“…in the UK government’s view, historical counter-terrorist techniques never become obsolete.”

Speaking of Rabbit Holes (media, academic or otherwise), on the matter of national security, this from Newton on Saturday… Perhaps the academics are unaware that, in the UK government’s view, historical counter-terrorist techniques never become obsolete. Two years ago, the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police refused to release 19th century files on Irish informants to a historian, arguing that to do so might imperil their descendants and compromise recruitment of future informants, who are promised anonymity forever. An appeal …

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Moving the IRA to peace: limitations of the agents of influence theory…

There’s a fine line to be walked in judging the influence of largely unaccountable state actors and historic corollaries. Both Mark Devenport and Jen O’Leary today ask the question of whether state agents of influence were critical factors in moving the IRA to peace. The question is easier to ask than to answer. Devenport cites two conflicting academic sources which take opposite views on the matter. He quotes Bew and Frampton and Gurruchaga saying “the role of state actors, intelligence agencies, …

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Stakeknife is in the Police Ombudsman’s frame, but has he the tools to do the job?

One of the casualties of the failure to implement the Stormont House Agreement is I presume, the extra £150 million due to have been allocated over five years for dealing with the past. Although I know of no details of how the funding was to be shared out, some of it would have been apportioned to the Police Ombudsman, an office whose reputation has been revived by the redoubtable Dr Michael Maguire.  He issued a warning last year of the consequences of budget …

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The Dirty War: Informers are not necessarily ‘agents’…

Liam Clarke has a useful corrective for those who think agents are the same thing as informers… Martin McGartland, who infiltrated the IRA in west Belfast, was an agent in the purest sense. He joined the IRA at the request of his handlers and did exactly what he was told; it involved no switch of loyalties. Several members of the IRA’s internal security team, like Stakeknife, were double-agents. They were trusted by the IRA to frustrate Crown forces, but were ‘doubled’ …

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Contradiction in McGuinness advice to informers between 1986 and 2011?

There was a wall of ‘criticism’ (simmering outrage might be a better description) in the southern papers… In the midst of it all buried within a suite of articles on the torture and killing of IRA informer Frank Hegarty there’s an interesting snippet worthy of further consideration. Upsetting detail aside there’s an apparent contradiction in Martin McGuinness’ own account of what happened: ‘I said to that member that if Frank Hegarty was guilty of being a British agent, then my …

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