target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_a2501f9c-f4e2-51f6-a5bf-4e34a619dc66">162.IRA prisoners in Long Kesh had reputedly made representations to the leadership of the Republican Movement to form such a body in the late 1970s. One claimed that the progression from ‘no wash’ to hunger strike had been deliberately delayed to permit time for the Committee to coalesce. See Maxwell Taylor and Ethel Quayle, Terrorist lives (London, 1994), p. 91.
163.See An Phoblacht, 8 March 1980 and Pat Walsh, Irish Republicanism and Socialism, The politics of the Republican Movement, 1905 to 1994 (Belfast, 1994), pp. 172–8, 184.
164.Republican News, 20 January 1979.
165.Jim Panaro, 11 November 2009. See AP/RN, 8 January 2008. Duffy passed away in late 2007 at which time Ann O’Sullivan of the POW Department noted in his obituary that he had been assiduous in confirming prison addresses: ‘Particularly important in relation to prisoners held in England. The process of “ghosting” … meant that we constantly had to trace the current whereabouts of these prisoners’. Ibid.
166.Martin Brady, 12 April 2008.
167.Observer, 28 March 1993.
168.See Kaye, ‘Case against the Tribunal’ in Hands off Ireland!, No. 6, January 1979, p. 10.
169.PAC Statement in The Irish Prisoner, No. 5, June 1979, p. 2.
170.Kaye, ‘Case against the Tribunal’ in Hands off Ireland!, No. 6, January 1979, pp. 11–12.
171.For a full listing of the attacks see IRIS, 12 and 21 January 1979. See also McGladdery, Provisional IRA in England, pp. 242–3 and Moloney, Secret history, p. 173. The incidents sparked a bizarre turn of events when an English policeman concocted a story of being fired upon by an IRA suspect in Farnham. The Sun headline on 18 December 1978 was ‘Find Bald Eagle’, a reference to Belfast republican Con McHugh who was then verifiably at home in Ireland. See The British media and Ireland, Truth: The first casualty, [London, 1979], p. 38.
172.Newsline, 19 December 1978. See also Republican News, 3 February 1979.
173.The Irish Worker, Bulletin of Clann na hÉireann, Vol. 1, No. 1, February/ March 1979.
174.Republican News, 21 January 1979.
175.Republican News, 21 January 1979. The PAC also campaigned on general issues concerning imprisoned republicans. It commissioned the short documentary ‘Prisoners of War’ which was sold from a Post Office box address in London. Republican News, 10 February 1979. See also AP/RN, 12 May 1979. The film was screened in Conway Hall on 6 April 1979. The Irish Prisoner, No. 5, June 1979, p. 5.
176.See Helen Stevens, ‘Building an anti-war movement in Britain’ in AP/RN, 18 August 1979.
177.Stevens, ‘Anti-war movement’ in AP/RN, 18 August 1979.
178.Special Branch, Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday 23 January 1985, Association of Chief Police Officers (London, 1985), p. 71. An official document noted: ‘The Special Branch enquire into the implications of any offence connected with firearms and explosives unless it is immediately clear that there is no security interest. They also provide information about extremists and terrorist groups to the Security Service or in the case of Irish Republican extremists and terrorist groups to the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’. Ibid.
179.Clarke, No faith, pp. 59–64.
180.Clarke, No faith, p. 63.
181.PAC News, June 1977.
182.See Sr. Clarke, ‘David McQuaid’, Clarke Papers (COFLA). McQuaid, Anthony Walsh and Cyril MacLachlan were all acquitted of the charges for which Liam Baker and Punter Bennett were convicted in 1976. McQuaid was charged with conspiracy to contravene the Explosives Act on 24 November 1975 and cleared of wrong doing in Winchester on 26 November 1976. Ibid.
183.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 51. See Guardian, 26 January 1979.
184.Lost Lives, p. 775.
185.IRIS, 17 February 1979.
186.See HC Deb 18 January 1979 vol 960 cc1998.
187.Paul Holmes, April 2011.
188.December 1977 to April 1978 witnessed concerted efforts to suppress Republican News by the arrest of its writers and printers. In related moves, detention of Sinn Féin members working in the party’s Belfast advice centres disrupted legal political activities by the organization. On 21 February 1979 charges ranging from IRA membership to conspiracy were dropped in relation to the twenty-one persons involved. See TOM, The British media and Ireland, Truth: The first casualty (London, [1979]), pp. 45–6 and Curtis, Ireland and the propaganda war, pp. 266–8.
189.The Irish Worker, Bulletin of Clann na hÉireann, Vol.1, No. 1, February/ March 1979.
190.Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1978 (London, 1979), p. 9.
191.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 50.
192.Guardian, 12 March 1979.
193.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 52. Vince Donnelly coined the nickname for the red headed Clarke when Jimmy Ashe obtained a pair of ‘silver flash’ running shoes. Ibid., p. 53.
194.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 53.
195.See Bell, Secret Army, p. 472. The arrests were