Sir, - It was rich of Sean O'Callaghan (letters, January 17th) to get excited about Vincent Browne naming names! "Finally, Browne finds the courage to mention Danny Morrison's name", he says.
I never intended getting dragged into this debate and Vincent Browne is not the person responsible. It came about as follows. Vincent Browne was interviewing Sean O'Callaghan on RTE lasts December and doubting whether Sean, who had not been involved with the IRA for over ten years, was as qualified as he was claiming to be about the republican peace strategy and current IRA intentions. Sean was momentarily stumped but then came up with an explanation which had never featured before in any of the many interviews he had given. He said that he had a meeting with a leading member of Sinn Fein in Crumlin Road Jail in January 1990 after that person had just been arrested and that person claimed to be a member of the IRA army council and gave him details of the peace strategy. I found it interesting that Sean, who has informed on many of his friends and sent them to prison and who has named in the Sunday Times former comrades and attributed to them damaging sectarian remarks, did not name to Browne. I shall return to this in a moment.
I knew Sean O Callaghan for about a year when he was on the ard comhairle of Sinn Fein. When he disappeared from Kerry I was told that he was the leading suspect in the capture of the Marita Ann IRA arms shipment. Some time later Sean gave himself up in England and confessed to a number of IRA operations, including the killing, of an RUC Special Branch officer. He was transferred to the base of "D" Wing, Crumlin Road Jail, where supergrasses and informers were housed.
In 1989 members of his family visited him and then had a meeting with myself in the Sinn Fein offices in Belfast. They said that they were extremely concerned for Sean's mental state and felt that in isolation he was being manipulated - "brain washed" was the term they used. They asked was he under any threat from the IRA and could I get an assurance that he would be safe if he came on to the republican wings.
I went to the IRA. I was told that they had proof he was an informer but that they preferred him on the republican wings, away from his Ml5 handlers, because they were concerned that he might turn supergrass and take the witness stand. They gave an assurance that he would not be harmed, that the O/C of the jail would be acquainted with this instruction, but that the family were to be told to tell Sean that the IRA did not believe their brother was an informer. Sean received the guarantees and moved on to C Wing.
In January 1990 I was arrested and charged with kidnapping and conspiring to kill an informer. On my first night in "C" Wing the O/ C reintroduced me to Sean and I spent about an hour and a half in conversation. He looked in a terrible state. He told me that he was on medication for his nerves.
Sean is now claiming that I told him I was a member of the IRA army council and filled him in on the peace process. Is this likely? I knew he was an informer and there was I in jail because of another informer! But, even if his claims were, true, what could I have told him in January 1990 when the British had yet to open up their secret talks with the Republican Movement (mid 1990) and the Hume Adams dialogue had not yet commenced?
What Sean talked to me about that night apart from a ridiculous proposal that if I got him cyanide he would kill the loyalist Michael Stone - was his personal life and the people whom he had loved and hurt and that is as much detail as I am prepared to go into. It was a genuine, confidential conversation and I believe he knows that and I believe that it was initially out of some vestige of respect that he refrained from attacking me until cornered by Vincent Browne.
The morning after our conversation Sean told his cell mate to ring the bell and get the medic. He was taken out on a stretcher and went back to the base in "D" Wing and I never saw him again. The MO told us that he had taken an overdose.
There is no doubt that Sean O'Callaghan's life is ruined and that he must be a very sad and lonely person, having informed on friends and comrades and hurt his family, not being able to live with his conscience, and being surrounded now by former enemies and critics.
Sean should come to terms with what he is - an informer - and stop trying to ennoble the grubby deeds he did. - Is mise,
Belfast.