Show Notes
This is the second espisode in a special four part series. During the Northern Ireland Troubles, Martin McGartland was one of MI5's most priceless assets. Born into a staunchly republican family in the IRA heartland of west Belfast in the 1970s, the British spy, codenamed Agent Carol, went on to infiltrate one of the most feared and ruthless terror gangs in the world. He stopped shootings, bombings and murders but his fearless undercover activities came at a price. Now living in exile under a secret identity, McGartland gives his most indepth and explosive interview to date. And he reveals how MI5 ended up treating him worse than the IRA who tried to murder him - twice. In this episode, McGartland talks about his double life, being involved in the IRA murder of a British soldier on leave from his London regiment to visit the Belfast woman he planned to marry. He also talks about foiling what would have been one of the IRA's biggest massacres in its history and how it almost cost him his life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from No Edit with Patricia Devlin
Belfast, May 1996. A 17 year-old boy is bundled into a car by four masked men. A sock is shoved inside his mouth to dull his screams. He is beaten before being driven at speed to an alleyway in the nearby republican heartland of Ballymurphy. He is removed from the car; his arms and legs are bound with tape and rope. His attackers hang him upside down on a wooden fence. It was like being crucified. What happens next is what's known as a 'punishment' beating. Attacks regularly carried out in Northern Ireland by paramilitaries, supposedly, to keep their communities in order.
What is ‘collusion?” The dictionary quotes it as: a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others.” In Northern Ireland, far too many know its devastating reality.
In the mid 1990s, Donal Gray was a rising star on the football scene. Gaining caps for the Northern Ireland youth squad, he played in the Irish League before his talent saw him signed in Scotland where he had the chance to play against his heroes.
Born in New York to Irish parents, John Crawley knew from a young age exactly what he wanted to do with his life - join the IRA. Enlisting in an elite unit of the US Marine Corps, his only goal was to receive the most intensive military training possible so he could go 'home' to Ireland and fight to end the British occupation of the North. He did, and received a total of 45 years in prison for both gunrunning and bomb plots. His recently released memoir 'The Yank' recounts his extraordinary experiences during gruelling Marine Corps training, and how, not long after his discharge, he joined the IRA. His life in the Provisonal IRA led him back to America where he would work with notorious American mobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger to amass a shipment of weapons only to be captured a gunrunning trawler off the Kerry coast. Upon his release, he became one of the masterminds behind the IRA’s plan to throw London’s electrical system into disarray. In this interview, Crawley is candid about the people he worked with and unflinching in his commentary on the IRA leadership. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thomas 'Dixie' Elliott was just 16 years old when he was recruited into the ranks of the Provisional IRA. By the age of 19, he was in jail. Sentenced to 12 years in prison for the the attempted murder of a British soldier, he had fully committed himself to violent republicanism. He claims he saw no other alternative.