Garda document details IRA links with Sinn Fein and other groups

The former TD and leader of the Workers' Party, Mr Tomas Mac Giolla, was on the army council of the IRA in 1966, according to a secret Garda memo drafted that year. The national treasurer and former general secretary of the party, Mr Sean Garland, was also on the army council at the time as were Sean Mac Stiofain (Sean Stephenson), Cathal Goulding, Ruairi O Bradaigh (Rory Brady), Seamus Costello and a "B. Quinn," from Co Tyrone, according to the Garda document.

Mr Garland was "chief of staff" of the IRA in September 1966, when he was stopped in Portlaoise and found in possession of internal IRA plans, according to the records. He was sentenced to two months in prison.

The Garda document was released yesterday with other State papers. It was prepared in the Garda Commissioner's office at the end of November 1966, especially for the information of the incoming Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch.

The document, "Review of Unlawful and Allied Organisations", contains detailed information about the supposedly secretive army and its links to Sinn Fein and other organisations.

The strength of the IRA on October 31st, 1966, was estimated at 1,039. The document contains details of IRA meetings and the decisions taken at those meetings.

The document gives a regional breakdown of membership and lists the names and addresses of the IRA "executive", "headquarters staff" and regional commanders. Mr Roy Johnson is listed as being "director of political education" with the headquarters staff.

The document details the relationship between the IRA and Sinn Fein and the IRA and other republican and Irish nationalist organisations. It contains the wording of an instruction from IRA headquarters to members, telling them to join Sinn Fein and which persons to nominate and support for positions on the Sinn Fein ard comhairle.

The document notes the strong presence of senior IRA members on the Sinn Fein ardcomhairle.

A December 1966 Department of Justice aide-memoire, also released yesterday, reads: "There were fairly strong signs during 1966 that a policy of force might be left in abeyance for a period of years while the military organisation and its political arm, Sinn Fein, would seek public support through the capture of a sufficiency of seats in municipal and Dail elections."

The review includes excerpts from an IRA "military plan" found in the possession of Mr Garland when he was arrested in 1966. It had not been approved by the army council at the time of Mr Garland's arrest, according to the review.

The document lists five "stages": an "anti-agent campaign", large "stunt-type" operations, "escalation", agricultural and industrial sabotage, and the kidnapping of prominent British government members.

The stunt-type operations "should and must be of a purely `killing' nature designed to inflict as many fatal casualties on the British as possible. It should be confined completely to British Army personnel," the plan reads.

Classic guerrilla-type operations would not be "successful" in Northern Ireland. "Here we must learn from the Cypriots and engage in terror tactics only."

Under the heading Assassinations, the document reads: "Open assassinations to be formed in situations such as Divis Street riots. Informers also to be assassinated openly. Quiet assassinations for police. Silencers, poison darts, etc can be used with effect here."

The military plan was drafted by a committee set up by the army council following an IRA convention in June 1965.

That same year a British naval vessel which visited Waterford was fired on by members of the IRA, three of whom were subsequently arrested. The documents include a plan for an IRA attack on another British naval vessel, the Lofoten, which was to have visited Cork.

The attack would have involved three separate ambush parties, using a Vickers machinegun, a bazooka, a Lewis machinegun and a number of rifles, according to a Garda report.

"The purpose of the fire is to cause casualties to the crew and damage to the ship," according to the document. The visit was to have taken place from October 12th to 17th.

The Garda report on the planned IRA attack was passed on to the Taoiseach, Mr Sean Lemass, by Mr Peter Berry of the Department of Justice on September 30th 1965.

"Prominent members of the IRA HQ, including the chief of staff, Goulding, have visited Cork, surveying possible sites for firing on the Lofoten," Mr Berry wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Taoiseach's department, Dr N.S. O Nuallain. "The gardai say that it would be almost impossible to fully provide against an attack."

Dr O Nuallain suggested to the Taoiseach that approaches might be made to the British to have the visit called off. Mr Lemass agreed and the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Mr Hugh McCann, was asked to raise the matter with the British ambassador.

The Department was subsequently informed by the British that the Lofoten would have to visit Le Havre at the time of the planned visit to Cork, and that the Cork visit would therefore have to be "postponed".

In December Mr McCann advised the Taoiseach's department that the British ambassador had told him that there would be no more visits by British naval vessels within the coming year. "The usual visit of the fishery patrol vessel would not take place either - the Commanding Officer will fly over in mufti, if this be necessary for his usual consultations."

The ambassador had also advised that there should be no early royal visits, such as a visit by Princess Margaret to her relatives at Christmas.