Podcast Episode #103 – Smuggling Weapons for the IRA with John Crawley
Irish Gardai officers removed hundreds of small arms from the hold of the Marita Ann fishing trawler after it was seized on the way to Northern Ireland in September 1984.
The Marita Ann had received the shipment of weapons from a larger trawler called the Valhalla which departed from Boston two weeks earlier. The weapons had been purchased over a period of months from shops all over the East Coast in an initiative led by John Crawley, an IRA member chosen for the task for his distinctly American accent.
John grew up in the United States but moved back to Ireland with his family for several years as a teenager. He fell in love with his ancestral homeland and gradually realized that it needed to become a unified republic free from British rule, just as the thirteen American colonies had done two centuries before.
In 1975 he returned to the US and enlisted in the Marine Corps with the intention of gaining valuable combat training and experience which he would then put to use immediately afterwards on behalf of the IRA. After four years of honorable service, he separated from the Marine Corps and was on a flight back to Ireland that same day.
Over the next decade he found his way into the IRA, joined an active service unit conducting operations against British troops in Northern Ireland, and eventually came back to the US with a wad of cash and a mandate to bring back as many weapons as possible.
But the return trip across the Atlantic ended in disaster after the mission was sold out by an informant within the IRA. John and the other crew members were arrested, tried, and sentenced to a decade in prison. After he was finally released, John immediately returned to operations and was arrested again a few years later in the midst of a plot to destroy electrical infrastructure around London.
For episode 103 of the podcast, I spoke with John Crawley about his experience with the IRA, his years in prison, and his close encounters with infamous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.
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Since the dawn of civilization Spies of every nation and culture have worked to infiltrate their adversaries and glean the information that will give their side the advantage the stakes are Skyhigh the strategies varied and imaginative and the ultimate sign of success is that no one ever even knew
You were there in each episode we will explore the moral and ethical gry zones of Espionage where treachery and betrayal go hand in hand with cunning and courage this is the spycraft 101 podcast welcome to your clandestine classroom this is episode number 103 of the spycraft 101 podcast joining me
Today is John Crawley John grew up in the United States in an Irish immigrant family and after returning to Ireland for several years he became committed to the cause of Irish Independence vowing to return to join the IRA one day after a stint in the USMC as a Recon Marine he
Brought his combat training back with the intent to fight back against British occupying forces in Northern Ireland Jon spent years in an active Service Unit before coming back to the US again to purchase arms and ammunition for the cause upon his return to Ireland he and his Shipmates were betrayed by an
Informant and arrested and he spent 10 years in prison I invited John onto the podcast to discuss his life and struggles with the Republican Army which he wrote about in his book The yank published late last year after you finish listening to this episode you can
Download a free sample of his book to check it out for yourself just click the link in the show notes to read the prologue and chapter one but before we dive into John story I want to tell you all about my favorite fragrance for daily wear it’s called Nova chalk by clandestine Laboratories
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Instagram at clandestin laboratories John thank you for taking the time to talk with me today you’re welcome thank you for asking me on absolutely absolutely I’ve only discussed Northern Ireland once before here on the podcast so I’m very happy to get the chance to talk to you about it
And to shed a lot more light on this subject because it’s one that my listeners find very interesting sure I wanted to ask you I I know that the events that we’re talking about happened you know 40 30 20 years ago quite a while back what was it that
Led you to finally write this book and just publish it last year well a lot of it was I was sort of living what Thor called a life of quiet desperation I was listening to a narrative being spun that the struggle for Irish Freedom you know was simply about ending
Partition and for most of Ireland’s history Ireland wasn’t partitioned and you know the struggle forish Freedom was was was was always about breaking the connection with England and forging a national democracy within an all Arland Republic under the Good Friday agreement it’s a two Nations agreement in which
The one nation Republic we fought for is is being diluted to a two Nations Ireland that if Ireland is United it won’t be United in the Civic sense it might be United territorially but the whole point of republicanism was to unite Irishmen across the sectarian divide you know under the common name of
Citizen of Irish citizen so I I wrote the book largely with that in mind myself and many other Republicans were frustrated by the political Direction things had taken since the Good Friday agreement it’s called the peace process I’m for the peace I I’m not against the
Peace well I would consider it to be more pacification but my criticism is is of the process because the process is not designed to lead towards our goal of a United Irish Republic I I don’t know you know how up to speed maybe readers would be with the
Nuances of this you know I don’t want to get I don’t want to get into a political lecture or anything like that but I mean if you’d like me to explain anything more on that I will Justin I hope I’m I hope I’m explaining that yeah I
Think that we’re g to cover it as we go go through certainly and I’ll admit that you know I was not especially familiar with the tremendous complexities there and there’s even though I’ve read two books on the subject recently including yours that in in no way is a is gives me
A complete understanding of the hundreds of years of history and all the personalities and all the the hidden things that went on as well all the different factions and perspectives and that sort of thing but you know nevertheless I’m I’ll absolutely dive at any opportunity to learn more about that
Because it is such an interesting and important period and location as well so I want to kind of go back all the way to the beginning of your story of course as a very young man I guess I would say as a teenager really you grew up in the
United States but eventually went back to Ireland is that right was that I guess that was incredibly formative for you than that trip back I left Chicago my father was an Irish immigrant and so was my mother he had been a builder over there and he wanted to come home to
Ireland and he asked me what would I be okay with it so I came over for a summer around 1971 when I was about I think 13 I loved it I just loved every bit of Art and I loved everything about it I moved over the following year on my own and
Stayed with an aunt in a rural part of County of Russ common so I had left like this American you know split level house in suburban Chicago and ended up on a farmhouse with no central heating you know had to go to the well for water had
To Mill cows in the morning and I loved it I absolutely loved it I loved it I loved everything about Ireland and after about a year my parents came back over and we moved to so I went to school in Ireland for a couple of years they were formative
Years you know they were my teenage years you know in transition from boy to man they were quite formative I didn’t have a republican background really I wasn’t I didn’t know anybody who was really Pro Ira so to speak I form my own opinions from my own reading my own I
Was always interested in history always interested in in non-fiction and biographies and read viously formed an opinion that Ireland should be a fully independent and United Country and decided that at some stage you know I should walk the walk not just talk the talk so I follow the path that I
Followed so this this was very much like a a gradual move for you it wasn’t like you you witnessed some terrible event or something like that that kind of you know radicalized you as as we might put it these days it was just kind of a gradual reading and growing
Perception it was it was there was certainly no Epiphany it was a ual Dawning and realization but it’s important to realize that I grew up in the United States I grew up in a republic a republic and a democracy that had had fought Britain you know to
Achieve its own Freedom so that was formative and I mean you know every morning we said the pledge allegiance to the flag there was words in the pledge of of allegiance that resonated with me my entire life you know like the Republic for which it stands one nation
Indivisible with liberty and justice for all and I believe Ireland should have the same yeah absolutely that’s a very understandable sentiment especially when you are you know you grew up in the United States where we obviously celebrate our independence from British rule and our country has you know only
Increased its stature and standing in the world and quality of living from that time up through the 1970s so you’ve got a wonderful example to look to then and then you go back home and I understand obviously not just the history of Ireland but your family also
Had a history some some distant familial ties anyway to the kind of struggle against British rule is that correct well I typical Irish family uh on my father’s side my my father’s Uncle I and I met him shortly before he died in 1972 he had been a senior Ira leader in
County roscoman during what they call the tan War the or the the war of independence in the South and he he he played quite a prominent role and was very active but his brother had joined the British Army and was actually killed with the so-called Irish guards in
Flanders in October 1916 fighting in the Bri British Army so you know a lot of Irish families had now he wouldn’t have been Pro British in the sense that he supported British rle it was it was a complicated thing at the time there was the Constitutional average parties were
Saying if you fight for the Brits you know they will eventually give Ireland a devolved assembly called home rule that’ll still be part of the Empire but you know you’ll have local autonomy so a lot of Irish men were lured to their debts and joined the British Army and you
Know were killed for what James Conley one of the Irish leaders of 1916 called the the deferred promise of a shadow of Liberty but my Uncle Tom my grand Uncle Tom Crawley he took a more direct route and joined the IRA was quite active but
I have to say I met him and I was impressed with the story but it didn’t influence me to join the IRA or anything like that I mean I have countless cousins and relatives who met Tom and heard the story and they didn’t join the
IRA so you know I was impressed with it but it it it certainly didn’t it didn’t compel me to become a republican H okay so I know that you were there in your your teen years obviously but you didn’t immediately join the IRA you came back
To the United States in fact so can you talk about your your reasoning and then what happened after you returned to the US well I would have joined the IRA at 18 but I didn’t know anybody in it they don’t I was living in Dublin and they
They don’t call the IRA secret army for nothing so I decided what I would do is I’d go back and I join the United States military and I would get training and I had add two reasons for this one was to enhance my own professional development
Now I had heard countless times from the Brits and other people that the IRA was this highly trained highly professional gorilla Force so I didn’t form the opinion or I wasn’t presumptious enough that I was going to go over and learn these skills and come back and and you
Know make the IRA better that was never that never crossed my mind it was really to enhance mental professional development and also to test my commitment because I knew that if I went away to the states for four years and joined the military and if I came back
And I still joined the IRA then I knew I was committed to it so it was a bit of a test for myself a test in many ways I joined the US Marines in May 1975 I got out of the US Marines I was discharged
On the 29th of May 1979 at 8 o’clock in the morning and at 2 o’clock that afternoon I was on a connecting flight to catch a plane back to Ireland wow wow so I’m I’m sure that you went through tremendous personal development during those four years but your Allegiance I
Guess you could say never wavered in the slightest and your commitment never wavered in the slightest during that time period huh no I took a note to support and defend the American Constitution and although I would have great issues like many people do with you know aspects of
American foreign policy I I I do think the United States has has a fantastic Constitution and a fantastic democracy and I would be very supportive of that I had no no problem loyalty wise joining the US Marines but I still had this pull this emotional pull this deep draw to
Return to Ireland and fight for the full freedom and Independence of Ireland like I say in the book you know I I did my bit for the American Republic and the Marines and then I returned to join the IRA and do my for the Irish Republic yeah absolutely and it sounds
Like your service for the way that you described it in the book was very very formative and of course it was honorable that sort of thing there weren’t any issues or anything did you no were you able to express at all to anyone while you were in that you were planning to
Return to Ireland right after that were you able to you know kind of talk openly about your you know your your ties to your home country or did you kind of keep all of that under your hat no no well I mean people would have known that
You know Iran was my home address and my parents lived there and you know my next to Ken would have all in Ireland you know on my on my records I didn’t talk openly about you know wanting to join the IRA or anything like that sometimes
People would joke about it like you know I a number of times people said to me oh you’re probably over here you’re going to go back and join the IR and you know like like a joke type of thing I that happened quite a few times actually
Especially around St Patrick’s Day and I just shrug it off and say but I mean you know I couldn’t I couldn’t say for sure you know whether you know when I got home would I have the guts to see it through and also I didn’t even know I I
Didn’t know if the IRA would accept me or not so there was all all that was in the mix as well but no they were for of years the Marines I learned a lot the mar us United States Marines are extremely Professional Organization I was in a Recon unit I became a Recon
Instructor you know I did parachute training scuba training submarine training lock in lock out from favis reconnaissance things like that so it was it was a quite comprehensive training I enjoyed it very much I had some excellent opportunities too I mean at one stage they told me that I had a
Very high language aptitude on my exams and they tried to get me to learn Chinese and then they asked me why I learn Russian but I you know I couldn’t tell them well I I I plan to go home and join the IRA so you know those were
Those were career moves one thing they offered me too one day when I was in Advanced infy Training I was called out to an Administration block had no idea why met a young naval officer there and he asked me would I go to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis and that was
A massive opportunity because no need to tell anybody in the United States about Annapolis and you know you usually need a recommendation of a state senator a congressman to go there and it was the opportunity of a lifetime really but you know they were going to take me out of
Advanc training if I said yes they were going to put me in a 9 Monon prep school then four years in the academy after four years in the Academy I could choose after two years sorry after two years in the Academy I could decide whether to
Become an officer in the Marines or the Navy and then I had to give six years guaranteed service so basically 10 or 11 years I had to make a decision right there and then now you know had I decided to make it a career I think I
Would have jumped at that chance but I I was was quite determined to return home to Daran so I didn’t accept it but you know looking back at it it was it you know you talk about the forks and the road in your life and you often wonder
If you took this direction or that direction what way things would have panned out you know yeah yeah absolutely that was I’m sure that you could very clearly see the two different Forks maybe not the details of course but I mean it it sounds like you I mean well I
Should say how much did you hesitate did you think wow maybe I really should give up on this you know this dream of joining an organization that I don’t even know anybody in or you know did you seriously consider it or were you like no no no Ireland is my home that’s where
I’m returning well now it crossed my mind I’ll be honest with you it did cross my mind I mean it was a tremendous opportunity but I I I decided to you know maintain my conviction to return to Ireland and I didn’t I didn’t want to you know live in Ireland anyway I
Declined but it’s just one of the one of these things I often wonder like had I been in a different mood on a different day you never know oh yeah yeah I can imagine did you have to give any kind of a I shouldn’t say have to did you choose to give any
Kind of a story like you know to your friends as you’re getting close to your separation date I’m sure they were asking you okay what are you going to do when you get out did you say I’m going back to Ireland and my family or did you
Say oh I’m gonna you know look for a job in Chicago or something like that oh no I oh no they all knew I was going back to irland to my family I just more or less said well my dad was a builder over there and I was going to get work with
Him you know okay and that was it and in fact a bunch of my a bunch of my buddies at the reconnaissance School little Virginia they they saw me off at the airport you know when I left the day I got out and you know and they knew I was
Going to get a flight back D and you know I I made no secret of that H okay good yeah I don’t think that well no I shouldn’t say I don’t think that’s speculation on my part so do you think that anyone in in that era in that
Time frame were people looking at the IRA here in the United States were they looking at the IRA as as the bad guys so to speak or was there you know was it people saying okay well we fought for our freedom from the Brits and and so
Are they or what do you think was the perception the IRA at that time well it varied I mean a a lot of Irish and Irish Americans would would have seen them as as a genuine legitimate resistance organization and of course others would have seen them as terrorists and that
They were fighting the British who were you know number one Ally of the United States you know but allies come and go I mean Britain tried to destroy United States in the Cradle During the Revolution they tried to fight them 1812 they did it again and during the
American um Civil War if it wasn’t for for the Union victory than tum it’s highly likely England would have recognized Confederacy and split the United States that way because the British have a real long policy of divid and Rule and but I mean the fact of the
Matter is for the last century and a half or more Britain has been you know a major Ally the United States still is so there’s that factor so some would see me as fighting an ally the United States but I would have just seen it as you know fighting somebody occupying Ireland
I would look at it as a definitely as a as legitimate legitimate legitimate struggle but you know one man’s fre Fighters another man’s terrorist and that’s that’s the reality of it you know yeah absolutely I mean people make very articulate arguments on both sides but you know you lived it and that’s why
We’re here to hear from you today of course of course I mean there’s all kinds of perspectives on this definitely definitely so John you like you said you were on a plane the same day you got out of the Marine Corps so what happened actually once you touched back down in Ireland
Well unlike the US Marines the IRA didn’t have recruiting offices their legal organization being a member is a automatic jail sentence so I had to figure out a way how to join it took me about eight or nine months but I eventually found out that a fellow who
Had been in the ira had been in prisoned he’d actually left the IRA but I got a job on a building project with him and I approached him and I think he rapidly gassed my intentions by my line of questioning he tried to discourage me
Actually and one thing I have to say In fairness about the IRA is they don’t sex it up you know they don’t they don’t they don’t try to recruit you like like a convention military with all these promises and that to tell you straight out if you join the IRA you’re you’re
Going to end up dead or in jail I mean to tell you that straight out unless we win in the meantime he tried to talk me out of it but I was determined So eventually he kind of washed his hands of it and he got somebody who knew there
Was in the IR to approach me and he just let it he you know he didn’t want to be responsible for me or anything like that he let this guy approach me and we took it from there I talked to this guy took a couple of months I went to some
Lectures things like that and they checked out my background and I didn’t know if they let me in and as as I said also you know I joined with a sense you know with a sense of purpose but I was concerned they might think I was just
Somebody who was looking for a sense of purpose like almost an adventurer you know that type of thing you have to be wary of people like that too who join organizations but no I I deeply committed Republican and deeply committed to the to the struggle for
Full Irish freedom and I think I think they rapidly deduced that I was eventually sworn into the IRA H amazing was was there ever like something close to a formal interview process or was it just a series of conversations where they kind of tried
To feel you out a little bit I mean did they you know have you write down the name of all of your relatives or anything like that prior to the swearing in well one thing in the area you’re never writing anything down it was informal conversations and then there
Was a formal the IRA have they call the green book it’s sort of like the Constitution and you have to read that and it’s the constitution of what the IRA is about and their objectives and stuff but but you know the reality of it is you can boil it down to one sentence
If you inform you’ll be shut that’s the main thing you know what I mean that’s really what it’s all about you know you give your loyalty to the struggle I remember you know there used to be this this narrative or this misconception that you know once sin never out that’s
Nonsense I mean you could leave the IRA at any time but while you’re in it you you you you you have to be loyalty organization and not talk out of school yeah I can imagine I know that they certainly enforce that from everything that I’ve read in the past
Yeah so well a small gr organization your greatest threat is the Informer I mean it’s it’s just it’s it’s and the area was infiltrated sometimes at a very high level so it’s it’s you know and the British are very very good at it they’re they really they really good at it I
Mean they built they built an Empire they kind of know what they’re doing in the count incy field I I do I do respect their their abilities at that they’re very good actually yeah that brings up a good point and I don’t want to jump too far
Ahead but you certainly alluded to that high level infiltration that you just mentioned but you you kind of I don’t know if I’d say talk around it a little bit but you don’t really make any direct I guess accusations or anything like that in the book but I guess you had
Very very serious concerns about some people who were very high within the organization I take it I certainly did but you know a lot of the EV is circumstantial and there’s other evidence that’s a bit more solid but for me to expound on that would betray confidences that I’m not prepared to do
But the IRA is very was a very per mentalized organization and the thing about it is over the years since the ceasefires in that people have been able to talk more people like myself are starting to connect dots that we weren’t able to connect before and in some cases
It’s painting a very disturbing picture about the level of infiltration yeah so can we expect even now so many years later we can expect some new revelations in in the coming years you think one way or the other well I hope so because I would like the truth to come out but
It’s very very hard to know because the British had informers during the 1798 Rebellion which they still haven’t publicly said who they were you believe it or not apparently somebody was studying records in in London and came across two informers during the 1916 Rising code named chalk and granite
Apparently they were high level and the Brits to this day won’t say who they were whether in my lifetime we’ll hear any of this I have my doubts but you know I would like to I mean a lot of us would like to know what was going on you
Know I’m sure and why some decisions were made that time made no sense yeah I would like to know that as well and I do know just from speaking with some British authors and historians in the past on on a variety of subjects that official Secrets act over there I
Mean they just never declassify anything practically no so it’s very tough get any true official information true documents out of anywhere it’s really tough the official official Secrets act are really shuts things down yes and the secret state in Britain is is is is well well embedded and very powerful and
Almost all-encompassing so you know if anything comes out it’ll because it Su them for it to come out and not till then I’d imagine yeah yeah I don’t know when that will happen or if I can’t hold my breath though much as I would like to
Because you know I I really love finding out you know the truth behind all this but I’ve been frustrated so many times as have so many other historians yeah so John back to you then so you joined and you you had a you know very significant amount of recent you know firearms and
Tactical training and experience and that sort of thing and how applicable was that once you actually joined the IRA in their particular breed of conflict well I found almost none of it was the IRA was a very ad hoc organization it was it was a civilian organization led by civilians you know
They had done some good operations in the past and you know I had been hearing from the Brits that they were this highly trained most highly trained organiz Grill organization practically in the world but I believe now the Brits were saying that because it wasn’t and
They wanted to keep the people who were who were keeping it that way in charge because I I mean I remember making suggestions for qualitative changes that would have improved our operational effectiveness and many times would be told sure what do you on about you even
The Brits say we’re the best drain grows in the world you wow you know I was very impressed with the caliber of people there was some very brave people you had to make tremendous sacrifices it was a life of hardship sacrifice and poverty it was an extremely dangerous life if you were
Active you you were going to end up dead or in jail almost certainly answer your question Justin I found from the men on the ground the actual active service volunteer on the ground was very very keen to learn very keen but I would find blockages at the top I found a lack of
Respect for training I came from an organization like from like from the US Marines and i’ had been I had been a trainer I’d been an instructor where training was so highly developed and so highly priced I mean it was a bit like the Spartans where they used to say war
Is something you do in between training you know but there was a lack lack of respect of training at a high level I actually two members of the IRA Army Council on separate occasions telling me you could train a monkey to shoot and I remember saying well you know you can
Maybe teach a monkey to point and pull but you can’t teach a monkey site pictures site alignment trick and control and you can teach monkeys how to move shoot and communicate as part of okay he’s of team so that shocked me that that was a major culture shock for
Me and sometimes I found I was being gaslighted you know and they be saying things like oh well sure you’re coming from the Marines and that’s a conventional force and we’re gorillas and that doesn’t apply to us and and you know I used to be thinking you know well
Ballistics are ballistics it doesn’t matter you know where you are but I got a tremendous reception from men on the ground and and and there was a real hunger and thirst for knowledge I found that in the field of the IRA was good at explosives and they had a good
Engineering department but in the field of small arms and tactics I found the training was quite abysmal to be honest abysmal and in fact a lot of the training was was quite wrong because they were given misinformation like one of the things I mentioned in the book
And I heard this countless times that the British Army infantry helmet was impervious to High Velocity rifle fire which it wasn’t and countless times that would have affected how men you doing an operation if they thought well the helmet are bulletproof and the jackets are bulletproof so you know there’s no
Point you know shooting at them really you know my gosh they had an nutritional effect and or operational effect no question now this real important like I don’t want to come across that the men were stupid or dummies they certainly were not they absolutely were not and there were some very intelligent people
There but very few of them had any professional military training and the thing about it is the IRA had a lot of people who had professional military training I mean a lot of people in the ira believe it or not had been in the British army a lot
Had been in the Irish Army and you know I met guys who been in the French Foreign Legion and in the you know and different American army so that pool of knowledge was there but we never seem to have a leadership that did a skills audit and put that together to improve
Our abilities and I I felt that hard to understand at the start although looking back at it now I think I understand better why that was amazing so that that was very shocking for me to read that they didn’t consider training to be particularly important or standardization or anything
Like that so if they didn’t see those things as important what did they think was going to allow them to kind of carry the the fight in the end if not you know well-trained people you know acting in a Cooperative kind of teamwork manner like how did they think they were going to
Overcome you know Justin that’s an excellent question and I’ve been asking myself that for years I really don’t know they talked about attrition I remember hearing about attrition but you know attrition isn’t a strategy I mean if you’re fighting of attrition I don’t think you have a strategy you know I
Never felt we were fighting with the tempo that we would have an attritional strategy against British forces that would that would ever make any difference to Britain anyway like I said they were pretty good at at engineering at making you know homemade improvised devices things like that but as far as
Basic infantry combat was concerned it was very bad now there were exceptions like in South amama and places like that but in those cases it was individual on the ground leadership it was Talent it was some people came long of inspirational significance who just had the talent the ability and the
Leadership to move things on in the direction that you know a republican wanted to see it Go and South amama was a particularly good area in that but there were other areas where the I were that were very poor very poor I never saw any overarching organizational
Attempt to address that yeah that is that is really something that was very very eye- openening for me to read certainly and we have since you brought up South ARA that was the subject of the previous episode our discussion of the troubles and it was fascinating and you
Held those guys in very high regard from what I understand very high esteem very high regard for guys who had no professional training themselves they were smart they were courageous they were extremely tight in the sense that they their security was tight as a drum I mean definitely for the fast bulk of
Their operational history they had no informers I think people would be shocked if they knew how few people were actually conducting operations sou Amar it was literally you could put them in the back of a van you I mean a handful of people now there was a wide support
Base people who give information people who would keep men people who would allow maybe sheds to be used to mix explosives things like that but the actual operators on the ground it was just a handful you know I don’t want to come across as hard or bloodthirsty
There was a war on killing is not a good thing but from a purely military point of view one in six British soldiers killed during the troubles in in in in the north of Ireland were killed within three miles of the small Village Square in Cross mcen and South amama so their
Operation ability and Temple was was was the best the Brits put through everything they had at it everything could never break them and it’s the only place where we habitually held initiative and had the British on the back foot everywhere else the British were I think in command of the Strategic
Landscape right across the board really but in soua they were definitely on the back foot and again was down to a handful of very courageous Patriots my hats off to them my hats off to them yeah definitely admired those guys so much yeah quite a story it was
Very eye- opening for me and for the listeners anyone who has not heard that episode yet we discussed it in depth the the fight in South ARA in episode 89 with Toby Harden if you want to go back and listen to that one after this but
Yeah oh yeah Toby Harden I don’t know but I read I read his Book every day you’re under attack whether you realize it or not your digital devices contain your entire life your finances your conversations with friends and family your interests and even your movements and all of that is vulnerable to an ever expanding class of criminals scam artists hackers and even
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Discount code spycraft 101 to save 10% off your order from Silent find them at SL nt.com that’s SL nt.com Yes yes and he told me actually that he’s read your book as well recently yes he just told me last night via email okay okay okay so is very interesting book banded country I believe it was yes yes banded country very very good read it’s out of print right now
Unfortunately so I had a he sent me a a digital copy of it but it’s not for sale anywhere at the moment other than like real rare book dealers but should be back in print because it yeah it it portrays those guys as extremely creative extremely cunning extremely
Capable in all ways honestly and you’re right they they took everything that the British military could throw at them and they took it and stride you know a bunch of a bunch of civilians untrained guys to be able to do what they did but what frustrated me was I believe if we could
Have got one more area in the north of Ireland at to their level of operational Tempo and ability I think it would have been a very different story in the end you know I think we’ had a much stronger negotiating position see these things Justin they always end in negotiations
That was always going to happen but it it’s how strong your negotiating position is when you go to the table that’s really crucial yeah yeah that that makes perfect sense and that is how the story ends so I guess we can talk about that a little bit towards the end there so I
Want to ask you John so you were a volunteer in an active Service Unit can you just talk about kind of like the dayto day and the type of missions that you went on and what was expected of you that sort of thing well because there’s no amnesty here I can’t really talk
About missions I I I mentioned two operations in the book One the enemy didn’t show up but I was able to give a a description of how you set the thing up and you know some of the other factors around it there there was another operation I mentioned that the Brits never claimed
Happened it sounds a bit wter Mitty but somebody’d have to read the book to to really kind of I’m sorry but I have to be a little bit Koy here because if I push the boat out too far I’m technically still on parole actually so
I have to be careful but to answer your question dayto day even though I wasn’t on the run I lived like I was because I was I I gave full-time commitment so I didn’t want to be seen in in you know in in in Republican areas and Republican
Pubs so I lived with people who were on the Run for the most sport it was a really tough hard life you could spend days or maybe two weeks at a time on some guy’s Farm helping them milk cows you had to do something to give back you
Know because they were feeding you and keeping you you might be cleaning out a shed you might be you know more or less doing farm laboring for two weeks and then an operation might come up and you go off for a couple of days and do that it was sort
Of like the American Military or any military a lot of it is hurry up and wait hurry up hurry up and then you spend a lot of time waiting you know I can’t be too specific except on operations I was actually arrested on I was on trial for Justin so I am curious
Since you said you were working on farms and that sort of thing does the yeah if you can tell us anyway did you receive any kind of a salary as a as a service member with the IRA I mean how did you kind of make your way in life when
You’re a volunteer we totally depended on people to keep us and feed us I never had money I mean it was just so what would happened was at the time in the early 80s you were supposed if you were full-time volunteer like I was you were
Supposed to get 10 pound a week you know which was derisory Sum and that was for your toothpaste you know if you smoked you know for your toiletries things like that but I very rarely got that and I mean especially after the hunger strikes I never even wanted to look for it or
Ask for it because men D in hunger strike I I felt guilty even looking for1 pound you know what I mean it’s kind of hard to believe but totally penniless money was always a problem always a problem for the IRA in and everything they did a lot of guys went to jail be
Honest you for Robin Banks and things like that they’re absolutely no salary in the ira if you were a full-time operator in the early 80s you got at that time 10 pound a week I don’t know maybe $20 a week for your toiletries if you got it and you I usually didn’t even
Get that I didn’t smoke or drink anyway do you think that that led to I mean obviously it was a very dangerous job but did that you know auster lifestyle did that lead to a lot of attrition as well were there people coming in and out very briefly and realizing it was not
For them in your experience oh yeah yeah it did yeah you don’t want anybody there who doesn’t want to be there because that is a major weakling oh sure so you know I used to hear oh don’t join the IRA because once you’re in you’re never
Out I don’t know where that came from but no you could leave in any time and a lot of people did it’s tough life so yes people would you know and then people go to jail and they’d come out of jail and they’d leave then and then other people
Like myself unlike many others would end up back in jail a second or a third time you know it was just personal level commitment I have to say I was lucky in one sense I was a young man I was very physically fit I wasn’t married I had no
Ties or connections had I been married had I had kids it would have been a different story there were married men there and remember especially in jail and that I felt really sorry for married man with small kids at Christmas things like that I mean thank God I I I didn’t
Have family that or anything you know at least I didn’t have that cross to carry as they say you know yeah yeah absolutely so since you mentioned you were staying with families often and working until a mission came down how did missions come down was it like a
Courier Network or coded telephone calls or or anything like that exactly like as compartmentalized as it was it was it was surprisingly initiative driven and that HW you you’d come up with something I mean something could happen like you could be on a farm and somebody might
Come and say the Brits set up a checkpoint at such and such a Crossroads and they’ve been there two days in a row and they’ll probably be there tomorrow that alter their their patterns or a particular Target could have been seen somewhere or it was very very ad hoc it
Wasn’t a case of where you had like an operations officer working with an intelligence officer like in a conventional military getting information planning the operation and then delegating the operation to man on the ground that that really didn’t happen things happen really from the initiative of the people on the ground
In South Amar for example they’d be there and they you know they’d see British soldiers at a particular point and they would engage with them nobody would give them them orders to do it yeah I suppose that’s a bit surprising come you know having come from a
Convention military to be in a situation where you know you basically you want to get something done you just go and do it w that was really it amazing obviously sometimes you did have to have some intelligence I mean I wasn’t from the north so I didn’t know
What was going on people would have to give you information it was very very initiative driven organization okay things got done if you did it and that was it wow wow I I can certainly imagine that there were major drawbacks for that but I’m just also Imagining the intelligence analysts in the British
Army who are kind of you know supposed to be putting together like their their link charts of all the people in the ira how imposs possible that must have been if you guys were just thinking up stuff on your own out there scattered to the Four Winds and doing it without any kind
Of electronic communications to track or Courier networks to you know burn or anything like that that must have been so much more difficult for them to kind of put together a picture of who was who well well it would have been but but but you see what happened then around
1986 and I was in I was in jail at the time but the IRA had a thing called Northern command and an order came out that active service units had to clear operations through Northern command now the reason being there was two reasons given one was so that adjacent utens
Wouldn’t if you were in one area and a unit carried out an operation another area there could be a major response and you could drive into that because you didn’t know that unit was going to carry out an operation and the other reason was was was so that they could clear operations
To lessen the danger to civilians or unintended targets or unintended consequences however a lot of people believe that that was a ploy by British by British intelligence that they got people in there because you see you had the system like you said Justin it was active service units they weren’t tied
In and you had really good security now you’re going to do an operation or let’s say a fairly major operation now you’re going to run it by Northern command now if the Brits have an agent on Northern command which myself and many people believe they did now the Brits got wi of
The operation before it even happens and then I don’t want to go off down too many rabbit holes here but if you heard of the British agent in the area called stake KN scapi yes yes I have read a little bit about him yeah well he was
The head of Ira intelligent security and he was working for the British for years and the thing about it is if an operation would go wrong see a volunteer was killed or or something would go wrong the IRA would have an investigation why it go wrong they would
Send scapa down now scapa was a British agent so right away the Brits knew everything about their operation who was on the operation everything while on the face of it we should have been extremely tight from 86 on steps were taken to centralize decision making which actually ended up nearly destroying Us
In the end and an interesting thing is southa would not let anybody know about their operations because they were so so effective because they were so important to the IRA they were actually able to tell the IR basically on your bike you’re we’re not telling you nothing you
Know what I mean nobody else could get with that really but sou was able to to a large extent yeah my gosh so like like you said Justin we had a good setup there the Brits got in I believe the Brits over a long period of time were able to destroy
That man it sounds like them all right amazing stuff well any well In fairness any intelligence agency would do that but I mean that’s their job right like why wouldn’t try to do all of that yeah if we had any sense we would have fought harder against that happening because I
Think it led to the deaths of a lot of volunteer and the capture of lot yeah yeah that’s certainly possible I mean they were doing their jobs and you were doing yours certainly and a lot of lessons learned on both sides lessons learned the hard way the hard way that’s
That that is how you learn y certainly is so I know we’ve kind of referred to it a little bit but I know that you eventually were sent back to the United States on a on out of your active Service Unit and on a very different
Type of mission can you so can you talk about what happened there exactly one day Martin mcginness called me asked me to go Sam and he told me he wanted me to go to the states to get weapons and and a set a weapons Network he told me straight out he was sending
Me because I had an American accent and my American accent I think would have been much stronger back then well it would have been actually 40 years ago I thought it was ridiculous because i’ had been in a marine Recon instructor you know I had a lot of knowledge resources
That I I thought I could give to the IRA or help the IRA with and I thought that I had a lot more to contribute than my accent but you know I I remember himself and other leadership figures never once referring to my Marine training never once referring to anything like that why
They were sending me it was simply because I had an American accent I couldn’t understand it because we only needed to get four or five different types of weapons AR15s HK 91s things like that I mean you know anybody could have done it and we had lots of people
In America with American accents who are supporters could have done it but for some reason no I was sent over I had to go so you know were orders so I was given a a $5 note cut in erratic manner I had to meet somebody in Boston who had
The other half of this note they introduced me to Wy buer now it’s everybody called him Jim buer you didn’t call him Wy to his face now it’s a little bit hard for me to disentangle myself from everything we know about Whitey buer now the movies the books all
This stuff I mean I never heard of this guy I wasn’t from Boston I knew he had some involvement in criminal activity because we needed to get guns and the way we were doing it was illegal he was willing to do that I didn’t know who he
Was although in time as time went out went on I got to know him better and I began to hear stories and you know things like that but when I initially met him I didn’t know him from a crow like you know what I mean h so what was
Your impression of him then when you met him when you were kind of going in without any preconceptions well you know he came across as as you know professional and intelligent and Urbane but I also rapidly deduced he wasn’t a guy you could have banter with he wasn’t a guy
That you could get too familiar with I felt that he had a big ego you meet meet a lot of people like that you know I like I like somebody with a s sense of humor and you know very often a self-deprecating sense of humor to an
Extent if he did anything like that with with Whitey he’d push back you know he was big into this respect thing you know respect I remember him telling me about the mafia and the North End of of Boston and he talked about respect he says when
They respect me he says when they say respect me remember telling me this he says what they really mean is fear me fear me but I remember thinking you know you’re like a little bit of fear yourself Jim now I wasn’t afraid of this guy or nothing but I was never
Comfortable I was never comfortable around him I gen generally wasn’t it just a sense I had now there was other guys around him like patne and patne has wrote a book too called a criminal and an Irishman patne was one of White’s rightand man at the time he was from
Rosm in in gway originally as a young child he was a fluent speaker when actually when I was in his house in South Boston his parents were in the kitchen speak and fluent Irish or or galic as they call it over there and Pat
Had been a former US Marine so we hit it off even though Pat was a criminal and he made no bones about being a criminal and called himself criminal I mean I think he had a genuine interest in our struggle I could never discern White’s true motivations for any of this but I
Thought Pat was genuine so and know Pat did all the heavy lifting why he didn’t really do that much work with us he more or less gave the nod and owed Pat to work with us but Wy himself didn’t do too much Hands-On with us you know he
Would show up maybe at midnight after I’d been working all day and I was staying in Pat’s apartment and we’d be exhausted and he’d be up like he was like a vampire he came out at night he’d be there 3 or four in the morning and I’m fighting to stay
Awake and not fall asleep or even yawn because you know that have been very insulting to the guy I remember that happening quite often you know we’d be just fing him in on what we were doing looking back at it now and some of the things I learned about him since you
Know it it ch me as as much as it chills a lot of people of course he wasn’t telling us that I mean he wasn’t telling us what he was doing MH when he wasn’t with us you know and I wasn’t telling him what I was doing when I wasn’t with
Him right makes makes perfect sense yeah so can you talk about the actual process of buying all these arms because you know in the in the movies you know you go to a warehouse and there’s just crates stacked up all over the place for purchase but I know that it was nothing
Like that at all for you wish was like that I wish life would be so so easy oh man look at people if somebody said to me and I learned this very quickly I know a guy can get you anything I ran a mile because the only people who can get
You anything is the FBI FBI can get you anything you want right but you know with all the different licenses and all the different laws over there somebody might be able to get something but you know this notion that you can buy a surface a missile of some guy in a bar
Is ridiculous you know what I mean you see this in movies and that mhm no it was a it was a laborious process it was we the greatest thing I could get really was was fake driver’s licenses so we could just buy weapons at that time a
New York state driver’s license had no photograph on it so if we could get one on a guy roughly matched the description that was like gold dust you know so why you know why he was able to provide license and things like that and basically it was just a slug of going
Around the gun shops and buying buying rifles one at a time I mean over you know various states there was no big arms dealer I mentioned in the book at one time I got information that there was a hall of 900 M16s this guy had them for sale so
Immediately I was extremely suspicious and said you know how did you get them he said what happened was a freight train coming from the cold Factory at Harford Connecticut had been held up in north in in North Upstate New York on an Indian Reservation some small criminal
Gang had had had robbed the freight train they didn’t know what was in it was the story when they found it it was M16s the heat from the feds was was enor and they were mad to get rid of them crazy to get rid of them at at a really
Cheap price very plausible story very tempting story this is where Whitey was able to help me I went to see Whitey and I said to him you know can you find out from your contacts in the police and he had a lot of he made it clear he had
Contacts at a lot of levels in the place federal state and local and he came back to me a day or two later and he says that never happened you’re being set up you know what I mean yeah you know you had to watch that type of thing but to
Answer your question you know you see these movies where guys go in and buy a warehouse and here’s another thing too and and I firmly believe this there’s no such thing really as an illegitimate arms dealer anybody dealing an arms somewhere in the background there is some intelligence agency backing him up and
Allowing him to operate because he can supply people they want to supply without it coming back on them I think anybody who’s in the illegal arms trade and supplying the wrong people I don’t think they’d last a week without MI6 mad or the CIA or some or KGB or somebody
Taking them out of it yeah that that makes that’s my yeah if it was like the movies where you go and and buy a warehouse full of guns that that sure would have made life easy yeah so for the most part all the weapons that you were buying the sellers thought that
These were legitimate purchases oh absolutely oh yeah totly legitimate yeah yeah absolutely yeah okay I see I see so this was a month’s long process for you did you have a like a shopping list or a certain quantity that you needed to pick up or was it
Just kind of like a do your best kind of mandate was kind of do your best thing one of the things that really surprised me again when I was sent over was not only that I was sent over because I had American accent but I thought well maybe
They’re sending me because i’ been the Marines I know I have a good knowledge on weapons and they’re going to tell me what to get they never told me anything to get they just said get weapons in fact I remember one senior area man telling me to buy woodmaster Remington
Woodmasters which was a deer hunting rifle and I remember thinking well you know why would you buy a deer hunting rifle when we should be buying you know assault rifles and things like that I actually seen a ship one time a list of stuff that came from the states and it
Was it was crazy like it was bolt action rifles and it was shotguns and it was almost every rifle was a different caliber a lot of them only came with one magazine I mean it it just made no sense I mean it to me it wasn’t rocket science
It didn’t take a military genius to figure out that if you standardize your equipment it it will streamline your training and streamline your Logistics it would would have been an extremely simple thing to do because if you’re going into a gun store in America or anywhere else it’s just as easy to buy
The right gun as the wrong WR G it’s no harder like yeah so with your with your knowledge then were you able to get you know were you trying to like standardize personally like you mentioned HK 91s or AR-15s were you trying to buy as many of
The identical kind as you could that was my goal to standardize yeah to standardize as much as humanly possible to help training at home because you see you could be in an IA operation in a rural area with eight men and every and I seen this every single man has a
Different weapon every weapon is a different caliber and some of them only have one magazine and that magazine is not even half full so you know it was just unbelievable at times easily resolved if you had the organization if you had you know the organizational
Capacity which we did but if you had the will to resolve it it was very easily resolved you know but you’d have other people in the background saying what are you talking about sure what’s the problem you know that’s the difficulty okay amazing so after all of your work
When you finally had your shipment ready how how much had you been able to purchase and and get together well we we I think we had 172 weapons on the boat now there was more we didn’t bring everything on the shipment I mean other people had stuff
In storage and that so it wasn’t all caught and I don’t know where the storage is by the way so but so it wasn’t see it wasn’t a big shipment what what it was was the Marita an the Valhalla Marina an operation I was arrested on was a trial run we had we
Were actually working on a much larger freighter a steel freighter and the idea was is was that we would get a legitimate cargo to take back and forth to Europe and maybe once or twice a year drop guns off the coast of Ireland it would help Finance the operation and
Would also you know you’d have a reason for being there where you are the operation we were on was actually a very crude operation and the only reason we did it was because I got a I got a message from Ireland saying come now bring everything you got and you be on
The boat which I just could it it was mad I mean I don’t know why they didn’t just tell me you know come fly home to Ireland you know if there’s a problem and you know we’ll discuss it but no come now you be on the boat and bring
Everything you got so those are my orders so be honest with you I think we were set up see I don’t know who gave that order that order came through a convoluted route so to this day I don’t know who gave that order firmly believe well whoever gave it to us torpedoed
Everything we were working on like I mean I was never supposed to be on the boat in the first place and I didn’t mind being on the boat I wasn’t scared to be on the boat but I mean I had all the contacts I had set the entire
Network you know why I’m not I’m not a fisherman I’m not a sailor why would I be on the boat you know what I mean so the whole thing I mean a lot of questions be asked there I’ll probably never get the answer to yeah I got you
You think it was the the Unseen hand of the British government again the Unseen hand absolutely now I don’t want to I don’t want to inflate my importance I mean I was arrested and the world still turned you know I mean but the thing about it is I did have the contacts on
The network and and anybody in that position shouldn’t be putting themselves in a position like that you know plus none of the stuff that we brought over was was going to make any qualitative difference there campaign it was standard rifles I mean it wasn’t going to change anything at home it wasn’t
Strategically needed so it’s just ridiculous the whole thing you know really yeah the dark hand was in there somewhere I convinced of it yeah I can certainly see that so you mentioned that you were arrested how exactly were you you all caught on the return trip across the
Atlantic we came across on a boat called of Valhalla we we gave it gave it we had to get it because the the the the freight we’re working on wasn’t finished patney and others knew this fisherman who was willing who had used to smuggle swordfish and he was willing for a fee
Bring the stuff over to within 200 miles of Ireland we done that we it’s in the book too we hit a hurricane I’m not go into it now but we we had a horrendous trip over we don’t know how we survived but anyway the guns are transferred to a
A small boat called Irish fishing boat called Mar and when the Marine an was heading back to County Kerry we were arrested by the Irish Navy in Irish territorial Waters and I got 10 years in prison now the thing about that was when the IR s an
Investigation as to how we were caught the whole impetus of the investigation was something must have gone wrong in America but the trouble with that sorry with that theory was the Irish Navy were waiting for us at a place called The skallic Rocks off the coast of carry
It’s a popular tourist destination for American tourists they made one of the Star Wars movies there no all I knew on the American end was I had a longitude longitude to be 200 miles off the coast at a certain time I didn’t know the boat coming was the maridan I didn’t know
Where the maridan was going I had no idea if it was going to duny Gall Waterford you know what part of ENT but the Irish Navy knew you know they were waiting for us and I know I didn’t tell them so it was obvious to me that it
Came from the Irish end now in time we discovered that an Informer called Shan O Callahan who’ been a longtime MI5 agent informed on the operation he later came out and openly boasted he informed on it but it wasn’t him who told me come now bring everything and you be on the boat
So there’s layers there’s layers this onion I’ll probably never peel oh my gosh yeah this is yeah this story is unbelievable the way it’ll partially unravel but never completely yeah never never will no so you were sentenced well you you spent 10 years in prison after
That is that correct yeah so what was that like exactly I mean you were you were there with a lot of other Ira guys I take it right I was well it was tough prison was tough and you know there were really bad times in prison but you know
You know I believe in what I was doing I was in with we weren’t like a cross-section of population criminals and all I mean the these were as Republicans these were these were sound fellas they were good good lads there was no problems that way I did an open I
Did a University degree I did a lot of studying I developed myself as much as I could while I was there I was on an escape attempt which nearly very nearly succeeded stated so that’s why see I I I originally got I I originally got 10
Years but you do seven and a half years of remission but I got an extra three and three years out to my sentence for an escape attempt November 85 I got out then and then I was out for 20 months and then I was captured in England in
Active service and I was given another 35 years in prison for conspiracy to cause explosions we were planning an operation to sabotage the city of London it’s like the Wall Street area it’s called the city of London to sabotage their electricity Supply to cause Financial damage to a major engine of
The of the British economy at the capital of a country that was occupying our countries that’s the way we looked at it but I mean we were certainly not intended to attack civilians or anything like that it was it was an economic Target right right right so that I mean
It brings up a lot of points honestly what you just said but one thing that I’m Amazed by is I guess that even after 10 years in prison you your resolve did not waver once you got out you went right back to active operations again I
Take it yeah yeah well many men did people sometimes see that and they say well you were determined but look at I didn’t die in hunger strike you know what I mean I mean that’s determination so you know we had a lot of determined people and again you know I’m critical
Of aspects of the organization training but that was down to a handful of people overall they were very inspirational people I couldn’t have spent that time in jail and that commitment and and that unless I was inspired by the people around me for the most part I was you
Know I don’t want to come across like people were stupid or compet or anything like that but you know the reality of it is if you have civilians leading civilians you do have problems the trouble is we did have a pool of Professional Knowledge and there were people in leadership positions who
Should have used that pool I’m not talking about myself I’m talking about many many other people and didn’t never seem to either have the ability to do it or the willingness to do it amazing so on that second operation that you mentioned you were caught before
Initiating it was that a case of another another informant do you believe that sold you out or were there other circumstances that I believe was former the British intelligence Services denied there was an Informer but they always do of course they deny I firmly believe there was things said to me during
Interrogation that convinced me that was an Informer absolutely convinced me I can’t prove it I have my suspicions but again I can’t prove it go you I can do about it now anyway I feel like these questions must have kept you awake every night since your release since the Good Friday
Everything well yeah I think about it a lot but it doesn’t keep me awake but the thing about it is I the only thing keeps me awake and worries me is is not what happened in the past is what’s what happening in the future you know whether
What what you know what are the struggle we fought for will will you know come to fruition in in a totally free and Democratic Republic you know even though I got 35 years good Freddy Gan came along you know the negotiations and I was released after four and a half years
About four years of that sentence so I would still be in jail I I if the ceasefire had come had come along I went to jail in 1984 and I would still be there to this day and I I’d have only been out for 20 months in the last 39
Years my gosh yeah well I’m certainly know that you’re glad that you didn’t spend all of that time in prison of course how do you feel about the Good Friday agreements though I mean aside from the obvious immediate benefit to you personally like where did the agreements land in terms of Ireland’s
You know move toward Independence well I look on the good friend agreement as as a British pacification strategy we have pacification they say peace but you see in my opinion you only have real peace when you when you address the root cause of a conflict and the root cause of the
Conflict from our perspective as Republicans was Britain’s claim to jurisdiction in Ireland which hasn’t been addressed so I look on the Good Fred agreement as a snare and a delusion because it entangles us in a web of terms and conditions regarding Irish Unity that only Britain can interpret and
Adjudicate for example they’re talk talking about a border poll someday while you have a poll in the north to decide on Irish Unity or not but only the British Secretary of State an English politician who doesn’t have a single vote in Ireland can decide when that poll will be called his decision
Process is not made public it’s totally arbitrary and notional if there is a poll called he decides who qualifies the vote he decides the wording of the poll and the Westminster parliament in London must decide even if the poll passes whether they will validate it or not so even
Though people say well you know people voted on The Good Friday agreement the fact of the matter is yes they you know many did but the fact of matter is that the real political decisions are still in the hands of the British government no Irish man or woman elected or
Otherwise can call an Irish Unity poll in Ireland that is totally in the hands of England still so you know I look at it as you know was a major scam people say so what people are alive there’s no war so what but you know when you leave when you leave these
Threads swinging in the wind it’s never good in the long term you know now I’m glad that I’m glad there’s no war I’m not advocating return to war there never was need for war ever in Ireland ever in our history if Britain had respected the Democratic wishes of the overwhelming
Majority of the Irish people at any time in our history there never would have been war in Ireland but you know they didn’t and there was so I’m glad there’s I’m glad there is there is peace and like I’ve said before Justin you know where I support the piece my criticism
Is of the process and where it’s going where it’s leading yeah yeah very well said that’s that’s really interesting I’ve never heard it put the way that you put it also is pacification not peace but that’s extremely nuanced look at it and very very telling I think that’s
Really fascinating it is and people will say you know it’s nuance and I know other people will say it’s it’s semantic because who cares what you call it yeah but the reality of it is the reality of it is there’s a lot of lot of unre
Thread still like I said swinging in the breeze there and this is Ireland you know in Ireland those things tend to come back and haunt you at some stage yeah yeah yeah absolutely my gosh so I’m I’m not sure how exactly I can ask you
This or how to how you can answer it really but are you sure at this stage are you in any way involved in in republicanism or the cause at all like actively or do you just sit back and observe at this point or what I’m not a
Member of any organization but and you see republicanism I don’t support Shin Fain because because they have they now support because they they’ve internalized the British nalysis of the nature of the conflict so I don’t support them and other Republican groups out there are very fragmented and and
Desparate they don’t have their at together at all I’m still a republican I speak at Republican commemorations quite often I write articles sometimes for Republican blogs and sites I’ve written the book I will always be an Irish Republican and if a republican movement came up and a peaceful I’m not I’m not
Advocating anything else but if a peaceful democratic movement would come up that would articulate the goals as I said of a of a United 32 County uh National democracy with an all Republic and articulate it well I I I would join them in the morning absolutely yeah amazing so what do you
Think is in the future for for Northern Island right now like within your lifetime say the next 20 30 40 years what do you where do you think this is all going is there a level of contentment with the current status quo or is there a chance of things flaring
Up again way or the other well there’s always a chance of things flaring up again I hope they don’t but you have the situation the other side you have loyalists who are minor in irand but are an artificial majority due to partition at some stage the way the demographics are going the
Loyalist population in the north of Ireland will reach probably an unsustainable level and the question then is what happens then the Brits are they play the long game they look on long term and they’re trying to manipulate the situation so the sectarian divide is kept intact in other
Words under the Good Fred agreement you can still be British or you can still be Irish even United Ireland I mean the whole point of our struggle was to end the connection with Britain and to build a joint civic identity as Irishmen I mean you look at United States you have
African-Americans Italian Irish polish you have everything under the sun butum you have you know from any one you have you know loyalty to One National Republic you have disparity you have Divergence you have all these cultures but you have loyalty to One Republic that’s what I think we we need Ireland
Britain is in there and they are in the mix and they will try to ensure that the malignancy through which they have been able to manipulate our the cian malignancy will remain intact and the good Fred agreement is one of the vehicles for that but to answer your
Question the future there could be a border pull at some stage if it’s lost loyalists May kick off they may I mean they started the troubles that actually the first 1969 was actually loyalists who be the shooting and boming camp campaign if they do if they do so they
Will do so with the help of the British intelligence Services who who have always backed them they may try to to repartition irland they may try it like a a sort of jalter so that to answer your question I don’t know but there’s one thing I do know and I do believe
Ireland is a very major strategic asset on the western flank of the United Kingdom and the British if they can are not going to leave this country and close the door behind them they’re going to try to shape the Strategic environment in a in a way that suits
Them and maximizes their influence here with minimum footprint but maximum influence so whether we’re going to get the Republic we envisioned I don’t know but I know it can’t happen through the Good Friday agreement I don’t want it to happen through through War so I’m not
Too sure how it’s going to happen I wish I I wish I I had a crystal ball but that’s what we were fighting for at the time and I thought that’s what we would continue to fight for until we reached our goals but that didn’t happen so all
I can do now is write a book and yeah yell at the television yeah but I’m glad there I just don’t want anybody to get me wrong I am glad that there’s no War I definitely glad of that yeah certainly I think anybody would understand and and appreciate that that
Perspective no matter what so that brings us to to a present day so what do you doing now that your book is out do you are you working or are you going around like you said you’re doing some presentations that sort of thing are you working on any other big projects at the
Moment yeah well I actually I was actually working on a local community project there but I’ve actually retired I turned 60 six in May so i’ I’m actually retired on a state benion I’ve been pretty busy you know still stuff with the book coming up it’s out nine months but I’m still
Getting requests for interviews it’s being published in Italian it’s going to come out in Italy soon so a lot of stuff I’m talking to a there’s a producer who wants to talk to me tomorrow 9:30 tomorrow morning Irish time he’s interested maybe making a documentary
About it so you know there’s a lot of stuff happening oh fantastic but my next project is I’m working on a novel and it’s a novel about the trouble this is about an active Service Unit in the northern the troubles I could be more forthcoming because I can change names
And change but a lot of it’s based on stuff you know that even if I wasn’t directly involved and I I know about and I’m hoping maybe to have that out for next spring so that’s my next big project okay fantastic yeah I’m very much looking forward to that I I had
Another recent guest who was directly involved in a lot of stuff that he can’t describe but he can you know kind of lightly fictionalize it and then tell a very riveting story I’m hoping to do the same great very much look forward to that then please keep me in the loop on
That and I’ll join up your mailing or whatever have you absolutely wonderful well John this has been a fantastic talk I I learned a lot and I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and and you went through quite a lot there over the years I can tell do you
Have like a social media profiles or website or anything like that if people want to try and find you and connect with you after they hear this I I actually don’t say I’m not on so social media I just have this old this old thing I can’t get rid of about you know
Social media but if anybody wanted to contact me or anything like that that the publisher of the book in America is Melville house publishing they could be contacted and they’ll pass on any messages to me yeah okay great yeah that’s how we got in contact because
You’re right you were very hard to find online I could not get an email address you sorry about that I’m just not I know people tell me I should be on social media and maybe I will be someday but I suppose I I’m a bit oldfashioned I don’t
Know well you’re not missing that much I promise you are so don’t swe it but yeah your publisher put us in contact really quickly and that worked out very well as we can all well anybody once again touching me for whatever reason can go through the uh Melville house publishing
And I’ll answer anybody who writes to me I’ll I’ll answer them wonderful all right well thank you so much John this has been a great talk and for anyone listening the book is called the yank by John Crawley and you know we’ve covered I would say less than half of the
Content there honestly he goes into so much detail about a lot of aspects of the operations that he was involved in and the the larger picture with Northern isand and the British government and the their very long history there so it’s a really really really enlightening read and extremely extremely well written
Easily understandable for someone like me who was not super familiar with the ins and outs of that entire conflict so cannot recommend it enough honestly thank you Justin thank you very very much I appreciate it I enjoy the conversation great thank you so much Sean take care take care Justin don’t
Forget now that you’ve listened to this episode you can download a free sample of John’s book to check it out for yourself just click the link in the show notes to read the prologue and chapter 1 and if you’re interested in more of spycraft 101 look for my page on
Instagram at spycraft 101 you can also find more great articles on my website spycraft 101.com thank you all for listening and I hope you’ll stick around because there’s lots more to Come disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only the stories and statements expressed herein are experiences and opinions they may not reflect the views of the host or the Production Studio it’s okay if you disagree with our content no pie of media is right for everyone if you love spycraft 101 please
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3 Comments
Nice interview. Any chance "The Yank" develops into a movie?
What a legend.
Kieran Conway might make for a great interview, if he's open to it. He has done interviews and has a book from about 10 years ago, Southside Provisional. Left the movement after the first ceasefire but was head of IRA intell for a significant period ….