An Sionnach Fionn has a lengthy article on the ‘Ingram’ document, with some interesting detail, not least because he’s spotted some contradictions between detail between claims made about the penetration levels within the document and those made by Hurst/Ingram six years ago in the Sunday Tribune:
“It’s time ordinary republicans stopped being led like sheep and started asking questions. At grassroots level, around one in 20 members are British agents. Higher up, it’s one in three.”
The claim in the Ingram document was ‘One in four IRA members was an agent, rising to one in two among senior members.’
Quite a gap.
Sionnach Fionn’s argument is that it was the IRA’s incapacity to keep up the technology race with the British Army that brought them to heel, and that at maximum there could only have been 20/30 double agents (considerably less even than Ingram’s 2006 guesstimate) in an active membership of up to 500.
That seems to me to err slightly on the other side of conservative. Technology must have played a key role in bringing the conflict to an end. No one can be sure of anything other than everyone in authority clearly wants this story to go away.
Given the fact that if the Taoiseach had had his way the inquirywould have been jugged sinceNovemeber, and there’s little in this for anyone .
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
