"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. Scappaticci died in 2023.
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. From 1987 to 1991, it was commanded by Gordon Kerr.
The Irish People's Liberation Organisation was a small Irish socialist republican paramilitary organisation formed in 1986 by disaffected and expelled members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), whose factions coalesced in the aftermath of the supergrass trials. It developed a reputation for intra-republican and sectarian violence as well as criminality, before being forcibly disbanded by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1992.
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 was a Northern Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and a leading member of its Internal Security Unit. In 2003, it was reported that Scappaticci had been working for British intelligence, their highest-ranking agent in the IRA, and was known by the codename "Stakeknife". Both the IRA and Scappaticci himself have always denied any involvement with British intelligence.
Stormontgate is the name given to the controversy surrounding an alleged Provisional Irish Republican Army spy ring and intelligence-gathering operation based in Stormont, the parliament building of Northern Ireland. The term was coined in October 2002 after the arrest of Sinn Féin's Northern Ireland Assembly group administrator Denis Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciarán Kearney, and former porter William Mackessy for intelligence-gathering on 4 October 2002.
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.
The McMahon killings or the McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A group of police officers broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and a female family member was assaulted. The survivors said most of the gunmen wore police uniform and it is suspected they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) killing of two policemen on May Street, Belfast the day before.
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 July 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.
Andrew Kearney was a Belfast man who died as a result of a punishment shooting carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
John Joe McGee was an IRA volunteer who was formerly in the British Special Boat Service.
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.
