Read Online Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland by Ed Moloney - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ed Moloney
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They were easily spotted and two IRA Volunteers apprehended them. The Sticks, the Officials, appeared at the same time and there was a bit of an argument between the Volunteers and the Officials but everyone backed off. The soldiers didn’t offer any resistance at all, the Officials took one away and the one held by D Company was executed. I’m actually not 100 per cent sure but I think he might have survived, that he crawled to the Royal Victoria Hospital, but later he died. The Volunteers took his notebook from him, which had names and addresses; mine was one of the names he had in his book. He had photographs as well … but none of me .
… they were two young lads sent in on an undercover operation against D Company, in one of the most hostile areas you could send soldiers into, and yet it happened. And they were both caught … they weren’t going to do any damage to the IRA, trying to gather information in the early hours of the morning. And they were spotted by a local resident coming into the area, as most activity in the area at the time was … everyone passed on information. Even the Official IRA at this stage would have passed on information if they thought your life was in danger or if they thought there was a chance of you getting arrested; at least some of them would. Most residents would have done the same. There were times when [British Army] foot patrols would have come in – one from one end of the area, one from the other end of the area – and within seconds you knew exactly where they were; it would be passed from one resident to another: ‘If you see any of the boys, tell them there’s a foot patrol there, a foot patrol here .’
Brendan Hughes’s assertion that the IRA in the Lower Falls, D Company, exerted such a degree of control over the area during this time seems borne out by the security statistics. Only three IRA members were killed by the British Army in the Lower Falls between February 1971, when the IRA in Belfast took the offensive against the British, until Hughes’s arrest in July 1973. As many were killed by their own bombs, which in those days were crude affairs, unequipped with the safety devices built into bombs in later years. In contrast twenty-two soldiers died in bomb and gun attacks mounted by D Company members during the same time.
Predictably, Hughes was in the thick of it when two of those IRA members were killed. The first was in late September 1972 and, not untypically of the time, one killing sparked many more. The first to die was a forty-eight-year-old Catholic waiter, Daniel McErlean, who was killed in a UVF bombing of a Nationalist social club in North Belfast, a random, no-warning attack which Loyalist paramilitary groups were at the time making their speciality. 20 Two days later, McErlean’s funeral cortège was due to travel across North Belfast towards Milltown cemetery in the heart of West Belfast and the route would take it up Divis Street, at the very bottom of the Falls Road, into the heart of D Company’s territory. It was not unusual on such occasions for the Provisional IRA to stake out the area in case of trouble. Loyalist snipers had in the past attacked funerals in this area, which is adjacent to the Shankill Road, and even without that threat funerals in those days were unpredictableevents and often the cue for more violence, as it was that day. As the cortège made its way up the Falls Road, British soldiers opened fire and killed an eighteen-year-old youth, a member of D Company. The troops reported that they had seen him, armed with a rifle on the roof of a chemist’s shop at the junction of Servia and Albert Streets, and shot him dead. Their target was Jimmy Quigley, one of D Company’s youngest members who, local people later claimed, had not opened fire on the troops, although his subsequent inquest was told a Garrand rifle had been found near his body. 21 Local eyewitnesses claimed that the troops had tossed his lifeless body
… they were two young lads sent in on an undercover operation against D Company, in one of the most hostile areas you could send soldiers into, and yet it happened. And they were both caught … they weren’t going to do any damage to the IRA, trying to gather information in the early hours of the morning. And they were spotted by a local resident coming into the area, as most activity in the area at the time was … everyone passed on information. Even the Official IRA at this stage would have passed on information if they thought your life was in danger or if they thought there was a chance of you getting arrested; at least some of them would. Most residents would have done the same. There were times when [British Army] foot patrols would have come in – one from one end of the area, one from the other end of the area – and within seconds you knew exactly where they were; it would be passed from one resident to another: ‘If you see any of the boys, tell them there’s a foot patrol there, a foot patrol here .’
Brendan Hughes’s assertion that the IRA in the Lower Falls, D Company, exerted such a degree of control over the area during this time seems borne out by the security statistics. Only three IRA members were killed by the British Army in the Lower Falls between February 1971, when the IRA in Belfast took the offensive against the British, until Hughes’s arrest in July 1973. As many were killed by their own bombs, which in those days were crude affairs, unequipped with the safety devices built into bombs in later years. In contrast twenty-two soldiers died in bomb and gun attacks mounted by D Company members during the same time.
Predictably, Hughes was in the thick of it when two of those IRA members were killed. The first was in late September 1972 and, not untypically of the time, one killing sparked many more. The first to die was a forty-eight-year-old Catholic waiter, Daniel McErlean, who was killed in a UVF bombing of a Nationalist social club in North Belfast, a random, no-warning attack which Loyalist paramilitary groups were at the time making their speciality. 20 Two days later, McErlean’s funeral cortège was due to travel across North Belfast towards Milltown cemetery in the heart of West Belfast and the route would take it up Divis Street, at the very bottom of the Falls Road, into the heart of D Company’s territory. It was not unusual on such occasions for the Provisional IRA to stake out the area in case of trouble. Loyalist snipers had in the past attacked funerals in this area, which is adjacent to the Shankill Road, and even without that threat funerals in those days were unpredictableevents and often the cue for more violence, as it was that day. As the cortège made its way up the Falls Road, British soldiers opened fire and killed an eighteen-year-old youth, a member of D Company. The troops reported that they had seen him, armed with a rifle on the roof of a chemist’s shop at the junction of Servia and Albert Streets, and shot him dead. Their target was Jimmy Quigley, one of D Company’s youngest members who, local people later claimed, had not opened fire on the troops, although his subsequent inquest was told a Garrand rifle had been found near his body. 21 Local eyewitnesses claimed that the troops had tossed his lifeless body
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