The guns and how they got here

HistoryOne of the most experienced journalists in the country, Sean Boyne has done us all a service by distilling the dramatic and disturbing saga of recent Irish gunrunning into a single volume.

The story still takes almost 500 hundred pages but the author came into journalism at a time when a high premium was placed on writing clear, lucid English and he takes us through this 40-year history at a cracking pace.

Once upon a time there was a civil rights movement in the North that was committed to non-violent means, including passive resistance and civil disobedience, and was led by eloquent and bright-eyed young idealists. Explaining the circumstances that brought us from there to the horrific toll of civilian deaths at Enniskillen, Darkley, the La Mon Restaurant and Omagh is not part of Boyne's brief but he does tell us how the materiel for the so-called "war" was purchased and transported.

That's one of his favourite words, "materiel", or in blunter language, guns, bullets, bombs, rocket-launchers and all the grisly ingredients for the simmering stew of destruction. Much of it came from the US and you have to wonder if those who were responsible realised the full import of what they were doing and the fact that this was not a straightforward contest between an indigenous population and foreign occupiers but a more complicated situation where the indigenous people were divided into two communities with differing allegiances.

The author takes us from the early, heady days of the Troubles, when even society hostesses felt like rushing northward to aid the beleaguered nationalists, right up to the continuing efforts of dissident republicans to acquire the means to re-ignite the conflagration and plunge us once more into heartbreaking conflict.

He reminds us that there are still unanswered questions about the murder of Garda Richard Fallon, a 42-year-old father of five who sought, along with two other unarmed colleagues, to prevent a bank robbery by the republican splinter-group Saor Éire at Dublin's Arran Quay on April 3rd, 1970. It was suggested that the gun used to kill Garda Fallon had been imported through Dublin Airport in September 1969 with the knowledge of the late Charles Haughey, but Boyne cites Garda sources who believe the weapon came in through Saor Éire's own supply-line, which originated in Birmingham.

Be that as it may, there are mysteries still hanging over many events of that period, although most of the people who are still alive and could enlighten us on the subject have declined to talk about it. A rare exception to this rule is long-time republican activist John Kelly, one of the Arms Trial co-defendants with Haughey, the late Captain James Kelly and Albert Luykx. Kelly regards it as a great irony that Neil Blaney was cleared at an early stage while proceedings against Haughey went ahead, although the latter had a much more peripheral role. Blaney was the real driving-force behind the move to import weapons and Kelly tells Boyne: "We met Charlie Haughey only twice . . . it was Neil Blaney who was the engine-room behind this quest for arms, it was he who was directing it." As the years passed and violence continued, the Provisional IRA's technology became more and more sophisticated and Boyne provides a racy and readable account of this little-known aspect of the Troubles. Although it was colloquially known as "cowshed technology", there was nothing primitive about it.

Like a never-ending search for the Holy Grail, the Provos sought to acquire the means to bring British Army helicopters hurtling out of the sky in flames.

If their campaign had gone into that particular phase, one can only speculate as to the consequences.

THERE ARE MANY chapters in the book which, in their own right, could form the basis for a movie script. The saga of the attempted arms importation from Boston on board the Valhalla and then the Marita Ann is a case in point. It has to be said that the involvement of republicans with the most unsavoury, brutal and dehumanised type of American gangster took them a long way from the glowing vision of Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis. Likewise the Libyan regime, the biggest supplier of all, was hardly what Robert Emmet had in mind for Ireland.

It's all over now, or at least for now. Swords are being converted into ploughshares and the hands that once gripped Armalites are now distributing election literature. We shall never recover the innocence of those early civil rights days when young voices chorused We Shall Overcome, but jaw-jaw has taken over from war-war. Sean Boyne, who is political correspondent of the Sunday World and a contributor to Jane's Intelligence Review, has given us a very fine piece of work. We must remain hopeful it will not need an update in a few years' time.

Deaglán de Bréadún is an Irish Times journalist and author of The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, published by Collins Press

Gunrunners: The Covert Arms Trail to Ireland By Sean Boyne O'Brien Press, 475pp. €29.95