"Did you ever regret joining the IRA,Mick?" An old Fenian speaks his part (May-August 1987)

 "No,Joe, because I met the most brilliant minds in the country." (Michael Mc Manus, O.C. South Fermanagh Battalion,IRA).

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To those such as Sinn Feiners who cannot accept the need for constant political renewal, social democracy and its necessary  counterpose,the sense of moral permanence of a religion such as Christianity,it must be pointed out that it was Mc Manus who solicited slogans for Russia before September 1983.

Later...

In response to his and Michael Lavelle's bizarre allegations and insinuations on the lines ...."that a decision had been taken to end the armed struggle years ago..." which they first contrived in 1983,Mc Guinness spoke my part in November 1986.

In any case,to avoid allegations of theft from these latter-day armchair generals,I instructed the IRA to pay Mc Manus with "two-thirds of the South Fermanagh Battalion IRA guns" in March 2004.

The outcome?

These hardmen could not get out of their drinking dens and lazy beds to use them.

As with Donnelly,Carron and Liam Mc Girl in January 1985,Lavelle,one  of " those hairy-arsed bunch of real men who I fell in love with" (Il giocco,the 'world plan', July-August 1988),the CIRA sold their share to the police.

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16.8.2023

One of Mick's early canards learned in public houses from country wiseacres was the androgynous nonsense about allowing Protestants to "join the IRA".

Yet another was his opposition to what he called "elitism" i.e. that we should,Dublin-tenement style,draw riff-raff into IRA activities. He wanted to draw riff-raff in and must have viewed the IRA as little better than gangs. A son of the Church therefore with very little real political intelligence or book knowledge. I disagreed. That said, military elites are bunches of make-believe heroes and upper-class adventurers devoid of any grip on reality who want to engage in mock heroics with guns.

 Mick's republican notions were based on the introduction of the offal of society into the armies of the French Republic.

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Guns? Explosives? Slogans for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?

Mick got the main chance right. Namely the Russians wanted a slogan and were prepared to forward large consignments of arms if some young IRA man was prepared to brazen it out and 'take the hit' for the changes necessary in Russia.

Am I an "elitist"? 

No! There is not one law for the poor and another for the rich and the dirt poor drawn to crime have to be made to fall into line with the norms of civil society. We must endeavour to bring them to learn the discipline necessary to play a role in modern society.

 I am a democratic socialist, therefore,not a republican. The republicans to realise their Celtic Twilight dreams,must fall back on the political support and resources of the small tradesmen and lumpen proletarians,the thieves,the gangsters,the murderers,the criminals and kid them that republican  headmen are not beholden to big business, and....

.... that,good sirs and bar-room philosophers, is the social and economic reality.

My approach is the same as during my Dublin Days and I put it it in writing in democratic samizdat then, "Order, discipline, unity."

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16.8.2023

One of Mick's unschooled lectures was concerning "the Czech Syndrome". This he described as that tendency under torture to take your enemy's side and adopt his mentality. He told me of this theory between 1982 and 1983.

This was his reply to my plan to set up a "Security Unit" i.e. a counter-intelligence unit and my conclusion that universal military conscription represented the best defence option when the Troubles had ended.

 Mick was none too pleased with my apologia pro vita meo that I was not prepared to track Roy Kells any longer. I was convinced that his violent death would tear the heart out of the Protestant community along the border. My belief was that we should deal solely with violent UDR-types on the basis of intelligence reports and concentrate on the police.

Mick threw up his hands at me. He "left" the Provisionals in September 1983.

In 1987-8 I continued to agitate for clemency for the good Protestants who helped out their neighbours e.g with the loan of farm machinery though I retained much of my fanaticism. 

I resolved to strike a "body blow" at the British economy and destroy the myth of intelligence superiority which surrounded the British state and its wealthy financiers and ruin the tranquility of their places of business. 

At an early stage in my dealings with the Provisionals,I decided to strike at the soft underbelly of the British economy, the City of London,and make the British Government the insurer of last resort. 

Why?

The British Government and financiers had conspired to have me killed and poisoned in 1984-5. They blacklisted myself and others in association with the Irish Government and other NATO powers such as France and Germany. The lawyers and clerics also denied me employment, foremost amongst them being Cahal Daly,Faul,Murray,Reid,Mc Elroy and Brady.

For these serious  crimes,I decided that the British state should foot the bill.

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In summer 1987,my written intelligence and security files and the Intelligence Operations Handbook and Security Operations Handbook came to the attention of Jim Gibney of Belfast. An intelligent guess would put him as Director of Intelligence in those troubled times,long past. He handed them over to the police and told them that I was the culprit for his crimes.