The IRA informer who kept gardaí on track in search for Shergar
Ryle Dwyer
ON Monday night the Discovery Channel's programme, Fighting Hatred, featured the story of Seán O'Callaghan, who was undoubtedly one of the most valuable garda informers on the Provisional IRA. The programme was badly signposted in Ireland. It was ironic because O'Callaghan was indirectly behind one of last week's big news stories.
He was the local connection that Councillor Tommy Foley was talking about when he suggested the skull of the horse that he found was that of Shergar. It was O'Callaghan who managed to furnish the gardaí with the names of those responsible for stealing the horse. He was also able to tell gardaí that the horse had been shot because kidnappers could not control him.
There never had been any suggestion that Shergar was taken to Kerry. Bringing a horse that was out of control all the way to Kerry was most unlikely. The media certainly did not cover themselves in glory with the Shergar story last week. One look at the skull should have been enough to provoke the most serious scepticism because the horse was shot so precisely in the middle of the forehead that it had probably been put out of its misery, whereas Shergar was put down to protect the people around it. A horse out of control was hardly likely to have stood still for any one to shoot him so precisely.
When Councillor Tommy Foley found the skull, he did not call the gardaí first. Instead he called the press. If Tommy was just looking for publicity, he certainly got it. He made the television news here and in Britain, as well as Sky News on satellite. He also made the newspapers from Tralee to Sydney, where the Morning Herald gave full play to Councillor Foley's fanciful story. It would have been a great April Fool's joke, only it was two weeks late.
O'Callaghan's greatest contribution in the Shergar affair was not that he fingered those who stole the horse, but he was able to disrupt their next operation. After their trouble with the highly strung horse, they obviously decided that it would be a
lot easier to kidnap a millionaire and hold him for ransom. Their plan was to kidnap Canadian businessman Galen Weston of Brown Thomas. They planned to seize him at home in Roundwood, Co Wicklow.
Acting on information from O'Callaghan, armed detectives from the Special Branch staked out the house and confronted the would-be kidnappers when they arrived in August 1983. A shoot-out ensued in which two of the gang were wounded and three others captured.
O'Callaghan was in on the planning of the kidnapping of Don Tidey, which raises the question about why the gardaí did not break up that operation in the same way that they frustrated the attempt to kidnap Galen Weston? The answer seems pretty obvious - they were afraid of compromising O'Callaghan's position within the Provos, and he was much too valuable as an agent to risk blowing his cover.
But then one wonders how far the Special Branch were prepared to go to protect O'Callaghan's cover. Not only was Tidey's life put at risk, but a young soldier, Private PJ Kelly of Athlone, and a trainee garda, Peter Sheehan from Co Monaghan, were killed in his rescue.
In his interview for Fighting Hatred, O'Callaghan clearly felt that his greatest service was in blocking an American arms shipment on the Marita Ann.
In January 1984, Joseph Murray and John McIntyre visited Kerry to plan the transfer of the arms off the Kerry coast. The gardaí kept Marita Ann under surveillance and seized it as it was returning to shore with seven tonnes of arms transferred at sea from the American vessel, Valhalla.
The Provos realised the project had been betrayed, but people had their suspicions on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Boston end, John McIntyre suspected the whole thing had been betrayed by Joseph Murray, who was supposed to have flown to Ireland and sail on the Marita Ann. Although he reportedly flew to Shannon, he then turned around and returned to Boston because his wife was supposedly taken ill. Following his return, McIntyre was arrested - not for gun running but for loitering. He promptly offered his services to the police to nail Murray.
The federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was called in and McIntyre agreed to set up Murray for a major drug bust, as he was the main cannabis supplier in the Boston area. McIntyre told the DEA that Murray was involved with a man named Whitey but then McIntyre vanished and his body was only found earlier this year, 15 years after he was murdered.
McIntyre's brother Chris was convinced that his brother had been killed because he made the mistake of thinking that Murray was the informer. In fact, there was an informer at the US end, Murray's associate, James Whitey Bulger, older brother of the then president of Massachusetts Senate.
Whitey Bulger notified the FBI as soon as Valhalla left Boston with the arms shipment. He was apparently trying to take over Murray's drug smuggling operation.
O'Callaghan was not the only garda informer mixed up in the story. Sean Corcoran, regarded as a low grade informer by gardaí, suspected that O'Callaghan was also an informer. Four days before the Marita Ann sailed on September 14, 1984, Corcoran's handler, JP O'Sullivan notified C3, the garda security division, that Corcoran was aware that O'Callaghan had a garda source.
The Provos were inevitably going to plug their leak, so Corcoran was an obvious threat to O'Callaghan. Six months later Corcoran went missing in Kerry and his body was later found near Ovens, outside Cork city. O'Callaghan says he informed the gardaí to rescue Corcoran, but they looked for him in the wrong place.
Corcoran's handler knew where he was going, but he was never asked. Don Tidey had been put at risk and two people inadvertently sacrificed to protect O'Callaghan's cover earlier - was Sean Corcoran also sacrificed?
© Irish Examiner, 2000