The Dismembering of the INLA, Part 1

This is the first installment of what will become an ongoing series examining the "Dirty War" in Ireland. The revelations of the past quarter century about the role of British intelligence in the Troubles, particularly how it ended, should have redefined how we view and discuss the conflict. Instead they remain largely undigested, too threatening to the peace to fully reckon with. Take the role of British agents like Willie Carlin in the development of Sinn Fein. It's unclear exactly how much influence Britain had over the party, but it doesn't need to be. The simple fact both MI5 and army intelligence wanted Sinn Fein to succeed and helped it along is a fundamental threat to the party's legitimacy and by extension the legitimacy of the Good Friday Agreement. Merely stating what is now a matter of public record comes dangerously close to the dissident republican line that the Provisional IRA's armed struggle was sold out by the move into politics, and that Sinn Fein is now an administerer of British rule in Northern Ireland rather than opposition to it. Until and unless a united Ireland is achieved through a border poll, the charge is hard to refute.

I decided to start with the Irish National Liberation Army, a relatively minor republican organization, for several reasons. The simplest is that Henry McDonald and Jack Holland's INLA: Deadly Divisionsis one of my favorite books. Another is that no one has really written another book on the group, and since it first came out in 1994 I felt the topic deserved another look. A third is that no one much cares about the INLA, which I hope makes what I'm about to say easier for some to swallow. But most importantly, it's a microcosm through which we can explore broader ideas about the conflict. Since we know at least one Chief of Staff of the organization was a British agent, we can see what maximum control of a paramilitary organization looks like from the outside and the way British intelligence puppeteered the group into harming itself, as well as the limits of that control. All this will prove instructive for later discussions of the Provisional IRA.

The INLA came from an impressive lineage of schisms and loserdom. Its great grandfather was the losing side of the Irish Civil War, where the original Irish Republican Army split in two and fought itself over the question of whether to accept a treaty that fell short of full liberation from the British crown. The leader of the anti-treaty faction, Eamon de Valera, initially refused to recognize either of the new entities produced by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Irish Free State or the statelet of Northern Ireland, but caved to at least the former of these new realities in 1926, founding the Fianna Fáil party to take part in its politics. Those who refused to cave fought on under the banner of Sinn Fein and the IRA.

A generation later, what should have been obvious became increasingly hard to deny: they were losing, and over the 1960's the IRA leadership under Cathal Goulding began moving toward both Marxism and electoralism. They were caught off guard by increasing violence in response to the Catholic civil rights movement by fascistic Loyalist thugs and the Northern Irish government (it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began), producing a formal split in 1969 between what became known as the "Official" and "Provisional" IRA's. The Officials (the rump army who remained loyal to Goulding) declared a ceasefire in their war against Britain in 1972, later reinventing itself as The Workers Party, while the Provisionals famously continued their armed struggle until their own de facto surrender in 1998.

There's something a little Shakespearean about the first part of the INLA story. It's a cautionary tale about what happens when good intentions collide with bad plans and how much damage a charismatic fool can cause, and it ends with a stage full of dead bodies. Inevitably, our story begins with a war hero: Seamus Costello, veteran of the 1956-1962 Border Campaign, a failed attempt by the IRA to invade Northern Ireland from the south. Costello joined the IRA at 16 and was its adjutant-general by 25. his left wing politics kept him loyal to the Official leadership until he began opposing the 1972 ceasefire, eventually leading to his court martial from the Official IRA in 1974. He then founded his own group, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and its ostensibly secret armed wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

It must have seemed promising at first. The new group fused Marxism with Irish Republicanism under the banner of the Starry Plough (a direct reference to James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army), absorbing Official IRA members who disagreed with the ceasefire, along with a smaller number of left wing Provisionals and a handful of leftist academics and disillusioned former civil rights agitators (including former People's Democracy organizers Ronnie Bunting and Bernadette Devlin). However the Officials, having just lost the bulk of their membership to the Provos, struck back and in the ensuing feud killed Seamus Costello in 1977.

As an aside, some view Costello sympathetically, a talented leader who was cut down before his organization came into its own. To me, he was a dangerous moron, a reckless dreamer with an unfortunate talent for getting others to follow him. Graveyards the world over are filled with the victims of such men. His plan for dealing with the Officials was to keep the INLA a secret until it had the weaponry to defend itself. How are you supposed to keep your paramilitary army secret when literal scores of paramilitaries are joining your ostensibly unarmed Marxist group? Meanwhile, his plan to acquire weapons doesn't appear to have gone much further than "commit robberies to pay for them" with no plan for how to actually get guns or smuggle them into the North. None of this was insurmountable- they'd eventually receive arms from the PLO, among others, and develop a surprisingly deep support network among the continental European radical left. Nevertheless, the thinness of their plans to actually wage war reeks of a half baked ego trip, of a man who couldn't stand being kicked out of the Officials but was too proud to join the Provies.

Anyway,

One of the INLA's few virtues was its cockroach-like tenacity (the group has been disarmed since 2010 but still exists in name as of 2026, and I have personally been yelled at by IRSP supporters on social media). It took them less than a year and a half to bounce back from the death of their leader into the high point of the group's 25 year armed campaign.

Airey Neave was a prominent Conservative MP, personal friend to Margarat Thatcher. He was very nearly the only person in his party who wanted the role of Northern Ireland Secretary, and had a bloodthrirsty hatred of Irish republicans- among other things he wanted to expand the policy SAS ambush operations (ie, premeditated setpiece assassinations) against IRA suspects. On 30 March 1979 the INLA gained access to the Westminster carpark and attached a bomb consisting of plastic explosive wired to a mercury tilt switch to Neaves car, which then detonated when the car moved. He died in hospital shortly after. Outwardly, all that changed in British policy towards the INLA when Thatcher's Conservatives took power a month later was that the group was proscribed under the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act. The idea that no other action was taken simply fails the sniff test. I believe over the 80's and 90's the security forces waged a covert war on the INLA.

It started with the murder of Belfast commander Ronnie Bunting (a Protestant and the son of "Major" Ronald Bunting, an early acolyte of Ian Paisley's), killed in his home in October 1980. While the UDA are most often held responsible, there were major incongruities with this idea: Bunting (being Protestant) was a particular hate figure among loyalists, but initially no organization or individual took credit. Given that the UDA and UVF frequently fought each other to claim assassinations of republicans, this is highly suspicious. Furthermore, Bunting lived in a quiet cul-de-sac well off any major roads and adjacent to the republican stronghold of Turf Lodge. Loyalist attacks in republican areas were not unheard of, but normally they'd be afraid to get lost in Belfast's mazelike back streets in hostile territory. Lastly, according to Bunting's widow Suzanne this was a well planned operation by professional killers operating on quality intelligence. She alleged they belonged to the SAS: "They knew which rooms to find… Ronnie in. They were cool and calm- like animals, without fear- they had no smell of fear about them." They also displayed apparent training in CQB tactics, providing cover for each other as they moved through the house. Of course, there is no way to confirm these men belonged to the SAS- a number of elite RUC units received training in just such tactics from the SAS itself, along with other units of the British miltary. Regardless of who they were, these were not the usual drunk, thrill-killing Orange troglodytes.

All this makes Bunting's death highly unusual, implying it was of the highest priority to the security forces. British assassinations during the Troubles overwhelmingly took one of two forms. One was setpiece killings (such as the Loughgall ambush), where both the circumstances and information released to the public afterward were carefully manipulated to give the impression that premeditated killings (usually by the SAS) were mere chance encounters with the enemy in which troops were fired upon, justifying a lethal response. The second were proxy killings (typified by the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane) in which British agents within paramilitary groups were fed intelligence that would lead to the murder of the intended target, often with further collusion to ensure they were successful. In either case, great pains were taken to maintain plausible deniability. Should anything have gone wrong in the Bunting operation, the basic legitimacy of Britain's military presence in Northern Ireland could be permanently damaged. That they were willing to take such a risk speaks volumes. Bunting was a load-bearing figure within the INLA who kept its various factions at peace after Seamus Costello's death, and they would eventually turn on each other in his absence. But that would take several years.

Agents and informants became an increasing problem after Bunting's murder. INLA: Deadly Divisionsclaims the group was never infiltrated before 1981, although taken literally this seems implausible. The timing roughly coincides with the readmittance and ascension of two figures within the organization who would go on to be major figures later, as well as deadly rivals: John O'Reilly and Gerard Steenson. O'Reilly is more or less known to have been an informer, although many at the time did not believe this. He was expelled from the INLA by Ronnie Bunting in 1979 after he remained free despite leaving fingerprints on a gun used in an attack which was recovered by the police. He was readmitted at some point and seems to have quickly risen to be officer commanding of the INLA in the Markets neighborhood of Belfast.

Gerard "Doctor Death" Steenson was a founding member of the INLA, having joined the youth wing of the Official IRA at age 14. At the age of 17, he killed Belfast OIRA commander Billy McMillan during the Official's feud with the nascent INLA. Released from jail in 1980 after serving several years in prison for weapons possession and attempting escape, Steenson set about trying to take over the INLA's Belfast apparatus. While there's no evidence Steenson was an informer, his coterie was steeped in petty criminality (which was seen as a security risk, it being much easier to turn an apolitical criminal and induce them to join a paramilitary outfit than to turn an already committed revolutionary). There was also suspicion over Jimmy Brown, another Steenson follower who served as the INLA Belfast Brigade's intelligence officer, and whose supposed incompetence beggars belief.

A growing recruitment problem also contributed to the lack of security. As Sinn Fein developed into a significant left wing political force in the wake of the Hunger Strikes, the INLA lost its raison d'etre and appears to have rapidly degraded. The problem was self sustaining: fewer recruits meant the bar for entry was lowered, lower quality recruits meant incompetence and criminality seeped into the ranks, incompetence and criminality harm innocents and degrade the organization's reputation, leading to fewer and fewer volunteers. The group developed a reputation as a place for those who washed out of the Provisionals, many for security reasons. The INLA had received its zombie bite, and no amount of hiding the wound would stave off the inevitable.

A rather complicated power struggle unfolded. Following his release in 1980, Steenson began setting up his own parallel organization that was loyal to him and independent of the INLA/IRSP's Dublin based leadership, known as General Headquarters (GHQ). He overthrew Ronnie Bunting's short lived successor as commander of the INLA's Belfast Brigade, Sean Flynn, and replaced him with Sean Mackin, a Steenson crony. One has to wonder whether Mackin was an informer- based on timing he was most likely the one to readmit John O'Reilly as well as appoint Jimmy Brown as Belfast intelligence officer. Following the coup, Steenson attempted to set up his own arms supply, as GHQ controlled the INLA's arms caches, but failed to secure an appreciable number of weapons. Steenson feared retribution from Harry Flynn, brother of Sean and a leading GHQ member, and ordered the latter's murder in December 1981. It should be noted that GHQ hadn't moved against Steenson, or indicated they were about to, never giving him more than a talking-to over the Belfast coup. They appear to have been both shockingly naive and unaware of what was going on.

Luckily for Harry Flynn, the gun jammed. He was hit several times at point blank range but survived and escaped. However the incident marks a point of no return: for all the group's internal squabbles, and the viciousness of the earlier OIRA feud, no INLA member had ever tried to assassinate another. A new precedent was set.

As an aside, the book makes a rather odd claim: that in an attempt to frame loyalists for Harry Flynn's murder, Steenson's gunmen used "a Rhodesian-made submachine-gun modelled on the Israeli Uzi." (p. 239) The gun being referred to appears to be the Sanna 77, a cheap semiautomatic based on the Czechoslovakian Sa25 SMG, which directly inspired the Uzi. To the best of my knowledge that weapon was introduced to Northern Ireland by (and only by) UDA member and army agent Brian Nelson in a deal with South African arms dealers in 1985 which was facilitated by British intelligence, years after the attempt on Flynn's life. However, the claim that Steenson's gang used a Sanna 77 to frame loyalists for a hit is very specific. I have to wonder if the source, whoever they are, had this incident confused with a later one in which a Sanna 77 was used. If so, one must question the weapon's provenance: how did a republican organization get their hands on one? I don't know of any instances where the INLA raided a loyalist arms cache, the idea of which is already farfetched. It seemingly would have to have been supplied from an outside source. Again we must wonder about the role of British intelligence in the INLA's various feuds.

The INLA's fortunes and particularly its reputation rapidly declined in this period. A successful heist of 450kg of commercial explosive from a silver mine in the Republic may have seemed auspicious, but a major uptick in bombing operations combined with incompetent volunteers meant civilian casualties (the organization's growing penetration by informers also raises the spectre of deliberate sabotage). In Belfast 3 children died from INLA bombs in a 5 month span in 1982, sparking protests in the Divis Flats housing estate, formerly the biggest INLA stronghold in Belfast or anywhere else. Several INLA members and their relatives moved out of the complex, apparently no longer welcome. A spree of attempted assassination plots against unionist politicians that same year failed to kill a single one. Then in December, the group sparked further outrage when it bombed the Droppin' Well Bar in Ballykelly, Co. Londonderry, killing 6 civilians in addition to the intended deaths of 11 military personnel. In a stunning pyrrhic victory, 1982 was the first year the INLA outkilled the Provisional IRA.

One killing from 1982 warrants close scrutiny. John McKeague founded the Shankill Defense Association, a forerunner to the UDA, and was a founding member of the Red Hand Commando, a semiautonomous organ of the UVF, as well as a onetime candidate for Ian Paisley's Protestant Unionist Party, the DUP's predecessor. He was also a pederast. He was also an informer to the police and army. In January 1982 McKeague had been questioned for his role in the child sex trafficking ring based out of Kincora Boys' Home (whose central figure William McGrath was an MI5 asset involved in the formation of both the UVF and UDA, as well as holding strong ties to both the DUP and UUP, and a leadership role in the Orange Order; Kincora is my personal obsession and will be extensively covered by this blog in due time). McKeague threatened to expose others involved in Kincora to avoid jail time. He was shot dead in the shop he owned in east Belfast, for which the INLA took credit. At least one of the two shooters, and allegedly both, was an informer, and afterward no one in their unit seemed to know who gave the order (Perhaps more worryingly, the officer commanding for the unit was John O'Reilly; the order may have come from him). It would not be the INLA's last suspicious killing of a loyalist who'd become inconvenient to British power in Ireland.

As a result of this spasm of violence, chief of staff Dominic McGlinchey became the most wanted man on either side of the Irish border. He was the first person to receive an extradition order from the Republic to the North. In December 1982, police stopped the car of INLA volunteers Seamus Grew and Roddie Carrol at a checkpoint as they were entering Armagh from the Republic. They were acting on intelligence, some of which had come from illegal surveillance in the Republic, that the men were meeting with Dominic McGlinchey (who the British believed was in the car with them). During the stop the men were shot at point blank range by Constable John Robinson, a member of the elite Headquarters Mobile Support Unit (an armed counterterrorism unit modeled after the Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT team and trained in part by the SAS). It would emerge that the men were unarmed. The Drew and Carrol shooting, along with several others, led directly to a major government investigation, the Stalker Inquiry. The INLA abducted, tortured and murdered 43 year old father of three Eric Dale, believing he had provided the information that led to Drew and Carroll's death. Dale was likely innocent.

Continued in Part 2