Sean O'Callaghan
Sean O'Callaghan is a former IRA member and MI5 informant.
1983 press report
O'Callaghan was named in the British media in connection with the IRA bombing campaign in England in 1983:
- Scotland Yard said it also wanted to trace one of Downey's IRA associates who recently arrived in Britain and might be armed. He was identified as Sean O'Callaghan, 30, a native of Tralee, County Kerry in the Irish Republic.
- A spokesman refused to give any other details about the men or how they were identified.[1]
O'Callaghan has claimed that he was in England scouting for a bomb attempt aimed at Prince Charles and Princess Diana at the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Road, and that the press coverage was arranged with his Garda handler to abort the operation. Downey's name was introduced to deflect some attention from him.[2]
The Sinn Fein newspaper An Phoblacht has challenged O'Callaghan's account:
- But if O'Callaghan had infiltrated the England Department and if he had been sent to England on active service in 1983, why did he arrange for his cover to be blown after just ten days, making it impossible for him ever to be used in that way again? If O'Callaghan's version is to be believed, British and Irish Intelligence gave up the chance of an agent in the IRA's England Department and returned him to a relatively minor position in Kerry. It just doesn't make sense.[3]
Arrest
O'Callaghan gave himself up to police in Kent in November 1988.
- Sean O'Callaghan, aged 34, a former Sinn Fein councillor from Tralee, Co Kerry, walked into Tunbridge Wells police station and was transferred to Castlereagh Prison in Northern Ireland.
- The RUC is questioning him in connection with offences in Ulster. Mr O'Callaghan, who left Tralee in November 1985, had telephoned an Irish newspaper to say he was taking the action in the hope of dispelling rumours in his home town that he had become a police informer.
When he was named by Scotland Yard Mr O'Callaghan denied being in Britain during the election. He had lived in Britain for a few years but left in 1978.[4]
The Times later reported that he gave himself up because he feared being executed as an informer.[5] In 1992, the Daily Mail claimed he feared being executed for misuse of funds.[6]
Trial
O'Callaghan was tried at Belfast Crown Court in April 1990.
- O'Callaghan, who represented himself in court today, pleaded guilty to the charges, which also included conspiracy to murder, causing explosions, possessing explosives and firearms and IRA membership. He admitted the murder of UDR member Mrs Eva Martin, who was killed during a rocket attack at Clogher UDR base in May 1974, and the murder of RUC inspector Peter Flanagan, shot dead in a public house in Omagh in August of the same year. In a statement from the dock O'Callaghan, originally from Marian Park, Tralee, County Kerry, said his reasons for admitting his activities did not concern the court, but he was not and would never make any apologies for his activities. "I spent most of my life involved in the republican movement in what I believed was a valid and just struggle. "I would have thought myself cowardly and remiss if I did not set out to end British rule and unify my country" he told Mr Justice McCollum. The judge said he wished to study the voluminous and detailed papers in the case before passing sentence.[7]
O'Callaghan was given two life prison terms and concurrent sentences totalling 539 years after admitting 42 crimes. The judge made no recommendation as to how long he should serve as his crimes were committed 15 years previously.[8]
Maghaberry Interviews
- A SENIOR IRA prisoner, jailed two years ago, has claimed that he was working for MI5 when he was sent on bombing missions to Britain. One of his alleged targets was the Prince and Princess of Wales.
- In interviews at Maghaberry prison, near Belfast, Sean O'Callaghan, aged 38, from Co Kerry, has promised to reveal more details about IRA operations over the last 15 years.
- It is believed that he is planning to write a book on his time in the organisation. Security sources yesterday declined to comment on whether Mr O'Callaghan had ever worked for them.[9]
- O'Callaghan, 38, is on an IRA death list after it was revealed that he became a double agent for MI5 and the security services in his later years with the terrorist organisation.
- The Sunday Times, which revealed the alleged royal bomb plot yesterday, denied paying O'Callaghan for his story and said he was making the disclosures because he accepts that his informer days are over and wants public recognition.
- But one security source said: 'It is fair to say that he is a cunning, charismatic and manipulative person.
- 'I would suspect that his motive is more in the hope of making money than any sense of public duty and recognition.
- 'It could be that he also has some misguided hope that by making the claims about his life as a secret informer, he may win public support for an early release from his sentence'.[10]
- 'It could be that he also has some misguided hope that by making the claims about his life as a secret informer, he may win public support for an early release from his sentence'.[10]
