From one of our most trusted counterterrorism experts, a sweeping, insider’s account of the decade-long chase for America’s deadliest enemy.

This comprehensive, landmark history chronicles our ongoing battle against al-Qa’ida, the greatest threat the West has faced in the modern era. An internationally recognized authority on terrorism and counterinsurgency, Seth G. Jones presents a dramatic narrative of the on-the-ground police work; the elaborate, multiyear investigations led by the CIA, FBI, and Britain’s MI5; and the shifting and deadly alliances between terrorist groups that have characterized the conflict. With gripping detail he recounts the against-the-clock hunt for the Times Square bomber and reveals startling information about Osama bin Laden’s behavior during his final days. Drawing on recently declassified documents and court materials, transcripts of wiretapped conversations, and interviews with current and former government officials from the United States and key allies, Jones navigates the “waves” (al Qa’ida attacks) and “reverse waves” (successful efforts to disrupt al’Qa’ida), explaining how we might analyze past patterns in order to successfully counter al Qa’ida and its allies in the future.

About Seth G. Jones

Seth G. Jones serves as an advisor and plans officer for the Commanding General, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan. He lives outside of Washington, DC, and contributes regularly to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Jones was named one of 2008′s ‘Best and Brightest’ young policy experts by Esquire.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

What has caused the three surges in terrorist activity over the past decade-plus, and can the next one be predicted? RAND analyst Jones (In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan, 2009, etc.) fashions a complete tutorial in the rise of violent jihadism, which emerged from the struggle against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. The organization’s early leaders had competing visions about its mission that created enormous tension. Chief Egyptian idealogue Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, author of the seminal Primer in Preparing for Jihad, warned against taking the violent campaign against the Egyptian government and asserted that the terrorist tactics “grossly misinterpreted Islam.” His deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri became increasingly militant, joining with other groups and turning the struggle outward to the corrupting influence of the West on Islam. In 1998, al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden and others published a fatwa to kill Americans, yet it wasn’t until the simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that the U.S. finally took full notice. Jones tracks the American response—e.g., by CIA officials Henry Crumpton and Philip Mudd, as the first wave of violence crested with 9/11. The author ably organizes all the pieces of the puzzle regarding successive terrorist attacks, fleshing out the numerous personalities involved, tracking the U.S. and British response and decade-long hunt for bin Laden and establishing excellent perspective on the amorphous nature of the enemy and the dissention from within. In preventing a next wave of terrorism, Jones propounds exploiting al-Qaeda’s tendency to kill civilians as a way of eliciting backlash against the group. – Kirkus Reviews

Predicting Al-Qaida’s Future By Examining Its Past

NPR Book Review – April 26, 2012 (Excerpt)

When Osama bin Laden was killed by American special forces nearly a year ago, it raised questions about the future of al-Qaida.

To imagine what that future might be, a new book goes backward in time, exploring the terrorist group’s history. It’s called Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al-Qaida Since 9/11. Author Seth Jones is an expert on international terrorism who has advised the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Jones tells NPR’s Renee Montagne that he sees three distinct waves of activity in al-Qaida’s history, beginning with attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. That wave peaked with the Sept. 11 attacks and ended as the Taliban were driven out of Afghanistan.

“There’s then a second wave that emerges around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that is followed by a surge of al-Qaida activity in Madrid, in London, in Casablanca, in Bali,” he says. “And then by about 2006, al-Qaida in Iraq in particular begins to lose its foothold … and there’s a major reverse wave.”

Jones says the second wave would have been unlikely — or at the very least smaller — had the U.S. not invaded Iraq. And he credits the reversal of that second wave not to the American troop surge, but to Sunni locals frustrated and disgusted with civilian casualties, with American troops there to support local efforts against al-Qaida. [Read the full article...]

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

I am working with Wilfried Voss to establish some hard facts about the career of the late Captain Robert Nairac GC, Grenadier Guards. As regular readers of this blog will know, Captain Nairac, who was working undercover, was abducted, tortured and murdered by the Provisional IRA in May 1977.  His body has never been found and the file on his murder has never been closed. He is still a deeply controversial and emotive subject in Ireland and the UK. He has passed into legend.  To this day there are rumours that his abduction and murder were staged by the British authorities and that he is still alive somewhere, presumably in deep-cover or in some secret intelligence “dreamtime”.  A similar rumour persisted, especially among Arabs, about Nairac’s boyhood hero T E Lawrence, who was said to have staged his own death in 1935 and to have died in reality well after World War II in Tangier. Few historians have taken this legend seriously.

The most readily available books on Nairac are:

Blood Knots: A Memoir of Fishing and Friendship by Luke Jennings. Jennings knew Nairac from the time that he, Jennings, was twelve and Nairac was eighteen, until shortly before Nairac’s murder.  This book shows the private Nairac in a deeply sympathetic, although not wholly uncritical, light. The book is worth reading for its excellent prose and reflections on the art of angling, into which Nairac helped to initiate Jennings.

Death of a Hero by John Parker. This book has been republished with new material as Secret Hero. This is probably the best Nairac biography available, although it explicitly limits itself to Nairac’s military career. Out of deference to his family, there is little about his personal life and pre-Army experience.  John Parker is a distinguished biographer, whose subjects include the Duke of Windsor, Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson. He has also written a number of books on military subjects.

Faith and Duty by Nicky Curtis.  An excellent book about one soldier’s war in Northern Ireland; it is not just about Nairac. Nicky Curtis was a non-commissioned officer in the Green Howards; later in 14 Int. Unusually for an NCO memoir, it is well-written and deserves its place in the literature of war. It falls into two parts: Curtis’ career as a uniformed soldier in the streets of Belfast, and his second career in intelligence, under cover. During this time he worked closely with Nairac and seems to have become a friend and admirer. He understood him as well as anyone has ever understood that intelligent, versatile, complex, difficult man.

The Ultras by Eoin MacNamee. This is a novel about Nairac and others, written from an Irish perspective.  The author indicates that, while fiction, it is factually-based and I have been able to verify some details.  Some of it has to be supposition. Intriguingly, it has been suggested that the book was published as a novel for libel reasons; it might contain more fact than we realise.

Requiem for a Spy: the Killing of Robert Nairac by Anthony Bradley.  Published in Ireland, this book is bitterly anti-British and anti-Nairac. It also contains a number of irritating factual errors. The author seems to think that Nairac was born in Sunderland in England, not Mauritius. He gives his age at death wrongly: Nairac was 28, not 29, when he was murdered. Days in the Life is not an Oxford memoir by Duncan Fallowell:  it is a book about nineteen-sixties culture by Jonathon Green. It includes a large number of edited interviews. Fallowell is a minor contributor. One of his two interviews, about LSD abuse at Oxford, does provide an amusing vignette of Nairac at Oxford. I could provide other examples of inaccuracies. Nevertheless Requiem for a Spy, with The Ultras, provides an Irish perspective on Nairac, and some intriguing insights.

Nairac features in many other books, notably The Dirty War by Martin Dillon and Bandit Country: the IRA and South Armagh by Toby Harnden.  He is also treated with some attention in the writings of Fred Holroyd and Colin Wallace; neither of whom is a wholly reliable source. In addition, many Press articles have treated, and continue to treat, Nairac and his murder.

Faced with such a plethora of material; some of it misleading, much of it hard to verify, it is hard to establish even a timeline. Much published information is open to doubt. To give a few examples:

Place of birth. Robert Nairac was definitely born in 1948 in Mauritius, where his parents lived at the time. However at least one author asserts that he was born in Sunderland, in northern England.  Nairac’s parents really did live in Sunderland when he was small. This may have helped to cause the confusion. The City of Sunderland has adopted Nairac as a “famous son”, along with Sir Henry Havelock and the ancestors of George Washington, who lived nearby at Washington Old Hall. A project is in hand to erect a wall of remembrance to all Sunderland soldiers who have died in action since World War II. (Sunderland has lost its fair share of soldiers in Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan). Nairac’s name will appear on it.

An Irish Connection. It is well-known that Nairac developed an early affinity for Ireland and often spent academic holidays there with his friends, the sons of Lord Killanin. However there are   persistent rumours that he was actually of southern Irish descent. I have not been able to find any confirmation of this. These rumours seem to have been started by Nairac himself and have been repeated by later biographers. Nicky Curtis states, presumably because he was told by Nairac, that “his parents were Irish and Catholic”. In fact, Nairac’s father was Catholic and Franco-Mauritian. His mother was English and Protestant.  I think that Nairac very much wished that he had had some Irish blood. For different reasons T E Lawrence was also apt to make misleading statements about his ancestry, and other things.

A French Connection.  This is much better substantiated. The Nairacs were of French descent, originally from the Bordeaux region.  The name is still found there. The wine Chateau Nairac once belonged to the family, although they sold the vineyard in the early nineteenth century. However the Nairac name stuck.  Robert Nairac’s branch settled in the Ile Maurice (Mauritius) as planters and landowners and remained there after the island became British, as did most of the French plantocrats. Robert Nairac’s photographs show him looking very southern French, with tough, dark good looks, slightly reminiscent of a young Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Old Catholic Gentry. Yes and no. Luke Jennings describes boyhood visits to Nairac’s family’s “almost absurdly beautiful” manor house in Gloucestershire, Master’s Keep. However this house was bought, not inherited. No doubt the Nairacs, with their charm, distinction and aptitude for field sports, fitted easily enough into county society. But they were not long-established in Gloucestershire, nor did they belong to the circle of old English Catholic recusant families whom Evelyn Waugh celebrates in Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy. Again, they seem to have fitted in well there,   too. The Nairac brothers’ education at Ampleforth would have helped this process.  Not being an old-established family, they did not have a “family regiment” or a “county regiment” that Robert might have joined as of right. In the event he set his sights high: the Grenadier Guards. He was accepted by that elite regiment, thanks to the connections of his friend Julian Malins’ father.

I am happy to be corrected if any detail above is incorrect. I hope to return to this subject in a later blog entry.

This post is part of a series of articles on the life of Captain Robert Nairac. For more information see The Secret Life Of British Captain Robert Nairac.

My research on British Army Captain Robert Nairac is as much about Nairac’s secret life (if, in fact, it existed) as it is about homophobia, discrimination, and ignorance.

I had been warned that my continued research on the person of British Captain Robert Nairac might cause criticism and threats, specifically from residents in the United Kingdom, and, as a matter of fact, I have already been through several rounds of such fruitless communications. As they say, “Insult is the weak man’s imitation of strength,” and most of the criticism I received was filled with insults. Any requests to contribute facts that would complete, correct, or even contradict my research went unanswered.

The tragic story of Nairac’s abduction and murder by the IRA will remain in the minds of family, friends, and admirers, but what struck me as odd was the total refusal to look deeper into the childhood of one of the most charismatic characters in the United Kingdom’s military history of the 20^th century.

In January of 2012, I contacted Dr. Eamonn O’Neill through his website and raised the topic of Nairac’s alleged homosexuality and possible physical or sexual abuse at Ampleforth College. It is fair to say that Dr. O’Neill was not at his best when he answered, not being familiar with proper etiquette of online inquiries. I admit that, during the course of our brief communication, I lost all respect I had for an investigative journalist of Dr. O’Neill’s caliber.

I was flabbergasted how quickly and how arrogantly he dismissed such an essential part of Nairac’s psyche that might ultimately answer all questions Dr. O’Neill raised in his “Shadow Man” article, provided one looks into the psychological side of the topic, which he refused to do, claiming lack of expertise in psychology.

Dr. O’Neill had a valid point, though, by expressing that unless he had documentary proof he wouldn’t dream of publishing any such information. That may be part of responsible investigative journalism, but his response also indicated that he was not interested in investigating the topic in any shape or form. My point is, if you don’t dig you won’t find any documentary proof.

But even more compelling, if not stunning is a statement by John Parker, the author of  Secret Hero – The life and mysterious death of Captain Robert Nairac, whose “compelling biography uncovers the truth of Nairac’s secret war and heroic death.”

In deference to his family, Robert Nairac’s personal and private life will not form part of this book, other than in passing references.
- Excerpt from Secret Hero – The life and mysterious death of Captain Robert Nairac by John Parker

This is, in fact, an extraordinary admission, given that Nairac’s obsession with Ireland, the circumstances of Nairac’s presence in Northern Ireland, and his army career were all dependent on choices he had made and which were influenced by his character and background.

Moreover, John Parker is a biographer who has written biographies of the Queen of England, Prince Philip, Sir Sean Connery, and many other celebrities. Is it not his job to write about people’s personal and private lives? Imagine for a moment a book about Winston Churchill that did not examine his personal and private life, but confined itself to his literary and political careers.

Given that Nairac has been demonized by Irish media, would this not have been a chance to set the record straight? So what was the family problem?

Nevertheless, there are, in fact, several references that address Nairac’s possible homosexuality (ranging from cautious indication to outright claim) and physical abuse during his childhood. The question is, however, what constitutes “documentary proof”? Nobody should expect to find explicit photos or personal letters, not even personal accounts from alleged lovers. If there was a secret life, it had to be, given the circumstances of the time and the lack of a support system, secret.

On June 10, 2001, the Sunday Mirror (London, England) published an article titled “Nel of liar; DNA tests disprove woman’s claims that spy Nairac fathered her child” about an unfortunate event sufficiently described by the title itself. Without going into the details of the case, let me quote a few lines from the article:

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac and related topics referring to the Irish Troubles on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

This post is part of a series of articles on the life of Captain Robert Nairac. For more information see The Secret Life Of British Captain Robert Nairac.

Nairac took on the role of liaison officer with 14 Int, linking Army and intelligence units and finding information in the “Intelligence desert” of the border area of South Armagh. Major Clive  Fairweather, who served in the top-level intelligence post of G2/Int inside the Lisburn-based British Army HQ in Northern Ireland, knew Nairac and is very clear that, despite many claims to the contrary, Nairac was never an SAS man. He was only attached to their unit and had never gone through full SAS training. (Source: http://www.eamonnoneill.com/shadow-man-an-investigation-into-robert-nairac/)

Nairac volunteered for military intelligence duties in Northern Ireland. Following completion of several training courses, he returned to Northern Ireland in 1974 attached to 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers, one of the three sub-units of a Special Duties unit known as 14 Intelligence Company (14 Int). Posted to South Armagh, 4 Field Survey Troop was given the task of performing surveillance duties. Nairac was the liaison officer among the unit, the local Army brigade, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

He also seems to have taken on tasks which were outside his jurisdiction as a liaison officer – working undercover, for example. He apparently claimed to have visited pubs in republican strongholds and sung Irish rebel songs and acquired the nickname “Danny boy”. He was often driven to pubs by now-Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, who was then an Army officer. Former SAS Warrant Officer Ken Connor, who was involved in the creation of 14 Int, wrote of him in his book, Ghost Force, p. 263:

Had he been an SAS member, he would not have been allowed to operate in the way he did. Before his death we had been very concerned at the lack of checks on his activities. No one seemed to know who his boss was, and he appeared to have been allowed to get out of control, deciding himself what tasks he would do.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nairac)

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac and related topics referring to the Irish Troubles on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

When it comes to the military career of British Captain Robert Nairac in Northern Ireland between 1973 (especially since 1974 when he joined “The Det” or “14 Int”) and his death in 1977, one name surfaces on a regular basis, that of Robert John “Robin” Jackson, known as the Jackal. If all allegations are to be believed, then British Captain Robert Nairac may have been responsible for a great number of killings, including the Miami Showband massacre, the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, and more. The allegations also imply that Nairac’s activities were not limited to Northern Ireland, but also the Republic of Ireland.

These allegations add to the picture that Captain Nairac, most probably unknown to and not approved by officials of the British Military, may have fought his own war, abandoning the rules he once respected, taking on tasks that were outside his jurisdiction, and “running” violent agents inside opposing paramilitary organizations.

Robin Jackson

Robert John “Robin” Jackson, known as the Jackal (27 September 1948  – 30 May 1998) was a Northern Irish loyalist who held the rank of brigadier in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the period of violent religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. He is alleged to have organised and committed a series of killings against the Catholic nationalist and republican community, although he was never convicted in connection with any killing and never served any lengthy prison terms.

An article by Paul Foot in Private Eye suggested that Jackson led one of the teams that bombed Dublin on 17 May 1974, killing 26 people, including two infants. RUC Special Patrol Group (SPG) officer John Weir, himself a convicted murderer, also maintained this in a sworn affidavit which was published in 2003 in the Barron Report, which was the findings of an official investigation into the Dublin bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron. Journalist Kevin Dowling in the Irish Independent alleged that Jackson had headed the gang that perpetrated the Miami Showband killings which left three members of the Irish cabaret band dead and two wounded. Journalist Joe Tiernan and the Pat Finucane Centre also alleged this as well as his implication in the Dublin bombings. When questioned about the latter, Jackson denied involvement. Findings noted in a report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) (released in December 2011) confirmed that Jackson was linked to the Miami Showband attack through his fingerprints which had been found on the silencer specifically made for the Luger pistol used in the shootings.

It was stated by Weir, as well as by other people including former British soldier and psychological warfare operative Major Colin Wallace, that he was an RUC Special Branch agent. It was also said he had links to British Military Intelligence and Captain Robert Nairac. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Jackson)

Links to Captain Robert Nairac

On 7 July 1993 the British television station Yorkshire Television broadcast, as part of First Tuesday series, the documentary Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre, a programme on the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan.

It was stated by The Hidden Hand programme that Jackson had links to British Military Intelligence and Liaison officer Captain Robert Nairac. The Hidden Hand alleged that Jackson and his UVF comrades were controlled by Nairac who was attached to 14th Intelligence Company (The Det). Former MI6 operative, Captain Fred Holroyd claimed that Nairac admitted to having been involved in John Francis Green’s death and had shown Holroyd a colour polaroid photograph of Green’s corpse to back up his claim. Holroyd believed that for some months leading up to his shooting, Green had been kept under surveillance by 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers, one of the three sub-units of 14th Intelligence. This unit was based in Castledillon, County Armagh, and according to Holroyd, was the cover name of an SAS troop commanded by Nairac and Captain Julian Antony “Tony” Ball. Nairac was himself abducted and killed by the IRA in 1977, and Ball was killed in an accident in Oman in 1981. Justice Barron himself questioned Holroyd’s evidence as a result of two later Garda investigations, where Detective Inspector Culhane discounted Holroyd’s allegations regarding Nairac and the polaroid photograph. Culhane concluded that the latter had been one of a series of official photographs taken of Green’s body the morning following his killing by Detective Sergeant William Stratford, who worked in the Garda Technical Bureau’s Photography Section.

Weir made the following statements in relation to Jackson and Nairac’s alleged mutual involvement in the Green assassination: ”The men who did that shooting were Robert McConnell, Robin Jackson, and I would be almost certain, Harris Boyle who was killed in the Miami attack. What I am absolutely certain of is that Robert McConnell, Robert McConnell knew that area really, really well. Robin Jackson was with him. I was later told that Nairac was with them. I was told by…a UVF man, he was very close to Jackson and operated with him. Jackson told [him] that Nairac was with them”.

In his 1989 book War Without Honour, Holyroyd claimed that Nairac had organised the Miami Showband ambush in collaboration with Jackson, and had also been present at Buskhill when the attack was carried out. Bassist Stephen Travers and saxophonist Des McAlea, the two bandmembers who survived the shootings, both testified in court that a British Army officer “with a crisp, clipped English accent” had overseen the operation. However, when shown a photograph of Nairac, Travers could not positively identify him as the soldier who had been at the scene. Author Martin Dillon in The Dirty War adamantly stated that Nairac had not been involved in the Green killing nor in the Miami Showband massacre.

The Barron Report noted that although Weir maintained that Jackson and Billy Hanna had links to Nairac and British Military Intelligence, his claim did not imply that the British Army or Military Intelligence had aided the two men in the planning and perpetration of the 1974 Dublin bombings. While in prison, Weir wrote a letter to a friend claiming that Nairac had ties to both Jackson and James Mitchell, owner of the Glenanne farm.

The 2006 Interim Report of Mr. Justice Barron’s inquiry into the Dundalk bombing of 1975 concluded that Jackson was one of the suspected bombers “reliably said to have had relationships with British Intelligence and or RUC Special Branch officers”. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Jackson)

The 1974 Bombings in Dublin And Monaghan

Both [Robert Nairac and Julian "Tony" Ball] have been linked, for example, to the worst single day of atrocity in the entire Troubles: the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, which killed 33 people (the 1998 outrage in Omagh saw 29 victims murdered).

Solicitors representing the families of victims of these bombs have recently examined secret British Army documents that leads them to believe British military intelligence groups used Loyalist groups as agent provocateurs. It is alleged that the bombs were planted by Loyalists aided by an “out of control” British Army intelligence faction seeking to show Dublin that if it wanted to share power, it would also have to share pain, and as a warning to the area to stop acting as a haven for Republican terrorists.

Certainly, the Garda (the Irish police) knew within 72 hours of the bombs being detonated that the cars used were from Loyalist areas of Northern Ireland. Within weeks they had identified prime suspects, all of whom were members of the Mid-Ulster UVF (and all of whom are now dead, many as a result of terrorist activities). Dublin passed tis information to Belfast but no arrests or court appearances followed. However, experts have agreed that the UVF did not have the expertise to organise the detonation of three car bombs within 90 seconds and with 100 per cent effectiveness; only a military operation could achieve that.

Government authorities in Dublin have secret papers that point to British military involvement. A Dublin solder told me British correspondence from the time suggests “the Dublin and Monaghan bombings had been connected to a group known as the Protestant Action Force, or Protestant Task Force, which was controlled by a special-duties team from the British Army HQ in Lisburn. It has been known for some time that a special British Army unit operated in Armagh in 1974 unter the title of 4 Field Survey Group.” Nairac was in that group. (Source: Shadow Man: An Investigation into Robert Nairac by Eamonn O’Neill).

Nairac’s Interest in Loyalist Paramilitaries

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the murder by the IRA of undercover soldier Captain Robert Nairac. A former UDR officer who worked with Nairac tells Stephen Gordon of his disturbing memories of the SAS-trained soldier and how his cavalier ways alarmed him…

Ex-UDR officer ‘Dan’ will never forget his first meeting with Grenadier Guardsman Robert Nairac.

It was during that meeting in 1975 that Nairac asked the Co Armagh-based soldier if he knew any UDR men who wanted to “take on the IRA at their own game”.

Their first journey into south Armagh followed an order by his operations officer to take a new ‘MILO’ (Military Intelligence Liaison Officer) on a ‘familiarisation’ tour of the Battalion area.

“I first saw Bob Nairac when he arrived at my home near Portadown, parked his car in the drive, walked up to the front door and introduced himself as Captain Charlie McDonald. He said he was based at Castledillon.

“He wanted me to take him around the area, point out known ‘players’, that sort of thing. But he insisted on using his car, not mine!”

Nairac was driving what the military referred to as a ‘Q’ car – or covert vehicle – that had a military radio fitted behind the ordinary radio and a microphone beneath the seat so the operator did not have to use a handset.

Dan said that from the outset it was obvious Nairac was well trained in counter-surveillance techniques.

“He knew the ropes. He was clearly no ordinary ‘MILO’. He was much sharper than any others I had met. He asked very different questions. I soon realised this guy was not the ‘rookie’ he wanted me to think he was.”

Nairac was particularly interested in loyalist paramilitaries like Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson from Lurgan.

(Source: Nairac: An undercover hero or a maverick fool?)

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac and related topics referring to the Irish Troubles on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Captain Robert Laurence Nairac GC (31 August 1948 –15 May 1977) was a British Army officer who was abducted from a pub in south County Armagh during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) on his fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1979. Whilst several men have been imprisoned for his murder, the whereabouts of his body remains unknown.

Nairac is one of nine IRA victims, whose graves have never been revealed and who are collectively known as ’The Disappeared’. The cases are under review by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains.

Robert Laurence Nairac

1948

Born: 31 August 1948 – Mauritius - Nairac was born in Mauritius to English parents. His family – long settled in Gloucestershire – had ancestors from the south of Ireland. His family name originates from the Gironde area of France. His father was an eye surgeon who worked first in the north of England and then in Gloucester. He was the youngest of four children, with two sisters and a brother.

1959

Prep School at Gilling Castle – Nairac, aged 10, attended prep school at Gilling Castle, a feeder school for the Roman Catholic public school Ampleforth College which he attended a year later.

1960 – ?

Ampleforth College - He gained nine O levels and three A levels, was head of his house and played rugby for the school. He became friends with the sons of Lord Killanin and went to stay with the family in Dublin and Spiddal in County Galway.

? – 1971

Lincoln College – Oxford – He read medieval and military history at Lincoln College, Oxford, and excelled in sport; he played for the Oxford rugby 2nd XV and revived the Oxford boxing club where he won four blues in bouts with Cambridge. There are unproven reports that, during this time, he was in a boxing competition which placed him against Martin Meehan, later a senior IRA commander, with whom he went three rounds. He was also a falconer, keeping a bird in his room which was used in the film Kes.

1971

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst - Nairac left Oxford in 1971 to enter Royal Military Academy Sandhurst under the sponsorship of the Grenadier Guards and was commissioned with them upon graduation.

1972

Dublin University - After Sandhurst he undertook post-graduate studies at Dublin University, before joining his regiment.

Military Career in Northern Ireland

1973

Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards - Nairac’s first tour of duty in Northern Ireland was with No.1 Company, the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. The Battalion was stationed in Belfast from 5 July 1973 to 31 October 1973. The Grenadiers were given responsibility first for the Protestant Shankill Road area and then the predominantly Catholic Ardoyne area. This was a time of high tension and regular contacts with paramilitaries. The battalion’s two main objectives were to search for weapons and to find paramilitaries. Nairac was frequently involved in such activity on the streets of Belfast. He was also a volunteer in community relations activities in the Ardoyne sports club. The battalion’s tour was adjudged a success with 58 weapons, 9,000 rounds of ammunition and 693 lbs of explosive taken and 104 men jailed. The battalion took no casualties and had no occasion to shoot anyone.

1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders - After his tour had ended he stayed on as liaison officer for the replacement battalion, the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The new battalion suffered a baptism of fire with Nairac narrowly avoiding death on their first patrol when a car bomb exploded on the Crumlin Road.

1974 – 1975

14 Intelligence Company - Rather than returning to his battalion, which was due for rotation to Hong Kong, Nairac volunteered for military intelligence duties in Northern Ireland. Following completion of several training courses, he returned to Northern Ireland in 1974 attached to 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers, one of the three sub-units of a Special Duties unit known as 14 Intelligence Company (14 Int). Posted to South Armagh, 4 Field Survey Troop was given the task of performing surveillance duties. Nairac was the liaison officer among the unit, the local Army brigade, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

He also seems to have taken on tasks which were outside his jurisdiction as a liaison officer – working undercover, for example. He apparently claimed to have visited pubs in republican strongholds and sung Irish rebel songs and acquired the nickname “Danny boy”.

1975

Return to London – Nairac finished his tour with 14th Int in mid-1975 and returned to his regiment in London. Nairac was promoted to captain on 4 September 1975.

1976

Following a rise in violence culminating in the Kingsmill massacre, army troop levels were increased and Nairac accepted a post again as a liaison officer back in Northern Ireland.

1977

Nairac on his fourth tour was a liaison officer to the units based at Bessbrook mill. It was during this time that he was killed.

Died: 15 May 1977 – Republic of Ireland – Nairac was abducted from a pub in south County Armagh during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) on his fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1979. Whilst several men have been imprisoned for his murder, the whereabouts of his body remains unknown.

References

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nairac

~-~

Further information to be added when they become available. If you would like to share any additional information, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form.

References: See Captain Robert Laurence Nairac – References

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

There were sixteen people who ‘disappeared’ during ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility for thirteen of the sixteen, while one was admitted by the INLA. No attribution has been given to the remaining two. To date the remains of nine victims have been recovered.

Joseph Lynskey
Joseph Lynskey was a former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast. He went missing during the summer of 1972. His remains have yet to be located. Seamus Wright Seamus Wright was from Belfast and was working as an asphalt layer. He was married and 25 years old when he went missing in October 1972. Despite extensive searches undertaken by Commission in the Coghalstown area his remains have yet to be located.

Kevin McKee
Kevin McKee was from Belfast. Like Seamus Wright he also disappeared in October 1972. The Commission have carried out extensive searches in the Coghalstown area for the remains of Kevin McKee, as well as those of Seamus Wright, but his remains have yet to be recoverd.

Jean McConville
Jean McConville was a widowed mother of ten from west Belfast. She was 37 years old when she was abducted and killed in December 1972. In August 2003 her remains were found at Shelling Hill beach in County Louth.

Peter Wilson
Peter Wilson disappeared from his home in west Belfast in August 1973. He was 21 years old. His name was added to the list of the Disappeared in 2009 after new information became available. His remains were found at Waterfoot beach in County Antrim in November 2010.

Eamon Molloy
Eamon Molloy was abducted from his home in the Ardoyne area of Belfast in July 1975. He was named by the IRA as one of “the disappeared” in a statement issued by them in 1999. Following information received by the Commission in 1999, his body was discovered in a coffin left in a cemetery near Dundalk, Co. Louth.

Columba McVeigh
Columba McVeigh from Donaghmore, Co. Tyrone was 17 years old when he was abducted and killed in October 1975. He had been working as a painter in Dublin and had only returned to Northern Ireland a few days earlier. Although extensive searches, based on information received, have been carried out in Co. Monaghan his remains have yet to be recovered.

Robert Nairac
Captain Robert Nairac was an officer with the Grenadier Guards on a tour of duty in Northern Ireland when he was abducted in Co. Antrim in May 1977 and murdered. He was 29 years old. His remains have yet to be recovered. A man was convicted of the murder of Captain Nairac in 1977. Captain Nairac received a posthumous George Cross.

Brendan Megraw
Brendan Megraw was a 23 year old married man from west Belfast. His wife was expecting their first baby when he was abducted from his own home in April 1978. Although extensive searches, based on information received by the Commission, have been carried out his remains have not been found.

John McClory
John McClory was from west Belfast and was 18 years old when he was abducted and killed, together with his friend Brian McKinney, in May 1978. Following information received by the Commission in 1999 a search of the bogland at Colgagh, Iniskeen, Co. Monaghan was undertaken. After 30 days of searching, a double grave containing the remains of John McClory and Brian McKinney was discovered.

Brian McKinney
Brian McKinney was a Housing Executive Worker from Andersonstown in west Belfast. He was 22 years old when he disappeared in May 1978. He was abducted together with John McClory (see above). Following information received by the Commission in 1999 a search of the bogland at Colgagh, Iniskeen, Co. Monaghan was undertaken. After 30 days of searching, a double grave containing the remains of John McClory and Brian McKinney was discovered.

Gerard (Gerry) Evans
Gerry Evans was a 24 year old painter who disappeared in March 1979 as he was on his way home to Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh. In October 2010, following information received by the Commission, his remains were recovered from a site in Carrickrobin, Co. Louth. Gerard Evans was not included on the list of missing people issued by the IRA in 1999 and, to date, no group has admitted responsibility for his murder.

Danny McIlhone
Danny McIlhone was from West Belfast and went missing in July 1981. Two searches for his remains in 1999 and 2000 proved unsuccessful. However, following information received by the Commission, his remains were recovered in bogland near the Blessington Lakes in Co. Wicklow in 2008.

Charlie Armstrong
Charlie Armstrong was a married father of five from Crossmaglen in Co. Armagh. He was 54 years old when he was abducted and killed in August 1981 while on his way to collect a neighbour to go to mass. In July 2010 the Commission recovered his remains in County Monaghan. Charlie Armstrng was not included on the list of missing people issued by the IRA in 1999 and, to date, no group has admitted responsibility for his murder.

Eugene Simons
Eugene Simmons disappeared on New Year’s Day 1981. His body was found three years later (prior to the establishment of the Commission) on 24th May 1984 in a bog in Knockbridge, Dundalk, Co. Louth.

Seamus Ruddy
Seamus Ruddy, from Newry, was a 33 year old teacher of English in Paris, France when he disappeared in May 1985. In December 1995 the INLA admitted responsibility for his death. In February 1999 information emerged to suggest that his body was buried in Rouen, France, but despite searches having been carried out his remains have not yet been recovered.

Source: http://www.iclvr.ie/en/ICLVR/Pages/TheDisappeared

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac and related topics referring to the Irish Troubles on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Captain Robert Laurence Nairac GC (31 August 1948 –15 May 1977) was a British Army officer who was abducted from a pub in south County Armagh during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) on his fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1979. Whilst several men have been imprisoned for his murder, the whereabouts of his body remains unknown.

[1]  Robert Nairac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nairac

[2] Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains
http://www.iclvr.ie/en/ICLVR/Pages/TheDisappeared 

[3] Robert John “Robin” Jackson, known as the Jackal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Jackson 

[4] Shadow Man: An Investigation into Robert Nairac
http://www.eamonnoneill.com/shadow-man-an-investigation-into-robert-nairac/

[5] Dublin and Monaghan bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings

[6] Nairac: An undercover hero or a maverick fool?
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/nairac-an-undercover-hero-or-a-maverick-fool-13903699.html

Further references to be added when necessary…

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

I had been warned that my continued research on the person of British Captain Rober Nairac might cause criticism and threats, specifically from residents in the United Kingdom, and, as a matter of fact, I have already been through several rounds of such fruitless communications. As they say, “Insult is the weak man’s perception of strength,” and most of the criticism I received was filled with insults. Any requests to contribute facts to the lives of Robert Nairac and his fellow colleague Julian “Tony” Ball that would complete or even correct my research went unanswered.

For the record, I, a German citizen living in New England, am in continuous and truly appreciated communications with a number of British writers of whom two served in the British Army during the time known as “The Irish Troubles.” And even though we don’t necessarily agree on all aspects of the conflict, the communication remains pleasant and professional, and that is the picture of the British people I will keep in my heart (and I will continue listening to British rock music).

On 14 December 2011 I received the following email with the subject “Slander on your website?”:

Dear Sir/Madam

I am referring to:

http://thebleedinghills.copperhillmedia.com/tag/robert-nairac/

Where it is stated: “Ball has been described as “a nasty bit of work — a psychotic …”

Is this the view of Copperhills Media or the author’s view from the distance of a comfortable sofa in Germany or New England?

I would like to see your evidence for this that you feel the ability to publish this on your website. This certainly does not fit my knowledge of the man, who won the Military Cross for bravery.

P.S. Tony Ball was the father of my best friend at school and we also have many links to the SAS regiment through my father’s role in the army; I can check your references on this.

I would like to know who my lawyer should get in touch with, yourselves or the author?

Yours sincerely,

Dr. [Name Removed]

There were a number of thoughts that came to mind, including that I don’t have a sofa in Germany, not even an uncomfortable one. I was also flabbergasted that Dr. [Name Removed] had the audacity to mention his lawyer, especially under the view that I wrote not about his father, but the father of his best friend at school. Maybe he wants to bring legal charges on terms of emotional stress. I also wanted to tell him that I am fairly certain that British law does protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press (technically, I am part of the press when I publish through my website) as does the United States of America (and Germany).

Again, all these thoughts and a lot more came to mind, but I decided to answer in my trademarked sober German manner:

Dear Sir,

Let me say, first of all, that I reserve the right of publishing our communication on my website.

In regards to your inquiry, please read http://www.eamonnoneill.com/shadow-man-an-investigation-into-robert-nairac/, especially the article (PDF file) on the bottom of the page and in particularly the paragraph:

“In 1974, ROBERT NAIRAC met Julian “Tony” Ball, a serving SAS man attached to 14 Int and operating out of South Armagh. Ball, an ex-Para, was described to me by one former colleague as “genuinely ruthless – and in some ways I think Nairac modelled himself on him.” Another source put it bluntly: “Ball was a nasty bit of work – a psychotic, I would say. He bit his fingernails down to the white half-moons and was living on his nerves continually, possibly taking drugs.”

I believe, my statement beginning with “Ball has been described…” is valid, and I did put the description in quotation marks.

See also http://thebleedinghills.copperhillmedia.com/from-the-author/ where I list my references.

Last, but not least, if you wish to contribute information on the person of Julian Ball, please feel free to do so. All I ask is to keep a professional attitude.

Regards,

Wilfried F. Voss

As of today, I have not received a response, but I will keep my breath until that legal letter arrives…

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac and related topics on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

The tragic story of Captain Robert Nairac’s abduction and murder by the IRA in 1977 has until now been shrouded in mystery. At last, John Parker’s compelling biography uncovers the truth of Nairac’s secret war and heroic death. Drawing on unprecedented first-hand accounts from senior army colleagues and IRA sources, John Parker reveals the answers to the questions that have haunted the imagination for so long. Source: Amazon.Com

About John Parker

John Parker has been a journalist and writer all his working life. To date, he has published 28 books in hardback which have appeared in 64 editions in the UK and more than 40 international editions. He has built a reputation as one of the country’s most respected military writers. His previous titles include The Gurkhas, The Paras, Commandos, SBS and Inside the Foreign Legion.

Review by Wilfried F. Voss

The life and death of Captain Robert Nairac is one of the most compelling stories related to the Irish troubles, regardless of which side you’re on. That being said, it is a pity, that the author fails to live up to the vast potential of this particular topic, especially considering that he tried to glorify the memory of Captain Nairac – as the title implies. Admittedly, the book is based on meticulous research, but the author might have been of better service to a greater readership had he considered adding more background information for those not familiar with all the details of the Irish Troubles.

In addition, the book’s relevance must suffer in view of a serious omission, namely the private and personal life of Robert Laurence Nairac. Let me quote:

In deference to his family, Robert Nairac’s personal and private life will not form part of this book, other than in passing references.

- Source: Secret Hero: The Life and Mysterious Death of Captain Robert Nairac by John Parker

This is, in fact, an extraordinary admission, given that Nairac’s obsession with Ireland, the circumstances of Nairac’s presence in Northern Ireland, and his army career were all dependent on choices he had made and which were influenced by his character and background.

Moreover, John Parker is a biographer who has written biographies of the Queen of England, Prince Philip, Sir Sean Connery, and many other celebrities. It is his job to write about people’s personal and private lives! Imagine for a moment a book about Winston Churchill that did not examine his personal and private life, but confined itself to his literary and political careers.

Given that Nairac has been demonized by Irish media, wouldn’t this have been a chance to set the record straight? So what was his family problem?

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

During the research for my novel The Bleeding Hills I stumbled upon the intriguing story of one charismatic character, British Captain Robert Nairac, an undercover agent active during the Irish troubles, and in May of 2009 I wrote a post titled Robert Nairac – Hero, Butcher, Homosexual…?

The interest in Captain Nairac was sparked by an article titled Shadow Man and written by Eamonn O’Neill for the Esquire Magazine. Let me quote:

British Army Captain Robert Nairac fought his own war on the streets of Seventies’ Belfast, heading out on patrol with a cowboy hat, trainers and a pump-action shotgun. His undercover activities won him both the George Cross and accusations of treachery, but doubt surrounds almost everything he did.

Source: http://www.eamonnoneill.com/wp-content/uploads/ROBERT-NAIRAC.pdf

Captain Nairac is generally described as charismatic and brilliant, but there was also a dark side to him, something that most of his contemporaries were unable to interpret.

“It’s simple: Nairac didn’t just stick his head in to the lion’s mouth - that wouldn’t have been enough for him. Instead, he had to go and stick it right up the lion’s arse.”

Source: http://www.eamonnoneill.com/wp-content/uploads/ROBERT-NAIRAC.pdf

Almost immediately after reading O’Neill’s fascinating article the thought came to mind that Captain Robert Nairac, in view of his tendency toward flamboyant appearances, might have been gay. The initial premonition was substantiated by further research represented, among other resources, by articles of which some hinted and others openly addressed his homosexuality.

There was also the topic of unexplained behavioral patterns that some described as a death wish, a view that is reinforced by accounts of his irrational, and in some cases outright suicidal activities, and this is not a typical gay feature. However, Captain Robert Nairac was also a devoted Catholic, and in Roman Catholicism, homosexual acts are considered contrary to natural law and sinful, while homosexual desires are considered “disordered” but not themselves sinful. For me, the conflict between being Catholic and being gay was sufficient evidence explaining his suicidal tendencies, and I left it at that.

Case closed; or so I thought. As of lately I have received information that provided a much more sophisticated insight into Nairac’s psyche, namely the “death wish” theory. I am at a point where I distance myself from that assessment. Yet still, in my very personal opinion, Captain Robert Nairac was gay.

Before I go into further details let me make a statement to counter potential accusations such as smearing the memory of a British soldier on one end or discrimination of gay rights at the other. I strongly support the view that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In the same sense, a person’s sexual orientation is not a matter of choice; individuals have no more choice about being homosexual than heterosexual. I am heterosexual, but I accept homosexuality as a different form of life style.

My conclusion that Robert Nairac was gay is still a theory, and I am far from trying to cast a blame of any sort; my mere intention was to find an understanding of what was described as irrational behavior, a behavior that eventually led to the slaying of Captain Robert Nairac, a British officer with a bright future.

I am aware of the concerns and complaints from people who knew him and their demand to respect the Nairac family’s right to privacy. It is my belief, though, that everybody loses that privilege as soon as they happen to dwell in the limelight, voluntarily or not. The question is, what exactly put him into that position? I believe, it was his violent nature, or at least the records – right or wrong – thereof. The fact remains that he is now, for tragic reasons, public property and therefore arguably a legitimate subject for research.

Available records of Robert Nairac’s life (including John Parker’s Biography “Secret Hero”) have mostly ignored his secret personal life, which represents an extraordinary omission, given that Nairac’s obsession with Ireland, the circumstances of Nairac’s presence in Northern Ireland, his army career, and, most importantly, his death were all dependent on choices he had made and which were influenced by his character and background.

Keeping in view Nairac’s role and accomplishments in the Irish conflict, it is only logical to penetrate to some extend the mystery about him and his fate. Nothing that may be unearthed during this investigation can take away from the image we already have of an extraordinary man.

Everything you read about British Captain Robert Nairac on this website represents my very personal view and research on the topic. If you deem my findings objectionable or in err, please feel free to leave a comment below or write to me directly by using this website’s contact form. The same applies for any comments, in favor or not, and for information you would like to share. All I ask, is to keep a professional attitude on the subject.

Advertisement

THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

A veteran writer offers this centennial history of the two almost legendary British intelligence agencies, MI5 (foreign) and MI6 (domestic). Founded during the run-up to World War I, they have served the British Crown with varying degrees of skill and success in all the political conundrums and crises since. They have also been gold mines for thriller writers. As an author of intelligence-related fiction and nonfiction (e.g., Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, 3d ed., 2007), Thomas bring to the agencies’ histories a high level of expertise, a fluent style accessible to lay reader and expert alike, and a combination of frankness and balance about some of his subjects’ less glorious chapters. Those involve such things as the Soviet mole during the post–World War II era, the ongoing tension with the CIA, and the problem of deciding whether operations against the IRA and more recent terrorist groups are foreign or domestic. A good basic book on its subjects. – Booklist

Two famous British institutions will celebrate their centenaries in 2009: the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI5 and MI6. They maintain an aura of secrecy, a touch of sophistication and a hint of melodrama even in this age of populist candor. Thomas (Descent into Danger), who enjoys justified respect as an authority on the intelligence world, has a broad spectrum of contacts and confidants in both services. He taps their memories and insights in this reconstruction of Britain’s intelligence operations from the Age of Empire through the cold war and into today’s constantly metamorphosing Islamic challenge. The emphasis on personal evidence at the expense of archival sources gives the work an anecdotal tone and a contemporary focus that makes the subtitle misleading. Both are compensated for by the immediacy of the material and the vividness of the narration, presenting a fascinating cast of moles and double agents, whistle-blowers and politicians. For the ambience of the closed world that inspired James Bond and George Smiley, this book is a winner. – Publishers Weekly

Review

Inside British Intelligence is described by its publisher as “the definitive and up-to-date history of two of the oldest and most powerful secret services in the world” though it has no source notes, has very little on M15 and M16 before 1990 – and what there is is unfamiliar only because it is often inaccurate – and is largely devoted to the activities of Mossad and CIA.

There is no mention of important British intelligence episodes such as the Zinoviev letter which influenced the outcome of the 1924 election, the breaking of Enigma, the Venlo incident where two SIS officers were captured at the outbreak of war, the Profumo Affair, Buster Crabb, the running of Penkovsky and his role in the Cuban missile crisis and the intelligence services role in Empire. All very curious.

Mr Thomas a self-styled “leading expert on the intelligence community” knows a great deal about what people wore (suits “tailored by Gieves & Hawkes, a hand-sewn shirt with double cuffs and his Travellers Club tie” etc), what they said, thought, ate and drank at particular moments but is less certain in other areas: sometimes Century House is the headquarters of M15 (p.208 and 255) and sometimes correctly M16 (p.286); sometimes Sir Christopher Curwen is head of M15 (p.216)and sometimes rightly M16 (p.195); Vernon Kell is head of MI6(p.421) and sometimes accurately M15(p.78); the M15 chiefs Stella Rimington and Patrick Walker also mysteriously work for M16 (p.177 and p.255). Maybe Mr Thomas knows something we don’t?

He makes much of his `prime sources’ which for the UK are: Eddie Chapman, a low-level World War Two agent who died aged 83 twelve years ago; the former M16 officer Richard Tomlinson who claims Princess Diana was murdered by British Intelligence and the former M15 couple Annie Machon (who believes Mossad was behind the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London in 1994) and David Shayler (who has declared himself the messiah after having discovered eternal life). For some reason, Mr Thomas prefers these accounts to the thousands of readily available M15 documents declassified over the last twenty years.

He cites an extensive bibliography but doesn’t appear to have consulted the books himself . A few pages about The Cambridge Spies, extensively chronicled in numerous books, gives a flavour of the Thomas interpretation of history : Kim Philby’s father St John Philby is called Sir Harry Philby, Kim is a member of the Apostles (he was not) and is recruited at Cambridge (he was not) is a fluent Spanish speaker (he was not) and appears to defect from Britain rather than is commonly assumed Beirut. Maclean begins his spying career in 1938 some three years after the generally accepted date of his recruitment and his London apartment is bugged though in truth he didn’t have one and commuted from just outside London.

Guy Burgess is described as a counterintelligence officer (he wasn’t), serves alongside George Blake in the Far East Department (he doesn’t) , his outrageous behaviour in Washington leads to calls for his recall in the summer of 1950 (he only arrived in August 1950) ; he is ordered to leave America “within forty-eight hours” of engineering traffic violations to warn Maclean( the violations take place in February1951 , have nothing to do with his departure and he leaves in May 1951), he returns to “a job in the Foreign Office” (he doesn’t) etc. Blunt is identified by the press as `the Third Man’ thirty years earlier than the reality. You get the picture.

The book, a series of incorrectly spelt names, discredited conspiracy theories and repetitious, often completely fabricated, stories the purpose of which it is sometimes difficult to ascertain, jumps around in time and location with no central narrative and it is difficult to ascertain at whom it is aimed since readers new to the subject will be baffled and those with some knowledge will be exasperated. One can only assume in this wilderness of mirrors that a deeper deception game is being played by the proof reader and our intelligence expert, a winner, as he proudly states , of “the Mark Twain Society Award for Reporting Excellence and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Investigation” to confuse us when the official histories of M15 by Christopher Andrew and M16 by Keith Jeffery appear later this year and next. That can be the only explanation for this farrago of nonsense. – Andrew Lownie, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

Amazon Exclusive: Olen Steinhauer Reviews “Carte Blanche”

Source: Amazon.Com

Olen Steinhauer’s latest novel, The Nearest Exit features former CIA agent Milo Weaver, whose story began in the New York Times bestselling thriller, The Tourist. His previous work includes a pentalogy of thrillers set during the Cold War, beginning with The Bridge of Sighs and concluding with Victory Square.

How do you bring a character created in 1953 into the modern world without disappointing that character’s millions of followers in the process? This was the challenge faced by Jeffery Deaver when Ian Fleming Publications handed him the responsibility of writing the next official James Bond novel, Carte Blanche. I don’t know how I would have done it, but I do know one thing—Deaver, a specialist in the art of crafting nail-biting suspense, has done it better than I ever could have.

It’s a tightrope walk, balancing the tradition with the requirements of contemporary life, and Deaver handles it with panache. Beautiful women with unlikely but mesmerizing names? Check. (See Ophelia Maidenstone and Felicity Willing.) A top-drawer set of wheels with occasional soliloquies to its grace and power? Check. (The Bentley Continental GT coupé, in this case.) M, Moneypenny, Mary Goodnight, Bill Tanner, Felix Leiter? Check on all counts. A drink on hand that requires extra care from a bartender, but has yet to be named? Check. License to kill? Check, but under a different name: carte blanche.

How about the subtly and unsubtly perverse villains? Naturally, and they come in two sharply defined forms: Niall Dunne, “The Irishman,” a brilliant tactician who brings to mind From Russia With Love’s Kronsteen, and his boss, Severan Hydt, the head of a global refuse-collection empire, whose love of decay in all its forms borders on necrophilia. Time spent with Hydt will make you long for a shower.

But what the Fleming aficionado will inevitably notice here are the differences, which turn this latest escapade into what feels, and should feel, like one of those things that are very popular these days: a reboot.

James Bond, a veteran of Afghanistan, is an ex-smoker. Despite run-ins with an MI5 twit named Percy Osborne-Smith, this Bond is more of a team player than I remember him ever being. But where one really notices the encroachment of the contemporary world is in his relations with women. James Bond has become . . . sensitive?

Actually, yes, but never to the point of priggishness. The hard Bond remains, but it’s a different world than it was in 1953, and the women in Carte Blanche—the Bond girls, if you will—are of equal measure to the men. Ophelia Maidenstone, a coworker at ODG (Overseas Development Group, tenuously connected to MI6), besides being ravishingly beautiful, is indispensible—without her, Bond would be dead in the water. And when romance begins to bloom between them we find that, even after he’s left town, she remains, haunting his thoughts so much that after a night with another woman Bond feels, of all unlikely things, guilt.

If this seems very un-Bond, it is, but it’s a testament to Deaver’s strength as a storyteller that the reader so easily accepts that this is Fleming’s world 2.0, and it’s just as dangerous and exciting as it was when Le Chiffre glared from across a card table.

Don’t run from this new world, aficionado, for you’ll be rewarded. Not only with a gripping installment, but with a fascinating subplot concerning Bond’s parents, one that not only piques the reader’s interest but, by the end of the novel, begs for a continuation in the next Bond adventure. This new Bond may be a modern man, but his roots are deep in the past, and if Carte Blanche is any indication, the past will soon catch up with him. I, for one, will gladly be on hand to witness that confrontation.

Editorial Reviews

“Deaver, as fans of his Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance thrillers would expect, has clearly done his homework. . . . the most impressive feature of Carte Blanche is the ingenuity of the breathless, blood-thirsty plot. A master of misdirection, Deaver manufactures more surprises than anyone flogging an old warhorse can be expected to produce. . . . Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Sebastian Faulks are among those who have tried to bring Bond back to life. Deaver, though, is in a class of his own: nobody’s done it better.”—The Evening Standard (London)

“There have been other Fleming impersonators, including Kingsley Amis and Sebastian Faulks, but the author of The Bone Collector is the biggest international name to take the job. He is also one of the world’s smoothest, most devious, thriller writers – a far better craftsman than Fleming, in fact. So could he assume Fleming’s identity rather than write another Jeffery Deaver novel only with a hero called Bond? And could he, for that matter, resist thriller publishing’s current obsession with relentless action inspired by the success of the Bourne movie franchise – and indeed Quantum Of Solace? The answers are emphatically “Yes.” Deaver preserves his book’s timeless feel by largely ignoring modern geopolitics and pitting Bond against a traditionally barking villain . . . [and] adds a series of twists that reveal a Bond with more Sherlockian intelligence than Fleming’s.”—The Telegraph (London)

“Fleming was a master of succinct plotting and deft characterization, his books deceptively slim but containing so much. Deaver too is a genius and this publishing marriage was truly made in heaven. Bond fans will enjoy Deaver’s slightly mischievous take on Ian Fleming. Deaver fans will enjoy the taut plotting and the action scenes and, by the way, it is going to make a great movie.”—The Sunday Express (London)

“Carte Blanche,” Jeffery Deaver’s James Bond novel

The Washington Post Book Review – June 17, 2011 (Excerpt)

When we think of James Bond, we picture the cinematic version: a man parachuting, guns blazing, into exotic locations; fancy clothes, big breasts, hard biceps, shiny diamonds; and untrustworthy roulette wheels spinning amid an intoxicating blend of sexiness, sophistication and danger. Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming (1908-1964), unwittingly laid the foundation within his novels for the movies’ bombastic interpretation of Bond’s character, though his writing presented a more reflective and at times darker protagonist. Even so, Fleming’s Bond and the cinema’s version of him did share a playful approach to the world of espionage. In Fleming’s case, this was derived from his career as a Naval Intelligence officer in World War II, when he was involved, albeit at a distance, in the reckless, frequently barmy and often victorious escapades of real British spies. No doubt he also saw the gritty and grimy side of spying, though he chose to eschew that in his books in favor of delivering playboy espionage to a shell-shocked and impoverished 1950s readership.

Jeffery Deaver’s “Carte Blanche” — the latest installment in the immortal franchise — brilliantly captures Fleming’s bitten-off, occasionally distracted, Boy’s Own style. The opening chapters take us straight into the action. A thirty-something Bond is in Serbia, monitoring a nasty piece of work (an Irishman called Niall Dunne) and a dangerous piece of machinery (a train carrying a deadly cargo). When the operation goes wrong, Bond has to escape from the country and get back to London. [Read the full article...]

Advertisement

Boiled Peanuts

A Novel by John Patrick Doyle

A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding.

Then Paul meets Bronwyn, a counselor who is lovely, independent and blind. She has inherited her Aunt Phyllis’ house and is newly arrived in town. When Paul first sees Bronwyn at church, he knows he wants to be part of her life. As the mystery of Aunt Phyllis unfolds, Bronwyn and Paul become more deeply involved as they learn about Phyllis’ secrets and how they relate to Bronwyn and her past, but Paul’s peeping ways may ruin it all. [Read more...]

Boiled Peanuts is available through Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

In my novel The Bleeding Hills I raise the view that conservative powers, including those of the British security establishment, are, in a passive aggressive way, not interested in upholding the Good Friday agreement, and, in all consequence, refuse to support lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

In my book I also refer to Tony Blair as “the first prime minister with a brain.” In fact, Tony Blair, despite his failure of handling the Iraq question, was the first prime minister who successfully established peace in Northern Ireland, which included the disarmament of paramilitary organizations of both sides, Protestant and Catholic.

The events of Bloody Sunday, almost 40 years ago, were particularly damaging to Britain’s reputation as was the Widgery report which is widely – even in Great Britian – considered a white-wash. I am counting that the Saville report, which will be released today, will provide an objective finding of what really happened during the events of Bloody Sunday. After all those years it is not a matter of pointing to the guilty; this is a matter of admitting a wrong-doing that shouldn’t have happened and never should happen again. In order to make a better future we need to learn from the past – See above quote by George Bernard Shaw.

My view that conservative powers and the British security establishment are not interested in finding the truth are, with the upcoming Saville report, being confirmed on a daily basis – See the Guardian’s article below and read my post Bloody Sunday – Saville Report Will Be Published.

Bertie Ahern says security chiefs pressed Tony Blair not to call inquiry

Guardian.co.uk – Monday 14 June 2010

Britain’s security establishment tried to dissuade Tony Blair from agreeing to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, the former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern said today. Ahern, who was taoiseach at the time the Saville inquiry was set up in early 1998, also said its creation had helped build nationalist confidence in the Northern Ireland peace process.

The inquiry’s long-awaited report into the killing of 14 civil rights marchers by British paratroopers in Derry in 1972 will be published at 3.30pm on Tuesday in Derry and London. The 5,000-page, 10-volume report took 12 years to compile, at a cost of almost £191m.

Ahern said its impact on the peace process had been critical. “It was immensely important because at that time we were trying to build confidence and help the people of Derry, who had been dealing with this for years,” Ahern said.

Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief of staff who is now Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, today denied claims that he had told Blair an apology from London over Bloody Sunday would be enough. The Sinn Féin MP said the assertion by Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff in Downing Street, that McGuinness told Blair a multimillion-pound inquiry was not necessary was “erroneous.”

In his book Great Hatred, Little Room, Powell alleges McGuinness made the observations to Blair during secret talks. But McGuinness said: “The citizens of Derry, to a man and woman, want Saville to make it absolutely clear that the 27 people who were shot on that day – murdered and injured – were completely innocent people and that those people who inflicted those deaths and injuries were the guilty parties.” In evidence, McGuinness told the inquiry that on Bloody Sunday he was adjutant of the Derry IRA.

Read the full article…

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

During the research for my novel The Bleeding Hills I found information on British Captain Robert Nairac whose behavioral patterns during the Irish Troubles can only be described as bizarre, to use a mild expression. I have posted two articles on Nairac on this blog, Robert Nairac – Hero, Butcher, Homosexual…? and Robert Nairac – Supplement to previous entry. I understand that my assessment that Nairac was gay is provocative to those who are unable to accept homosexuality as a different form of lifestyle, and I had to learn to live with criticism.

It is an unfortunate situation, though, that comments not agreeing with my assessment of Captain Robert Nairac’s sexual orientation are harsh to the degree of unfairness, and they are usually insulting, which indicates to me that the commenters are unable, if not incompetent, to contribute solid facts that would contradict my writings. The only solution out of their dilemma is plain rudeness. All they offer are unsubstantiated opinions.

In earlier days I would re-engage into more research on the topic just to learn that my previous research activities on the subject of Robert Nairac, even though he is not the central part of my novel, were thorough. At the same time, nobody who ever criticized my research has been able to prove me wrong. The information I found on Robert Nairac is primarily from English and Irish newspapers and through books written on the subject. I found further information, including a personal testimony, on sexual abuse at Ampleforth College during the time when Nairac was a student there. The speculation that Nairac may have been one of the victims is not out of this world, considering his self-destructive behavior as recorded by the previously mentioned newspapers.

These days I am familiar with the pattern of the criticism and the insult that comes with it, and I use these comments to post them here on my blog. The language of the comments speaks for itself.

April 28, 2010:

Comment:
“Nothing that you’ve grubbed up, googled or just plain guessed at constitutes research in any meaningful sense. Trawling through blogs written by embittered ex-squaddies and republican sympathisers certainly doesn’t, nor does regurgitating damaging hearsay.

For your information, there is absolutely nothing that anyone has ever said or written which suggests that Nairac was abused as a child, at Ampleforth or anywhere else. Your assertion that abuse occurred at Ampleforth, and Nairac was at Ampleforth (although not at the time of the abuse), and therefore Nairac was abused is typically specious. Even an apprentice in his first week on a local newspaper would know that you can’t get away with that kind of post hoc ergo propter hoc rationalisation. But then, I suspect, such a person would know a lot more about writing than you do.

Robert Nairac was a valiant soldier who died in tragic circumstances, and he and his long-suffering family deserve better than to have individuals like you making prurient, pseudo-psychological claims about his private life. Nor, for your information, do you have the moral right to distort the facts in the interest of your (presumably vanity-published) “novel”.

Following one of the links on this site, I note that you are putting together another masterwork, entitled American Male Prostitute. Might I suggest that you direct a little of that “research” towards yourself, and your own fantasy life?”

Response:
“It is funny, but every comment that does not agree with my view is harsh to a degree of unfairness, and they are usually rude, which indicates to me that the commenter is unable to contribute solid facts that would contradict my writings. The only solution out of their dilemma is plain rudeness. My research on the subject of Robert Nairac, even though he is not the central part of my novel, was thorough, and nobody who ever criticized my research has been able to prove me wrong.

I do encourage comments on my work, may they agree with my view or not, but I will not give in to unsubstantiated opinions.”

April 29, 2010:

Comment:
“Your “research” as you call it, is no more than a rehashing of other men’s work and (usually tendentious) opinions. Anyone who knows anything about this subject would recognise the sensationalist articles, no-check blogs, republican propaganda-pieces, and shameful would-be novelisations that you’ve drawn your conclusions from. There’s nothing remotely original about any of it. It’s not a question of not agreeing with your “view”, because the regurgitation of hearsay and rumour does not constitute a view.

There are two respectable sources on Nairac’s life, namely John Parker’s Death of a Hero and Martin Dillon’s The Dirty War. Both writers employ professional journalistic methodology. They have talked to primary sources, remained personally objective, and where facts cannot be established, they have said so. Learn from them.

Your blundering pseudo-psychology (Freddy Mercury? Elton John? Please) would be harmless if it didn’t involve real people and their families. Can’t you see how offensive your comments are? Are you surprised that people get angry when they see people like you, with their glib, shallow, second-hand opinions, trying to make a fast buck out of these tragic events?”

Response:
“Ray,
I have both books, that of John Parker and Martin Dillon, in my book shelf. I also own “War Without Honour: True Story of Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland” by Fred Holroyd and Nick Burbridge. Other sources I used were English and Irish newspapers.
Let me, for a moment, ignore your insulting tone and ask you: In what way are my comments offensive? I would like to learn your view on gay rights, because your comments point toward a despicable discrimination of homosexuals, and that may be the root of your anger.
Regards,
Wilfried”

Comment:
“You should know that Fred Holroyd’s account of events in NI has long been discredited for more reasons than there are time to go into here.

I have absolutely no problem with gay people or gay rights, and if Nairac was gay (which Martin Dillon suggests, and which many people have believed for some time), then that’s fine by me too. As ever, your pseudo-psychology is a mile wide of the mark.

What I find offensive is your crude fixation with Nairac’s sexuality, and the way you use it to try and generate publicity for yourself and your “novel”. If you can’t see that a headline like “Robert Nairac – Hero, Butcher, Homosexual” is crass and sensationalist, then there’s no more to be said. For your information, no reputable source suggests that Nairac ever “butchered” anyone, and Dillon comprehensively refutes all such claims.”

Response:
“Ray,
I thank you for confirming that my assertion that Nairac was gay is valid. As to the reputation of Fred Holroyd let me state that my research activities do not exclude any sources that may not be pleasing to either side in the conflict. I engage into thorough research and when finished I form an opinion.
You have the right to disagree with my marketing techniques. I only wished you had expressed your concern a bit more to the point and, after all, I wished you kept a professional tone. You should be aware that your accusatory style only damages your credibility.
I consider this matter closed.
Regards,
Wilfried”

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

Today, The Guardian reports:

A car bomb exploded last night outside a police station in a Northern Ireland village close to the border with the Irish Republic. The explosion in Newtownhamilton in South Armagh came half an hour before midnight and damaged the building and nearby houses.
:
Senior police sources have recently warned that the threat by dissident republican terrorists is higher than at any time since the Omagh bomb almost 12 years ago.

Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/23/northernireland-uksecurity.

More soldiers have died in the South Armagh region than any other part of Northern Ireland. Even today, in peacetime, the South Armagh region is a fertile recruiting ground for the Real IRA, and British soldiers never dare to patrol there on foot.

Earlier this month, on April 12, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for a separate car bomb attack outside MI5′s headquarters in Holywood, but it is now believed that a smaller republican group, Óglaigh na hEireann, was behind the MI5 attack rather than the Real IRA. It seems that Óglaigh na hEireann has a number of experienced ex-Provisional IRA bomb makers within its ranks .

A car bomb exploded early this morning on the outskirts of Belfast, timed to coincide with the transfer of power as the Stormont parliament took over judicial and policing powers at midnight. Northern Ireland now has its first justice minister in nearly four decades.

A spokesman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: “A device has exploded in a vehicle at the rear of Palace Barracks, Holywood. The explosion occurred at approximately 12.24am. The investigation in ongoing, and there are no further details at this stage.”

It was reported that one person was injured in the blast.

Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/12/northern-ireland-justice-minister-david-ford.

The MI5′s office in Northern Ireland is located in the British Army Palace Barracks in Holywood, on the outskirts of East Belfast. During the high time of the Irish troubles, the Palace Barracks were the site for in-depth interrogation of Republican detainees. There they were beaten and subjected to noise and sleep deprivation. One of the more popular detainees was Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, who was arrested and interrogated there in 1972. The official establishment of an MI5 office in Northern Ireland was, and still is, highly controversial.  See also Gerry Adams’ article No room for MI5 in the North.

While any violent act in Northern Ireland these times is a futile attempt of dragging it back to its past, the perpetrators, the Real IRA, tried to make a valid point, even if they chose the most useless means to make that point.

In another article on April 13, 2010, The Guardian reported:

Although no one was killed or seriously injured, the bombing was a highly symbolic attack. The Real IRA chose the MI5 headquarters to make a political point – that Ford and the devolved justice ministry have no control over the British agents stationed there. MI5′s operations are independent of the power-sharing executive in Belfast and are only answerable to the home secretary in London. The security services now play the lead role in counter-terrorism both in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/13/northern-ireland-justice-minister.

Let me also quote from the previously referenced article by Gerry Adams:

MI5 is a not a new player on the intelligence scene in the six counties. No more than MI6 in the 26 counties.

It is true, British Intelligence Services were instrumental in supporting terrorist acts in the Irish Republic as well as Northern Ireland, and, as I have pointed out in previously published posts, the political system in the United Kingdom has still not managed to take control of MI5 and MI6.

Let me close with a quote by George Bernard Shaw (and that quote is addressed to all sides in the conflict):
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

Product Description

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the Operators of 14 Company are Britain’s most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off 14 Company prevent twelve. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. Trained to operate under cover, Operators have at their disposal an arsenal of techniques and weapons unmatched by any other UK government or military agency. This is the true story of one Operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

Review

My reason to buy this book was the hope that it would contribute interesting insights for my research on the Irish Troubles. To put it in a nut-shell: I hope the author didn’t quit his day job over writing this book. What caught my attention was the sub-title “On the streets with Britain’s most secret service,” which proves yet again how important, but also how terribly misleading a title can be.

Little did I know how immature the writer deals with a serious topic like the Irish Troubles. The book starts with “Standby, standby. Zero, Oscar. I have Bravo 1 foxtrot from Alpha 2 towards Charlie 2,” and it doesn’t get much better from there. There is not much to say other than reading this book was a huge waste of my time.

Books:

A History of Ireland
by Mike Cronin

Highly recommended! I like that it’s, compared to many other works on Ireland, actually readable and entertaining. If you need a relatively quick overview on the history of Ireland (the tile of the book doesn’t lie!) this is the one I recommend.

The Operators
by James Rennie

To put it in a nut-shell: I hope the author didn’t quit his day job over writing this book. What caught my attention was the sub-title “On the streets with Britain’s most secret service”. Little did I know how immature the writer deals with a serious topic like the Irish Troubles. The book starts with “Standby, standby. Zero, Oscar. I have Bravo 1 foxtrot from Alpha 2 towards Charlie 2″ and it doesn’t get much better from there. Reading this book was a huge waste of my time.

The Irish War
by Tony Geraghty

Here we go again: Another book with misleading title and misleading sub-title, “The hidden conflict between the IRA and British Intelligence”. I have to admit, I found some valuable information here, but I also could not muster to read the book to the end. I am an advocate for intriguing literature, even when it comes to serious issues like the Irish War. However, the writing style is mind-numbingly boring and there is absolutely no visible structure in the book. The author jumps from topic to topic without any visible connection. Until this day I have no clue what drove Mr. Garaghty to write this book.

Secret Hero: The life and mysterious death of Captain Robert Nairac
by John Parker

Yet another really bad book. The life and death of Captain Robert Nairac is one of the most compelling stories related to the Irish troubles, regardless of which side you’re on. That being said, it is a pity, that the author fails to live up to the vast potential of this particular topic, especially considering that he tried to glorify the memory of Captain Nairac – as the title implies.

The Ultras
by Eoin McNamee

This is a novel that is supposed to depict the life of Captain Robet Nairac. I made it to page 8 and gave up. Enough said.

Sorry, I hate to be that negative, but I really do enjoy reading a good book. It seems to me now that there aren’t too many good ones out there, and if they are, they are hard to find. After buying and reading too many bad books on the Irish War I gave up and concentrated on Online resources as listed below.

Online Resources:

14 Company

Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday Inquiry

British Army Satellite Equipment

Government of Ireland Act 1920

Inverness County

IRA Actions in 1970s

Irish History

MI5 & MI6

Misc.

Port of Belfast

Real IRA

Robert Bunting

Robert Nairac

SAS

Sean Mac Stiofain

Shannon Airport

St. Patrick Cemetary

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Published by
Copperhill Media Corporation
158 Log Plain Road
Greenfield, MA 01301

USA

Copyright © 2009 by Copperhill Media Corporation, Greenfield, Massachusetts

Published by
Copperhill Media Corporation
158 Log Plain Road
Greenfield, MA 01301

USA

Copyright © 2009 by Copperhill Media Corporation, Greenfield, Massachusetts

The band had left the small stage in a hurry, not waiting for the applause to subside, tiptoeing through the jungle of cables, microphones, speakers, and instruments, rushing over to the bar at the far end of the pub, yearning for a beer during their well-deserved break. Then, unexpectedly, all remaining lights went out, leaving the room in utter darkness for a fleeting moment until a single beam of light emerged from the ceiling, focusing on the young man they had left behind. He sat in an antique, wooden chair in the center of the stage with his eyes closed and his head down as if meditating. His arms covered his instrument, the Uilleann pipe.

His long, brown hair was neatly parted and bound into a ponytail. The bright Red Sox T-shirt, a tribute to a local passion, was in piercing contrast to his otherwise plain clothing, the dark brown corduroy trousers and black shoes. The small set of bellows was wrapped between his waist and right arm. The three drones – tenor, baritone, and bass – lay across his right thigh. The presence of another set of three regulators, as any expert would notice, revealed the musician’s impressive talent.

Oblivious of his surroundings, the young man did not move, did not attempt to play or even respond to the presence of his audience. After a few calls from several tables, addressed to those in the audience still engaged in whispers and giggles, the room grew quiet and, slowly, the young man came to life, opened his eyes, straightened his posture, and used his right elbow to begin moving the bellows, pumping air into the pipe bag.

Finn had read about the young musician’s exceptional talent and, sitting in a dark corner alone with his drink, unnoticed by most of the patrons, had been waiting expectantly in anticipation of a performance that involved his favorite musical instrument with its sweet tone and the wide range of notes.

The first song was simple and light, yet enchanting, over the constant background of the drones accompanying the tune of the chanter, as is characteristic of the national bagpipe of Ireland.

Finn relaxed, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander, preparing himself for a journey back into time, to a place he had not seen in nearly three decades. Shortly thereafter he saw himself, a boy of fourteen, sitting on the top of a grassy knoll on a bright and warm Sunday morning, the wind swirling his hair, looking down on the Whelan farm in the far distance, so far away that all the sheep appeared like little white dots on a large, colorful painting. The dark blue ocean was quiet, and from where he was sitting, he could even see the beautiful beaches of Inch.

Sunday was his only day off from farm work, and he would spend his time reading, sitting on a rock, or lying in the grass until the daylight faded. Being aware that he might spend hours without food, Mother Whelan would not let him leave without a basket full of homemade brown bread, butter, and milk.

As on every Sunday morning he had been to church, and after Mass, he would spend an hour or two in the priest’s library, where he was offered tea while reading newspapers with passionate intensity, keenly absorbing every little detail. At times the study was supplemented by lessons on Irish history or the current status of the Irish Republic in cases where the young man lacked the background information on the topic about which he was reading.

When he had finished his readings, he had a choice of one book from the library’s extensive selection, which was to be returned the following Sunday. These were usually works by Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, or, on occasion, even English literature such as Winston Churchill’s “The River War.”

“You need to know the enemy’s thinking,” Father Connelly, a stern Republican, assured him on more than one occasion. “The enemy’s greatest mistake is their view – based on downright ignorance, I might say – that the Republican movement is nonexistent.”

Father Connelly was famous for his colorful Sunday night speeches at the local pub where an exclusive group of local farmers, Brendan Whelan being one of them, gathered in the back room to discuss the Irish situation, especially that of Northern Ireland.

The general sense of the discussions was that the violence in Northern Ireland was committed against Republicans, and not, as it should be, by Republicans.

“The Republican movement has no real policies,” Father Connelly once announced during one of his speeches. “We are talking a great deal about fighting for the freedom of Ireland, but we do not succeed. What will it take, what disaster must happen? How many lives will it take before we officially prove our position?”

Finn was only an innocent bystander in those discussions, torn between listening to the heated arguments and the Sunday night sessions at the pub in front. He remembered one night where the party went to a nearby barn, where they inspected a new shipment of Thompson submachine guns, stored in their wooden boxes, oiled and ready for use.

It was the first time in his young life that he had seen such weapons, and at the time he was unable to grasp their use. Ironically, only a few years later he would be an expert with any weaponry, including the legendary AK-47, and there would be no doubt about his understanding of their use and the reasons behind it.

His thoughts were quickly drawn in a different direction as the music turned to another piece in a faster tempo as the musician’s fingers went flying rapidly over the chanter, producing an occasional staccato by working the chanter’s bottom hole with his knee. He was now accompanied by another band member sitting on a white plastic chair to his left, a glass of Guinness positioned on the floor in front of him, lifting the music with his bodhrán, the traditional Irish drum, and creating surprisingly intricate rhythms.

Finn let his mind flow wherever it wanted to take him and after only a few seconds he was a young man of seventeen entering Durty McCarthy’s, a pub near the town of Cahersiveen in the county of Kerry, only a few miles away from the house where his mother had lived. It was late afternoon on a Friday. The pub was packed and filled with smoke, and a session was about to start.

Durty McCarthy’s provided him with reasonable accommodations after a long day’s journey from home. He had learned of his true heritage only a few days before, and he needed to reflect as well as learn more. The events of the preceding days had profoundly changed his life, and little did he know that it was only the beginning. Before that day his life held no print or plan, but that was about to change.

He distinctly remembered the first time he noticed the publican’s daughter Shauna staring at him. She was a beautiful girl with brown hair and green eyes, dressed in a kitchen apron, wearing rubber gloves and rubber boots. Even then, just like it had so many years earlier, his heart raced. The love he felt for Shauna began right then and it had never died.

He remembered her face as a mixture of surprise and immense joy when he asked her to marry him and follow him to live in the Northern provinces, where he would use his skills to fight for the Irish cause. Only a few months later they were married in the large garden behind the McCarthy’s house in the same niche that was now the place of her grave.

Suddenly the musicians turned to a piece of greater complexity and darkness, emphasized by an enigmatic beating of the bodhrán, requiring the highest level of skill and concentration. The young man playing the Uilleann pipe had closed his eyes. His body moved in the rhythm of the music, and his wrists frantically worked the drones and regulators.

Finn began to have visions of bloody bodies leaving bloody traces on the ground as they were drawn away from the view of the shooters, screaming all around him, left and right, from the injured as well as those who tried to help them. He saw people carrying the dead body of a young boy, a priest walking in front of them, waving a white, bloodstained handkerchief at the soldiers with the red berets who, without mercy, kept shooting at them.

Finn squinted his eyes and struggled to fight off the negative images. This was neither the time nor the place for such dark memories. His attempt was defeated by similar images full of screaming and yelling and the deafening sound of continuous shooting. He saw Shauna’s bloody body on the floor. He could not handle the expression of disbelief on her beautiful face while he was struck with shock, trying to find a way to get her out of harm’s way. Still, after all these years, he could clearly feel the intense pain of leaving her and being dragged away from her unconscious body.

He was surprised by the energy it took to fight off the images and force his mind to turn to more pleasant memories.

He finally found himself amid a cold autumn thunderstorm, rolling thunder and lightning in the distance, riding on the pony he had taken from his foster father’s stable in the early morning. There was no money to afford a saddle or reins; he would merely rely on his physical strength and skill. He knew Brendan Whelan would be angry with him, but he also knew the man’s great heart. He would understand and forgive him.

Horse and rider went striding down the hill, eventually reaching the beaches of Inch, where he steered the horse into the shallow waters. He kicked his bare feet into the horse’s flanks and together they went flying over the water. He felt the freezing rain hitting his face and his clothes turning soaking wet, but he didn’t care. He enjoyed the flight through the darkness, the lightning, and the noise.

He clung closer to the horse’s neck, desperately holding on to the mane with both hands.

“C’mon, laddy,” he yelled into the pony’s ear. “You can go faster than that!”

He could feel the animal’s body stretch under him, lengthening the strides.

“Yee-haw!” he screeched, stretching out his left arm with a closed fist high into the dark skies. His exaltation grew with every stride.

He had hoped to make it to the other side of the bay, but all of a sudden he felt his body slip, and his heart started racing. Trying to slow the horse, he adjusted his body into an upright position, and while he tried to use both hands to pull on the mane, he was caught in a massive gust. He felt like he had hit a roadblock. His upper body pushed off the horse, his feet high in the air, both arms stretched wide, he tumbled through the air, and after a less than perfect somersault, landed flat on his back, slumping into the cold and salty water.

There he lay for a few moments, stunned, trying to comprehend what had just happened, and then he burst out into thunderous, unrestrained laughter. He stood up slowly, stiff, pushing one arm into his back, water mixed with sand running from his hair and clothes, and then he limped toward the horse patiently waiting in the distance.

The music ended with the sole voice of the bass drone, gently and gradually subsiding into silence, followed by a thunder of applause. Finn slowly opened his eyes, a smile of satisfaction grew on his face, and in his mind he thanked the young man for bringing back memories of the one true love, Ireland.

He knew he would be back soon. There had been rumors, whispers, and signals that he could not ignore. He did not know when, but it would be soon. He did not know how, but he was willing to comply and finish his course.

The Bleeding Hills
By Wilfried F. Voss

Published by
Copperhill Media Corporation
158 Log Plain Road
Greenfield, MA 01301

USA

Copyright © 2009 by Copperhill Media Corporation, Greenfield, Massachusetts

Chapter 1

The Place I Grew A Man

The man who entered my house shortly before midnight last night was remarkably particular about the information he was to share with me, what was acceptable to write, and, most importantly, what was not.

“It is of paramount importance that you change names and locations,” he told me. “It must be beyond a doubt that your story is based solely on your imagination. Any name, location, or event must be fictional and must not depict any living person or real event in the past or present. There are people dear to me, and I do not want to cause them any harm.”

On the sensitive yet unavoidable subject of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, he said, “I cannot and will not comment on the operations of the IRA, nor will I admit any affiliation with them. I understand the presence of the IRA plays an essential part in the line of events, but references to them and their activities, as well as those of the British Intelligence services, must be entirely based on your own research.”

“Take some liberties,” he added.

In the same spirit, he had outlined the terms and conditions of this late night meeting in meticulous detail.

“Did you get the tea?” were his first words the moment he entered the kitchen. One of the conditions was the supply of good Irish tea, preferably Barry’s.

“Yes,” I answered. “Everything is in place as requested.”

The kettle stood steaming on top of the gas stove. On the counter beside it, the tin teapot my wife and I had bought in Ireland during our honeymoon was filled with boiling water. There was also a box of loose tea and a spoon. It is important to my Irish-American wife to keep an endless supply of Barry’s tea in the house. According to her Irish-born grandmother, while there is tea, there is hope, and we honor her motto on a daily basis.

“A bottle of Jameson’s,” I said while pointing to the setup on the kitchen table, which included two teacups and a sifter covering one of them.

“Milk and sandwiches, also as requested.”

He was visibly pleased.

“Well, I’ve come to the right place then,” he said with a satisfied smile on his face. “I don’t mean to rush, but let’s not waste valuable time. Put away your notebook and let’s get going. There is a lot to tell and hardly enough time to do it.”

Another condition of our agreement was there would be no written record of this meeting.

“I pray you have a good memory,” he had told me, and I had assured him he could count on it.

The water kettle started whistling.

“May I?” he asked, pointing to the tea, boiling water, and tin-pot.

“Please, be at home.”

He continued with the necessary and familiar procedure of preparing the tea, emptying the hot water from the teapot into the sink, carefully scooping four spoons of tea from the box, one after the other, dropping them into the teapot, and then pouring the boiling water.

There was an awkward but short period of stalled conversation while we waited for the tea to brew for the appropriate two minutes.

Then he finally broke the silence.

“I do apologize for this Interview with the Vampire atmosphere,” he said in a serious manner, “but I swear to the mighty Lord that I am a regular human being with a tight schedule and I have no intentions to bite you…”

“My wife, my kids, and I appreciate that.”

“…though some people in British Intelligence might think I have the supernatural power to disappear one instant and show up the next moment someplace else.”

He took the teapot and the sifter and carefully filled both cups on the kitchen table. I watched curiously as a cautious gush of milk made it into his cup, followed by a generous shot of Jameson.

He looked at me. “Just my version of Irish tea. I hate coffee. How do you like yours?”

“Just plain, please. No additions,” I answered.

“I’m a purist,” I couldn’t help to add. I grinned, but he didn’t seem to notice.

With the teacup in his hand, taking an occasional, cautious sip, he walked back and forth in our small kitchen, deep in thought about how to begin the story he was about to share with me. It also provided me a chance to watch him for a few moments. After all, the memories of our first meeting were a bit blurred.

He was roughly six feet tall. The blond haircut, neatly trimmed to a quarter-inch length, gave him a defined military appearance. The muscular, lean body added to that impression.

Yet, the faint smell of an expensive aftershave and the clean-shaven face emphasized his distinctly gentleman-like features. His clothing was well suited for the cold nights of the New England fall. He wore a vintage chambray shirt under a dark green wool sweater and dark charcoal corduroys. All in all, he would have easily passed as a model for an L.L. Bean catalog.

I guessed his age to be somewhere in the mid-fifties, and even though his hair showed the first signs of gray around the temples, his face had a remarkably boyish look. One could easily imagine what he had looked like in his early twenties. The most striking feature, though, were his pale green eyes.

His voice was clear, and he spoke with a slight Irish accent. His choice of words seemed sometimes Americanized, suggesting to me that he had spent a considerable portion of his life on the American continent. I also had the feeling that he could drop the accent in an instant when the circumstances required it.

I had first met him in the Boston region less than two weeks ago. Initially I thought we had met just by chance. In retrospect, I am not so sure anymore if our first encounter was pure coincidence, or, more likely, that he was specifically looking for someone like me.

I had won fifth place in a short story writing contest. The prize did not include any money, just a lousy book on marketing a novel plus free access to a writers’ conference in Westborough, just outside of Boston. The trip to Boston was not a tremendous thrill since we lived in Dublin, New Hampshire, only two hours away by car.

Before we bought our house we had looked at a much larger property in Vermont for almost the same price, but my wife could not resist the temptation of living in Dublin.

At the conference I had the opportunity to meet other writers and, more importantly, publishers. Writing short stories doesn’t make a living, and I was on the search for material to write a novel of some sort. At that time, I was officially enduring a writer’s block.

The question of how exactly a publisher would be of any help in such a hopeless situation must remain unanswered. They are not interested in mere talent or brilliant ideas and the odds are discouraging, even if you are able to present a written work. The fellow authors I met, including the wannabes, were just full of themselves, and I began to question their view of real life on planet Earth. By the end of the day, I wasn’t one iota closer to a book deal than I was when I arrived.

It was time to drown my disappointment in a few beers. Fortunately the Marriott, where my wife had made reservations for me, had an Irish pub by the name of “Fitzwilliam’s.” It was a crowded place, but I conquered one of the few empty stools at the bar, discovered they had Smithwick’s on tap, and ordered Bangers ‘n Mash from the menu. Bob the bartender was very able. He was of Asian descent and he had a nametag attached to his black vest. I never had to endure an empty glass, which gradually improved not only my mood, but even invoked a rarely encountered eagerness to mingle in a place far away from home and family.

The memories of that night remain vague. After drinking more beers than I can usually handle, I don’t exactly recall the details of how I got into the conversation with an Irish lad. I remember telling him about the day’s misery and he turned out to be a devoted listener. When we parted, he mentioned he might have a true story for me and that he would call me, but the next morning I was convinced that it was all part of an alcohol-induced dream mixed with wishful thinking.

A few days later when he called, I realized it had not been a dream. We talked for about half an hour during which he laid out his terms and conditions. I agreed willingly because he had aroused my curiosity. After all, drunk or not, I never give away my home address or phone number to strangers.

I was cautious and thought about sending my wife and kids to my in-laws the day we would meet again. As if reading my mind, he insisted, “I’d prefer this to be a private meeting, just you and I.”

Several days later I received another, much shorter phone call to set up the exact meeting date and time. A female voice, with what was most probably an Irish accent, told me there was fresh lobster for sale at the Boston Harbor fish market tomorrow night.

“The best time for pick-up is between 23:30 hours and midnight,” she said. There was no time to respond or ask questions. She hung up immediately after she had delivered the message. No good-bye. Nothing.

I am not sure if a venue like the Boston Harbor fish market in fact exists. It very well may, but for the purpose of setting up the meeting it didn’t matter.

Nevertheless, there I was, alone with my mysterious friend who had suddenly stopped the pacing and spoke without looking at me.

“My name is Finnean Michael Whelan. I was born in the Republic of Ireland on a farm near Annascaul on the Dingle Peninsula in the year of The Lord 1952. For nearly forty years, I was involved in what some people call an unnecessary war. Respectfully, I disagree.”

Then he turned toward me. “But I am not here to make political statements. I have fought my fight, and I have finished my course. I leave it to the politicians to finish what began a long time ago, and I am not one of them. I am here to make a final statement, in memory of the lads who laughed with me, to sing of their deeds and praise them while I can.”

He noticed my confusion. “Bear with me,” he said.

“I am also the direct product of a conflict that has lasted for several hundreds of years,” he continued. “My mother was raped by a constable of the RUC when she was visiting her parents in Derry, in Northern Island. You know about the RUC?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

The Royal Ulster Constabulary, the official police force in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 2001, has repeatedly been accused of following a shoot-to-kill policy. Suspects were deliberately killed without intent or attempt to arrest them. The list of accusations is long, including one-sided policing and discrimination directed against the Catholic minority.

Although the RUC was officially dissolved in 2001, the only real transformation was a name change to Police Service of Northern Ireland, as if a different name could ever clear their responsibility for past wrongdoing.

“As I said, the rape and thus my birth made me a direct result of the conflict,” he continued. “While my mother was dark-haired, I was born with a full set of blond hair, which explains my first name. Finnean is Gaelic and it means fair-haired.”

He took yet another sip from the cup and started pacing again while he resumed his monologue.

“My actions in a younger life, during the period known as ‘The Troubles’, have caused the deaths of many people, most of them Protestants, some of them Catholic, and the Catholics I killed were traitors. They deserved to die for their treason, and I pray they burn in hell where I may join them. There it will be my pleasure to increase their pain. However, still, I do hope, when the time comes, I will meet St. Peter at heaven’s gate, and he will say, ‘Hey, Finn, what took you so long?’”

Again, he stopped and looked at me, “Well, you know the saying about the Irish coming to heaven?”

It took me only a second to think about the answer. “May you arrive in heaven five minutes before the devil knows you’re dead?”

“Yes, that’s the one. So, St. Peter would tell me, ‘The devil – you knew her as Margaret Thatcher – has sent her most ruthless servant, Ian Paisley, to come after you. Do I feel a draft here? You’d best come in quickly and let’s close the gate.’ ”

He turned toward the kitchen door and yelled, “Sorry, Ian! It was getting just a bit chilly here and with today’s energy costs, you know… Have a nice death!”

For a moment, it seemed like he wanted to spit at the door. Then realized where he was, and, remembering his polite manners, showed respect to his host’s courtesy.

I couldn’t help but comment. “But Ian Paisley was the First Minister of Northern Island.”

He looked straight at me with a mirthless smile. “And Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Great Britain. A great man, whose name escapes me at this very moment, once said that freedom is the right to be wrong, but not to do wrong. Both have committed a great deal of wrongdoing in the name of freedom.”

He shook his head. “Nevertheless, enough about politics. As I said, politics are not my strong suit. I leave that to people like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness. Not that I agree with either one of them, but it looks as if talking counts more than fighting these days.”

He noticed our empty cups, and he went for the teapot, filled both cups carefully, and added milk and Jameson for himself.

“Well, back to my story,” he said. He picked up his cup, wrapped his hands around it, and resumed his pacing.

“The place I grew a man was the farm of Brendan and Mary Whelan. My mother spent most of her pregnancy at their place. The rest of her family was told that she was taking care of a distant cousin who was sick. After she gave birth to me, she went back home to her family in Cahersiveen, in the county of Kerry.

“I was officially declared an orphan, and the Whelans were assigned as my foster parents. They were good people, and they treated me well. My mother’s husband had provided the financial means to help them raise me properly.

“He also left strict instructions that they were not allowed to reveal my true identity and they had to maintain that my parents had died in a car accident. They kept their side of the deal until their very deaths, and even after I was confronted with the truth, I never told them I knew.”

It seemed he had sunken into memories of his childhood days as he closed his eyes for a few moments, and then he just stood there with his head slightly bent downward.

I sat at the kitchen table enjoying a delicious cup of tea and listening to my new friend. I had to admit that the man taking his strides back and forth in my kitchen had already managed to fascinate me a great deal. At that very moment, slowly and surely, I began to realize with delight that I was only at the beginning of an adventure tour into another time and dimension, and I already enjoyed the ride.

I also had questions on my mind, and I deemed this was the right time to throw in the most burning of them.

“Did you ever meet your mother?” I asked him.

It appeared I had interrupted his thoughts, and he didn’t answer immediately. He shook his head.

“No,” he answered very calmly. “She was already dead when I found out. I have only a photo of her, which is now in a safe place. I don’t carry it with me. It was given to me by someone special to me.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“My brother,” he said.

The band had left the small stage in a hurry, not waiting for the applause to subside, tiptoeing through the jungle of cables, microphones, speakers, and instruments, rushing over to the bar at the far end of the pub, yearning for a beer during their well-deserved break. Then, unexpectedly, all remaining lights went out, leaving the room in utter darkness for a fleeting moment until a single beam of light emerged from the ceiling, focusing on the young man they had left behind. He sat in an antique, wooden chair in the center of the stage with his eyes closed and his head down as if meditating. His arms covered his instrument, the Uilleann pipe.

His long, brown hair was neatly parted and bound into a ponytail. The bright Red Sox T-shirt, a tribute to a local passion, was in piercing contrast to his otherwise plain clothing, the dark brown corduroy trousers and black shoes. The small set of bellows was wrapped between his waist and right arm. The three drones – tenor, baritone, and bass – lay across his right thigh. The presence of another set of three regulators, as any expert would notice, revealed the musician’s impressive talent.

Oblivious of his surroundings, the young man did not move, did not attempt to play or even respond to the presence of his audience. After a few calls from several tables, addressed to those in the audience still engaged in whispers and giggles, the room grew quiet and, slowly, the young man came to life, opened his eyes, straightened his posture, and used his right elbow to begin moving the bellows, pumping air into the pipe bag.

Finn had read about the young musician’s exceptional talent and, sitting in a dark corner alone with his drink, unnoticed by most of the patrons, had been waiting expectantly in anticipation of a performance that involved his favorite musical instrument with its sweet tone and the wide range of notes.

The first song was simple and light, yet enchanting, over the constant background of the drones accompanying the tune of the chanter, as is characteristic of the national bagpipe of Ireland.

Finn relaxed, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander, preparing himself for a journey back into time, to a place he had not seen in nearly three decades. Shortly thereafter he saw himself, a boy of fourteen, sitting on the top of a grassy knoll on a bright and warm Sunday morning, the wind swirling his hair, looking down on the Whelan farm in the far distance, so far away that all the sheep appeared like little white dots on a large, colorful painting. The dark blue ocean was quiet, and from where he was sitting, he could even see the beautiful beaches of Inch.

Sunday was his only day off from farm work, and he would spend his time reading, sitting on a rock, or lying in the grass until the daylight faded. Being aware that he might spend hours without food, Mother Whelan would not let him leave without a basket full of homemade brown bread, butter, and milk.

As on every Sunday morning he had been to church, and after Mass, he would spend an hour or two in the priest’s library, where he was offered tea while reading newspapers with passionate intensity, keenly absorbing every little detail. At times the study was supplemented by lessons on Irish history or the current status of the Irish Republic in cases where the young man lacked the background information on the topic about which he was reading.

When he had finished his readings, he had a choice of one book from the library’s extensive selection, which was to be returned the following Sunday. These were usually works by Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, or, on occasion, even English literature such as Winston Churchill’s “The River War.”

“You need to know the enemy’s thinking,” Father Connelly, a stern Republican, assured him on more than one occasion. “The enemy’s greatest mistake is their view – based on downright ignorance, I might say – that the Republican movement is nonexistent.”

Father Connelly was famous for his colorful Sunday night speeches at the local pub where an exclusive group of local farmers, Brendan Whelan being one of them, gathered in the back room to discuss the Irish situation, especially that of Northern Ireland.

The general sense of the discussions was that the violence in Northern Ireland was committed against Republicans, and not, as it should be, by Republicans.

“The Republican movement has no real policies,” Father Connelly once announced during one of his speeches. “We are talking a great deal about fighting for the freedom of Ireland, but we do not succeed. What will it take, what disaster must happen? How many lives will it take before we officially prove our position?”

Finn was only an innocent bystander in those discussions, torn between listening to the heated arguments and the Sunday night sessions at the pub in front. He remembered one night where the party went to a nearby barn, where they inspected a new shipment of Thompson submachine guns, stored in their wooden boxes, oiled and ready for use.

It was the first time in his young life that he had seen such weapons, and at the time he was unable to grasp their use. Ironically, only a few years later he would be an expert with any weaponry, including the legendary AK-47, and there would be no doubt about his understanding of their use and the reasons behind it.

His thoughts were quickly drawn in a different direction as the music turned to another piece in a faster tempo as the musician’s fingers went flying rapidly over the chanter, producing an occasional staccato by working the chanter’s bottom hole with his knee. He was now accompanied by another band member sitting on a white plastic chair to his left, a glass of Guinness positioned on the floor in front of him, lifting the music with his bodhrán, the traditional Irish drum, and creating surprisingly intricate rhythms.

Finn let his mind flow wherever it wanted to take him and after only a few seconds he was a young man of seventeen entering Durty McCarthy’s, a pub near the town of Cahersiveen in the county of Kerry, only a few miles away from the house where his mother had lived. It was late afternoon on a Friday. The pub was packed and filled with smoke, and a session was about to start.

Durty McCarthy’s provided him with reasonable accommodations after a long day’s journey from home. He had learned of his true heritage only a few days before, and he needed to reflect as well as learn more. The events of the preceding days had profoundly changed his life, and little did he know that it was only the beginning. Before that day his life held no print or plan, but that was about to change.

He distinctly remembered the first time he noticed the publican’s daughter Shauna staring at him. She was a beautiful girl with brown hair and green eyes, dressed in a kitchen apron, wearing rubber gloves and rubber boots. Even then, just like it had so many years earlier, his heart raced. The love he felt for Shauna began right then and it had never died.

He remembered her face as a mixture of surprise and immense joy when he asked her to marry him and follow him to live in the Northern provinces, where he would use his skills to fight for the Irish cause. Only a few months later they were married in the large garden behind the McCarthy’s house in the same niche that was now the place of her grave.

Suddenly the musicians turned to a piece of greater complexity and darkness, emphasized by an enigmatic beating of the bodhrán, requiring the highest level of skill and concentration. The young man playing the Uilleann pipe had closed his eyes. His body moved in the rhythm of the music, and his wrists frantically worked the drones and regulators.

Finn began to have visions of bloody bodies leaving bloody traces on the ground as they were drawn away from the view of the shooters, screaming all around him, left and right, from the injured as well as those who tried to help them. He saw people carrying the dead body of a young boy, a priest walking in front of them, waving a white, bloodstained handkerchief at the soldiers with the red berets who, without mercy, kept shooting at them.

Finn squinted his eyes and struggled to fight off the negative images. This was neither the time nor the place for such dark memories. His attempt was defeated by similar images full of screaming and yelling and the deafening sound of continuous shooting. He saw Shauna’s bloody body on the floor. He could not handle the expression of disbelief on her beautiful face while he was struck with shock, trying to find a way to get her out of harm’s way. Still, after all these years, he could clearly feel the intense pain of leaving her and being dragged away from her unconscious body.

He was surprised by the energy it took to fight off the images and force his mind to turn to more pleasant memories.

He finally found himself amid a cold autumn thunderstorm, rolling thunder and lightning in the distance, riding on the pony he had taken from his foster father’s stable in the early morning. There was no money to afford a saddle or reins. He would merely rely on his physical strength and skill. He knew Brendan Whelan would be angry with him, but he also knew the man’s great heart. He would understand and forgive him.

Horse and rider went striding down the hill, eventually reaching the beaches of Inch, where he steered the horse into the shallow waters. He kicked his bare feet into the horse’s flanks and together they went flying over the water. He felt the freezing rain hitting his face and his clothes turning soaking wet, but he didn’t care. He enjoyed the flight through the darkness, the lightning, and the noise.

He clung closer to the horse’s neck, desperately holding on to the mane with both hands.

“C’mon, laddy,” he yelled into the pony’s ear. “You can go faster than that!”

He could feel the animal’s body stretch under him, lengthening the strides.

“Yee-haw!” he screeched, stretching out his left arm with a closed fist high into the dark skies. His exaltation grew with every stride.

He had hoped to make it to the other side of the bay, but suddenly he felt his body slip, and his heart started racing. Trying to slow the horse, he adjusted his body into an upright position, and while he tried to use both hands to pull on the mane, he was caught in a massive gust. His upper body pushed off the horse, his feet high in the air, both arms stretched wide, he tumbled through the air, and after a less than perfect somersault, landed flat on his back, slumping into the cold and salty water.

There he lay for a few moments, stunned, trying to comprehend what had just happened, and then he burst out into thunderous, unrestrained laughter. He stood up slowly, stiff, pushing one arm into his back, water mixed with sand running from his hair and clothes, and then he limped toward the horse patiently waiting in the distance.

The music ended with the sole voice of the bass drone, gently and gradually subsiding into silence, followed by a thunder of applause. Finn slowly opened his eyes, a smile of satisfaction grew on his face, and in his mind he thanked the young man for bringing back memories of the one true love, Ireland.

He knew he would be back soon. There had been rumors, whispers, and signals that he could not ignore. He did not know when, but it would be soon. He did not know how, but he was willing to comply and finish his course.

———————————–

Download the PDF file and feel free to distribute it to friends and family.

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

As a writer you cannot only expect praise for your work, but also criticism. That is just human nature. I have learned to live with criticism, and, knowing that I am not the ultimate source of all wisdom, I am willing to listen and learn as long as the criticism is constructive. The situation becomes very difficult, however, when your writing hurts the feeling of a person, and that person accuses you of false reflection of a certain event or person through means of superficial research.

That is exactly what happened to me a few days ago. Two of my entries on my blog got the attention of Natalie, who apparently lives in the United Kingdom. She responded to my blog entry Robert Nairac – Hero, Butcher, Homosexual…? as follows:

“I would be very interested in talking to you! You seem to have a cavalier approach to researching for your book and make extremely tenuous links.

I can state quite catagorically that Julian ‘Tony’ Ball was not psychotic and did not take drugs. Though he did bite his nails, this is a family trait.

Robert came from a very loving middle-class family who would be mortified to read you diatribe. He was not gay and if he was he would have been able to face it in the same way as he faced his life and death, with style and dignity.”

You can see her comment and my answer at the bottom of the entry. She left another, similar remark at the entry  Robert Nairac – Supplement to previous entry. We also initiated a brief communication through Facebook (see my Facebook reference to the right hand side of the screen), and I found out that Julian Ball was her father. After a few exchanges we decided that we both had made our points and to leave it at that.

Even though I felt sure that the research for my novel was meticulous, it leaves a bitter aftertaste when you hurt the feelings of somebody with something you wrote, and, naturally, doubt arises. As a result, I spent all of yesterday and this morning – starting at 5:30 am – with further research on the subject of Julian Ball and Robert Nairac. Without going into details – it doesn’t make sense to drag this matter on and on – I was relieved to find that my research was not flawed. Let me also state that my references to Julian Ball and Robert Nairac in my novel add only one small aspect to the Irish troubles as it takes place in my novel.

I will follow Natalie’s advice and I will read ‘Big Boy’s Rules‘ by Mark L. Urban, a book exploring covert operations against the IRA from the mid-1970s to the Loughgall shooting in 1987. I did, however, take the liberty of adding a highly controversial book to my reading list, ‘War Without Honour: True Story of Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland‘ by Fred Holroyd and Nick Burbridge.

Interesting enough, but both books were hard to come by and seem to be out of print. I managed to buy used copies through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. I will follow up on my readings by writing reviews on this blog.

]]> http://frogenyozurt.com/2009/10/a-writers-lament/feed/ 0 http://frogenyozurt.com/2009/05/robert-nairac-hero-butcher-homosexual/ http://frogenyozurt.com/2009/05/robert-nairac-hero-butcher-homosexual/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 14:42:08 +0000 Editor http://www.frogenyozurt.com/?p=287 Live by the sword, die by the sword.
- Metaphorical expression based on the Book of Matthew, verse 26:52

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

During the research for my book “The Bleeding Hills” I stumbled upon the intriguing story of one charismatic character, British Captain Robert Nairac, an undercover agent active during the Irish troubles (For more references see the hyperlinks at the end of this article). While Irish republicans consider him a butcher, and the British Army calls him a war hero, they all share the view that “he was strange” – to use a mild expression.

First of all, after studying various articles on the life and death of Robert Nairac, I have come to the conclusion that Nairac was driven by a death wish, a point that may not be disputed by many of those who knew him. My next conclusion may be, however, far more controversial. After applying a simple method of studying behavioral patterns and comparing it to recent as well as historical cases, I have come to the personal conclusion that Captain Robert Nairac was either gay and/or the victim of sexual abuse during his childhood.

Before I go into further details let me make a statement to counter some potential accusations such as smearing the memory of a British soldier on one end or discrimination of gay rights at the other. I strongly support the view that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In the same sense, a person’s sexual orientation is not a matter of choice; individuals have no more choice about being homosexual than heterosexual. I am heterosexual, but I accept homosexuality as a different form of life style.

My conclusion that Robert Nairac was gay is still a theory and I am far from trying to cast a blame of any sort; my mere intention was to find an understanding of Nairac’s irrational behavior. An irrational behavior is not necessarily a typical gay feature, but the development of a homosexual identity is a complex and often difficult process, especially in an environment that is either ignorant of or openly hostile towards homosexuality (as much can be assumed of the British armed forces during the 1970′s). I believe, Nairac, during the years before his death, had trouble dealing with the so-called second phase of “coming out”. The first phase, the internal coming out, is the realization that one is open to same-sex relationships. The second phase involves one’s decision to come out to others, e.g. family, friends, and/or colleagues, which would have been a daunting task for Nairac considering the times and society he lived in. He had to deal with social isolation, the feeling that he was different from peers, feeling guilty about his sexual orientation, worrying about the responses from family and loved ones, fearing discrimination, and the fear of being rejected and harassed by others.

Nairac has been described as being highly intelligent, cocky at times, being a loner, but nevertheless liked the limelight, not a Smiley figure content to stay in the shadows, was instilled in his psyche with a kind of romantic intensity, single-minded and charismatic. He went to Oxford to study medieval and military history and here he showed the first signs of standing out from the crowd. He kept a trained hawk in his bedroom and wore a Grenadier Guards uniform during exams (Michael Jackson comes to mind). After Oxford Nairac attended the Sandhurst military academy, and while most soldiers tried to avoid the province, Nairac volunteered to serve in Northern Ireland. A colleague described him as having “another element which made me think that I couldn’t quite trust the guy or begin to work him out.” There are many more, very similar comments about Nairac, indicating a great deal of ignorance on behalf of the sources, which is understandable considering that at today’s times we are much more familiar with lesbians, gays, and bi-sexuals than 1970′s Europe.

Nairac also showed a tendency towards the flamboyant. He was seen heading out on patrol, just on his own, parading through the streets of Belfast, wearing a cowboy hat, trainers, and a pump-action shotgun, which is, needless to say, against British military code. The recklessness of his actions must be seen under the aspect that he, in his capacity as an undercover agent, had been frequenting local IRA or loyalist bars. That was also the case the night before his lone parade and it took place in the same neighborhood (I am reminded of the movie Die Hard With A Vengeance where Bruce Willis wears a sign “I hate N…” in the middle of Harlem). Talking about a death wish. As reporter Eamann O’Neill of the Esquire put it, “To describe this as reckless would be generous. Perhaps Nairac simply thought he was different, that the normal rules didn’t apply to him … that he had ruled himself out as a target. Perhaps he was working to a secret agenda. Perhaps he was out of control.” I say, perhaps he, the Roman Catholic, felt guilty about his sexual orientation and was looking for punishment.

Nairac has often been compared to another British war hero who had displayed a similar strange and self-destructive behavior. This man was Thomas Edward Lawrence, most famously known as Lawrence of Arabia. Both men, Nairac and Lawrence, are considered war heroes, yet showed a pattern of irregular behavior, even a death wish. Some historians had suspected that Lawrence was gay, especially since he had once written that he did not find homosexuality morally wrong, but nevertheless distasteful. Like Nairac he was looking for punishment; he hired people to whip him. Many photographs show Lawrence wearing an Arab garb, which can also be seen as an affiliation with the flamboyant.

There are two other, very famous examples of gay people who went through the same process as Nairac, ironically at the same time and in the same country, however, with a less destructive tendency. Those two examples are Elton John (born 1947) and Freddy Mercury (born 1946) – Note: Nairac was born in 1948.  Let’s recap some of Nairac’s properties: Highly intelligent, cocky, liked the limelight, romantic intensity, charismatic. The same attributes apply to Elton John and Freddy Mercury, who both had the luxury of coming out in an environment where homosexuality was increasingly accepted as a different form of lifestyle. They both had their difficulties, though, going through the phases of coming out. Elton John, for instance, married a German woman in 1984, until, after the divorce four years later, he came out as gay. Freddy Mercury had a long-term relationship with a girlfriend before he started sexual relationships with other men. Both men went through phases of flamboyant public display. On a side note, Mercury always desribed himself as an introvert in private life. The extravert personality came only out during his performances.

Still, features like being highly intelligent, cocky, liking the limelight, owning a romantic intensity, and being charismatic does not provide enough evidence for homosexuality. However, add to this the typical features during the ”coming out” phase such as social isolation (Nairac has been described as a loner) and a tendency towards depression, even suicide. In his article titled “shadow man” Eamann O’Neill quotes a former high-ranking military source as saying, “It’s simple: Nairac didn’t just stick his head into the lion’s mouth – that wouldn’t have been enough for him. Instead, he had to go and stick it right up the lion’s arse.”

During his duty in Northern Ireland, especially between 1974 and 1977, the year he was killed, Nairac has been accused of planning and/or executing a considerable number of shootings and bombings targeted against Republicans and Loyalists alike. In 1974 Nairac partnered with an SAS man, Julian “Tony” Ball, and it is said that Nairac “was going out with Ball in the evenings, shooting Catholics one night and Protestants the next.” In military terms this irrational pattern could be explained as “working the enemy”, but these men were simply out of control and in the summer of 1975, on military orders, Nairac and Ball were split up. Ball died a few years later in a car accident, while Nairac’s self-destructive behavior seemed to have amplified after the forced break-up. Another movie comes to mind, Brokeback Mountain, where Jake Gyllenhall’s character, Jack Twist, is killed, because in the end he took too many chances. Like Jack Twist in the movie, Robert Nairac took too many chances in real life and that got him killed eventually.

There is still a great deal of speculation regarding the exact circumstances of Nairac’s abduction and killing and I would like to add another aspect to the abduction part. Let’s first look at some details that are widely agreed on: 1. Nairac displayed a behavior, including his cockiness, that rubbed some people the wrong way, 2. The men Nairac ran into were not IRA men, and 3. The men who beat and abducted him did not know who he was. Nairac’s killing was a far cry from a military-style execution and IRA seniors were furious about the circumstances of Nairac’s killing. There are speculation that the IRA themselves had turned over the suspects to the Garda and RUC. My conclusion is that Nairac’s abduction, at least initially, had nothing to do with the view that a spy was caught in the act. Nairac, intentionally or not, did provoke a brawl in the Three Steps Inn, which resulted in a severe beating in the parking area, his abduction and consequently his killing. The cause of the initial brawl is unknown to this day, but it may be that Nairac had simply provoked people with his cocky behavior. After all, it was almost closing time at the pub and nearly everybody, including Nairac, was drunk. In the worst case scenario it may even be that Nairac, drunk as he was, went too far and actually hit on one of the men. The last scenario would explain the intensity of the beating.

While I have made the case that Captain Robert Nairac was gay – because his behavior definitely points in that direction – I could not explain his violent side, which was the only atypical feature on Nairac. The only other explanation would be sexual abuse during his childhood and, until now, I had no evidence supporting this theory. Sexual abuse could mean that Nairac was unable to have sexual relationships with women or even maintain a long-lasting homosexual relationship. Sexual abuse would also explain his relationship with Julian “Tony” Ball, which was not necessarily a sexual relationship, but a partnership to commit violent acts for the sake of violence. Ball has been described as “a nasty bit of work — a psychotic … He bit his fingernails down to the white half-moons and was living on his nerves continually, possibly taking drugs.”

On May 21, 2009 I read an article in the Washington Post titled Pupils Abused For Decades in Irish Schools and there is no connection to the Nairac case. It did, however, trigger a thought and I started looking for similar abuse cases in Great Britain. Imagine my surprise that the most recently discovered case of sexual abuse took place at the Ampleforth College. Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest private Catholic mixed boarding school in the United Kingdom. According to The Guardian (November 18, 2005), “For three decades between 1966 and 1995, a number of boys at the school endured sexual abuse at the hands of some of the monks who taught there, assaults that ranged from relatively minor incidents to, allegedly, rape.”

Robert Nairac attended Ampleforth College starting in 1959, which is outside the time range of the reported alleged incidents. However, I found another reference written by a former pupil who attended Ampleforth College between 1958 and 1963. I quote: “There were a lot of stories about sexual incidents among the boys and monks. Most of them were not true. Boys like to make up stories. Yet some of them were true. It was the practice that if a monk became too friendly with the boys he would be sent away to be a parish priest in Yorkshire, where he probably continued to seek out young boys.” The same source also writes “the housemaster rejoiced in summoning the boys to his study in rotation either to be beaten or to be given embarrassing and uninformed talks on sex, of which they had no experience and hence only theoretical knowledge. These summonings could often arise after the boy was asleep so that he had to be woken up. In this state the victim is more vulnerable.”

If my theory of sexual abuse is correct, it would be haunting to think about the many senseless killings that have been caused by these despicable actions. The blame is not only on those who committed the crime of sexual abuse, but especially on those who knew about it and looked away. Regardless of his sexual orientation and how history judges him, Captain Robert Nairac will remain one of the most charismatic characters of the Irish troubles and the account of his life and death will remain one of the most intruiging stories.

About the life and death of Captain Robert Nairac:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/nairac-an-undercover-hero-or-a-maverick-fool-13903699.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1020695/Heroic-undercover-soldier-Robert-Nairac-savagely-executed-IRA-Will-yesterday-arrest-solve-mystery-missing-body.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3972512.ece
http://www.irishecho.com/search/searchstory.cfm?id=3862&issueid=90
http://samilitaryhistory.org/lectures/nairac.html

Child sex abuse at Ampleforth College:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3344090/Leading-Catholic-school-is-focus-of-abuse-inquiry.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article720925.ece
http://onwardoverland.com/articles/ampleforthabuse.html

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.