When Ireland wa
In 1979, unknown blackmailers tried exposing animals to foot and mouth so it’s no surprise that telling it bec
WHAT is your first thought when you hear the words Ransom ’79? Something to do with the kidnapping of supermarket tycoon Ben Dunne? No, that was in 1981. The abduction of Quinnsworth managing director Don Tidey maybe? Actually, that was in 1983.
No, the new film Ransom ’79 tells of a different extortion attempt, one that was levelled against the State itself, a grave threat to bring our then biggest commercial sector, agriculture, to the brink of annihilation.
What followed was a game of cat and mouse conducted mostly through the personal ads page of the Irish Times newspaper. It involved the Department of Agriculture itself, as well as the Garda Síochána Fraud Squad, the Special Branch and even the Navy.
Like a spy movie, there was covert surveillance, disguise and a wild-goose chase around the south-east, before the threat seemingly fizzled out. At the centre of it all was a junior counsel, later a well-known barrister, whose identity has never been revealed and, if the film is anything to go by, never will be.
The convoluted tale was first revealed in a series of podcasts in 2022 by veteran RTÉ investigative reporter Charlie Bird — following his motor neurone disease diagnosis, it was the last big story he worked on. How he stumbled across it and, with the help of journalist and playwright Colin Murphy, drew all the strands together, is the subject of Ransom ’79, which opens in cinemas nationwide later this month.
The drama began in August 1979, in the febrile atmosphere following the assassination of Earl Mountbatten, his daughter’s mother-in-law, the Dowager Lady Brabourne, his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and teenage boatman Paul Maxwell from Enniskillen, when their boat was bombed off the coast of Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, near the family’s Classiebawn Castle holiday retreat.
On August 29, just two days after that atrocity, and the murder that same day of 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint, Co Down, a letter arrived at the Department of Agriculture. The tone was blunt.
‘To get straight to the point, this is a demand for £5million,’ it read. ‘The reason for you paying us £5million is very simple. If you do this, we shall not introduce to this country one of the most deadly and costliest diseases that could afflict any country, in particular
‘To get straight to the point, this is a demand for £5 million’
an agricultural country, namely foot and mouth disease.’
Here, context is necessary. Precautions against the importation of the disease were strict. Anyone arriving from another jurisdiction had to declare if they had visited a farm or any premises related to agriculture. Anyone who travelled by ferry to the UK in the 1960s and beyond will remember that, on return, the undercarriages of cars were automatically sprayed with disinfectant as they drove over a special pad.
As for five million Irish pounds, well, converted for the euro and inflation, it’s around €32million in today’s money — a large sum by any standard, then or now. Immediately, the Garda commissioner Patrick McLaughlin was informed, and the number who knew of the threat was kept to a minimum, with even the Cabinet and then taoiseach Jack Lynch kept in the dark. The letters demanded that a response
appear as a personal ad in the Irish Times of September 1: ‘If you are prepared to consider our requests,’ it read, ‘simply state in the reply: “Tom Smith has read your message and will consider your proposals”.’ The letter also warned that the gang involved had the means, and the opportunity, to immediately introduce the deadly disease to the national herd. As Grace Mulcahy, a professor of veterinary microbiology and parasitology says in the film, the easiest way would have been to introduce it using pigs as the vector, and it would have spread rapidly, leading to a massive cull of pigs and cattle. Gardaí had three options to consider — the threat was real; the threat was not real but the ransom demand was; or the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Nonetheless, Detective Garda Willie McGee, later head of the Fraud Squad, placed the ad as instructed, despite queries from the Irish Times if the message was legitimate. The next letter arrived at the end of November.
‘Let us state from the start that we are totally determined to go through with our threats to spread this disease,’ it read. ‘You and your entire department are totally helpless to stop us.’
It outlined the fact that there were five people involved in the conspiracy, all from different backgrounds and all financially secure, leading to immediate speculation of paramilitary involvement.
Analysis of the language used showed that the author was educated to a high level, most likely university, though a different layout in some of the communication led to doubts the same person wrote them all. When challenged, the author admitted they
The author was educated to a high degree, likely university
had been typed on different typewriters.
The reply again was to be placed in the Irish Times: ‘If you agree to pay the money, you will simply state, “Tom Smith has read your proposals and will agree to your conditions”.’
This time, gardaí got a break. The letter was postmarked Carlow and one name they already had considered — a man associated with the Saor Éire splinter republican group — was living in the picturesque small village of St Mullins in the county. Now they changed tack and placed an ad saying, ‘Tom Smith read your message but encounters difficulty — discussion is necessary.’
On Christmas Eve came the only phone call from the gang, most likely from the UK, demanding that the £5million be split in £2million worth of German deutschmarks, £2million in Swiss francs and £1million in punts. A Garda negotiator warned that currency exchange regulations might prove a problem, and was told the gang could wait.
In January 1980, another letter set out details of a dry run for the handover. A white Mini 1000 was to be prepared with fake English number plates and parked in the set-down area for guests of the Gresham Hotel on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, between 11am and 4pm on Saturday, February 2, with a case in a specified design intended to ultimately contain the cash visible on the front passenger seat. Cleverly, gardaí parked two other Minis, one in front and the other behind, so that anyone looking for the English-reg car would have to walk past, slow down and maybe even stop, to check the plate.
Surveillance teams took up position in the hotel itself, in the Dublin City Council offices across the road, and the Posts and Telegraphs building on the corner of Cathal Brugha Street.
From the latter location, Detective McGee was amazed when a man who slowed down to inspect the car was one he recognised, a junior counsel.
When it was established the man also had been seen visiting the home of the Saor Éire member in Co Carlow, the pieces of the jigsaw began to fit into place.
The letter that followed set out a route the car containing the money should follow, at a date to be announced. At 4pm on that day, it was again to be parked outside the Gresham and proceed at a steady 45 miles an hour via Newlands Cross, the Naas dualcarriageway, Kilcullen, Athy, Castlecomer, Kilkenny, Waterford, New Ross, Enniscorthy, Arklow, Wicklow bay, Bray and back to Dublin. It was to have two 10-gallon fuel drums on the rear seats, and be refuelled in public view on the quay in New Ross.
Once the date, March 8, was confirmed, the Navy stationed the LE Emer and LE Fola ships on the River Barrow navigation, in case the handover took place there and the criminals decided to flee out to sea by boat for an offshore rendezvous with a larger boat. In Waterford, a garda dressed as a woman cycled back and forth across the bridge all day, in case the cash car was stopped there.
Nothing came of the trip, though. The plan was that the criminals’ car would drive up behind the Mini and flash its lights three times to signal it to pull over. In Co Wicklow, the driver and gardaí following in six unmarked cars thought their moment had come when a car flashed once, but it turned out it was only trying to overtake, naturally enough with the Mini tootling along at just 45mph on a main road.
The gardaí involved — including the Mini driver, a now retired undercover garda called Pat, who looked ‘like a hippy’, as he had long hair and wore jeans and a chain — drove straight back to HQ in Phoenix Park and had a few pints, at least in part to settle their nerves. Pat had a gun strapped to his lower leg, and a ‘lady’s gun’, as he called it, tucked into his boxers. Detective McGee admitted later than his hand was so shaky, he probably would not have been able to use his Smith & Wesson 38. Bizarrely, that was the end of it. No further letters arrived, no contact ever resumed and no explanation ever came as to why not.
In the film, two of the suspects are identified — Padraig Dwyer from Mayo, the man then living in St Mullins, and Pat McCann, who had been involved with the Old IRA, the Provisional IRA, the INLA and Saor Éire. McCann was involved in the armed robbery of £35,000 near Loughglynn in Co Roscommon on July 7, 1980, not long after the failed handover of the cash demanded by the gang — though it transpired the suitcase was stuffed only with shredded paper anyway.
McCann and his accomplices were confronted by a Garda patrol car and the gang opened fire. McCann was sentenced to death for the capital murder of Garda Henry Byrne, commuted to a 40year prison term, of which he served 30. Det Garda John Morley also was shot dead in the incident, a crime for which Colm O’Shea also was sentenced to death, again commuted.
The extortion plot remained secret for decades until Charlie Bird took an interest. As he says in the film, ‘I may have a terminal illness, but I still have a journalistic nose. This will be my last story, so better make it a good one.’
Sadly, he died on March 11, but his wife Claire, who is an executive producer on the film, and some of his former RTÉ colleagues attended the world premiere on Thursday night in Dublin. As well as telling the story, the film also serves as a poignant reminder of Bird’s tenacity and determination to get at the truth, even as a serious fall temporarily stops him in his tracks, and his inability to swallow sees him being fitted with a tube to be peg fed.
It should evoke sadness but what Ransom ’79 instead does is show Charlie undimmed by his final illness, ever the newshound on the trail of what, it has to be said, is a very good yarn indeed.
‘This will be my last story, so better make it a good one’
RANSOM ’79, directed by Colm Quinn, produced by John Kelleher and David Power, and executive produced by Claire Bird, opens in cinemas nationwide on Friday, May 24