded guilty to the robbery and received a 6 year sentence.

Police discovered that Dugdale had taken all the stolen goods and hidden them in a basement below a flat of one of her former university lecturers, Miss Peter Ady, a fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

They further discovered that a day after the burglary, Dugdale had paid Wally Heaton £10,000 for his participation in the raid.

The police had Dugdale “bang to rights”.

Dugdale – normally a pretend nonformist – was suddenly willing to participate in a court “medical report”/psychiatric evaluation, aware that this would lead to special treatment and a suspended sentence for her.

Dugdale was right.

She walked free from court with a suspended sentence and a requirement to pay £5,000 [of her parents’ money] toward prosecution costs – leaving two men serving sentences for a burglary/robbery she had arranged, had participated in, but was now thought too good to be imprisoned for…

Since all of the stolen goods had been recovered, the imprisoned men were going to come out of prison to nothing but debt and lost time for their efforts – while Dugdale had betrayed them by her false claim [THEY FORCED ME TO DO IT] and her participation in a psychiatric evaluation.

Dugdale swore [to the press] that she was going to stand by her married lover ex-British soldier Heaton – but literally within hours was in the [smaller] arms of IRA Volunteer Eddie Gallagher – a measure of her fidelity to a cause.

So when I had wondered why Dugdale was so anxious to get out of England and to flee to Ireland, her betrayed gang of robbers was certainly one good reason.

Her married gigolo – Wally Heaton – had served time for violent assault and therefore could be expected to commit assault again.

Dugdale wasn’t waiting around to find out.

Dugdale Drink Driving Charge

Another reason Dugdale wanted to leave England behind her was that she was aware that her recent burglary trial and the associated publicity had put all of her activities under scrutiny.

Within 14 days of her conviction for the burglary, she was arrested on suspicion of drink driving while partying and spending more of her family’s money – while her former lover was beginning to serve his prison sentence.

Unlike her willing cooperation with the court psychiatric evaluation, Dugdale had refused to cooperate with police by providing a blood sample.

She was fined and banned from driving for a year.

Dugdale Drunk On a Bus

Three days after Dugdale’s court case that ended in a driving ban, Dugdale was once more arrested for drunken behaviour this time on a London bus – all this while she was assuring Gallagher – if he needed assurance more than her ready cash – that she could be an active supporter of the IRA.

Dugdale’s public drunkenness and capacity to attract attention and frequent arrests had led to a further warrant relating to explosives’ charges.

It was within days of the arrest for drunken behaviour on a London bus that she accompanied Eddie Gallagher to meet me – I who had been assured that Gallagher and a comrade of his were going to support my efforts.

Gallagher and his drunken spoiled rich girl criminal “comrade” fled to the Republic of Ireland at the end of November 1973.

Helicopter Disaster

The January 1974 helicopter bomb attempt over Strabane was a dangerous failure of both planning and execution on the part of Gallagher and Dugdale – dangerous, that is, for the people of Strabane.

It was difficult to get ONE milk churn bomb into [or onto] a small helicopter and even more difficult to get it out of the helicopter in flight – never mind FOUR milk churn bombs.

It was way more difficult to estimate the timing of a gunpowder safety fuse length to be lit from a box of matches in a helicopter and to judge the precise fall of a milk churn over a target in a small border town.

How could you ever manage a practice run?

How many hijacked helicopters could the IRA plan on securing after the first failed attack?

None of the four milk churn bombs hit the intended police station target and none exploded.

Two were dumped during the flight owing to weight issues, one landed in the Mourne river and the last one fell in the garden of a home close to the police station.

Coming 12 weeks after the successful IRA helicopter escape from Mountjoy Prison – which did not involve either Dugdale or Gallagher – Dugdale’s Strabane failure ended the IRA’s association with hijacked helicopters for the rest of the Troubles.

Dugdale’s habit of getting men jailed in her wake continued in Ireland.

Two young Strabane IRA Volunteers – Eamon McNulty and Patrick Treacy – were arrested and later sentenced to 6 years penal servitude for their part in the Gallagher/Dugdale heli-fiasco – the same sentence Wally Heaton and Thomas Card had received for their association with Dugdale.

Dugdale had been quickly identified as a participant in the Strabane helicopter attack resulting in her going “on the run” in the Republic of Ireland and rendering her almost valueless to the IRA – valueless apart from the £40,000 she brought with her to Ireland.

A Wanted Poster was issued to the press [“masculine appearance“] emphasising that her cover was well blown.

Was Dugdale at this point a member of the IRA?

No, at this point Dugdale was Gallagher’s “mott” – his woman friend – because the Republican Movement in those days was very particular about “swearing in” convicted criminals.

The Movement did not want to be associated with “crims” since it wanted to highlight its Political Status and Dugdale was a convicted criminal and frequent drunk, if a flamboyant one.

The Beit Art Collection Theft from Russborough House in County Wicklow

12 weeks after the helicopter fiasco, and 8 weeks after the Wanted Posters were issued for Dugdale, she and Gallagher (along with two other men) stole 19 famous paintings from Russborough House in Blessington, County Wicklow, not far from Dublin city.

The art theft occured on 26 April.

The gang was unnecessarily violent with the septuagenarian Sir Alfred Beit – coshing him on the head with the butt of a pistol – and throwing his wife against a bookshelf.

After stealing the paintings, the gang demanded the transfer of the the Price Sisters from their English prison to a prison in Northern Ireland – the Price Sisters were two of the 10 IRA London bombers captured back in March 1973.

The Price sisters had been on hunger strike demanding a transfer back to Northern Ireland where they wished to serve their prison sentences.

The IRA had already kidnapped and murdered honorary German Consul to Northern Ireland – Thomas Niedermayer – in a vain attempt to force the transfer of the Price Sisters – [although the IRA did not admit Niedermayer’s kidnap and murder for a number of years].

A lot of delicate negotiations had been going on to try to resolve the Price Sisters’ prison protest – involving politicians and churchmen – negotiations which did not need or want the chaotic involvement of Gallagher and Dugdale.

But did the Price Sisters in prison in England want the support or efforts of a drunken Brit criminal socialite about whom they’d been reading in the press for the past year?

The Price Sisters publicly disavowed any connection with thefts of art works and with the robbers – who were already known to be Dugdale and Gallagher.

Their father, Albert Price, did likewise.

Despite the public disavowal by the Price family, Dugdale wanted to be associated with the Price Sisters to gain a smidgin of their credibility.

Dugdale Captured With Paintings

Dugdale’s Great Art Theft occurred on 26 April 1974.

A mere 8 days later, on May 4, true to form Dugdale was arrested with all of the paintings in a rented cottage near Clonakilty, County Cork.

Dugdale’s IRA career – if indeed she was a member of the IRA during this period [I don’t believe she had been sworn into the IRA at this point owing to her criminal convictions and drunken behaviour in London] – had lasted in total 5 months.

During those 5 months, everything Dugdale had touched had failed and resulted in people being arrested and imprisoned.

As soon as Dugdale was remanded to prison, she announced that she was going to fast from food “in solidarity with” the Price Sisters – another unwanted association for the Price Sisters – but Dugdale was desperate for the varnish of politics on her chaotic personal life and criminality.

The Price Sisters ended their fast a short time later leaving Dugdale no option but to end her fast also, and her unwanted and forced association with the Price Sisters.

Dugdale Convicted and Sentenced

Dugdale’s trial for the art theft began and ended more or less at the same time.

IRA prisoners in the Irish Republic in newsworthy cases were most often represented by Myles Shevlin – and Dugdale had gained some parapolitical credibility in securing Shevlin’s services.

However, Shevlin suddenly wished to be disassociated from Dugdale and announced he was withdrawing from her case – the sight of a republican solicitor refusing MONEY was rare indeed…

But Shevlin could recognise a nutter when he saw one.

Dugdale had got wind of a deal offer – plead guilty and get 9 years and spend 6 or so of them incarcerated.

Many of the men she had involved in her crimes and misdeeds had received 6 year sentences.

Rather surprisingly, in her later trial for the helicopter bombing attempt – which involved aircraft hijacking, guns, explosives – Dugdale received a similar 9 year sentence to run concurrently – a very light sentence for the crimes involved.

Her guilty plea in the Beit Art Theft case had secured Dugdale an agreeable period of incarceration and very likely an agreed sentence for the helicopter case – but how to secure the appearance of membership of the IRA – or at the very least close association with the IRA into the bleak prison future?

Dugdale’s Ace in the Hole

In an act of bravado surpassing all of his others, little Eddie Gallagher had at some point climbed aboard the good ship Dugdale and impregnated her.

Dugdale announced that she was bearing Eddie Gallagher’s child and this gained her all of the republican sympathy she would ever need – a woman pregnant by a devil-may-care IRA desperado and to give birth while incarcerated – and a lifelong umbilical attachment to an IRA Volunteer – even if Gallagher was shortly after publicly disavowed by the IRA and by Sinn Féin for his kidnap of Tiede Herrema.

Dugdale had encouraged in Eddie Gallagher the notion that he too was special – so special he could do whatever he wanted even when his deeds were not authorised by the IRA.

Gallagher’s kidnap of Tiede Herrema (demanding the release of – among others – Dugdale – where were they to go if released?) was the final straw for the Provos – the IRA told the Irish police where to find Gallagher and his Derry City sidekick, Marian Coyle, in order to end the kidnapping and free Tiede Herrema.

Gallagher publicly accused IRA leader Joe Cahill and leading republican Gerry O’Hare of being “informers” thereby ensuring that he (Gallagher) had no future in the republican movement in prison or out of it.

There were nothing but disastrous consequences for everything and everyone associated with Dr Bridget Rose Dugdale – including her parents back in England.

But Dugdale’s sole Ace in the Hole was to have an Irish republican sprog.

As for the notion that Jim Monaghan needed anyone’s help as he continued his 30 years of explosives’ development – the notion that he needed Dugdale’s help – it’s a good tale but nothing more than a kind tale to add some value to Dugdale’s waste of her life behind the Iron Curtain of the Irish Border behind which she had initially hidden and from which ultimately she could not escape.

The Irish Free State – the 26 Counties – became her prison for life.