US Marine Fighting for the IRA - John Crawley Tells His Story

34:04And he knew his way around the boats. Even though I'd been in the Marines, I mean, I was, I was no fisherman. I was no sailor. So I was kind of dead weight on the boat, you know. But anyway, we gathered everything up. We were given coordinates where to meet an Irish boat off the coast of Ireland.

34:21We left in, in September, in the middle of September in 1984. with about seven tons of weapons on board on this fishing boat that wasn't even supposed to cross the Atlantic, you know, it was a crazy stunt like, you know, and, uh, we took off and, uh, about halfway across the Atlantic, we hit a storm hurricane. It was actually a hurricane. And, uh, I remember Bob Anderson, the captain telling me that he'd monitoring it and, uh, coming up the Gulf stream. And I remember thinking, you know, this is all we need now, you know, but when it hit it was absolutely horrendous it done tremendous damage the boat knocked out four of the seven tempered glass windows uh we very very nearly sank i remember at one point asking bob should we put on the survival suits we brought along with us and he said that um we're our communications have been knocked out because when water came in the broken windows it knocked out our radios and our navigation so he says we're in the middle of atlantic we have no communications uh nobody knows we're here, put it on if you want, but it's just going to take you eight hours longer in a day.

35:23So none of us put them on, you know? So that was a really hairy situation. I just thought we were just goners. But Anderson, you know, thanks to his 25 years of fishing North Atlantic and his skills as a boatman, he got us out of it, but it was real touch and go. I didn't think we were going to survive. We managed to limp our way on then to meet another boat called the Marina Ann, about 200 miles off the coast of Ireland. We were given a longitude and longitude where to be. They were there a certain day and time. We transferred the weapons. And on our way in to Kenmare Bay to land the guns, we were stopped with the Irish Navy and arrested.

35:59And we were brought to Cork, interrogated, charged, and then sentenced to 10 years in prison for that. We were informed on. And it later turned out that there was a senior IRA man called Sean O 'Callaghan, who was a guard, police, Irish police and MI5 agent. And he told them that we were coming. But the thing that I wonder about to this day is he told on our location, but he wasn't the one who said, come now, bring everything and you be on the boat. And to this day, I don't know who gave that order. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast.

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37:24And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Who phoned you? I have no idea. No, because Liam Ryan who gave me the message was murdered afterwards. Could it have been police? No, it was somebody, I believe it was somebody high up in the area of leadership.

37:51And at Fondman? Absolutely, yes, I believe that. Because it made no sense. It screwed up everything. We were planning a much bigger operation. We were supposed to bring weapons from Libya. We had a freighter lined up for that. Everything went down the tubes to bring over a bunch of basically junk that would have made no difference whatsoever to the IRA campaign. I swear to God, you know. So it's one of the mysteries of my life, who gave me that order and why. Do you still get sleepless nights over that? Not sleepless, but the hardy day goes by when I don't think about it, you know. So it's just, oh, Callaghan told us, you know, coming into Kenmare Bay, but he wasn't the one that gave that order.

38:36after we were arrested of course the ira set up an investigation and how we were arrested and you know the initial suspicion would have come on a mistake i made because i was told before i left that only six or seven men in ireland knew about this operation so if it went you know pear-shaped it had to be me for either trusting the wrong person or doing the wrong thing it's basically told that right so i was getting messages in you know asking me what did you do who did you talk to and all this implication being it was our end and i i remember thinking now hold on a wee second right we were given a longitude and latitude where to be in the atlantic but i didn't know we were going to kenmare bay i had no idea the boat coming out to meet us with the marita ann i didn't know anybody on the marita ann i didn't know where the boat in ireland was based we could have been going to dunygal sligo waterford anywhere no idea nobody in the american end knew either but the irish navy knew and they were waiting for us and i know i didn't tell them now we learned later that sean o 'callaghan told them that we were coming to kenmer bay but like he wasn't the one that told him you know he wasn't the one that told me to come now bring everything and you be on the boat so it's one of the mysteries of my life you know where were you getting the weapons from well mostly gun stores you know we were uh we were going around buying weapons um There was some IRA weapons over there from previous purchases that were there.

39:58Liam Ryan, like I said, my friend who was later killed, had some stuff stored. He gave it to us. And then Whitey Bulger had some stuff. But it was mostly, it wasn't, see, my goal was to standardize the weaponry, standard military weaponry that would, you know, smooth our logistical problems. like for example you know you could have um you could have uh eight ira volunteers in operation everybody with a different rifle everybody with a different caliber you know it was a logistical nightmare and a training nightmare you know so standardizing that was uh i thought an important step uh but the stuff in the marine island was you know some of you know there was some good stuff on it but it was mostly just basic infantry stuff a lot of stuff thrown together stuff we'd got from witty bulge or things like that you know mishmash but uh the bottom line it would have made no difference whatsoever to the IRA campaign if that had gone in.

40:51None. But seven and a half tons of style, a lot of weapons. It's a lot of weapons, but it would have made no difference to the IRA campaign. It wouldn't because the IRA already had rifles and stuff like that, you know. And I think the IRA needed more than weapons was proper training on the weapons they had and, you know, better tactics and things like that, you know. What sort of stuff were you going to do bigger before that shipment? Well, we, in the States, we were just making progress on getting 50 caliber sniping rifles, you know, that would penetrate the jackets and the armor here in the north.

41:23And we were working on the Libyan shipment, which is no secret now. I mean, stuff came from Libya and Dired in the mid-'80s. I'm not talking out of school here. It's public knowledge. Now, when I say we're working on it, I wasn't working on it. We were only supposed to transport it. But I had written a list to a member of the area leadership on stuff to get, And one of them was like 106 we call it as rifles, which had used the Marines, which is a cannon. And it turned out three shiploads of weapons came in from Libya with thousands of weapons. I mean, a huge arsenal, the likes of which the IRA had never seen before.

42:03But the real heavy stuff, the 106s, the 81-millimeter mortars, the real heavy infantry stuff, was on another boat called the Exxon, which was caught in November 1987. so the real heavy stuff didn't come in but still the ira now had the capacity to fight an enhanced war of national liberation if it chose to do so you need you need three things to have any hope of success in fighting a war you need the skill the capacity and motivation you need the motivation in the early 80s the ira certainly had that you know look at the hunger strikers and things like that highly motivated uh organization uh we were lacking in skill but we could provide the skill but capacity was the uh the most glaring uh shortfall you know the the weaponry that we needed to pursue the struggle by the mid-80s we had all we had the capacity you know and uh it's around that time that that um the ira seemed to pull back from the brinks so to speak it started putting up peace feelers you know when when i when i felt that we had the capacity well i was in jail anyway i was hearing a lot of stuff in jail but you know when we finally had the capacity maybe to push things to where we could get to the negotiating table with the Irish Republic on the negotiating table instead of, when I say the Irish Republic, I mean the 32-county, all-Iran democracy.

43:22So what are you thinking then when you get a ten-stretch? You're thinking that obviously it's a set-up, but did you know then you were set up straight away or did it take a bit of time? No, I knew we were set up straight away because they were waiting on us. So they were clearly set up. But I had no idea who at the time, you know. So, you know, many Irish Republican projects in history, you know, since 1798 back to the Fenian times, throughout our history, it almost always seems to be scoppered by informers. I mean, the British are extremely, are really good at infiltrating organizations and getting in there.

44:05I mean, you know, the British state, you know, they're the fifth, sixth largest economy in the world. They have unlimited resources, enough money to buy almost anybody. You know what I mean? They're good at it. Like, you know, they're really good at it, you know. One English academic, I can't remember his name, but he said recently that of 196 countries in the world, the British have invaded or had a military presence at some stage in 171 of them. So they're absolute experts at, you know, at counterinsurgency, at co-opting leaderships, you know, to dovetail with their own strategies and things like that.

44:44I certainly would never underestimate, you know, the British when it comes to being able to, you know, take on an insurgency. They're very good at it. You know, they've experienced, you know, from the empire around the world. So where did you do your 10 years? I did my 10 years in Portlaoise Prison in the south of Ireland. I got 10 years for the arms. We were on an escape attempt in 1985. 12 of us made a break for freedom. There was 14 gates. We got through 13 of them. And the explosives we put on the last gate actually buckled the gate. And the second charge we put on to blow it out didn't go, unfortunately.

45:27So, yeah. how did you get the explosives into prison well i i couldn't you know that that's that's the secret has to remain you know to protect the guilty so you get through 13 gates we got 13 gates you got through 14 and i mean we had we had keys and everything we had screws uniforms we had it was an ingenious escape attempt we had um see the irish army were on the roof and they were told to shoot anybody not in a screws uniform running across but we had lycra uh sewn up lycra and uh And if you put on a sports jacket and you put it over the sports jacket, it looked like a screws. We had wooden buttons and a little paper tie.

46:05Now, for me to you, it was bullshit. But for the guy on the roof in the tower, he couldn't quite make out. You know what I mean? So we were running across the yard. That's the only thing that saved our lives from being riddled by them, you know? But no, it was a good attempt. I suppose that was 1985. And I think probably my, well, I have a lot of regrets, I mean, from losing friends and things, but, but I think my greatest personal regret as an area volunteer was that escape didn't work because I was 28.

46:35And, you know, I'd only been a year in prison and we'd have got out, you know, at the height of things, you know what I mean? And, you know, you don't want to be sitting in prison when you're a motivated young fella, you know, you want to, and you're motivated to fight for your country. You don't want to be out there doing the business, you know? So, you know, so I got three extra years for that. So with the two remissions, I ended up doing a full 10. So I went into jail in September 84 and I came out in September 94. So the full 10 stretch? Full 10. Obviously, Sam Muller, the blanket man in Long Cash, H-Blocks, that was a tough, tough, tough beatings every day, tortured every day.

47:14How was your treatment? It wasn't nearly as bad. It wasn't nearly as bad. We had strip searching and there were beatens and things from time to time, but it wasn't systematic like Sam Miller and them boys got, you know, Richard O 'Rourke, people like that.

47:33I don't know how they got through it really. Because even like, you know, I talk about the special forces training, you know, six weeks of hell. Some of those guys had six years of it every day. You know, it took a special type of man to survive that. Because you see, they could leave the blanket at any time, just say, I'm leaving, I'm going. And, you know, they would have been taken right off, put into uniform and be given just normal treatment. At any time, you can click your fingers and leave the torture. Plus, they were losing remission every day. So some of them were actually adding years to their sentences they didn't need to do.

48:10so i mean the bravery of those men and the commitment and the sheer heroism because you know you know sometimes people forget because you know i know you know uh you know british and unionists and that you know the area just a bunch of terrorists and that i you know i could write the script i know what people think but there was there was such heroism as well such commitment and uh i get you know annoyed you know at being informed on and things like that but you know looking around me the vast majority of people were terrific and i could not have spent a lifetime in the movement uh uh spent all the years in prison got out went back in active service i couldn't have done that unless i was inspired by what i was fighting for and inspired by the people around me see when i talk about lack of training and all i don't want to come across as you know people were or, you know, stupid or something.

49:03They weren't, you know, I mean, if you put me in a space shuttle, I wouldn't know how to fly it. Does that mean I'm stupid? It just means I'm not trained. You know what I mean? With a better leadership, with a more focused leadership, I believe, and with the caliber of people we had, I believe we could have got to a much stronger negotiating position than we did when it finally did come negotiations, you know. What was it like being in prison when the hunger strike was taking place? Well, I wasn't in prison then. I was outside then, yeah. I was at Bobby Sanders' funeral. In fact, by pure coincidence, I mean, it's just pure coincidence.

49:37I can actually see when the firing party was shooting over his coffin, I can see myself in the crowd there right behind the firing party. I mean, I didn't know they were coming out there. I had no idea. Pure coincidence. But I was actually there that day. It was the most unbelievable. There must have been about 150 ,000 people at it. I mean, that struck a chord in Irish people. It was unbelievable. Uh, but you know, we talk about how bad the blocks were to have to die like that, to starve yourself to death, you know, to be honest with you, I don't like missing breakfast. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't, I like my grub.

50:12Anybody who knows me knows that. I like my grub, you know, but, uh, to go on a hunger strike and to do that and the commitment he had, you know, and the thing about it is, uh, it's an interesting thing. You know, uh, we're told today that we were fighting for United Ireland, but, you know, So Ireland was united for most of its history. It's only partitioned for a hundred years. We were the Irish Republican army, not the United Ireland army. And I think Bobby Sands understood that very well because when he won a hunger strike, he wrote a message that was later made public and it said, what's lost here is lost to the Republic.

50:50And when he was in a prison mass later on, he passed a message to one of his friends in the mass and the message said among other things tell the boys the republic is safe with me he didn't didn't say you know in ireland he said the republic you know see when on the first hunger strike like bobby sands and that did she not sign the agreement to say that everything was fine they were going to give them their normal clothes and um but then she took it back straight away that that's my understanding i i don't know all the ins and outs because it wasn't involved in those negotiations uh somebody who would know uh a lot of sam miller says sam miller Richard O 'Rourke, too.

51:23Richard O 'Rourke, actually, he was instrumental in getting my book to the publishers. Belfast Light, he wrote On the Blanket. It's all about that stuff. And he's written several books since. And Richard O 'Rourke would have very comprehensive knowledge of that time. But it is my understanding that the Brits reneged, which is a surprise. When we say the Brits, I've got to make something clear, James. When we talk about the Brits, really, we're talking about England. You know, England is 85 % of the population of the UK. It's 86 % of the gross domestic product. I mean, you know, the Scottish and the Welsh aren't really an issue.

52:04You know, it's England. We say Brits, but it's really England. England, English politicians are the most bloodthirsty in dealing with the IRA and the most strident in trying to maintain a constitutional link with Ireland in some way. You know what I mean? How was it at Bobby Sanz's funeral? Did that fuel you to keep going? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Has that changed history? That was a game changer? It changed history. It changed history in a lot of ways. But I think, you know, it was a powerful historical moment.

52:42But it was also a very frustrating time because, again, And we didn't have the capacity to hit back in the way we would have liked to hit back against the British.

52:55So it was frustrating, too. You know, people wanted to, you know, you don't fight a war for revenge. That's crazy. But, you know, you fight a war to achieve certain political goals. But there's no question that young fellas at a time like that want to hit back. They're motivated to strike back at the enemy. And, you know, there really wasn't the capacity at the time to do that. you know that yeah but so that was frustrating as an ira volunteer but uh you know i was there i was there as an ira volunteer i was an act of service at the time and uh it was it was it was heartbreaking and then you know nine more men died after that and uh so ten hunger strikers died in the blocks and we have to bear in mind that two hunger strikers died in england you know michael Gohan and Frank Stag at a different time.

53:39So, you know, I remember, you know, going around bases in America and you'd see a base named after some guy who won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, Korea, World War II. And very often it was one for some active heroism that might have been an impulsive act, not taken away from it, maybe jumping on a grenade to save your friends. or charging machine gun, whatever, right? But an impulsive act in the heat of combat. But these guys refused three meals a day, every day for two months, up to two months or more. I think Bobby Sands survived for 72 days. And they would lovely, tasty meals, better meals than ever you would normally get in the cell with them.

54:28And basically those men refused life three times a day, week after week for up to two months. You know, I don't know many acts of heroism anywhere like that, you know. So we had very inspiring people. And of course, it wasn't just the hunger strikers. I mean, I've seen things that'll never be made public, that IRA guys done next to service that would have won the Medal of Honor, the Victoria Cross, and any other army. But, you know, it's all lost to history. They'll never be known because we were a secret army and these things couldn't be made public. but uh you know i saw enormous acts of heroism and on the other hand too you you had people in the area who shouldn't have been there you know waste of space complete utter waste of space uh but uh you know i i'd served in like like i said the marine special forces i work with seal team you know we were based with seal team too i worked with american green berets you know i got to understand the special forces caliber and the special forces mindset and in a in a in a in a number of iria volunteers i saw the same caliber the same quality you know with the right uh leadership and the right um uh resources and direction uh they would have been as good as any any soldier in the world you know yeah you know that keeps you going that inspires that inspired me anyway how hard is it to lose brothers it was very tough you know and uh how do you deal with that does that fuel you with vengeance are you trying to do you forget then what you're fighting for no i don't think so um i i i had a number number of friends killed uh i remember um i remember one scs ambush uh there were three volunteers killed and i knew pete ryan was one of them very well from from jail uh and lawrence rignally uh he'd been helping me buy guns in the states and we actually lived in a flat together for about four or five months so we're real close really good mates you know i knew i knew a good few fellas killed uh over the years um guys i was in jail with guys they had you know guys you slept in the same bed with and things like that and houses and that you know uh by the way don't don't you know i mean i mean slept you know and uh uh yeah um no i tell you what a feeling of loss and a feeling of pride but never really a feeling of revenge because you know even a lot of the fellows who were killed you know you know sometimes propaganda would say these guys were murdered by the brits they would prefer to say they were killed in action they were fighting for their country they were killed in action they volunteered to do it and they went in you know knowing what they were at and know if they paid the price you know they paid it willingly you know nobody wants to die but you know i mean the thing about the ira is uh you know if you don't want to go to jail and you don't want to get killed don't don't don't join the ira you know it's a good first step yeah you know what i mean how hard was it to see irish calling Irish as well, though?

57:35Well, that is how the British, that's how a small country like Britain conquered half the world. They get one side to kill the other side. They're master manipulators. And it's very hard because it only works for the benefit of the enemy. It only works for the benefit of the British when Irish are killing Irish. It doesn't work to any Irish benefit.

58:04But I think it's important when you're involved in something like that to try to look at the big picture and to see who the real enemy is. And the real enemy was, as far as I was concerned, British strategy in Ireland. If you focus too much on your real enemy is the loyalist or the unionist or the guy, because, you know, everything's parochial.

58:27and things could get too parochial and you get tied up in sort of maybe an almost tribal thing. You know what I mean? And it's easy to see why that would happen. I mean, you know, people often wonder, you know, why did the Indians not get together and, you know, fight the white man in the West? I mean, the Indians were working for the cavalry here, killing each other. See that tribal thing, that tribal stuff that you have that everywhere. You know, you have that everywhere. And a power like Britain exploits that, you know, exploits it. But they sort of created the tribes in the first place because Ireland was just, was a separate country with a separate language and a separate culture.

59:05and they planted Ulster as an act of ethnic cleansing, bringing Scottish and, you know, mostly Scottish and English planters in there to turn Ulster, which at that time was the toughest nut for England to crack, into an area that would become like a dagger aimed at, almost aimed at the heart of a national cohesion. What Austro-Union is now, you know, saying that they don't want to unite Ireland, they don't want to live in an all-Ireland republic. This division, this thing is baked in, you know what I mean? But it was planted by the British. It was designed to be that way. If you read what they were saying at the time of the plantations, they were open about it.

59:57You know, we're going to make Ireland English or we're going to make Ireland British. and even the um edmund edmund spencer the famous uh english planter uh in elizabethan times you know said that the irishman well in time quite learned to forget his irish nation and that was the plan to wipe out the irish nation so see after your 10 years in prison was it just straight out and back to normal duties with the ira yeah yeah well you know there was a ceasefire you see what happened was the ceasefire came in on the 31st of august 1994 the first ceasefire so i got out on the i think the 10th of september so i actually got out 10 days after the ceasefire and a lot of people at the time thought i got out because the ceasefire and i was saying i did all my did every day of my time you know and uh so you know things were in a state of flux we didn't know really what was happening i think the question was uh were we were we uh running rings around the brits were the brits running rings around us we didn't know and because the ira was so um uh you know you never really saw the big picture it was all you know uh compartmentalized oh my god why can't i pronounce that word anymore but uh uh i think the only people who really had the big picture in fact i know the only people who had the big picture was british intelligence they had the big picture you know and they were able to um i was talking to a journalist one time i won't say who he was but he was telling me that he was talking to remember the fru the force research unit the uh british army's military intelligence and he said the the way that they used to work would be it'd be like say you're an ira man and i'm a uvf man we're at the table here playing chess right turn out the lights right there's the chess pieces there turn out the lights but the fru man is there with his night vision goggles on.

1:01:48He comes in, he changes all the pieces around. Then he put the lights back on. You know what I mean? And it's a mess. You know what I mean? And that's what they do. They manipulate and they take out this person, they take out that person because they want to get this person up, you know. They kind of kill the right people, buy the right people, jail the right people, you know, to get where they're going. But... When you get out after year 10, did you straight back to business? Well, because there was a ceasefire on, yeah, I volunteered immediately. They told me, take a break for a while. They knew you'd just been in 10 years.

1:02:19And they do that in any way. They don't like people to... You need to sell your head a bit and take a bit of a break. But I was more or less back at business fairly quickly. We were planning at that stage, maybe operation... Not maybe. We were planning an operation in England at that stage to knock out the, or to disrupt the power supply to the southeast of England for a period of time. The thinking behind it was that there had been two bombs in the city of London, at Bishopsgate and at Baltic Exchange. And those two bombs caused more financial damage to the British economy than the 10 ,000 explosions in the whole course of the troubles.

1:03:11and so they set up a ring of steel around the city of london and over 1500 cameras nearly impossible to penetrate so you know we kind of came to the conclusion then that if you were in bond or frankfurt or tokyo or wall street and you were phoning somebody in the city of london you don't care if he's in a palatial office or a tent all you care about can he answer the phone and can he use the computer and you can't do that with electricity you know so we came up with a plan to disrupt electricity in the South East of England for a period of time. We weren't sure how long it would take because we weren't sure how long it would take the British to respond to it.

1:03:52But we were caught then in London. Again, I believe we were informed on, again. And we ended up getting 35 years in prison for that. and And about several weeks after we were convicted, I was approached by a prison officer who said the two Americans wanted to see me from the American embassy.

1:04:25And I said, well, I'm Irish and I have an Irish passport. I have nothing against the United States, no problem with the Americans. But, you know, if I have a councillor issue, I'll deal with the Irish embassy. see. So the prison officer went away, came back about an hour later and said, they said, you will want to see them. You will want to see them. So I thought, oh, you know, what's this about? I started thinking, is this a legal issue, something to do with the Whitey Bulger case? Maybe that they're going to extradite me to the States over Whitey Bulger or something to do with Whitey Bulger.

1:04:56And then I was thinking, well, that doesn't make sense because I just got 35 years a few weeks ago. And then I thought, are they going to tell me, well, after your 35 years are up, you're coming back over, you know, I had no idea. So there were two other prisoners, two other IRA prisoners there. And I approached them. I says, you know, I want to find out what's going on here, but if you don't think it's appropriate, I won't go. And they says, no, no, find out, find out what they want. Right. So I went out to this visiting box and, uh, it was kind of like this, you know, there's, there was a man and a woman seated across kind of where you are, James, I was here.

1:05:24And, uh, the woman, uh, had a face in her like a slapped arse. She'd have probably burned me at the stake. I could tell right away her hostility was just pouring out of every, every pore of her body. Right. The other guy there was a very distinguished looking guy, crumpy coat, but amiable, you know, friendly, uh, demeanor. So the woman spoke first and she said, uh, you know, how are you being treated here? I says, great. Everything's great. Uh, what's the food like best food I ever ate in prison best ever. And, uh, are you getting reading materials and stuff like that? I said, yeah, there's plenty to read.

1:05:56So I knew what she was getting at. She wanted me to be whinging and whining and begging, you know, to get me out of here in some way. So I knew that. Like, so I started letting on, like I said in the book, that I just got a 35-year ticket to the Playboy Mansion. Now, I mean, I hated every minute of it. It was a nightmare. It was like, it was just, you're like, it's like you're buried alive in this place, this special security unit. Hated it. But I wasn't going to start, you know, you know, crying and whining and looking deals. That wasn't, just wasn't going to happen. So then she says, oh, you certainly don't got a lot to complain about.

1:06:24And then she was quiet. Then the other guy, big smile, handshake. He says, John, I'm with a different agency. As soon as he said that, I knew it was CIA. And as soon as I realized that, I knew what was common, a sales pitch, right? So he says, John, I've been following your career with some interest. And I said, right. And he says, John, you know, we can leave the visiting box right now. He says, you don't even have to go back inside. We can walk out right now. He says, we'll have you on a plane for America tomorrow morning. He says, and we'll give you a lot of money. And then he kind of leaned forward and he says, John, a lot of money.

1:07:03He says, all you got to do is tell the security forces here where the explosives are hidden. And I says, are you aware I've already done 10 years in prison? He says, yes. And I says, well, then you'll be aware. I says, I've been in prison before. I know what's facing me. I says, I'm not going to become the hard man now begging to see you in a year's time. I says, I'm not going to betray my country I'm not going to betray my comrades It's just not going to happen So they actually got up to leave And then As he was leaving, I said He shook my hand coming in here Will you not shake it now? So he turned around and magnanimously took my hand Shook my hand And I says, maybe we'll meet up in 35 years And we'll swap a few war stories And he goes, oh maybe we will And then I says, I'll tell you what I'll do you a favor I says, I'll tell you how to defeat the IRA.

1:07:53I says, you tell your British friends to leave Ireland and allow us to build a national democracy without any further interference from the British and our internal affairs. And I says, I guarantee you the IRA will disappear overnight. And I says, I'll tell you another thing too. I says, I'll not charge you a penny for that information. So he just smiled and he left, you know. So I went in, back in, and I reported to the boys, they approached. I phoned a prisoner's department in Dublin, told them of the attempt to recruit me. And I phoned my solicitor, Mike Fisher, who I only recently learned has since died.

1:08:22And I'm sorry, lovely, lovely man. And told him of the approach to, of the attempt to recruit me as an informer. And the next day, the RA called the second ceasefire. And then I realized why they were in a panic to see me that day. Because when I went out to see them, I knew nothing about another ceasefire coming up. As far as I knew, I was there for 35 years. I had no reason or evidence whatsoever to believe otherwise, right? and they knew they had to get me, had to get me, you know, that day or they weren't getting me, you know. So you could have basically, because you got out in the Good Friday Agreement, 1998?

1:08:58I eventually did, yeah, but I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know we were getting out. So they tried to set you up? Well, they tried to recruit me when they knew I knew I was doing 35 years. You know what I mean? But that shows you the calibre of man you are, not to turn snitch, that majority of people do. Did you struggle with that as time went on? you realized there was a few informants working for the IRA? Oh, of course. Oh, of course. The IRA had a lot of informants at a very high level too, at a very high level. But the vast majority of people were sound people who made tremendous sacrifices.

1:09:33And you have to sacrifice a lot in the IRA. You have to sacrifice so much normality. It's a life of poverty. I mean, you never have money. it's it's dangerous you you know you never know i mean i mean when i was out i remember every christmas side my christmas dinner i'd always think well i'd be dead or in prison this time next year you know and uh well eventually i was in prison you know and then but um

1:10:03so while you know you know there were people betraying us um the vast majority of people were sound you know but the trouble is in a small organization like ours it takes very few people to do a lot of damage if they're the wrong type of people. You know what I mean? And, but the Brits, you know, they're good. They're good at it, you know, and they have unlimited resources, unlimited time. You see, British intelligence guy, he's sitting back. He's on a wage. He's on a pension. You know, he's got all the time in the world. You're an IRA guy. You got no money. You got no prospects. You're trying to stay alive.

1:10:37You're trying to stay out of prison, but this guy can sit back and play the long game. Much harder for us to do it. You know what I mean? So, you know, the only advantage we had is that when we were able to maintain our secrecy and security, like for example, in South Armagh, we were able very often to get on top of the Brits. You know, in South Armagh, I'm sure you've heard of the South Armagh IRA. That was one area definitely where the Brits were on the back foot, where the IRA held the initiative. And it was all down to a very small handful of people, very small. but they weren't penetrated they were highly courageous determined motivated patriots and um and the ira had that caliber in every area belfast dairy and that but they had a particular concentration in south amara and and and what they had in particular in south amara was they had no informants and i think they they they showed like one in six like cross mcgland is a very small town.

1:11:37I mean, it's unbelievable how small Crossman Glen is if you go into it. But one in six British soldiers killed during the Troubles was killed within three miles of that town square. Right. And, uh, you know, um, I'm talking now as a soldier, as a resistance, you know, uh, somebody who was involved in resistance, uh, I don't, I don't mean to come across as cold or, you know, talking about people being killed and like, like it's a good thing. It's not a good thing. But there was a war around, and that area was highly effective. Again, no informants. And I just sometimes wonder what the IRA could have done if it had replicated that in one or two more areas.

1:12:19I think we'd have been on top of the situation. Whereas I believe towards the end, by the time the IRA had signed up to the Good Friday Agreement, that the British very much held the initiative. And we're very much in control of the strategic environment across the board, even though the IRA tried to portray it as a stalemate. There was no stalemate. I mean, outside of a small enclave in South Armada, the Brits could basically go anywhere they wanted. And they commanded the whole area. Excuse me. The IRA certainly couldn't do that. We were infiltrated. Like, I don't think we had senior members of MI5 working for us, giving us information.

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1:13:56Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. But they had our, I mean, they had our head at a security, Scabatici. You've probably heard of him. Steak knife. The head of IRA security. The man in charge of our security was a British agent for years. And a lot of people believe that's just the tip of the iceberg. You know, it's scary when you think about it, you know. How many British soldiers were there and how many people were in the IRA? Well, tens of thousands of British soldiers went through the North over 30 years.

1:14:28I don't know the number, but I know around the time of the hunger strikes and around the time I joined the IRA, there were 30 ,000 crown forces in the North. If you take regular British Army, UDR, RUC, in a six-county area, approximately 30 ,000. and there would have been at the most maybe 300 active IRA men, but there would have been a large amount of helpers and things like that. But you find in areas it was a very small number of IRA men really did the operations. It was a very small number. And I think people, again, I talk about South Amal, but how shocked people would be if they knew how small a number of people were actually doing the main operations there.

1:15:14It was just a handful of people. But they kept it tight. They kept it quiet. It was hard to do that in the cities. You had more men. And I think the Brits had more opportunity to infiltrate. But, I mean, every area produced top caliber man. I mean, Bobby Sands was from Belfast. You know, Francis Hughes himself, Terry. Every area produced very high caliber people, you know. But don't get me wrong. I mean, there were people in the area who shouldn't have been in it. And as I said, there were people who were complete waste of space. Waste of space. you know, and, uh, that weakened us, but, uh, on the whole, like I said, I couldn't have maintained, you know, a lifetime of commitment to that unless I was inspired by the people around me.

1:15:56And for the most part I was. The news is a very powerful tool to manipulate any human being. Was there any other bombings that were blamed on the IRA that weren't? There were definitely bombings.

1:16:10And the IRA never deliberately killed civilians. Right. I would never have joined an organization that would deliberately kill some guy's family walking down the street. I mean, but it happened. It happened. A lot of times it happened because of lack of attention to detail. Maybe have to phone in a warning and not realize that the three phone boxes in a row are broken. You know, things like that. Lack of attention to detail, like I said, lack of planning. But there were cases, definitely, where the dark-handed British intelligence was involved in some atrocities by tampering with devices and things like that.

1:17:02And I believe in the next couple of years, I don't want to go too far with this because I don't want to betray confidence. but I believe in the next couple of years there's a couple of things are going to come out that's going to make that clearer on a number of operations that were actually acts of sabotage on behalf of the British state or in which IRA men working for the Brits you know, yes that did happen I mean that absolutely didn't happen but I don't want to absolve the IRA from blame for things they were involved in where innocent civilians were killed where it was due to incompetence or whatever on their part because that didn't happen too.

1:17:47But I would never have joined an organization. I mean, if somebody told me I'm going to go out and I'm going to deliberately kill in civilians, I'd shoot at myself. I know, seriously, like, I mean, oh my God.

1:18:05To kill in civilians, it's morally wrong. and it's politically wrong. It damages the struggle. It sabotages what you're fighting for. I mean, you want to look back at history someday if we achieve our full goals and look back with pride at what we've done. And you can't look back at innocent civilians killed with pride. Nobody could do that. Now, having said that, I was never involved in an operation that killed innocent civilians. I was never, the vast majority, the vast overwhelming majority of Aryan men were never involved in operations where incidents of humans were killed. There was a small handful of cases where that did happen.

1:18:42And it was either the result of incompetence, poor intelligence, or in a number of cases, and like I said, I believe this may come out in the next two or three years, the dark-handed bridge intelligence was involved in some of them. It is hard to see other humans killing other humans. For me personally, it shouldn't be any worse, but I've said this before on that podcast, but if somebody was to invade Scotland, we've never been invaded we've never had other people here trying to take over our country and I can assure you if somebody's trying to invade Scotland I'd be the first to grab a rifle and stand to try and protect my family do you know what I mean?

1:19:18You'd send them home to think again wouldn't you? Of course man I'd ask for people to make assumptions and think you never want to see any humans hurt any humans this is a but this has been going on for hundreds of years wars power greed it is it is and you know So, and it's tough to, for someone who joins maybe a resistance organization with the highest ideals and makes the most sacrifices and then turns out other people at a higher level are maybe working on a different agenda to see can they get a career out of it or see what they can get out of it. You know, this corruption is what kind of kills a lot of this stuff, you know, and why a lot of people sometimes end up demoralized and disillusioned.

1:20:03Yeah, it's a terrible thing. I don't consider myself, well, as a soldier, I will do what a soldier needs to do.

1:20:17But I would never consider myself a cruel person. I have empathy. I have sympathy. I mean, I trained with the British Parachute Regiment when I was in recon. They came over and they were doing some amphibious boat training with us. I went out and socialized with them, had drinks with them, had a good time, had fun. You know, even though at the time I knew them in the North and even at the time I knew I was going to join the array and someday I might be shooting at these guys. But like, you know, it's not - Can you understand that they're doing their job also? Absolutely. Absolutely. As James Connolly said at his thing, at his execution, when he was asked, would he pray for the frying party?

1:20:55He said, he said, I respect all brave men who do their duty. You know, I can understand that. Absolutely. But, you know, I had a duty to do. They have a duty to do. And it's unfortunate that's the way the world is, you know. But, you know, the big picture for me is Ireland has, you know, Ireland never invaded anybody. Ireland never partitioned another country. Ireland never planted another country. You know, I mean, I think Ireland needs to be a fully independent country at some stage, 32 county, and build a joint civic identity, a joint national identity, you know, and that can never happen while the Brits are in there in the mix, underwriting the sectarian supremacy of one small faction in our country who make up like 18 % of our country, yet, you know, 2 % of the UK, and yet seem to be able to say no to everybody all the time, you know.

1:21:51I understand that they have their beliefs, but one of the ironies of it is that Irish Republicanism was founded by Protestants. The United Irishmen were founded in 1791. You see, through the long history of Irish resistance and Irish rebellions, the vast majority of the rebels and things like that wanted either to restore a Gaelic aristocracy to Ireland or have a Catholic king. It was the United Irishmen founded by Wolf Tone and people like that in 1791, who were the first to come up with the concept of Ireland as a sovereign, independent republic in its own right. They were the first. And of the 28 founding members of the United Irishmen, 26 were Northern Presbyterians and two were Anglicans.

1:22:40All were Protestants. So the Irish Republican movement was founded exclusively by Protestants. You know, one of the ironies of history. but you see they were protestants of the enlightenment and they saw themselves as irishmen and they didn't believe for one second that just because they were protestant they couldn't be irish right but then you then you have you know the protestantism that comes from the plantation tradition that sees itself as um as uh colonial settlers as a sort of garrison for england and believe that that gives them unique rights because they were here on a civilizing mission to tame the irish tame the gale you know that type of thing and uh all the stuff's in the mix you know do you think ireland will ever be independent uh fully independent well i i don't know i don't know because while it might be united uh territorially the thing about it is with the good fred agreement you see the unity they're talking about under the good fred agreement is it maintains the sectarian dynamic in other words under the good fred agreement that says if Ireland is united, you can stay British or you can stay Irish.

1:23:47You know, the whole point, and the whole, well, you can stay British, you can stay Irish, and it retains institutional links with the crown that the unionists can be seen at what I would call as some sort of post-colonial rump. You know, the whole point of Irish republicanism was to break the connection with England and develop a joint civic identity. Like in America, when I grew up, Italians, Irish, blacks, every culture, every religion, every imaginable diverse group you can have, but you have one overriding loyalty to the American Republic. India, 2.1 billion people, right? 2 ,000 ethnic groups and 15 official languages, and they're one united republic.

1:24:35Ireland, right? Half the population of London, Catholic tradition, national tradition, union tradition, and we can't be one united republic. And the reason we can't is because there is a foreign government in the mix underwriting the supremacy of one section of our people. And it's breaking that connection with England, that wolf tone that the Protestant founders of republicanism believed was the only way to eventually build a national identity. And I believe that still. I mean, the first Italian prime minister, Adorno, when Italy used to be just a bunch of different city states, he says, first we have to make Italy.

1:25:17Then we can make Italians. You know what I mean? Same situation in Ireland. We have a partitionist mindset in the South because of partition. We have a unionist mindset in the North because of the Union. And I don't believe we'll ever really have an Irish Republican mindset until we have a full Irish Republic. What are you thinking your first night after you get 35 years? I was thinking... Did you start questioning your whole life decision-making, or were you still just proud to be the soldier and willing to basically die or do life in prison? This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast.

1:25:53Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month.

1:26:31And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. I wasn't too proud I was thinking I'm sick of these fuckers informing me up at the top I'm sick of them I don't mean me no but why you kept getting informed no no that's 45 years from informants I'd still be in jail today only for the Good Friday Agreement and people say to me you don't support the Good Friday Agreement and I don't because I support the Irish Republic and it can come from the Good Friday Agreement.

1:27:18But when we talk about the peace process, just I want to be clear, I support the peace. I'm glad there's peace now. I would not advocate a return to war. But my criticism is with the process because where the process leads, where it can't be to Irish Republican goals. But to answer your question, James, I remember more or less my first day in Belmarsh, you know, a prison within a prison, like a concrete tomb this was. And I remember waking up my first morning in there thinking, like, I just done 10 years, you know, And I'm 10 years in Portlaoise, writing off the years. I'm out in 10 years. I'm out in 10 years.

1:27:53There's me. I'm out 20 months. I'm back in. Basically, I know forever. And I deeply suspected I was back in because of informers or an informer at some stage.

1:28:08Now, the British Security Services at the time said there was no informer. It was all a result of surveillance. That's possibly true. but um i have two things one is the security forces never admit to an informer for obvious reasons because they want to protect them and second of all just i i can't really go into it but i have my reasons to believe very good reasons to believe from what happened and things that were that came out in the trial that an informer was involved so yeah you know it's at some stage you kind of get sick of your own people informing on you you know you get a bit tired of it you know but look it I'm alive I know a lot of guys were killed because of informers informers got them killed the SCS are waiting on them you know I mean what did they gain from that?

1:28:54save their own skins were they getting money or were they getting less sentences themselves well basically save their own skins but people became informers there's people who became informers at a low level just to keep the driver's license maybe a taxi driver and he stopped for you know drunk driving one night and the cops say, right, we can make this go away. And he become an informer to save his driver's license and maybe get some other man killed. You know, low level informers were just as dangerous because you see, people think, assume you don't have to be at the top of the IRA to be any use.

1:29:26But like, if you're a driver, right, and you're just driving IRA in the meetings, you don't have to be at the meeting. You just tell, you know, MI5 or the IEC special branch where that meeting is held, they bug that house. So they're sitting in on the meeting. So even the lowest level informer can be extremely dangerous and get people killed. People inform for all kinds of reasons. And one thing, but mostly to save their skin, you know, but one thing that really surprised me, right, is, you know, I consider myself, you know, I can be tough enough, you know, I can put up with a lot, but I'm still the same type type of guy, if your mate there came in, your producer came in there and said, somebody stole my wallet, I'd probably take a Redner, even though it had nothing to do with me.

1:30:14So I kind of thought informers would be furtive, nervous. But what I found out from talking to people who had interrogated informers and stuff over the years, some guys thrive on it. There's a personality type that thrives on being an informer and believing they've got one over on you, that they're smart in you, that they're running rings around you. And the Brits tell them, oh, no, no, no, no, you're not an informer. You're not a tout. You're an agent. You're James Bond. And they can play these guys and play their personalities. So one thing that really, really, that surprised me, that some people thrive on being informers.

1:30:52Another thing about being an informer for some people is, in a perverse way, being an informer but not known, Being known to be an informer can really enhance your status in some communities. Because say you're a known IRA man in an area and you're an informer. So you know you're not going to be shot with a sash. You know loyalists aren't going to take you out of it. And you know that if the REC are going to get anybody shot, they're going to send them to somebody else's door and not yours. So that gives people a bit of swagger then. It gives a bit of swagger because they know they're untouchable.

1:31:26But that swagger is seen by other people. They think, geez, that guy's got balls. You know what I mean? In a strange way, it kind of enhances their prestige. And for a lot of people, you know, there are people who will betray the IRA to actually keep the prestige of being known as an IRA man. The prestige of being an IRA man means more to them than what the IRA stands for, than the IRA goals. They'll actually betray the IRA so they can stay being known as an IRA man to get the prestige that comes up. It's very bizarre. I can't get my head around it but I know it's there like you know it exists What's the worst thing you've seen while involved in the area?

1:32:07Well I couldn't really go into that James I couldn't go into that you know Do you get PTSD? Do you struggle with the past? Or do you kind of just have to go on with it? No I struggle with the future James I struggle that what we fought for our goals aren't there that we're not on the trajectory for this all-adden republic but we're on a trajectory that brings us to further division, a so-called United Ireland where you can be British or Irish. So this so-called shared island, right, that they're talking about now instead of a United Ireland, a shared island where we share in Britain's analysis of the nature of the conflict.

1:32:44We share in the colonial legacy of sectarian apartheid, and we share in the imperial project of divide and roll.

1:32:54We didn't fight to share Ireland that way. We fought to unite our country and to unite it in the only way that matters, united as citizens, you know, Protestant Catholic together as citizens. And I know, you know, you know, there's a tradition in Ireland. I'm not blind to it. I know unionists don't want to be part of it. And I know that on the 12th of July every year, many unionists celebrate the defeat of Ireland. They celebrate the start of the Protestant ascendancy. and all that flowed from that, the land wars, the famine, and they celebrate and rejoice in everything that went wrong in Ireland because they just celebrate that, right?

1:33:36But on the other hand, there is that DNA in the Protestant culture that were the founding fathers of Irish republicanism. And so you have that dichotomy. You have, like in 1791, Protestants founded the United Irishmen to fight sectarianism. In 1795, Protestants founded the Orange Order to fight the United Irishmen. So you're going to, yeah, well, you know, Protestants motivated by the Enlightenment founded the United Irishmen. Protestants motivated by plantation sectarian supremacy founded the Orange Order. What changed that? Well, that hasn't really changed. That hasn't really changed. you still have Protestants, or I should say Unionists in the North, but they're all, who celebrate on the 12th the, you know, the...

1:34:24How hard is that to see Irishmen celebrating the 12th of defeated other Irishmen? Yeah. Is that weird for you? No, no, no. I understand it. I can understand it, right? I can understand it. And I understand their fears. You know, you see Catholic nationalisms in Ireland. You see, I'm an Irish Republican, and people think automatically that means you're a Catholic nationalist. But Catholic nationalism is a sort of different thing. A lot of Catholic nationalists, if they had their way, would actually love to see, get rid of Protestants, things like that. I think the Protestant tradition and culture, the Enlightenment Protestant one, is a very important thing in our country.

1:35:09That's why our flag is green, white, and orange. You know, it stands for not an agreed Ireland where people agree to disagree about the constitutional source of our sovereignty, but a united Ireland. It's about a united Ireland. And it's an important tradition. And the, but a lot of Catholic nationalists, a lot of them be quite right wing and almost fascist tendency, some of them, would have been quite happily see Protestants ground into the dirt. if they had got a chance in their day. They would have been quite happily seeing that or maybe even expelled from the country. So I don't blame Protestants when the Home Rule thing first came up for being against Home Rule because they said Home Rule was Rome Rule.

1:35:54I wouldn't want Rome Rule for Ireland either. I wouldn't want a Catholic run Ireland, right? But where I disagree with them is where it is in their Protestant religion that they're fighting for. It's their sense of supremacy as colonial settlers on behalf of England, on behalf of Britain, you know, the type of thing. That's where I kind of draw the line. And the thing about it is I understand their point of view,

1:36:29but I believe the Republic has to win. I believe the Republic has to gain supremacy over that at some stage, yeah. What did you do then after the Good Friday Agreement? when you think you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison to then get released like what was the plan then had no plan i thought i was going to either escape or die in jail you know or or you know or i get out i would still be in prison some people criticize me because uh uh because i blatantly say i'm against the good fred agreement but i'm against the process i'm not against the peace that's very important to understand and they say well you got out under the Good Friday Agreement.

1:37:07But, you know, you have to bear in mind, when we got out under the Good Friday Agreement, we didn't really know what it was about. We didn't know anything. And we were being told that this would lead to Irish Republican goals eventually. And if we could lead to Irish Republican goals through peaceful means, I'm very happy with that. Happy days, that's better, you know? So I had no problem with the ceasefire and I had no problem with the Good Friday Agreement initially. But it took a long time for the penny for me to drop that as time went on, as time went on, Sinn Féin and the provost got more and more into the British system.

1:37:43By 2007, when I resigned, they were recognizing the PSNI, which is our British constabulary in Ireland, as the lawful authority in Ireland. Now, no Republican recognizes the lawful authority of anything in Ireland except the constitutional authority of the Irish people to make Irish laws. When you recognize the police force or the police service of a foreign government, it abrogates, it totally denies everything republicanism stands for. So that's when I resigned at that point. But I was willing up to then to give it a chance, you know, to see where it would go. And I worked for Sinn Féin quite hard at times.

1:38:20And, but now I see them as, I actually see Sinn Féin as an impediment to Irish republicanism,

1:38:31as almost allied with the British government in the sense that they have completely been co-opted to a British strategy and completely co-opted to the British analysis of their role in Ireland.

1:38:48And Sinn Féin, you know, when Martin McGuinness shook hands with the Queen in England, the Queen of England, you probably were at that, James, when she came over, right? That was symbolizing, you know, she didn't wait in line to shake his hand. He waited in line to shake her hand. And nothing against the woman personally, but she is the crown and the symbol of the British state and British jurisdiction in Ireland. And that handshake was saying to the world that the British crown still has a role to play in a so-called future united Ireland, right? And the entire purpose of our struggle was to break the connection with England, you know, and develop a joint civic identity.

1:39:26not strengthen it strengthen yeah not not to bake in the sectarian division bake in the british irish cleavage and national loyalties into perpetuity does that handshake strengthen it strengthen britain and ireland i think it does instead of trying to break away from like yeah it's strengthened it because what it says is you have a legitimacy here you i am recognizing as that you have a legitimacy in this country you have a role to play in the future here and we were trying to get rid of that so i found that very disconcerting how hard is that for you a man who spent 10 years in prison nearly 35 years in prison to then then what were you fighting for well at that at that point i realized that there's a saying that if you want to achieve something right you have to surround yourself with people who are in the same mission as you and I thought we were all on the same mission to achieve the Irish Republic but when Martin McGinnis shook hands with the Queen of England I realized there were members of leadership and others who were on a different page a totally different page and I had a strong I got a very strong impression that the Brits were writing the page and turning the page you know what I mean?

1:40:46So, um, again, like I do support the peace, um, and people then, you know, I'm often asked, well, look at, if you don't think this is going to work, then the, what is the solution? Do you go back to war? But the thing about it is you see, and people need to remember there was never need for war in Ireland ever. There was never need for war. If, if Britain had respected the wishes of the vast majority of Irish people in this country, there would never been war, I remember the British Secretary of State, Peter Brook, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Peter Brook, in the early 1990s, and he said that the British government was not against the concept of a sovereign Irish republic, only against his violent expression.

1:41:29But in 1918, there was a peaceful election in which the overwhelming majority of the Irish people voted for an Irish Republic in the 1918 32-county all-out elections. Overwhelming, 76 % voted for an all-Irish Republic. And the British responded with partition, and they responded with the black and tans. So we have to put things in perspective. and while the IRA has to take responsibility for what it's done and for the wrong things it's done, you know, from an Irish Republican perspective, the primary root cause of violence in Ireland is the British presence. And the British presence is not the unionists.

1:42:07It is not the unionists. The British presence is the presence of Britain's claim to jurisdiction in Ireland and the civil and military apparatus that makes that possible. How hard was it to resign from the IRA? Was it an easy decision or was it something you thought about? By that time, it was a very easy decision. It was a very easy decision. And when I resigned, I told a relative of mine used to visit me in Portleigh's prison from time to time. And they said to me, I told him I resigned. They said to me, oh my God, you must be devastated. You've given your life to this. And you've been in jail.

1:42:40And it's everything, you know, you live for this. Oh, you must be devastated. And I says, no. I says, no. I says, I feel like an anchor has been lifted off my neck. I said I'll never again have to go into a Sinn Féin meeting and listen to that delusional bullshit that if we go along with an internal settlement on British terms that we're going to somehow reach an Irish Republic that in some way the British government was going to legislate for the Irish Republic it was insanity, I mean it was just counterintuitive in every way a lot of people made money out of it, a lot of people did well out of it got holiday homes out of it and nice little lives But, you know, I preferred to keep my integrity as an Irish Republican and, you know, and to maintain my Republican politics.

1:43:27And I felt I couldn't do that anymore in Sinn Féin or in the provost. As I said earlier, you know, I didn't fight, I didn't join the provost to fight for the provost. I joined the provost to fight for the Irish Republic. And when they went off that path, then I went off them. and I have no problem with that. So what have you done with your life then since you left? Wrote a book. No, James, nothing really much. See, the trouble is I'd love to be in peaceful... In violence? Well, even peaceful political, you know. I'd love to be involved in politics. I'd love to be... I used to enjoy... I mean, I enjoyed even when the ceasefire was on, And when I was still witch and feign, I enjoyed elections.

1:44:13I enjoyed, you know, working, you know, to get our team on board when I thought our team was on board the Republic, you know. And then when I copped on it, it wasn't going that direction I left. But I enjoyed that. I miss, you know, I joined the IRA when I was young and idealistic. And now I'm old and idealistic. But I'm still inspired by the concept of an Irish Republic. And I would love to work politically towards that. I would love it. I would love to be involved in peaceful political agitation. The trouble is, Republicanism in Ireland, which used to be a strong, united, cohesive force, has now been broken into like a pane of glass, into dozens of different pieces.

1:44:59And each piece thinks it's the real Republican movement. So you have all these Republican groups in Ireland now, and a lot of them have preconditions. no if Ireland isn't socialist then it's not worth it or if if Ireland isn't Catholic it's not worth it or if Ireland isn't this or that it's not worth it right instead of the bottom line which I believe it should be does Irish constitutional authority reside in the Irish people or does it not that to me is the bottom line uh the Irish people should make up be the only people in Ireland who make its laws and who decide its course and you know uh and then you get into the argument with some people like well then why would it be in the european union you don't have sovereignty there but again that's another argument but the thing about it is i think the bottom line is uh to end british jurisdiction in this country and and if there was um if there was peaceful political way to do that i'd be as involved as ever i hope that can happen i hope that will come to fruition do you think the troubles will start back again that's totally up to the british i think that's totally up to the British because, like I said, in 1918, we had a peaceful election and the British answered that with the black and tans of partition.

1:46:09You see, partition wasn't brought in to defend the rights of unionists. Partition was brought in specifically to unite the right of Ireland as a whole to national self-determination. And Britain, you know, a lot of people say, and a lot of Irish people say, oh, the Brits want to leave. The Brits don't want to be here and they'd love to be out of here. Yeah, your average British citizen probably does. But the British intelligence and security services are not going to leave that massive island at their back door on their western flank and not be totally on top of what's happening there because it's a major strategic interest for them.

1:46:46I mean, the British are in Yemen. They're in Iraq. They're in places around the world, you know, halfway around the world trying to manipulate and shape the strategic environment to suit them. Does anybody seriously think they're just going to walk out of Ireland and close the door behind them? they're going to leave Ireland if they can in a way that suits them and would have formed a government that suits their strategic interests and whether it starts up again or not I certainly hope not but you know people say the war is over but I don't believe that in one sense Britain declared war in the Irish Republic when it was declared 1919 they outlawed the 32 county Dall-Iran and they outlawed the Irish Republic they're still at war with that Irish Republic.

1:47:31The British are. They work against it every day, and they're always trying to manipulate the political situation here to ensure that never comes to pass. Now, there's no resistance to that. There's no armed resistance to that. So there's nobody fighting on the Irish side against that. And hopefully then there never will. Because I don't think there'll ever need to be. Because the simple matter is the vast majority of the Irish people would vote for Irish independence tomorrow if they were given that choice. I mean, unions are only a majority now in two of the six counties, you know, but I think to paraphrase something Martin Luther King once said, British rule in Ireland is probably in its death throes.

1:48:14The only question is how expensive are they going to make the funeral? You know, and time will tell on that. See the guy, the mob boss from Boston, James White, a bulger. Yeah. he then became a known informant for the FBI do you ever think he could have stuck him? No, he didn't, he definitely didn't, I'll tell you why he was he was an informant apparently but I don't think he was like telling them every little thing that happened I think he, they were working on a strategy, he was giving them information on the Italian mafia in the North and the Boston FBI guys were rolling up the mafia and they were getting promotions and they were getting great kudos from the fbi for doing this and and they let whitey run i think run run amok excuse me but um there's two reasons why i don't think he informed on it one i don't believe for one moment that the fbi would have allowed us to leave american territorial waters with those arms for two reasons ones we could have sank which we came within a Heirs Brad to do it, right?

1:49:19That close. The second is they weren't going to hand the credit for the investigation and arrest of that to a foreign jurisdiction. Did you think about him, those being a suspect? At the start, until I realized the Irish Navy was waiting for us behind the Skellig Rocks on our way into Kenmare Bay, where it's a small little island where our radar couldn't pick them up. Now, Whitey didn't know we were going there, but they knew. So I didn't know, Whitey didn't know. so no i i actually don't believe i don't believe sean o 'callaghan definitely informed and somebody in the air leadership told me to come now bring everything and you be on the boat which made absolutely no sense and actually fucked everything up so wait a bowl just like some story because i know you were coming on and i know there was a connection but this man was on the run for 16 years yeah um fbi second most wanted above bin laden yeah over a million pound uh bonus you would have got if you'd found out any information for him but he ended up there on for 16 years get captured at 82 years old and then beaten to death in prison just three four years ago but i believe in a wheelchair but the thing is the thing is this a few media um interviewers have taken me to task for working with wendy bulger and they come up with all the stuff we know now because movies and books stuff i didn't know he murdered this one he murdered that one he murdered this he murdered that he was a mobster he was he was a mobster i i knew he was a gangster don't get me wrong i don't deny for a second i mean i put it in a book i work with him but i didn't know you know uh some of the really bad stuff he was doing like murdering uh yeah he murdered uh a girlfriend of steve flemmie and polar t i mean he didn't he didn't tell us that um but the thing is the fbi knew you see here people give out to me oh you work with this guy you must have known i didn't know I didn't know, but the FBI knew, they knew, and they were, they were letting him run and they let him, they let him on.

1:51:16And I firmly believe with no evidence that the FBI had him killed because they put him in a, in a prison, an open area and let it be known he was there. And that let it be known he's an informer. And he was, he was killed almost immediately. And I mean, I was talking to some guys from Boston recently and they're absolutely convinced he was set up. He just knew too much. he just knew too much about the FBI and to save I think embarrassment they just had him took out I have no doubt about it and his wheelchair and his 90s and his cell even though the bad stuff look it I wouldn't wish that on anybody no I wouldn't a few people said to me I deserve it I wouldn't wish that on anybody the guy's nearly 90 he's in a wheelchair he's half blind he's daughtering apparently and they beat him to death with a lock and a sock they gouged his eyes out and cut his tongue out apparently nah I mean you know it's hard to believe now meeting this fit guy I knew then this confident you know gangster and you know he ruled the world he ruled Boston anyway you know if only you know he'd have known the end he was going to come up to him my god but yeah he was some character I talk in the book too about Whitey and his henchmen Stevie Flemmy coming down.

1:52:39I was in a basement one time, excuse me, and I was drilling out the serial numbers of weapons before we sent them home so they couldn't be traced if they were caught. And I got very nervous. I got, well, apprehensive, I should say, because they never came down there. And I was on my own. I was in the corner. And see, it crossed my mind on a number of occasions that this operation was growing legs. It was getting too complicated, too big, and that it could be interfering with Whitey's business. And it crossed my mind a few times that he could maybe take me out, you know. Wouldn't be hard to do.

1:53:13Put me in a lobster pot. Then I know six months later, no sign of me. I already sent somebody over. Where's John? Oh, we gave John$200 ,000 to bring over to you guys. You ain't seen him? You know, John's in Vegas with the fucking money, you know. That crossed my mind, you know. But even though I didn't know a lot of the stuff he was at, by then I'd heard enough from people he was working with to know that he was a capable killer and that. but I thought in gang wars and stuff and if you know if criminals were killing criminals there was no skin off my nose I mean I didn't basically I didn't care you know it's nothing to do with me as long as you know I could get my work done you know and uh uh so I was in the corner at this basement this real dark basement and uh Stephen Flemmy and the other boy were talking to me and I couldn't understand what they were down there they'd never come down there before and uh uh, none of the guns were loaded.

1:54:05And I remember thinking, Oh my God, I'm, I should have a loaded gun here. Like I really thought there's something going on here, but they did leave. They left. And, uh, afterwards though, I found out that John McIntyre was on the Valhalla with us was murdered in a basement. And, uh, because I presumed they didn't have that many basements, I'm 99 % sure that was the same basement that a few weeks later they murdered him in. And also I later found out that there were bodies buried under the, in the basement too so when i was trooning up the serial numbers there was probably five or six bodies buried under me you know why is such a man at high caliber surrounding himself with guns and that that should he not have been far away from them or did he just enjoy the buzz well when you have the fbi protecting you you can do whatever you like yeah you can do whatever you like yeah he wasn't worried feel untouched and again when you think about it i never thought about the time but the confidence he betrayed so i didn't know he was working with the fbi right obviously and the confidence he betrayed and the swagger that he had and the confidence that he had will kind of give you confidence you know and uh but he had that confidence because he knew he was untouchable you know um so when you think back about it now it's like this this circle you know you're you can project an air of invincibility because you know you're invincible, but not because you're invincible, but because the enemy have made you that way.

1:55:29So it's, my God. So what does the future hold for John Crawley? Well, I know what it holds for a lot of people. I know what a lot of people would like it to hold for me, but I don't know. I'm 65 now, and I might try and write a novel. Well, I had read a novel before and basically the way this started was I wrote a novel and I spent about three years in it and I thought it was a pretty good novel if I do say so myself. And when I was trying to get it published in the States, the American publisher was saying, yeah, your writing's good and all, but you know, your story, we want to hear your story, ex-Marine, Whitey Bulger, IRA, all this shit.

1:56:07I said, I can't talk about that. You know, it's impossible. but anyway one thing led to another and i think i was able to write a bit of a memoir without incriminating me or anybody else which was the main thing i mean the only person i mentioned in the book really is martin mcginnis and he's dead so he cannot be charged or incriminated uh but i don't you know name anybody else who could be incriminated so i was very careful with that and uh anyway to answer your question james uh maybe i'll polish up that novel now i don't know or i might write something else like i'm 65 now so like what else am i gonna do i don't know I really don't know.

1:56:40But I have a great family, lovely wife. I have a 17-year-old son, a 16-year-old daughter. And I'm very happy in my personal life. I'm very happy. I'm very content.

1:56:54I'm devastated politically that we didn't get to where we needed to go. I was willing to give everything I had, every ounce I had to get where we needed to go. And so were a lot of people around me. But we were stymied. We were hamstrung by weaknesses where there shouldn't have been weak people. You know, that's what I believe. But look it. The main thing is, will we get to the stage where we have a United Irish Republic someday? And I hope we will. And I hope we do it peacefully. Where can people buy your book, John? Yank? Well, it's in a number of outlets, various bookstores, Eason's, things like that.

1:57:31But it's online. It's on Amazon. and it can be bought directly from the publishers, which I believe is Melville House in America and Marion Press in Ireland. And it's published on both sides of the Atlantic, but it's definitely on Amazon. Good. We will leave the links in the description. For coming on today, John, and telling your story, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Would you like to finish up on anything? Not in particular, James. I really appreciate it. Myself and my wife, Debbie, we watch your podcasts quite often. So it's just amazing to be here. It's hard to believe, actually. You know, it's a strange world.

1:58:05John, listen, all the best. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it, James. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.