Government list includes some of most notorious cases from the Northern Ireland Troubles

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Some of the dozens of victims killed by the IRA for supposedly “informing” during Northern Ireland’s Troubles were not working for the police or security services, according to official documents released in Belfast.

A sample list of alleged informers shot dead by the Provisional IRA between 1978 and the 1994 ceasefire has emerged from government files released to the Northern Ireland public records office on Monday.

Normally the government does not comment in any way on whether individuals were what the IRA termed dismissively as “touts”.

However, in the document, seen by the Press Association, officials went as far as asserting that not all of those whose bodies were found – often dumped near the Irish border with bullet wounds to the head – were, in fact, informers.

The official record said: “In a number of cases, persons murdered by the IRA have not been informers.

“Furthermore, in other cases alleged informers have had to leave Northern Ireland at a moment’s notice and start a new life elsewhere, knowing that they can never return to their homes without facing the prospect of torture and murder, possibly having to cut off their links with close family members in order to avoid the risk of their new location being revealed.”

The official submission handed to the archives states: “The Provisional IRA themselves have made it clear on a number [of occasions] that where they believe people within the organisation to be agents or informers, they can expect no mercy.

“This usually means torture, followed by a forced confession and murder. The corpse will then be found in a ditch, often many miles from the point of abduction.”

The sample list covers many of the most notorious cases from the Troubles involving mainly IRA members killed by their own organisation after they fell under suspicion.

It includes:

• Daniel McErlean, 25, from Rasharkin in Co Antrim, who was found dead in June 1978 at the border near the Co Armagh village of Jonesborough.

• Michael Kearney, 20, from Belfast, who was found dead on the Concession Road in Clones, County Monaghan, just south of the border in July 1979.

• Seamus Morgan, 24, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, who was found dead in the south Armagh village of Forkhill in March 1982.

• Patrick Scott, 27, from Twinbrook in west Belfast, who was found shot dead in that area in April 1982.

• John McAnulty,48, from Warrenpoint in Co Down, who was abducted in the summer of 1989 from a pub in Armagh. His body was recovered in Crossmaglen in south Armagh.

• Rory Finnis, 21, from Derry, who was found dead in June 1991. His hands had been tied behind his back and his eyes taped closed at Central Drive in the city’s Creggan estate. He had been shot in the head.

• Thomas Oliver, 33, from Riverstown in Dundalk in the Irish Republic, who was discovered in July 1991, days after his birthday. His body was found in a field in Belleeks, a village in Co Armagh.

• The bodies of John Dignam, 32, Gregory Burns, 33, and Aiden Starrs, 29, all from Portadown, who were all found at different places along the Irish border on the same day in July 1992. All three had been shot in the head.

• Joseph Mulhern, 23, from Belfast, whose remains were discovered in June 1993 at Ballymongan in Castlederg in Co Tyrone.



Claims that the Provisionals’ own internal security unit, known as the “Nutting Squad”, was itself eventually headed by “Agent Stakeknife” – the army’s long serving informer inside the IRA – have raised fresh questions about those it killed.

Freddie Scappaticci, who fled Belfast after being unmasked as a senior IRA commander during a terrorist trial in 1991, has consistently denied being Stakeknife.