A Co Louth farmer who lost his High Court action alleging he was libelled in a Sunday Times article in which he was described as the IRA's "Officer Commanding for the whole of Northern Ireland" has abandoned his Supreme Court appeal against that decision.
Mr Thomas "Slab" Murphy (48), of Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, Co Louth, had sued over a Sunday Times article of June 30th, 1985, entitled "Portrait of a Check-In Terrorist".
The article dealt with an IRA campaign to bomb British seaside resorts and claimed the IRA's army council had "last February appointed a farmer in the Republic, called `Slab' Murphy (not his real name), to be its operations commander for the whole of Northern Ireland".
On May 15th, 1998, a jury, after a nine-day trial, found that Mr Murphy had not been libelled and that the words complained of were true "in substance or in fact".
When Mr Murphy's appeal came before the Supreme Court yesterday, his counsel, Mr Eamon Leahy SC, said he had been instructed not to proceed with the appeal.
