So What Happened If You Called IRA Leader Martin McGuinness a British Agent? [J118]

The “hooded men” were in the news again recently when Gerry Adams’ cousin, IRA Volunteer Kevin Hannaway, died – Hannaway had been arrested and interned for a time for his IRA activities in the early 1970s – and his violent interrogation earned him a place among the “hooded men”.

Hannaway got a “dissident” IRA funeral which some decades ago would have been just a regular IRA funeral – but Hannaway did not agree with Gerry Adams’ capitulation to British Rule in Northern Ireland, to the decision by the IRA and Sinn Féin to begin administering British Rule in Northern Ireland and even imprisoning Irish Republicans – and IRA Volunteers – for their activities against the Brits.

Nor could he accept that the IRA and Sinn Féin would become partners with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and with MI5 – Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service – tasked mainly with countering IRA Volunteers now agreed by Sinn Féin and the IRA to be “terrorists” and “criminals” – or as Martin McGuinness went further describing Irish Republicans as “traitors”…

But back in the 1970s one of the best known “hooded men” was Michael ‘Mickey’ Donnelly from Derry – news and details of his interrogation maltreatment shocked virtually everyone.

Mickey Donnelly was a republican and an IRA Volunteer before his arrest and internment – he was one of the first Provisional IRA Volunteers in the Derry Brigade Staff along with his then close friend Mickey McNaught.

They – the two Mickeys – had the privilege of “swearing in” to IRA membership a youth nearly their age named Martin McGuinness.

[I should admit a conflict of interest here – Mickey Donnelly and Mickey McNaught swore me into the IRA along with Paul O’Connor the same evening in a flat at the top of Waterloo Street in Derry in September 1970 when we were 15 years of age – a full 16 months before Bloody Sunday occurred in Derry.]

The adjective “iconic” is greatly overused these days to the point of losing all of its punch – but back in the 1970s and even into the 1980s, Mickey Donnelly’s name and his IRA and Republican stature were known to everybody in Derry City and County.

He was an IRA and Republican hero and icon.

Mickey was one of the longest serving internees – he was interned from August 1971 through to the end of December 1974 when he was released as a result of the IRA’s 74/75 ceasefire.

His wife, Martina Donnelly, was similarly well known and respected.

Mickey was one of the first Derry Brigade IRA Staff Volunteers to declare – publicly – that Martin McGuinness had been compromised and was a British Agent.

Mickey was publicising his belief long before ex-MI5 Officer “Martin Ingram/Ian Hurst” declared McGuinness to be the Agent known as “J118”.

Ian Hurst – you should remember – was the person who first outed Freddie Scappaticci of the IRA’s “nutting squad” as the British Agent known as “Steaknife”.

But let’s get back to Mickey Donnelly – who was “outing” McGuinness as far back as the late 1970s/early 1980s.

When I was released from prison in September 1989 after having served 14 years – 10 years in England and 4 years in Northern Ireland – Mickey Donnelly accosted me in Woolworths in Ferryquay Street, Derry, and gave me a lecture which he believed proved that McGuinness was a British Agent – Mickey’s argument detailed the number of alleged and proven informers that McGuinness had promoted or re-involved in IRA activities.

Mickey would later point to McGuinness’ activities as an obvious “agent of influence” moving the IRA and Sinn Féin to recognition of and participation in the partitionist parliaments in Northern and Southern Ireland and his influence in killing off the IRA’s Armed Struggle in return for an amnesty for his [and the IRA Army Council’s] many murders and bombings.

By 1998, Mickey was full on confronting Martin McGuinness politically as well, not merely continuing to accuse McGuinness of being a British Agent.

By this time, Mickey was Chairperson of the Ulster Executive of Republican Sinn Féin and had spearheaded a campaign against Sinn Féin in a recent election.

McGuinness – armed with the British Government’s permission to engage in “housekeeping” in areas the IRA was believed to control – a term allowed by cuddly Mo Mowlam permitting the IRA to murder or maim any republicans or Catholics who might hinder the IRA and Sinn Féin’s conversion to Constitutional Politics similar to the SDLP, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – finally decided to have Mickey Donnelly beaten to death in his home in front of his family as an object lesson to other Dissident Republicans.

McGuinness had been angered for a long time by Mickey Donnelly’s incessant claims that he was British Agent of influence J118.

At 11.20pm on Sunday night, 28 June 1998, McGuinness struck at Mickey Donnelly – the Derry Republican icon and “hooded man” – but the attackers were not prepared for the defence mounted by the Donnelly family.

Michael Donnelly’s son Deaglán described the attack:

My parents and sisters returned from a trip to buy milk.

My other sister Úna (11), my fianceé Tina (22) and I were also at home and we were all in the living room.

Ten minutes later four masked men wearing combat clothing burst into the room and one shouted ‘IRA Provisionals’.

One sprayed ‘mace’ tear gas into my mother’s eyes and into my little sisters’ faces and started to beat my father.

They had baseball bats studded with nails and iron crowbars.

Niamh climbed on top of the armchair and jumped on one of the thugs to protect her Daddy, but he threw her to the ground and clubbed her on the leg with a nail-studded baseball bat.

Úna then jumped across her father to protect him and her back was badly beaten. Caoimhe was still sitting on his knee and she was also beaten by the Provisional thugs.

Despite the ferocity of the attack, my father made it to his feet and was able to tackle three Broy Harriers while I grabbed the fourth’s iron bar and fought back.

We were beating them out of the room towards the front door, but one pulled a revolver and fired a shot. We turned to protect the children and as my father stood over the girls they beat his back.

We fought them out to the kitchen where they beat my father to the ground. One was shouting “you cost us a seat you bastard.”

I was still fighting the fourth one, but he pulled another revolver and shouted ‘stop or you’re shot’.

A fifth Broy Harrier, also carrying a baseball bat, then came into the kitchen. He was obviously the driver and was worried that the others were taking so long — they weren’t expecting a fight. He came after me, along with the one who pulled the gun on me and another, but I got away and raised the alarm.

They went back into the kitchen and all five cease-fire soldiers went about beating one unrepentant Republican, as he lay on the ground, for refusing to surrender his ideals.

Although my father was now lying on the floor with a broken leg he wrenched a crowbar from one of them and kneecapped him with it.

My mother tried to intervene, but one of them stuck his arm in her face and said ‘IRA Provisionals, fuck off’. Tina got to the phone and raised the alarm, the Broy Harriers left.

Although five members of the Provisionals’ party militia walked into our house two of them had to be carried out. Some of them fell on the driveway and one injured himself badly on some building blocks by falling on them. The blocks were covered in blood.

The fascists escaped in a hijacked taxi which they dumped in Shantallow. Local people saw the car and have told us that its seats and floor are covered in blood.”

Mickey Donnelly was hospitalized needing surgery the following day on his shattered leg and treatment for injuries to his hands and bruising and lacerations across his head, face and body.

Seventeen years after his “hooded man” maltreatment by the Brits, Martin McGuinness was the new torturer using IRA Volunteers to carry out the attack on Donnelly and his wife and children.

For many years in the 1970s, Martina Donnelly had put up with British Army raids on her home and family – now the raiders were members of the Adams/McGuinness version of the IRA.

Who were the Traitors now?

Martina Donnelly Confronts Martin McGuinness

Martina Donnelly was afraid of no-one, least of all Martin McGuinness.

The following evening she went to the McGuinness home on Westland Terrace to confront McGuinness.

Thinking that Martina had come to plead for clemency, McGuinness naively invited Martina into his house but instead she questioned him about the fascist attack on her family on his own doorstep, in full public view. Niamh and Caoimhe have been unable to sleep at home since the attack.

McGuinness opened his door but stepped back into his hallway on recognising Martina. When she asked him why five members of his party beat her children and her husband with iron bars and baseball bats studded with nails, McGuinness replied, significantly, “I wasn’t here.”

He then stepped forward in what an eyewitness described as “an absolutely threatening manner” and proceeded to point his finger into Martina’s face. He then said “Your husband has been calling me a traitor all around this town for the past twelve months”.

After a slight pause Martina said “Oh, so that’s why you did it”.

McGuinness did not deny this accusation and Martina said “Sure, that’s all you are, Martin – a traitor and a collaborator. On Wednesday you’ll be sitting with the British government in their assembly. In fact, you’ll be part of the British government there.”

McGuinness replied, “Keep your voice down. My children are inside” while his wife, Bernie shouted “Just shut the door on them”.

Martina then asked, “What about my children? You sent five masked men to spray gas into my children’s eyes and to beat them and their father up.”

McGuinness then declared “I’m not listening to this” and slammed his door violently.

Martina then addressed him loudly through his open window repeating “child-beater”, “collaborator” and stated “Sure, you’ll be running the place for them on Wednesday”.

On Wednesday, July 1, three days after the Provisionals attacked the Donnelly family in their home, Martin McGuinness signed himself into the British parliament at Stormont where he is now a colonial assemblyman. [Source]

In spite of a wealth of the attackers’ DNA evidence – their blood was in and outside the Donnelly home and in a hijacked taxi – the police did not appear interested in investigating the attack that had involved extremely violent assaults, possession of weapons, Mace gas, nail-studded baseball bats and the hijacking of a taxi.

It was only after complaints to the police Ombudsman that 7 years later a single attacker – Hugh Sheerin from Marlborough Road – was eventually prosecuted and convicted, receiving an extraordinarily soft 3-year suspended sentence for a raft of convictions including possesson of a firearm, hijacking a taxi, five counts of assault, possession of a weapon, causing grievous bodily harm and detaining a person against his will.

Mickey Donnelly went on to claim that the IRA leadership, Sinn Féin and the British authorities had united their efforts to intimidate Irish Republicans who opposed the Adams/McGuinness surrender process.

And so Martin McGuinness – with the apparent support of Britain’s “pro-IRA-housekeeping” governing Labour Party – had managed to mount an attack on ‘hooded man’ Mickey Donnelly that appeared to have had the intent to kill Donnelly – an aim only frustrated by the family’s unexpectedly fierce resistance.

Two weeks later another Provisional IRA ‘housekeeping’ attack – this time in Belfast on Andrew Kearney – resulted in his death when the shots fired into his leg severed an artery – the Peacemaking Provos could kill and maim any nationalist/catholic citizens in the name of the Peace Process without fear of interference by the besotted British and Irish authorities.

The Donnelly family knew the names of all of the attackers who obeyed Martin McGuinness’ order to attack an Irish Republican icon, a ‘hooded man’ – surveying the names now, I note a number of IRA Volunteers I knew years ago.

One of the best summaries of the Adams/McGuinness IRA’s endgame was provided by Anthony McIntyre:

The Good Friday Agreement marked the failure of the Provisional IRA campaign.

So I mean they didn’t achieve anything that they fought for and they got all the things that they fought against – so in a sense the way it turned out it would have made more sense being the military wing of the SDLP because the SDLP’s objectives were all achieved. [Source]

In an article about Martin McGuinness by journalist Suzanne Breen, Ian Hurst/Martin Ingram – the M15 agent who ‘outed’ Freddie Scappaticci – said McGuinness was so incredibly “lucky” [‘protected’] that he should have been buying lottery tickets:

As an IRA leader, he knew ‘stardom’ of a different kind. He was portrayed as Derry’s Che Guevara. ‘Martin has more time for guns than girls,’ declared a 1972 newspaper headline about ‘the boy who rules Free Derry’.

Celebrities came calling, including American novelist, Leon Uris.

Mr McGuinness boasted that life on the run was exciting, travelling around in a stolen Ford Avenger.

Unlike other republicans at the coalface of the war, he emerged relatively unscathed. There have been no lengthy jail sentences – he has served 14 months in prison in the Republic on two separate IRA membership charges – no vicious beatings by the security forces, and no serious attempts on his life.

Charges against him in the North were controversially dropped several times in the mid-Seventies.

In 1983, an offer to testify against him by supergrass Raymond Gilmour was refused by the authorities.

Ten years later, detectives investigating his IRA links questioned the decision not to prosecute him despite three witnesses willing to give evidence.

Ex-British intelligence officer lan Hurst has said it’s remarkable that someone who spent three decades at the top of the republican movement had never been convicted in the North.

‘This man has been so lucky, he should be buying lottery tickets,’ he said. He claimed Mr McGuinness was a long-standing British agent known as ‘J118’.

Mr McGuinness dismissed the allegation as ‘a load of hooey’.

While the claim hasn’t been proven, neither can it be easily dismissed – Hurst was the person who outed senior IRA man Freddie Scappaticci as the British agent ‘Stakeknife’.

The greatest criticism he now faces is from former comrades who allege he’s abandoned republican principles for power.

They say he has fooled the grassroots and point to his claim in 2003 that there would be a united Ireland by 2016.

Is it 2016 yet? And are we all in a Happy United Ireland?

So if you had the temerity to publicly claim that Martin McGuinness was a British Agent of Influence since his early 1970s contacts with British Intelligence – even if you were an Irish Republican hero and icon – you could expect to get a Paul Quinn-style beating – and the presence of your wife and children made absolutely no difference to Martin McGuinness or – as Hurst/Ingram would have it – to J118.