Thatcher's Spy. Willie Carlin

going to hold a counter demonstration and prevent the Sinn Féin march from taking place. (At this stage I was still a ‘civilian’, not a member of Sinn Féin but someone who sympathised with them.)

      As we left the station on 8 October 1977, we were about to become involved in one of the bloodiest riots the Waterside had ever seen. The rally was attacked by loyalists from Bonds Hill and from behind Nixon’s garage on Spencer Road. In fairness to the RUC commander in charge, he did his best to organise protection for our march. However, a lot of the young RUC men sympathetic to the unionists weren’t so protective as they joined in ‘baton charging’ the march, leading to running battles with them as well as attempts to defend ourselves from the loyalist crowds. It took over an hour to march 150 yards to the bridge and a further hour to cross it. Even as we reached the Derry side, we were attacked by gangs from the Protestant Fountain Estate. All in all, over one hundred marchers were injured and seventy RUC men were left maimed, with most of their injuries being sustained as a result of being bottled and stoned by loyalists. Ironically, later that evening at the casualty department of Altnagelvin Hospital, RUC constables sat united with republicans as they all waited to be treated for their injuries.

      ***

      Over the previous four years I had met quite a few men from MI5, all of whom didn’t really have a clue as to the grit and determination of the republican movement in Derry. But they were beginning to understand – partly, I hoped, through my political reports – that whilst not giving total support to the IRA, ordinary decent nationalists had no time for the British government, the British Army, and least of all the RUC. One critical fact I relayed to MI5 was that, contrary to their belief, not all IRA volunteers were ‘unemployed, mindless thugs’. Indeed, a lot of them were either employed or attending some form of further education, and some of them were quite astute in their thinking. I had also reported that one of the ‘boys’ in the Waterside was talking about a new structure which would see them form into small 4–5 person groups known as cells that would make it harder for informers to penetrate (or so they thought). My handler Andy assured me that he would pass on the information about these new cell structures to the army. Yet with no clear role for me as a ‘spy’, and feeling no sense of achievement, I drifted into the public domain in an entirely different manner.

      I was singing in pubs and clubs and making a few extra pounds to help supplement our income. I was quite popular out of town in what were known as ‘singing pubs’. Most of the lounges would have a group who would play from 9 to 11.30pm. I would be announced as the guest artist and would sing and play guitar from about 10 to 10.30pm. Singing was my hobby and it wasn’t long before I became ‘Billy Carlin’ the country singer and found myself in some demand. Within two years I was fronting my own group, Billy Carlin and the Envoys, which toured around Donegal as well as Derry. I loved country music and I felt happy on the road, away from the political maelstrom; it was a welcome hiatus in my secret life as an agent.

      The covert world, however, was never far away and my meetings with MI5 contacts were becoming more frequent, especially since I had a new handler who called himself ‘Ben’. The location of our conversations had also changed. Before they were held in car parks and picnic areas, but now we had a house at our disposal in a spot outside Limavady on the road to Castlerock. I would enter the house through the back door, which led straight into the kitchen, where I would usually find Ben waiting for me, notebook at the ready and coffee brewing. At first it was interesting working with him. He appeared different from the others, more open and down to earth. He had a very low opinion of the army and said of the RUC, ‘I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could spit.’ He was a Catholic and an only child, and his parents, whom he would visit quite often, lived in England. At only 5 ft 5 in, he wore a tweed jacket, corduroy trousers, glasses and smoked a pipe. He wasn’t the usual MI5 ‘type’ I’d been used to dealing with. The other thing he did was drink, and whiskey was his favourite tipple.

      We wouldn’t meet at the house very often, instead Ben would arrange for us to go to a hotel or somewhere on the coast. His favourite was the Londonderry Arms in Carnlough on the Antrim coast. He preferred lunchtime meetings, which was good for me even though it meant that I had to sit and watch him consume large quantities of Bushmills whiskey. I wondered why, with a house at our disposal, Ben preferred to meet at other venues, and I was soon to discover the reason. I was on my way to meet him on the Antrim coast one lunchtime and as usual turned right to head up the coast road out of Limavady, which went straight past the house. As I drove up the road, a red Peugeot came out of the gates of the house and headed back into Limavady, coming straight towards me. I had the shock of my life, for there in the passenger seat was Martin McGuinness, bent forward as if he was reading or looking at something on his knee. I quickly looked the other way in the hope that the driver (whom I couldn’t place) didn’t recognise me. As I drove towards Carnlough I could feel my right foot shaking on the accelerator and sweat running down the back of my shirt. A little further on, I stopped at a layby and got out to catch my breath. What the hell was Martin McGuinness doing coming out of an MI5 house? I was late for my meeting with Ben, who by now had consumed a considerable amount of Bushmills, and I didn’t share with him what I had just witnessed. However, a few weeks later I had an even bigger shock.

      One afternoon after seeing Ben I was heading back to Derry to attend a meeting on Cable Street when I spotted Ben sitting in his car outside Martin McGuinness’s house. Ben had often told me that if he could meet McGuinness he ‘could put him wise’ and let him know what was really going on ‘behind his back’. I thought it was just the drink talking but here he was outside Martin’s house with no telling what he would do or say if challenged. He stood out like a sore thumb, and I knew that if Ben was caught it would only be a matter of time before he told his interrogators about his work, and of course about me. I drove past him, turned around and parked a few yards behind his car. I ran to the driver’s door and beckoned him to wind down the window. Immediately, I could see that Ben was very drunk!

      ‘Listen, Ben,’ I said with some urgency, ‘you’re sticking out here like a sore thumb and it won’t be long before someone arrives and will challenge you. So, for fuck sake get out of here before you get us both killed.’ That seemed to sober him up a bit because he started his engine and left.