Just A Normal Party

 

Killing Rage

Eamon Collins was a man of many parts: a customs official; a critic of Sinn Fein; a would-be Sinn Fein councillor; a member of South Down PIRA; a member of PIRA's infamous internal security unit; a prisoner turned supergrass (who later retracted his statement); a critic of PIRA and ultimately a murder victim.

Collins led a complicated life that ended in a horrific death at the hands of his former PIRA associates. Some may say that was a fitting end for someone who had been actively involved in terrorist activity, including his likely involvement in several murders, and they may be right, but Collins' life does provide a window into the life of a PIRA terrorist, the personalities and tensions within the "republican movement" at that time, and the costs that can come from being part of that violent sub-culture.

I'll have to assume that there was genuine disillusionment, doubts and regret, from being complicit in murders and other terrorist activity. It's fair to say that writing an unflattering book (Killing Rage) about his time in PIRA, and appearing in a related TV documentary, was hardly the actions of a dedicated supporter. So, I think that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he underwent some kind of transformation.

Eamon Collins' book covers his time as a member of PIRA, in the late 1970s and early 80s, but I only intend commenting on a few pages that I think are quite revealing about PIRA and Sinn Fein in the early 1980s.

John Joe and Scap

Collins was a member of South Down PIRA, which for people unfamiliar with Northern Ireland, is as the name suggests, operated primarily in the south of County Down. Collins was employed as a customs official in Newry at the time, working for the British Crown whilst also acting as an intelligence officer for the local PIRA unit.

At the beginning of chapter 16 of his book, Collins details a meeting in the early 1980s with another IRA member from his unit named 'Hardbap', during which he is informed that he has been chosen to be part of the IRA's internal security, commonly known as 'the Nutting Squad'. The name of the unit refers to shooting people in the head.

Collins is then taken by 'Hardbap' to meet two members of internal security, known as 'John Joe' and 'Scap'. John Joe was the now deceased John Joe Magee, a former British soldier who was in-charge of the unit. 'Scap' was John Joe's second-in-command and Collins states he was small, barrel-chested with Mediterranean looks. There has in recent years been commentary on Scap's identity and there is an ongoing police investigation into the activities of PIRA's internal security unit, so I'll just move swiftly along and not dwell any further on Scap.

During the meeting, Collins is informed that he'll be continuing in his normal duties for South Down PIRA, as well as performing his security duties. He's also informed that the security role means he is part of the 'northern command staff'. The 'northern command' was the command team and staff for running day to day operations of PIRA in Northern Ireland and along the border counties south of the border.

Although Martin McGuinness was dabbling in politics in the early 1980s and had to step down as PIRA Chief of Staff, he did remain on the Army Council. After he had finished campaigning for elected office, McGuinness became Officer Commanding (OC) of northern command and during his time in that role, John Joe and Scap would have been under his command. Therefore McGuinness was well aware of what John Joe, Scap and others in the Nutting Squad were doing, up to and including their involvement in multiple murders, none of which occurred without authorisation of an IRA member at Army Council level, such as McGuinness.

When people now speak of McGuinness as being a man of peace, just bear in mind that below the fluffy PR image, the reality is someone who was probably on the psychopathic spectrum and besides his involvement in numerous terrorist atrocities, he was also complicit in brutal interrogations and murders of suspected informers.

I've provided the above information, to help you understand the type of people and environment within which Collins was operating, as it helps illuminate what comes next.

 

Rumblings in South Armagh

At another meeting Collins attended with South Armagh PIRA, a high ranking member referred to as the "Quartermaster General" was present, and a "south Armagh Sinn Fein politician" that Collins respected. Collins states in the book that the politician, "was a man who realised that Sinn Fein had a limited role to play in the armed struggle to remove the Brits."

Collins is informed by the quartermaster that the meeting was arranged, as they are aware of his opposition to the growing power of Sinn Fein and that Sinn Fein was "the IRA's Achilles heel." The quartermaster and politician state that Sinn Fein's growth, showed that PIRA's current leadership were at best inept, and at worst on the verge of ending the military campaign, by stealth. The two men are of the view that the best resources are being directed to Sinn Fein and "that the IRA was taking a back seat for the first time in the modern history of the physical-force Republican movement." They want Collins to "help stop the rot."

The quartermaster tells Collins that he wants him to join Sinn Fein in Newry and the politician says that he will put Collins on the list of candidates for the next council elections. The two men want Collins to take over Newry Sinn Fein "and run it as an extension of the IRA." This was to be part of a strategy across the country "to prevent Sinn Fein developing independently," that "the needs of the IRA came first and Sinn Fein had to exist for the convenience of the IRA." Collins states he was told to "take over the local Sinn Fein branch and to organise, run and develop it in the way that I would run, organise and develop any other IRA unit. The IRA and Sinn Fein had to become one and the same." Collins later states, "What I had just been told was nothing less than an IRA strategy to turn Sinn Fein once more into a puppet organisation."

Armalite and Ballot Box

I can advise that Collins was not selected as a Sinn Fein candidate for the council elections, due to two issues: his employment as a customs officer may have become problematic if he was also a Sinn Fein councillor; and prior to the Sinn Fein selection process, he had publicly criticised Gerry Adams during an argument at the funeral of an IRA terrorist named Brendan Watters.

Looking back on events nearly four decades ago, it is interesting and amusing to see, with the benefit of hindsight, how factions and indeed senior players within PIRA viewed one another. It's amusing because in later years, public statements did not necessarily reflect what people actually thought of one another. It's also interesting to see how PIRA, including hardliners in south Armagh and ultimately the PIRA Army Council, shifted their position over the years. This shift of course was expedited by the activities and successes of the security forces and intelligence services.

Most interesting of all, is that many within PIRA, including people at Army Council level, viewed Sinn Fein as not only being a threat to "physical-force Republicanism" (or terrorism to be more precise), but also that it should be subservient to PIRA. Sinn Fein was considered to be something that was to be used, "once more" as a "puppet organisation." The "once more" reveals a lot about the past relationship and that by the early 1980s, there were people within PIRA who felt that the balance of power had shifted. The comment, "to prevent Sinn Fein developing independently," suggests that at the time, Sinn Fein wasn't operating independently and that people within PIRA intended to ensure that remained the case.

Collins’ comments would seem to support the often stated opinion during the Troubles, that Sinn Fein was “the political wing” of PIRA.

Collins’ meeting with the PIRA quartermaster general and Sinn Fein politician was in 1984, in the post hunger strike days when Sinn Fein was in the ascendant thanks to its boost in the polls from the death of ten terrorist prisoners. The “military wing” sensed the Adams camp was taking over the Republican movement. This ties-in with the claim that in 1984, Ivor Bell was a senior member of PIRA and the subject of a court martial, resulting from an attempted move against Adams. Bell had for years been a friend and associate of Gerry Adams, but it is claimed he came to resent the direction that PIRA was taking and opposed plans to spend increased amounts of money on election campaigns.

An interesting side note is that a supporter of Bell at the time, was a fellow hardliner named Danny McCann, who was killed in 1987 by the SAS in Gibraltar, whilst he was engaged in a plot to detonate a car bomb.

 

Return to South Armagh

In chapter 18, Collins is taken again by John Joe to meet ‘the quartermaster general’ in south Armagh. It becomes apparent the subtext to the conversation is that the quartermaster wants his own security officer as he feels the internal security unit was under the control of PIRA’s Belfast Brigade. This reveals the internal politics of PIRA and an ongoing power struggle. The quartermaster doesn’t like Belfast PIRA having any power over what happens on his turf. The quartermaster feels that the movement’s power is becoming concentrated in Belfast and as Collins puts it, “among aspiring politicians who were stealthily moving towards political compromise and abandonment of the armed struggle”.

At the time of this conversation with the quartermaster, Eamon Collins agrees with his analysis and sees his role as a security officer, as an opportunity to travel to Belfast and “subvert the growing power of the Gerry Adams group”. Again, this is an unflattering perspective of Belfast Brigade and the Sinn Fein leadership, but as we now know, years later, south Armagh PIRA eventually fell into line with the Sinn Fein / Adams strategy.

 

End Game

Whilst there will obviously be many within Irish Republicanism who dismiss Eamon Collins’ account of his time in PIRA, I think it provides a valuable perspective of life inside a terrorist group, including the internal politics and relationships of people operating in a sub-culture, that necessitates the rationalisation and participation in mass murder.

Eamon Collins’ account of the PIRA Sinn Fein relationship is an interesting backdrop to current events and public utterances about Sinn Fein’s supposed normality in the 2020s. In what is now supposedly a post-conflict period, we are told by Sinn Fein and others that PIRA has gone away, but intelligence assessments state that the PIRA Army Council still exists and “influences” Sinn Fein strategy.

On the one hand we are told that PIRA has gone away, but yet security assessments say otherwise. If reports of PIRA’s demise are factually inaccurate, can we be sure that Sinn Fein is just a normal political party? When we are told that there are no “shadowy figures” from the PIRA Army Council controlling Sinn Fein, it is not unreasonable for us to recall Eamon Collins’ account of how senior members of PIRA viewed Sinn Fein as a “puppet organisation”, that shouldn’t be allowed to operate independently.

We are therefore left to judge for ourselves, what happened inside a secretive, subversive movement. We are left to wonder if everyone in PIRA has retired and left to tend to their gardens, leaving Sinn Fein alone on the playing field, or did Sinn Fein simply take the dominant and public role in the relationship? Did PIRA opponents to those “aspiring politicians”, become converts to the new, rebranded and repackaged death cult? Did the obvious penetration of PIRA by agents and the increased likelihood of imprisonment, help with their conversion and usher them into new roles?

We can only wonder, but the inability of Sinn Fein to unambiguously condemn PIRA terrorism including murders, and their eulogising of PIRA members, does nothing to dispel any notions that observers may have about how little some things have changed since the 1980s.