Sean O'Callaghan

Sean O'Callaghan is a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who became an informer for the Garda Síochána and who was later debriefed by the UK's MI5 in the Netherlands.

Early life

O'Callaghan born in 1954 into a republican family in Tralee, County Kerry, he was motivated by the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and joined the IRA at the age of 15. O'Callaghan was arrested and jailed after he accidentally detonated a small amount of explosives, which caused damage to his parents' house and those of his neighbours.cite web | author=Toby Harnden | title="the smearing by the green" | work=The Spectator | url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199702/ai_n8755482 | accessdaymonth=27 August | accessyear=2006]

During the 1970s, he was involved in various IRA operations, notably in May 1974 a mortar attack on a British army base at Clogher, County Tyrone in which a female Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, Eva Martin, was killed. In August 1974 he shot dead a Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch officer, Peter Flanagan, in a bar in Omagh, County Tyrone.

Role as an Informer

In 1976, aged 21, O'Callaghan resigned from the IRA, and moved to England, where he later decided to become an informer. He returned to Tralee, where he had a meeting with a local Garda, who had previously arrested him, and disclosed that he wanted to be an informer.O'Callaghan stated that he was the head of the Southern Command and a substitute delegate on the IRA Army Council both in print and before a Dublin jury under oath. However, these claims have not been verified.

He was elected a local councillor for Sinn Féin, and was in regular contact with its leaders, Gerry Adams (now MP for West Belfast) and Martin McGuinness (now MP for Mid Ulster).

In 1984, he helped to foil a bomb on a theatre in London, where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were to attend a Duran Duran concert. He escaped to Ireland, wanted by the British police, and was hailed as a hero by republicans, who were totally unaware that he was an informer.Fact|date=January 2008

Republicans have strongly criticised the claims made by O'Callaghan in his book 'The Informer' and subsequent newspaper articles. One Republican source says O'Callaghan "...has been forced to overstate his former importance in the IRA and to make increasingly outlandish accusations against individual republicans." [ [http://republican-news.org/archive/1997/March06/06tout.html O'Callaghan - the truth] ] This includes a claim that he attended an IRA finance meeting alongside Pat Finucane and Gerry Adams in Letterkenny in 1980. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/04/18/do1801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/04/18/ixop.html "Telegraph"] ] [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200010/ai_n8905397 "Spectator"] ] However both Finucane and Adams have consistently denied being IRA members. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/2288775.stm BBC News] ] In Finucane's case, both the RUC and the Stevens Report found that he was not a member.

Literary career

Some time after leaving the IRA he walked into a police station in England and confessed to the killings of Eva Martin and Peter Flanagan. He subsequently served a jail sentence in prisons in Northern Ireland and England. While in jail he told his story to "The Sunday Times" and after he was released he wrote an autobiography entitled "The Informer".

Gay bar controversy

O'Callaghan appeared as a Crown Prosecution witness in August 2006 during the trial of Yousef Samhan, 26 of Northolt, London, after an incident in which O'Callaghan was bound to a chair by two young men whom he met in a gay bar in West London. The court heard that O'Callaghan was held at knifepoint while the two men ransacked the property that O'Callaghan had been staying in at Pope's Lane, Ealing, London.

During the trial O'Callaghan stated that he had been looking after the property for friend, author Ruth Dudley Edwards, and he invited the two men back to the house for a drink after socialising with them in a nearby gay pub, West Five. O'Callaghan informed the court that had frequented the pub "only because it was the nearest" public house. He further outlined that when they arrived back at Dudley Edwards' home, he was then knocked to the floor, tied with an electrical flex to a chair and then held at knifepoint while Salman and another man proceeded to burgle the property.cite web | author=David Sharrock | title="IRA informer 'tied up by men he met in bar'" | work=The Times | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article615904.ece | accessdate=13 October | accessyear=2006] [http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=LJ2128232E&news_headline=ira_killer_attacked_by_gay_pub_pals Life Style Extra] ] cite web | author=Brian Campbell| title=O'Callaghan - the truth | work=An Phoblacht | url=http://republican-news.org/archive/1997/March06/06tout.html| accessdaymonth=5 February | accessyear=2007 ] cite web | author=Ruth Dudley Edwards | title=the naked truth about me, the IRA whistle-blower and the gay bondage orgy | work=Sunday Independent | url=http://www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk/journalism06/IrInd06_28.html| accessdaymonth=27 August | accessyear=2006]

In his defence, Samhan claimed that O'Callaghan was a willing participant and had requested that he be tied up during a gay bondage session with the two men. Samhan was nevertheless found guilty of robbery on September 6 2006. [ [http://www.gcn.ie/content/templates/newsupdate.aspx?articleid=1167&zoneid=4 IRA Informer Burgled by men he met in Gay bar] ]

Present occupation

He now lives relatively openly in England, having refused to adopt a new identity, and works as a security consultant, occasional advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party and media pundit, usually whenever the IRA has made a major announcement.

References

Further reading

*Howard, Paul "Hostage: Notorious Irish Kidnappings" (O'Brien Press)
* [http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/06/13/story817666269.asp The Sunday Business Post]
*Dwyer, Ryle "The IRA informer who kept gardaí on track in search for Shergar", "Irish Examiner", 20 April, 2000.
*O'Callaghan, Sean "The Informer" Corgi 1999 ISBN 0-552-14607-2

ee also

*Martin McGartland
*Raymond Gilmour
*Denis Donaldson
*Kevin Fulton
*Sinn Féin
*History of Northern Ireland
*Terrorism
*The Troubles
*Shergar