Did the IRA plan to murder top British diplomat in Sneem?
HISTORIAN RYLE DWYER ON HOW A LEAKED DOCUMENT LED TO MAJOR SECURITY SCARE
THERE was considerable alarm when RTÉ’s Today Tonight reported in August 13, 1987 that a garda document had been leaked to the Provisional IRA about British Ambassador Nicholas Fenn holidaying in Sneem. His predecessor Christopher Ewart-Biggs, had been murdered by the IRA on the outskirts of Dublin in July 1976, so there were immediate suspicions that if the information had been leaked to prompt the murder of Ambassador Fenn.
To make matters much worse, there were already suspicions about the role of the Gárda Síochána in the horrific murder, less than four months earlier, of Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, 74, of the Appeals Court in Northern Ireland. He and his wife Cecily had been killed by a car bomb on April 25, 1987.
The Gibsons were returning from a holiday in France. They arrived at Dun Laoghaire and were escorted to the border at Killeen, County Armagh by detectives in a separate car.
A short distance after crossing the border a car, that was parked by the roadside some three minutes earlier, exploded as the Gibsons were passing. Their car was blown into the air into the path of another car, travelling in the other direction with three Irish rugby internationals —Nigel Carr, David Irwin, and Philip Rainey.
Both the judge and his wife were killed instantly by the blast. Irwin and Rainey received superficial injuries and were fit to travel with the Irish team to the inaugural Rugby World Cup in New Zealand three weeks later, but Carr missed out on that trip of a lifetime with more serious injuries.
It might have been even worse, because a bus with over fifty people was about 500 meters away. They were heading from Dublin to Newtownabbey, County Antrim, for a junior table tennis interprovincial when the 500lb bomb exploded.
Jim Molyneux, the leader of the Official Unionist Party, stated that a garda had informed the terrorists in advance. The judge had presided at a controversial case in 1982, when three RUC policemen were tried for the killing of three members of the Provisional IRA at a roadblock near Lurgan. This was part of the “shoot-to-kill” controversy at the time.
Although the three IRA men were unarmed, the RUC fired over 100 bullets at their car, killing all three on the spot. “There was never the slimmest chance that the Crown could hope to secure a conviction,” Judge Gibson concluded as he went on to ask why the case had been brought in the first place.
“I regard each of the accused as absolutely blameless in this matter,” he said. “That finding should be put on their record along with my own commendation as to their courage and determination for bringing the three deceased men to justice, in this case the final Court of Justice.”
Whatever of the judge’s conduct, there was no doubt that his wife was totally innocent. The Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who happened to be in Killarney that night addressing a dinner of the Irish Management Institute, promptly issued a statement denouncing the murder. “This horrible act will be condemned by every right-thinking person,” he stated. “It is almost beyond the capacity of words to describe its cruelty, brutality and stupidity.”
Some three months later when the story broke on Today Tonight about the Garda document being leaked to the PIRA about Ambassador Fenn’s threeday visit to Sneem, it naturally provoked considerable alarm. RTÉ reporters had a copy, but they were not allowed discuss it, because Justice Minister Collins invoked the Official Secrets Act. At the time the minister was actually in hospital in Tralee, where he had been taken after feeling unwell while on holiday in Kerry himself.
It was later stated that the leaked document was a requisition order from Chief Superintendent Donal J. O’Sullivan to the personnel section at Garda Headquarters, requesting extra staff to provide security for the ambassador’s Sneem visit.
The IRA issued a statement claiming it had “the document in our possession prior to the British Ambassador’s arrival in Kerry on August 9.” They had no intention of attacking him. “We consciously decided not to use the information for military operations.”
Following an internal inquiry, Garda headquarters announced that there would be no charges against any garda in relation to the leak. Fenn later stated that “the Sneem incident had been greatly exaggerated.”
Despite the fuss, he really enjoyed his stay in Sneem. “We had a marvellous time,” he said.