Senior Sinn Féin figure Gerry Kelly was identified by An Garda Síochána as “the most dominant figure” within the IRA leadership in 1996, a letter to the Department of Justice reveals.
The letter was written by Noel Conroy, who then served as a Garda assistant commissioner, and who later went on head the Criminal Assets Bureau, before serving as commissioner between 2003 and 2007.
“The current PIRA [Provisional IRA] strategy continues to be dominated and controlled by the leadership of Gerry Kelly, Belfast; Brian Keenan, Belfast; Martin McGuinness, Derry; Pat Doherty, Donegal; and Thomas “Slab” Murphy, Louth.
“Gerry Kelly is emerging as the most dominant figure within this group,” wrote Conroy in a two-page letter on the IRA’s activities on May 21st, 1996 to the secretary general of the Department Justice, Tim Dalton.
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“Martin Ferris is also emerging as highly influential in formulating strategy and is consulted and advised by the northern leadership on all major issues,” Mr Conroy, who then headed the Garda’s Crime and Security branch, stated.
The IRA had called a ceasefire in 1994 in the context of peace negotiations involving the Irish and British governments. It was broken in early 1996 by a bombing in London’s Docklands, at South Quay near Canary Wharf. After the resumption of its violent campaign, the IRA declared a second ceasefire in July 1997.
Kelly is the current MLA for North Belfast. Eight years ago, he insisted that he had left the IRA after he was jailed for London car-bombings in 1973: “I was arrested and sent to jail. When you’re arrested you are out of the IRA.
“And if you want to join the IRA again you have to reapply when you get out. That’s the way it was and that is historical just to be clear,” he said.
A declassified British government file released earlier this year claimed he was involved in a reorganisation of the IRA in 1996. He said the information in the file was “not true”. He told the Belfast Telegraph that he was “not a member of the Irish Republican Army in the mid-1990s, but I was a member of Sinn Féin’s negotiations team throughout the talks process leading up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and afterwards”.
Mr Doherty, Mr Keenan, Mr McGuinness, Mr Ferris and Mr Murphy were named by then DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson under Assembly parliamentary privilege as members of the IRA’s army council in 2001, citing a security document.
Mr Doherty, Mr McGuinness, Mr Ferris and Mr Murphy were further named by an informer at Mr Murphy’s 1998 libel trial as having attended a “revolutionary council” meeting in 1983.
In the letter, Mr Conroy notes that there was “growing dissatisfaction amongst many” members of Sinn Féin and the IRA about “the non-consultative attitude of the current leadership of both organisations”.
This feeling had “been brought to a new low” just days before Mr Conroy’s letter was written when Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams offered a qualified acceptance of the Mitchell Principles, which demanded that all parties agree to exclusively peaceful means.
“This is particularly evident in the Cork/Kerry, Limerick and Dublin regions. The constitutionality of the decision within Sinn Féin on the Mitchell Principles is being questioned,” Mr Conroy wrote.
“However, the Adams leadership has the approval of the Ard Comhairle of [Sinn Féin]. There is a growing feeling at grassroots level that the leadership is out of touch.”
Mr Conroy continued: “Indeed, there are cynical comments about their ‘infallibility’ being expressed. This feeling is more marked in the South with Northern Units being more supportive.
“There are threats to use a constitutional provision which would allow for the calling of an emergency ardfheis. This view is mainly being expressed in the Cork/Kerry area,” he told the head of the Department of Justice, noting that “threats of resignation” were being made.
Saying that “Headquarters” was dismissive of the attitudes, Mr Conroy said the republican leadership had “promised further meetings” to placate objectors, but “it is intended if possible to hold off until after the elections when the leadership hope that their stance will be vindicated”.
However, a “special conference” of Sinn Féin was subsequently held behind closed doors in Athboy, Co Meath, on November 23rd, 1996. None of the motions debated have ever been revealed.
Elsewhere, Irish officials gave Kelly considerable credit for his efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s to prevent street disturbances in Republican districts, often at the cost of his own popularity.
In August 2003, Irish and British officials accepted that Kelly had done “trojan work” to ensure that the summer marching season had not descended into violence “and hoped that the calm would continue”.
