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John Joe McGee (died 2002, Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland) was an IRA volunteer who was formerly in the British Special Boat Service.
McGee had been a member of the Special Boat Service prior to joining the Irish Republican Army in the 1970s. He was a member of the Provisional IRA's 'nutting squad', the Internal Security Unit. He became its leader for around a decade between the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Between forty to fifty of those investigated by the unit were also executed as suspected informers or alleged British agents. Its sentences could only be countermanded by a member of the IRA Army Council. Members of the unit included Eamon Collins, Freddie Scappaticci, and "Kevin Fulton". During a court appearance, Fulton stated:
In 1979 I was approached by the Intelligence Corps, a branch of the British Army, whilst serving with my regiment the Royal Irish Rangers in Northern Ireland. I was asked to infiltrate a terrorist group, namely the PIRA during this time as part of my undercover work for the Force Research Unit. I was active in the commission of terrorist acts and crimes … During this time my handlers were fully conversant with my activities and had guided me in my work which included the security section of the PIRA. The commanding officer of this section was John Joe Magee, a former member of the Special Boat Squadron. The purpose of this unit was solely to hunt out agents and informers of the British state. The suspected agents would be … tortured and murdered after obtaining any information.
Eamon Collins (later killed by the IRA) quoted a conversation he had with McGee and Scappaticci in his book, Killing Rage:
I asked whether they always told people that they were going to be shot. Scap said it depended on the circumstances. He turned to John Joe (his boss, John Joe Magee) and started joking about one informer who had confessed after being offered an amnesty. Scap told the man he would take him home, reassuring him he had nothing to worry about. Scap had told him to keep the blindfold on for security reasons as they walked from the car. "It was funny," he (Scap) said, "watching the bastard stumbling and falling, asking me as he felt his way along railings and walls, "Is this my house now?" and I'd say, "No, not yet, walk on some more ..." " 'And then you shot the fucker in the back of the head," said John Joe, and both of them burst out laughing.
"Stakeknife" is the code name of a high-level spy who successfully infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) while working for the top-secret Force Research Unit (FRU) of the British Army. Reports claim that Stakeknife worked for British intelligence for 25 years. Stakeknife has been accused of being a double agent who oversaw the murders of informers within the IRA while working for the British. British officials launched Operation Kenova to investigate these claims of state involvement in the kidnap, torture and murder of more than 50 individuals, leading to the arrest of Freddie Scappaticci in January 2018 on accusations that he was Stakeknife—a claim which Scappaticci denied.
The Force Research Unit (FRU) was a covert military intelligence unit of the British Army's Intelligence Corps. It was established in 1982 during the Troubles to obtain intelligence from terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland by recruiting and running agents and informants.
Sean O'Callaghan was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s worked against the organisation from within as an intelligence agent for the Irish Government with the Garda Síochána's Special Branch.
Jean McConville was a woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who was kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and secretly buried in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland in 1972 after being accused by the IRA of passing information to British forces.
Freddie Scappaticci is a purported former high-level double agent in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), known by the codename "Stakeknife".
Eamon Collins was a Provisional Irish Republican Army member in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He turned his back on the organisation in the late 1980s, and later co-authored a book called Killing Rage detailing his experiences within it. In January 1999 he was waylaid on a public road and murdered near his home in Newry in Northern Ireland.
The Internal Security Unit (ISU) was the counter-intelligence and interrogation unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). This unit was often referred to as the Nutting Squad.
Peter Keeley, who uses the pseudonym Kevin Fulton, is a British agent from Newry, Northern Ireland, who allegedly spied on the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) for MI5. He is believed to be in London, where he is suing the Crown, claiming his military handlers cut off their connections and financial aid to him. In 2004, he reportedly sued the Andersonstown News, an Irish republican news outlet in Belfast, for revealing his identity as well as publishing his photograph. The result of that suit has not been made public.
Martin McGartland is a former British informer who infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1989 to pass information to RUC Special Branch.
The Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA was the largest of the organisation's brigades, based in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Joseph "Joe" Fenton was an estate agent from Belfast, Northern Ireland, killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) for acting as an informer for RUC Special Branch.
Paul "Dingus" Magee is a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980. After serving a prison sentence in the Republic of Ireland, Magee fled to England where he was imprisoned after killing a policeman in 1992. He was repatriated to the Republic of Ireland as part of the Northern Ireland peace process before being released from prison in 1999, and subsequently avoided extradition back to Northern Ireland to serve his sentence for killing the member of the SAS.
Peter Joseph Cleary was an Irish republican and a leading member of the 1st Battalion of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s South Armagh Brigade. He held the rank of Staff Officer and served as the unit's treasurer. He was implicated by journalist and author Joe Tiernan in the killing of Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) corporal and alleged Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member Robert McConnell. Ten days after McConnell's killing, Cleary was shot dead by the Special Air Service (SAS) after being arrested at the home of his girlfriend outside Forkhill. He was the first person in Northern Ireland to be killed by the SAS, following the admission of their deployment there in January 1976. According to the SAS, he was shot after attempting to take the rifle from the officer who was guarding him in a bid to escape.
Tommy "Tucker" Lyttle, was a high-ranking Ulster loyalist during the period of religious-political conflict in Northern Ireland known as "the Troubles". A member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) – the largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland – he first held the rank of lieutenant colonel and later was made a brigadier. He served as the UDA's spokesman as well as the leader of the organisation's West Belfast Brigade from 1975 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1990. According to journalists Henry McDonald and Brian Rowan, and the Pat Finucane Centre, he became a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch informer.
Thomas Oliver was a 43-year-old Irish farmer who was tortured and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1991, reportedly for passing information to the Garda Síochána. However, in the wake of the Stakeknife case it began to be suspected that Freddie Scappaticci – who ran the IRA's Internal Security Unit, which was responsible for torturing and killing Thomas Oliver – killed Oliver to conceal his identity as a double agent.
Mary Travers was a teacher who was shot dead in Belfast on 8 April 1984 by Provisional IRA gunmen trying to assassinate her father, Thomas, a Catholic magistrate. Mary Travers was about 22 at the time.
The Jonesborough ambush took place on 20 March 1989 near the Irish border outside the village of Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, were shot dead in an ambush by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. Breen and Buchanan were returning from an informal cross-border security conference in Dundalk with senior Garda officers when Buchanan's car, a red Vauxhall Cavalier, was flagged down and fired upon by six IRA gunmen, who the policemen had taken for British soldiers. Buchanan was killed outright whilst Breen, suffering gunshot wounds, was forced to lie on the ground and shot in the back of the head after he had left the car waving a white handkerchief. They were the highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles.
Catherine and Gerard Mahon were a husband and wife who lived in Twinbrook, Belfast. Gerard, aged twenty-eight, was a mechanic; Catherine, was twenty-seven. They were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 8 September 1985, the IRA alleging they were informers. However at least two of those responsible for their deaths were later uncovered as British agents within the IRA's Internal Security Unit, leaving the actual status of the Mahons as informers open to doubt.
Margaret Perry was a 26-year-old woman from Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland who was abducted on 21 June 1991. After a tip from the IRA, her body was found buried across the border in a field in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, on 30 June 1992. She had been beaten to death. Her murder has never been solved.