Author tells of hostility between IRA and INLA

AUTHOR AND historian Tim Pat Coogan told the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday that the IRA and the INLA have “little time for each other”.

Mr Coogan said that at times the two organisations would be “daggers drawn” and despite the ceasefire there were still personal animosities between them.

The author of a definitive history of the IRA said the paramilitary world was “dangerous and conspiratorial”.

He was giving evidence as an independent expert in the trial of three men who have denied membership of the INLA last year.

The three men were arrested in February last year by gardaí investigating a plot to kidnap a Cork businessman. Edward McGarrigle (43), Melmont Gardens, Strabane, Co Tyrone, Neil Myles (54), of no fixed abode, and John McCrossan (47), Ballycoleman Estate, Strabane, Co Tyrone, have pleaded not guilty to membership of the INLA on February 22nd last year.

It is the prosecution’s case that the three men were involved in a plot to commit a crime at the home of a Cork businessman.

Mr Coogan told Mr McGarrigle’s counsel Brendan Nix SC that people in paramilitary organisations would be aware of “the players” in other organisations.

He said they would have extensive knowledge of each other’s movements. Closing submissions in the trial will continue today.