IRA Informers - how many were double agents.

[rant_and_rave]

Do we know of any IRA double agents among the ranks of the informers? Every conflict has them. There must have been some?

EDIT - I mean agents working for the IRA but pretending to work for the British. The law of averages dictates there must have been a few.

Kevin Myers: Wicked men played games with people's lives in North - Kevin Myers, Columnists - Independent.ie

So the question remains: how could the IRA have had as many informers as an old abandoned house has rats, yet neither the combined efforts of the British nor the Irish governments were able to bring about a ceasefire for decades?

[Cael]

The full story of J118 has still to come out. But I have no doubt it will.

[odie1kanobe]

Another Troll post...................I'll pass.

[charley]

unusually balanced for myers

[rant_and_rave]

Another Troll post...................I'll pass.

This is not a Troll post. Every conflict involving large amounts of espionage has had double agents. Even the Germans had them in WW2.

BBC NEWS | UK | WWII spy sea capture planned
Wilhelm Mörz; German double agent - World War II Forums

So there must have been some British agents who were really working for the IRA.

[abitmoldy]

who was j118?

[Cael]

who was j118?

Crown Minister McGuinness, we are told. A British agent since the 1970s.

[SevenStars]

Do we know of any IRA double agents among the ranks of the informers? Every conflict has them. There must have been some?

EDIT - I mean agents working for the IRA but pretending to work for the British. The law of averages dictates there must have been a few.


So the question remains: how could the IRA have had as many informers as an old abandoned house has rats, yet neither the combined efforts of the British nor the Irish governments were able to bring about a ceasefire for decades?

Maybe because if they had their agents call off the war earlier there would have formed a much larger and effective "Real IRA" that they didnt have so much control over? History isnt just made by "great men" and "leaders"....

[Cael]

Maybe because if they had their agents call off the war earlier there would have formed a much larger and effective "Real IRA" that they didnt have so much control over? History isnt just made by "great men" and "leaders"....

Thats correct a chara. the process of destroying the IRA started in 1972, when the British recognised Adams as "a man they could do business with." Over the next decade they protected him and McGuinness and killed or imprisioned potential rivals to their rise in the movement. The process could not be brought to a conclusion until men like Jim Lynagh had been liquidated, and nothing but yesmen remaining.

[turdsl]

We should all be thankful that the men of peace succeeded. the young people now can look to a bright future,