‘McGuinness lured man to death’
Bishop said late deputy first minister was the IRA’s chief-of-staff
THE release of State papers from 1987 continues to reveal hidden information about meetings and conversations held by politicians during a period of strained relations between Ireland and the UK.
The secret Irish government papers were released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule.
These include letters, internal memos and records of intergovernmental meetings which have never before been viewed by the public.
The annual release revealed that the M15 allegedly plotted the assassination of former taoiseach Charles Haughey.
Further information has now emerged from the papers’ release, including details of the tense relationship between Haughey and Margaret Thatcher, and the experience of the Guildford Four’s time in prison.
They have also revealed details of claims that Martin McGuinness personally set up a meeting which led to the murder of a suspected IRA informer.
Previously secret files in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin reveal the then Bishop of Derry Edward Daly made the damning claim seven months after the killing of Frank Hegarty.
Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness normally did not get his ‘hands dirty’ but had run out of henchmen in the city.
Mr Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster in Derry, was abducted from Buncrana, Co. Donegal, and shot in the head in May 1986 after he was lured home with claims he would be safe.
His body was dumped on the side of a border road with his eyes taped. A typed letter, marked ‘secret’, was filed to the Department of Foreign Affairs by an official who had met Bishop Daly and talked about the execution.
It said: ‘The Bishop understands that, far from using a henchman (as he would ordinarily do), Mr McGuinness personally arranged the rendez-vous with Hegarty from which the latter did not return.’
Bishop Daly said the former IRA commander turned peacemaker had been doing ‘reckless things’ at the time. He said these actions would make Mr McGuinness ‘vulnerable if he were to come under media scrutiny’.
Over the years Mr McGuinness, who died last March, faced repeated questions over the Hegarty murder but would always insist he had ‘no role whatsoever’.
The dead man’s family have said the former deputy first minister persuaded Mr Hegarty to come home. Bishop Daly believed them.
It is understood Mr Hegarty fled to England, protected by British intelligence, and is reported to have given information on a dump of IRA arms smuggled from Libya before being lured home.
Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness assured relatives on a number of occasions that Mr Hegarty would not be harmed. He said he was certain Mr McGuinness was a Provisional IRA chief-of-staff ‘at least for the North-West if not for the entire North’.
Mr McGuinness is also said to have threatened to hold a dead IRA man’s body for a week amid tensions over paramilitary shows of strength at funerals.
He personally delivered the chilling message to the secretary of Bishop of Down and Connor Cahal Daly as a stand-off ensued over the burial of Larry Marley in April 1987. Marley, mastermind of the 1983 Maze escape, was killed by the UVF in front of his wife and baby son at their home in Ardoyne.
Amid a huge security operation, his funeral was delayed for three days and there were two failed attempts to bury him as a armed police cordon stepped in each time to stop shots being fired.
At one point during the stand-off Marley’s body had to be embalmed for a second time while in the family home and the RUC threatened to seize the remains under public health laws.
The bishop’s emissary Fr Hugh Starkey said the Sinn Féin chief told him: ‘We have the body and will keep it for a week, if necessary, until the Bishop speaks.’
The papers claimed Mr McGuinness was smarting over comments made by Bishop Cahal Daly about restricting IRA funerals amid paramilitary shows of strength.
‘We have the body and will keep it’