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It was 1992, and I’d been living in West Florida while running my trucking company.

I was in Tampa with friends when I heard folk music coming from an Irish and Scottish bar, The Harp & Thistle.

I liked the music, so I went in.

There one night, I met this beautiful, lively woman named Linda.

We started dating and I soon learned she was heavily involved with Noraid, the US political wing of the Provisional IRA.

I didn’t know much about the Northern Ireland conflict, but feigned interest because I liked Linda.

She invited me to Ireland and I accepted.

We drove up to Sligo and Donegal on the west coast – Linda knew the owners of pro-IRA bars and they all knew her by her first name.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

One of the owners, Joe O’Neill, was a long-time IRA man and he took a liking to me and taught me about Irish history.

Linda and I broke up soon afterwards, but I was hooked on Ireland by then and went back by myself to meet Joe and other IRA men.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the Irish police were photographing me with IRA members and sent the photos to the FBI.

One day an FBI agent showed up at my trucking company office.

I said I didn’t know about anything illegal, which was the truth, but he insisted on coming back to ask questions.

He then said the FBI would pay for me and my new girlfriend, Maureen, to fly to Ireland when we wanted, in exchange for small pieces of information about the IRA.

(Image: Press Association)

As I didn’t know anything, I felt I might as well let the FBI pay for our holidays.

So we would go back and forth to Ireland and give the FBI very little.

Then one day, Joe invited me to the room he used for IRA meetings, which was above his pub.

He said he wanted me to smuggle explosive parts from the US, and gave me the address of a primary school where I should send them – the plastic explosives were to be hidden in teddy bears, detonating cord disguised as skipping rope, and electronic parts hidden in radios.

This made me flinch – the idea of sending explosives to a school.

I said I would, but I passed on the info to the FBI, and soon the spying operation became more serious.

I wanted to move to Ireland anyway, and the FBI agreed to pay for the lease on a pub on the Irish border, near Joe’s bar.

My bar quickly became a gathering point for IRA members and the information started to come in.

I liked the customers, but some moments shocked me – like watching a granny bouncing a young boy on her knee and telling him some day he would shoot policemen in the North.

Pretty soon the FBI asked me to meet MI5, which was keen to have spies in the IRA groups that were opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process.

I flew to London for a debrief with an MI5 agent, and soon I was reporting to them as well.

Then, in August 1998, the Real IRA set off a car bomb in Omagh, which killed 29 civilians, including a mother nine months pregnant with twins.

Later, Maureen and I watched a documentary about children injured in the Omagh bomb, one of whom was blinded.

It was devastating.

I had to remind myself these were the people I was dealing with.

There was a tendency to see them as friends, but I also had to find those other feelings at the back of that – revulsion and disgust for what was happening to innocent people.

Then I was introduced to the Real IRA’s leader, Mickey McKevitt, along with several of his top men.

He liked me straight away, and I liked him.

He was easy to talk to and was enthusiastic about American fund-raising money and my ability to get weapons and bomb parts in the US.

Over time, I learned he had a sleeper agent (the highest-ranking spy in an operation; they lay extra-low and don’t commit violence, but provide the highest levels of information) in the US who would be brought to the UK when the time was right to shoot Tony Blair , or some other high-level British establishment figure.

I met the sleeper several times in Massachusetts and he was keen to

get weapons moving to Ireland.

Eventually, Mickey suggested I sit on the Real IRA’s army council.

I wouldn’t have voting rights, but I could verify to US supporters that their money was being well spent and be able to report back on weapons and bomb parts needed by the Real IRA.

The army council meetings were held at a farmer’s cottage in the mountains on the border, where the farmer’s wife would make us tea, while he discussed bombings in England and assassinations of police officers.

I would send detailed emails to the FBI and MI5 of what was happening.

My scariest moment came when I attended the ‘engineering’ or

bomb-making meetings.

I brought along encryption software for the team that had been doctored by MI5.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

One of the top bomb makers was very suspicious and said that it might have been tampered with.

My heart was racing and I was sweating.

I was petrified and couldn’t sleep that night.

I was really on edge, wondering if the Real IRA would find out that the encryption software had been compromised.

What would happen to me and Maureen if they did? I knew about the torture and death that came to other IRA informers.

There was a case in which a woman was beaten to death by three IRA members, while with another informer, they set up a roadblock, shot him in the back of the head and rolled his car into the canal.

The police didn’t find his body for two years.

That would have been my fate.

(Image: PA)

I began to wonder how much longer we could stay in this life.

Mickey told me he was looking for a foreign sponsor to supply them with weapons and was interested in Saddam Hussein.

I told MI5, who were excited and saw it as an opportunity to ensnare the Real IRA.

It was agreed with MI5 that I would testify against some of the Real IRA leadership, and in one day there were arrests of leaders in the south of Ireland, the north, and the US.

I was flown to a US airbase in Britain, as I was due to testify against three Real IRA council members who had set up meetings with Saddam Hussein’s agents (actually MI5 agents in disguise). Then I flew on the British royal jet to testify against Mickey McKevitt, who was arrested at his home.

He wasn’t one bit happy to see me this time, and glared at me.

I was nervous at the beginning of the trial – there were lots of TV cameras outside the court, and army snipers on the roof of the courtroom.

Mickey’s barrister cross-examined me for two weeks.

It was gruelling.

After I finally finished testifying, the SAS took me by Hercules plane out of Ireland forever.

The most stressful part was after I had finished testifying and returned to the US in hiding.

I had all this adrenaline running through me for years.

Suddenly I wasn’t living on the edge any more and couldn’t handle my emotions.

I went on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs, Maureen went on them too.

We couldn’t adjust to this new passive world after so many years undercover, but I eventually learned to get on with life and enjoy myself.

Mickey McKevitt was jailed for 20 years and I know he will never forgive me.

Still, after the Omagh bomb, I have no regrets about what I did.

I also earned millions of dollars from the FBI, but I can never work again because the Real IRA would catch up with me.

I loved being a spy, but I will be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

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