IRA training, Leitrim and Donegal,1982

 I was trained in weapons and explosives by experienced men apart from Advanced Weapons Training which was taught by inexperienced Dublin volunteers. I was trained in the summer of 1982 after I volunteered for the IRA.

In Leitrim,I received Basic Weapons Training and Basic Engineering Training. There I was trained in the Armalite AR-15 (25 rounds),Ruger Mini 14,my favourite piece of military hardware, G3 (10 rounds), M1 Garand, and the well-pointed Lee Enfield (no ammunition),the Browning 9mm pistol (9 rounds) and shown a Webley .45.

I was interested even then in bringing the Troubles to a '" decisive end by paying the English back in their own coin namely by bombing the City of London..commercial bombing,one thing that the Belfast IRA got right. " I was trained in electrical detonation (landmines) and in bomb making.

In Donegal I was trained in the Armalite AR-15,the G34 (clip-fed like the M1 Garand) and the Colt .45.

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After training in Donegal I returned to Ballinamore to participate in the operation to kill three RUC men at Belcoo Sports Day in August 1982. 

A defective magazine in my rifle convinced me that there was mischief at work on someone's part.

I think that it was a mouthpiece,Francie Quinn from the Moy, Co. Tyrone and resident  at that time in Erne Heights, Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal who talked about the "front pistol grip" on the old-fashioned Thompson sub-machine gun. I would have certain reservations about him and his ambivalent messages and his threatening and menacing behaviour drawing a rifle across my chest. Not to forget that  other Tyrone haelion,John "Dinger" Bell,the "doggie man from Dungannon".

Quinn it was who inspired me to introduce "a load of played-out oul' rubbish" ( Thomas "Slab" Murphy,Cullyhanna,Co. Armagh) from Libya,namely the Romanian AKM version of the AK-47. (What the wretched Romanians would know about gunnery or weapons manufacture could be written on the back of a Securitate L &M cigarettes packet).

In reality despite having made Quinn's "charming,disarming acquaintance"( "Ci Sono barbari," "Is it me you're looking for?","What is to be Done-The Sequel," July-August 1988),I despise those who worship violence and do not believe that war and conflict are a means to an end or a "necessary" expedient. The only necessary expedient in war is the fastest and easiest way to bring it to an end.

The scab bricklayer, Quinn, had a glib tongue. He was probably the loudmouthed individual who claimed," You're only as good as good as your last operation," in 1987. 

My considered reply is that of "Sonny","A gunman is only as good as his rifle or weapon."

Gunrunning,1983

My first option when I worked for GHQ was to introduce "Sonny's" favoured "persuader", the Armalite AR-15 en masse from Irish-American supporters,"one for every day of the year."

In September 1983 I tried through others to ship 365 Armalite AR-15's across the Atlantic. They were seized by Irish Army "he-men".

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4.9.2024

But,I have missed the whole point of recounting this sad tale of times long past and feats of derring-do.

The Adams lectures,that is.

These appeared to me to be the work of a Walter Mitty-type.

The so-called lectures or political induction were indicative of a criminal mindset originating with lowlife corner-boys such as Adams.

His nonsensical reasoning and bizarre characterisations of those he insisted on referring to as Sticks indicate this man's deranged and deluded mindset. No sane person would take Adams seriously as a revolutionary or social thinker.

The nonsense he later directed at people such as myself focused on concepts of discrediting people he did not like.

Adams invectives cost three IRA men their lives at Strabane in January 1985 and eight more at Loughgall in May 1987.

This is the price of not listening to an EDUCATED man and giving credence to a CORNERBOY from the backstreets of Belfast.

What rises from the gutter ultimately sinks back into the gutter.

Read the idiot's childish writings if you doubt me.

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This capacity for self-publicity has out of love of the glare of cameras and flashing camera lights cost many more their lives. The only person who could control his appetite for self-publicity and empty gestures was Martin Mc Guinness and he is long dead. Only Mc Guinness cared about real progress.

Adams is a man lost in a world of his own imagination. He and Morrison have poisoned the mind of a generation and it will be decades before Ireland regains its sanity and mental balance.