IRA volunteer Conor Murphy owes his life to British soldiers.
When in June 1981 British soldiers photographed Conor Murphy along with 4 others – including his brother Declan – handling a command wire leading to a landmine of between 500lbs and 700lbs of explosives – they did not apply the IRA’s own inviolable “shoot to kill” policy to the would-be IRA bombers…
No, instead they passed the information to the Royal Ulster Constabulary who arrested the five.
Caught and photographed “bang to rights”, the bold Conor cooperated with the RUC – as did some of his colleagues – and shortly after his arrest and interrogation, the full landmine bomb was unearthed in a dungheap on a farm “as a result of interviews with the accused“.
Conor therefore got the shortest sentence for his landmine bomb attempt – a mere 5 years – while the others got between 14 and 12 years each – and Conor was lucky to get a 5 year concurrent sentence for membership of the junior IRA – the Fianna.
In those years, it required admissions in interviews and statements to get a conviction for ‘membership’, so once more Conor (and his pals) had blabbed.
Taking into account time served on remand and the British government’s generous half-remission for goodly behaviour, Conor’s bomb activity earned him a mere 15 months of further imprisonment, while his comrades had a number of years to continue Serving for Ireland.
Had the British soldiers practised the IRA’s own shoot-to-kill policy, Conor and pals would have been no more – instead, they got the right to a trial, they recognised the British court and Conor got a much-reduced sentence of imprisonment owing to his cooperation – rights Conor’s South Armagh Brigade of the IRA denied to so many citizens it abducted, tortured and then extrajudicially “executed”/murdered – dumping their corpses along the border or else “disappearing” their corpses entirely.
Conor Murphy Criminal Cross-Border Smuggler
Following his release from prison, IRA volunteer Conor Murphy got involved in criminal cross-border smuggling for financial gain.
This criminal money-making activity would have been inimical to many “true republicans” across Northern Ireland – the grubby polluting of “the Cause” for dirty money, but such criminal activities welded onto the back of “the Cause” were de rigueur in South Armagh under oversight of tax-defrauder and criminal IRA “Chief of Staff/Chief of Smuggling” Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy.
On March 6, 1988, two unarmed uniformed Garda officers were in a patrol car at Campbell’s Lane off the main Dublin/ Belfast road near the border at Carrickarnon when they saw “two hooded men in green combat jackets” about 100 yards from the border.
The men scarpered, but one – our Conor Murphy who thought [wrongly] that he heard the words ‘shoot’ or ‘shoot them’ – “panicked” and was caught within minutes by a “Free Stater”, Garda Brian Bell.
Republican Conor repeatedly punched Free Stater Garda Bell in an attempt to escape but was subdued by a baton blow to the head and then arrested.
Free Stater Garda: 1 “Republican” Criminal Smuggler: 0
In the Garda station, the hated Free Staters noticed a trickle of blood on Conor Murphy’s thick republican skull so they whisked him to a hospital where he was stitched up and kept in for 36 hours before being returned to the station.
Such solicitous treatment/maltreatment at the hands of the Free Staters!
Conor Murphy – formerly someone claiming to have been a “political activist” was now – by his own volunteered admission – a convicted criminal cattle smuggler – and convicted on two counts of assaulting a Free State Garda.
Two Gardaí patrolling a lane close to the Louth/Armagh border picked out two hooded men in the headlights of their patrol car. When they called on them to stop the two, who were wearing green combat jackets, jumped into the ditch and scattered across a field into a bog.
Some minutes later Garda Brian Bell caught one of the hooded men climbing up a ditch onto the main Dundalk/Belfast road.
When he grabbed hold of him the man pulled the Garda to the ground and threw punches at him. The Garda drew his baton and arrested him with the assistance of colleague, Sergt. W. Piper, under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State on Sunday, March 6, last.
The Garda told Dundalk Court he suspected that Conor Murphy (24), Quarter Road, Camlough. Co. Armagh, was a member of an illegal organisation.
The defendant appeared on two charges of assaulting Garda Bell.
Murphy denied the charges, claiming that at the time he was engaged in smuggling with the other hooded man who escaped. They ran away because they did not know it was Gardai who sought to apprehend them and heard someone shout “shoot” or “shoot them’ their solicitor, Mr. R McGinley, alleged.
Justice F. Brennan adjourned the case to yesterday (Wednesday) after hearing the evidence of Garda Bell.
Garda Bell said at 6.50 p.m. he was patrolling Campbell’s Lane off the main Dublin/ Belfast road near the border at Carrickarnon on March 6 with Sergt. Piper. As they rounded a corner he noticed a movement ahead. He switched on the blue beacon and the Garda light on the patrol car, as well they shone their torches.
They saw two men in green combat jackets with hoods covering their heads. They moved into the ditch and jumped into a field. The Gardai identified themselves and called on the pair to stop. But they scattered across the field into a bog, with Sergt. Piper in pursuit. This was about 100 yards from the border.
Witness said that he drove back onto the main road. He got out of the patrol car and heard noises in the bog below, which was eight foot below the main road and separated by a ditch and drain with a deep stream. He saw a man clambering up the ditch in combat jacket and a hood which he grabbed. But the man pulled him to the ground and threw a number of punches at his lower body.
He drew his baton and hit him on the shoulder as he thought the defendant continued to try to get away. But Sergt. Piper arrived on the far side of the drain and he desisted and witness managed to get him onto the roadway. He arrested him under Section 30.
When being brought into custody he complained of a sore head and was taken to Louth County Hospital, where he was detained for 36 hours and had six stitches in a wound, his solicitor said.
Defendant claimed that he was smuggling, but Garda Bell said he never knew smuggling to take place on this lane. He also further stated that he did not hear anyone shout ‘shoot’ and that he was wearing his Garda cap when he got out of the patrol car.
Of course, these criminal smugglers – acting under cover of IRA membership – needed above all the Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to enrich themselves and had no real interest – and certainly no financial interest – in seeing the Border removed.
What was the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA to do now with the twice arrested and newly-convicted criminal self-confessed blabber Cattle Smuggler Conor Murphy?
Why – move him sideways into Sinn Féin – plenty of room for criminal cross-border blabber cattle smugglers in Gerry Adams’ version of Sinn Smugglers Féin…
Conor Murphy – Liar Most Foul – Gerard Evans [Disappeared]
In September 1998 the IRA made a staggering and overdue admission to its newspaper, An Phoblacht, that it had murdered and secretly buried – disappeared – ‘a small number of people’ during the 1970s – in effect admitting that it had committed the most serious Human Rights’ atrocities.
In March 1999, the IRA declared that it had disappeared the remains of 9 victims – it declared that it could not locate the remains of British soldier Captain Robert Nairac, and that it was not responsible for any other disappearances.
The IRA admitted torturing, murdering and disappearing the following nine:
- Seamus Wright
- Kevin McKee
- Eamon Molloy
- Jean McConville
- Columba McVeigh
- Brendan Megraw
- John McClory
- Brian McKinney
- Danny McIlhone
True to form and even at this moment of uttering some truth, the IRA could not help itself – it had to lie once more.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains later added a number of other names to the list of the disappeared, including Gerry Adams’ friend, former monk Joe Lynskey:
(whose abduction and murder the IRA preferred not to become known – he had been one of the founding members of the Provisional IRA) and the following victims as well:
- Eugene Simons
- Gareth O’Connor
- Gerard Evans
So, the IRA was denying that it had tortured, murdered and disappeared Gerard Evans – and blabbermouth Conor Murphy sought to speak on behalf of the IRA in expressing the IRA’s denial:
Speaking explicitly on behalf of his South Armagh Brigade of the IRA – of which Conor Murphy was an actual member – Conor Murphy denied that the IRA had abducted, tortured and murdered Gerard Evans.
In one of the areas most associated with the IRA’s institutional practice of horrific torture of victims before ‘executing’ and disappearing them, a most rare event took place – an outbreak of individual conscience.
In 2009, the Sunday Tribune’s northern editor, Suzanne Breen, received a tip-off from a member of the IRA in South Armagh [said to be IRA veteran Jim McAllister] who said that he was sickened by the IRA’s claims that:
- it was not involved in the abduction, murder and disappearance of Gerard Evans
- it did not know the whereabouts of Gerard Evans’ remains
- it was not involved in the murder of Paul Quinn
The IRA volunteer said he was prepared to identify the secret grave where he and 11 other IRA members had murdered and buried Evans...
He described as ‘blatant lies’ the denials by the IRA, by Gerry Adams and by Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy that there was any IRA involvement in the murder of Evans.
The unidentified IRA man told Breen that if the IRA discovered his identity he would be killed for speaking out.
He told Breen that Gerard Evans had been suspected of informing and had been abducted by 12 IRA members and that after his interrogation – whose brutality he did not detail – Evans was marched to his death in darkness across bogland.
“He pleaded for mercy. He pleaded not to be killed, and then he said his prayers. He was shot once in the back of the head.”
Following his passing of information to Suzanne Breen – later communicated to the ICLVR – Evan’s body was eventually found in a County Louth bog.
So, the IRA man with a conscience proved categorically that Gerry Adams and Conor Murphy were proficient and conscienceless LIARS on behalf of the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA.
The Evans case and the South Armagh IRA man with a conscience highlighted the fact that the IRA cannot be relied upon to be truthful even in the cases of the disappeared where there is a guarantee of immunity for the supply of truthful information to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains‘ (ICLVR)
In particular, Conor Murphy cannot be relied on to deliver truthful information about the IRA’s past activities – indeed about ANY activities.
The IRA disappeared Gerard Evans for the first time when it abducted him, interrogated him and later murdered him into a secret grave.
The IRA disappeared Evans a second time when in 1998 it lied about his murder, his disappearance and knowledge of his grave – when Conor Murphy and Gerry Adams lied.
The truth only appeared following one man’s crisis of conscience over the IRA’s murder of Paul Quinn – which it also denied – and in which denial it was supported once more by proficient liars Conor Murphy, MP/MLA and Gerry Adams.
Is IRA Volunteer Conor Murphy, who has sworn allegiance to the IRA’s Army Council, capable of ever telling the truth about any of the IRA’s Human Rights’ atrocities?
Conor Murphy – Defamer of Innocent IRA Victims
Conor Murphy is a dogged defender of the criminal South Armagh Brigade of the Smugglers IRA which abducted, tortured and murdered many of its victims.
Murphy’s failure to admit that the IRA murdered both Gerard Evans and Paul Quinn – when as an IRA volunteer himself he must have known that his local comrades did indeed carry out these murders – points to a person of no conscience, incapable of telling the truth – incapable of respecting the living or the dead.
The real question is how such an unrepentant convicted bomber, such an unrepentant convicted assaulter of a member of the Garda Síochána, such an unrepentant serial liar and defamer of innocent victims of his criminal IRA organisation, such a self-confessed criminal border cattle smuggler – how can he be allowed to participate in the government of Northern Ireland?
The Irish Peace Process 