User:Hunter Kahn/Edward O'Brien sources

NPR story, 12/15/96
NPR

DECEMBER 15, 1996, SUNDAY8:35 pm ET

SHOW: WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR 8:00 pm ET)

IRA Recruitment

BYLINE: Jacki Lyden

SECTION: News; Foreign

LENGTH: 6520 words

HIGHLIGHT: A survey of potential IRA recruits in Northern Ireland. Jack tours the city of Londonderry, meets with former IRA soldiers, and discusses the issue of joining up with the populace.

JACKI LYDEN, HOST: Last winter, on February 21, 1996, 21 year old Edward O'Brien from the Republic of Ireland blew himself up with two pounds of Semtecs (ph) he was transporting on a London bus for the IRA. He had never even seen Northern Ireland, but was devoted to the cause of the IRA's armed struggle to oust British rule from the northern six counties. A terrorist war waged for the last quarter century. The Irish Republican Army depends on young men like O'Brien. Young adults, and even teenagers, who execute terrible bombings as Ed O'Brien was on his way to do. He was more typical than not. An Altar boy from a good family, his parish priest said of O'Brien at his funeral "his misguided idealism was hijacked, reshaped and distorted by the godfathers of violence." Shortly before O'Brien's death, on February the 9th, the IRA broke a 17 month old ceasefire signed with the British government, and within an hour, bombs ripped through London's Docklands (ph) on the Thames. UNKNOWN BBC REPORTER: Anti-terrorist police, ambulance and about 100 firefighters went to the scene of the blast, which caused the partial collapse of two buildings in Marsh Wall in the South Key area. Eyewitnesses described what they saw. SOUND OF A CROWD UNKNOWN EYEWITNESS TO BOMBINGS: There was just carnage. I mean, there were people wandering around with blood all over them, I mean with the force of that blast, if anyone's in that building, God help them. UNKNOWN EYEWITNESS#2 TO BOMBINGS: Yeah. SOUND OF SIRENS UNKNOWN EYEWITNESS #3 TO BOMBINGS: I'm just so frightened. There was this mighty explosion. It shook my home and I live across, in Kildaire (ph) Walk. LYDEN: There have been 15 separate IRA incidents since O'Brien's death. Ranging from the arrests of operatives to devastating attacks on Manchester, England, and British targets in Northern Ireland itself. Edward O'Brien's death, as a white, Irish-Catholic terrorist, raises questions about who would join the IRA. And whether it has the same patriotic cachet as it did when the IRA sounded the call to arms a generation ago. ALARM SOUNDS SOUND OF BELLS RINGING Our story of the IRA, and its relation to the young, begins in Derry, technically Londonderry, a stony gray-walled city of medieval beauty. Where the Protestants, in fact they were apprentice boys, locked the gates against a Catholic siege 300 years ago. SOUND OF A PROPELLER AIRCRAFT Protestants who favor continued union with England are still the majority in Northern Ireland. But not in Derry. It's home to 100,000 people, largely Catholic, and an IRA stronghold. SOUND OF VOICES SHANE PAUL O'DOUGHERTY, FORMER MEMBER, IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY: I'm stand in Razle Street in the heart of the bogside. Which is the kind of IRA heartland. It's the Roman Catholic ghetto... LYDEN: Born in 1955, Shane Paul O'Dougherty grew up in a tolerant Catholic home, playing with Protestant neighbors. But by the age of ten, he was in love with the language of the Irish Patriots of the 1916 uprising. And wept to read they were executed by the British. "Don't be reading that history," his elders would say, "it would draw the blood from a stone." Inspired, the school boy went on to write in his copy book, "when I grow up, I want to fight and if necessary die, for Irish freedom." Then he hid the document in the attic. And, after 1968, when sectarian tensions began to sweep Northern Ireland, 15 year old Shane O'Dougherty was sworn into the IRA in a secret ceremony in the Catholic ghetto, called the "bogside". O'DOUGHERTY: They said, you know, that joining this organization won't bring any benefits to you at all, that you can see. Because there, there's no pay, there's no money, there's no drugs, there's no drink. It's a very strict lifestyle. You'll end up either dead, because you're going to be shot or blown up, or you're going to end up in prison for a very long time. LYDEN: Within months, the red-haired, blue-eyed 15 year old bombed the police barracks on his own block. His neighbors, after all. O'DOUGHERTY: So I took the bomb into the house, and I hid it out in the garage at the back, and I was thrilled by the possession of it. So at about two AM or two-thirty or three AM, I got up, sneaked down from my bedroom, at the top of the house and shaking with fright and nerves. But also shaking with extreme thrill and the beauty of it all, you know, in a sense. SOUND OF BANGING ON METAL To, to be aware that all this power of destruction and violence was in this little bag. Like some awful genie. And I remember sneaking down an alley, to near where the police house was, and I'm thinking about the next ten steps. In the next ten steps I would plant the bomb at the doorway of the police house, I would strike the matches, and my great terror was, "what if I were struck with some extreme terror, and put in paralysis. I wouldn't be able to move or run away with terror." And in fact I'd be standing beside the actual bomb. And I'd be blown away by it, you know? And, anyway, I thought "the hell with that" and I went down and planted the bomb at the door, struck the matches, saw the fizzing sparks, which I could never forget. And heart absolutely hammering at about 300 beats per second, you know, I raced back to the house, absolutely thinking I'd die of a heart attack. And got back up to bed, in that really short space of time. And, within, it seemed like seconds, there was a most massive "boom" around the whole city. SOUND OF CAR DRIVING PAST LYDEN: Watching from his third-floor window in his parent's home, O'Dougherty saw the Royal Ulster Constabulary Police stagger bleeding into the street from their damaged barracks. He went back to bed, satisfied. For the next couple of years, he drifted back and fourth on active duty. As Britain gave the Irish plenty of provocation, especially the internment policy, in which hundreds of IRA suspects were imprisoned without trial. In Derry, on January the 30th, 1972, 15,000 Irish Catholics marched to protest internment and end Catholic apartheid. Shane O'Dougherty was walking among them when British troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, without warning. SOUND OF CROWD SHOUTING SOUND OF GUNSHOTS SOUND OF GLASS BREAKING That day became known as Bloody Sunday. Fourteen people died, the undeclared war in Northern Ireland had crossed a line, and so had Shane O'Dougherty. SOUND OF EXPLOSIONS O'DOUGHERTY: When British troops, a couple of minutes from my front door, murdered 14 people in my town on a civil rights march. And I'm there, and I'm a young man, and I still have life, and I still have ability and I still have capacity, and I still have anger and the capacity to hit back, I was back in the IRA. I blew the hell out of London, I made world headlines, but I hit them, you know, I got the Home Secretary, the British Minister who was in charge of security on Bloody Sunday. He was blown up and injured by a letter bomb. A judge was blown up and injured. A brigadier of the British Army, in charge of the entire London area was blown up by a letter bomb. This was 18 year old testosteronish, young Irish guy, really angry, coming to London and trying to make London pay. And I didn't think I'd survive the summer, but I did. SOUND OF CROWD SOUND OF FURNITURE MOVING LYDEN: Shane O'Dougherty, who at 18 looked like any other fresh- faced student, wanted to kill as many targets as possible. He carried gelatinite and metal detonators in his backpack. He made letter bombs, even smuggling one into the British Prime Minister's residence. And though no one ever was killed, it wasn't for his want of trying. He did inflict injuries. He vanished into the IRA netherworld. The IRA handbook says "your primary duty is to remain unknown to the enemy forces and the public at large." Shane O'Dougherty had the conviction of a martyr. O'DOUGHERTY: I could already see the end of my life. I had an absolute utter belief that I would never see 21. I saw my life as a short one, but a snappy one. I didn't want to be shot dead on a civil rights march like so many other Derry folk were on Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972. I felt that I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to, you know, build that monument of Irish freedom a little bit. I wanted my name on it, I wanted to add some stone to it. And I wanted to go out with a bang and not a whimper. LYDEN: And indeed, before his 21st birthday, Shane O'Dougherty was arrested, and given 30 life sentences and 20 years in prison. He served almost 15 of those years. Today, he's 41, married and still has that boyish look. He's adjusted well to life in the six years he's had on the outside. But the IRA is still looking for new recruits. SOUND OF BELLS RINGING UNKNOWN BBC REPORTER: Two bombs have gone off near the army's headquarters at Lisburn in Northern Ireland. At least 20 people have been hurt. Details are still coming in. A BBC reporter, Gwenneth Jones, was in Lisburn late this afternoon when the explosions happened. GWENNETH JONES, BBC REPORTER: I could see a, a large pole of smoke, which was billing up from the direction of... LYDEN: October 7, Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Two bombs explode at a British Army barracks. Bomb operations, especially, take young nerves. Many young IRA operatives are caught or killed eventually. Or the police discover their identities. Thus the IRA always needs a new supply of volunteers. It's structure has changed since Shane O'Dougherty's time. The old brigades of thousands, easily penetrated by British spies, have retooled as a more informant-proof, terrorist cell structure. Using 600 active operatives, and another 600 in reserve. Though life for Catholics has vastly improved, Derry is still an active recruitment center, and to counter that, men like Martin McCloud are on the lookout. McCloud's a social worker, a tough one, who tries to intercept and counsel the sort of young person likely to join the paramilitaries. MARTIN MCCLOUD, SOCIAL WORKER, LONDONDERRY: The paramilitaries here, they'll survive for 25 years, and that takes a very high degree of organization. Therefore we're not talking about people who are educationally subnormal or whatever the case is, you're talking about people who are highly articulate, and who can engage against huge numbers of police and army and things like that. LYDEN: Recently, one of McCloud's colleagues was called on by a family who discovered its teenage son was about to join the IRA. MCCLOUD: And the lad said to him, "look, what are you prepared to die for?" LYDEN: Mm-hmm. MCCLOUD: To which the professional responded, "well, suppose if all came down to all, you know, I would die for my family." Young man said "look, but you're not really sure, you haven't got it off the top of your head." The guy said "well I really haven't thought about it." Well he said "when you can answer that question for me, you can understand me." LYDEN: Mm-hmm. MCCLOUD: People involved in paramilitary organizations have made a very conscious decision in life. That that's the route they want to, to go down. LYDEN: McCloud's colleague lost that round when the young man disappeared. Presumably to join the paramilitaries. But McCloud won a round with Paul Gillespie, now 23. Gillespie, Catholic, harassed Protestants as a boy. He works in cross-community relations now. Though he once feared the IRA's vigilante justice in his Catholic neighborhood, it's punishment beatings and knee-cappings, he also considered joining up. PAUL GILLESPIE, CROSS-COMMUNITY RELATIONS WORKER, LONDONDERRY: The offer was always there. If I had wanted to join. And even if I still want to join. I could do it. It's very easily done. It's just a few words in the right person's ear, and you go -- you could be a member. LYDEN: What are they looking for? GILLESPIE: People that will fight for their cause. The cause being the freedom of Ireland. I do have a belief in the freedom of Ireland, but at the same time I do not, my views being changed over the years, or being formed over the years, have left me in a way I don't want to take part in the way their doing. I would rather take part in a peaceful manner. Which I see, more of the part of it being done. LYDEN: And so, what made you decide to try to do things peacefully, and other young people you knew choose a different route? GILLESPIE: Possibly I would say it (UNINTELLIGIBLE) my parents. Like, I was brought up to be an equal. And nobody's lesser and nobody's better. Like, years ago I was sort of involved in what you would call "hooding". Local street sort of -- stone the police, vandalism of sort of anything to do with the Protestant communities. But, when I was about 14, I decided meself, I didn't want to end up in prison, didn't want to end up shot with plastic bullet, didn't want to end up shot, sort of with blood pouring out of me. I didn't see it as the way forward for meself. SOUND OF AIRCRAFT SOUND OF A MARCHING BAND LYDEN: The mood in Derry this summer, after the failure of the IRA ceasefire and the Northern Ireland talks, conveyed a terrible sense of the loss of peace. Protestant marches that take place every summer to commemorate the Battle of the Boigne (ph) in 1690, the decisive anti-Catholic victory, degenerated in sectarian violence. The ugly standoffs, the curfews and deaths -- including at least one sectarian murder -- were scenes that might well have looked like recruitment posters for the IRA. As thousands of Protestant marchers paraded through Derry, Catholic demonstrators, separated from them by British soldiers, stood vigilant. John Boy Power, LONDONDERRY RESIDENT, WOUNDED CATHOLIC: When you call this "peace", it's labeled under "duress". Under "not an equal society" it's completely, it's not a free society. KATE Power, John Boy's MOTHER, LONDONDERRY RESIDENT: It is nothing, no value, except to show supremacy. You know, so, I mean why should the Catholics tolerate it for any longer than they have to? SOUND OF BAGPIPES LYDEN: Eighteen year old John Boy Power stood with his mother on the Catholic side of the line. His face literally torn by the summer's strife, an ugly purple scar hunched into his cheek. The young are still the target, according to a local human rights group, which charged that in July, the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Derry fired 3,000 rounds of plastic bullets during four nights of disturbances. Power said he was just picking up his sister when the RUC, wearing riot gear, opened fire. He was one of scores of injuries. He describes how he was hit in the face by a six-inch long plastic bullet which pierced his cheek. SOUND OF MARTIAL STEPS SOUND OF DRUMBEAT John Boy: The plastic bullet hit me, and busted me cheek wide open... SOUND OF GUNFIRE UNKNOWN WOMAN: Stop it! John Boy: .. and broke me jaw and me pallet... LYDEN: Mm-hmm. Power: .. and there's a bone, a sinus bone too, they had to remove it, cause it was (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And then I stayed in the hospital, you know, for four days. And I have to go back every week. LYDEN: How old are you? Power: I'm 18. LYDEN: Are you politically active? Power: No, I'm not. No. LYDEN: Has this changed your outlook in any way? Or your sense of activism in any way? Power: I'm angry like, but I don't know how you can do about it at the end of the day. But, I wouldn't hold grudges against anybody, anything. LYDEN: Really. Power: Huh. But I, like, of course I'm angry, what they done, like, but they, some -- it has to be stopped, what they're doing. LYDEN: The umbrage John Boy Power takes at the political question is ironic in light of his own family's IRA background. Like his mother's. Kate Power pours tea for a visitor at her house, and mentions she had three brothers who were interned by the British. In 1968, her teenage boyfriend was shot dead by the British, and the family acted as a safehouse for IRA men on the run, one of whom was the young bomber, Shane O'Dougherty. Kate Power is in her 40s now. KATE Power: I'm older now, right? But when I was younger, I most certainly can say, we could not have done without the paramilitary. We could not have -- we would have been just trampled under the ground without the IRA. LYDEN: So, the contradiction that I see here -- I think you can see what I'm getting at -- is on the one hand, you're saying you think they have -- these people have a place, and yet you have a son that you're proud of... Kate Power: : Aye. LYDEN: ... because he's not violent. KATE Power: No, I, it's not that I'm not proud of him. I mean, it's just that, I just want to protect him. I would die, you know, they have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the lost (UNINTELLIGIBLE) children, would be the worst thing would ever happen to me. But that's why I'm saying I'm selfish. I'm selfish, that I would let some other mother's children go out and you know... LYDEN: Join up. Kate Power: Join up. LYDEN: That any mother would allow her child to join the IRA chills 57 year old Thomas O'Neill. A white-haired man, broken by years of IRA activity himself, he's sad and weary. The generations go on, he says, and each seems to find a justification for violence in youth they recant in later life. O'Neil, whose father before him fought with the IRA, has an appeal for the current generation the IRA wants to recruit. THOMAS O'NEILL, FORMER IRA ACTIVIST: I say for God's sake, wait. Wait. Do not get involved. It will ruin your life. Wait time. Time will help. I served out a long jail sentence. Been on the run. Or the ultimate, death. There's absolutely no future from violence. Violence. We have tried it. Violence has got us no where. LYDEN: That same conclusion came to Shane O'Dougherty shortly after he was in prison, and in solitary confinement. He never named names, but he renounced the IRA, and one by one, wrote apologies to his victims. Now he lectures to young people, telling them, if they join, they'll become the thing they hate, killers. Just as they accuse the British of being. "All very well for you to say," a few have told him. "When you were 16, you were in the IRA." The truth is there are many more volunteers out there than the IRA even needs. And as for the public rejection of the IRA as barbaric, Shane O'Dougherty says the IRA is indifferent. O'DOUGHERTY: Revolutionary groups can't wait upon every single citizen to support them. In fact, the whole point of the 1916 rising in Ireland, was that it was carried out by a tiny band of a couple of hundred people. Totally unsupported by the nation at large. SOUND OF AN AIRPLANE But built into their, their belief system was, that by shedding their blood, because they knew they were going to be wiped out when they rose up against British rule, that their blood would kind of water and fertilize the tree of freedom. And indeed, the horrible fact of life is it did. That following their, their executions, there was a mass public outcry against their executions. And this mass public then joined the ranks of the IRA. LYDEN: So teenage bombers will continue in the IRA, for the glory to the death, that tight little band that will terrorize. Their voices silent, their faces hidden, until they're captured or killed.

No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Office of the General Counsel at (202) 414-2040.

PERSON: IRA RECRUITMENT (96%); EDWARD O'BRIEN (88%); SHANE PAUL O'DOUGHERTY (67%); JACKI LYDEN (67%);

ORGANIZATION: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (92%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (57%);

COUNTRY: NORTHERN IRELAND (94%); UNITED KINGDOM (93%); ENGLAND (93%); IRELAND (93%); EUROPE (79%);

CITY: LONDON, ENGLAND (90%); MANCHESTER, ENGLAND (57%);

COMPANY: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (92%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (57%);

SUBJECT: War; Rebels; IRA; Europe; England; Ireland; Bombings CHRISTIANS & CHRISTIANITY (91%); WAR & CONFLICT (90%); TERRORISM (90%); TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS (89%); BOMBS & EXPLOSIVES (89%); EYEWITNESSES (89%); CATHOLICS & CATHOLICISM (88%); HIJACKING (77%); ADOLESCENTS (75%); ARMED FORCES (75%); COUNTERTERRORISM (72%); FIREFIGHTERS & FIREFIGHTING (71%); PROTESTANTS & PROTESTANTISM (69%);

LOAD-DATE: December 16, 1996

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Transcript # 96121506-216

TYPE: PACKAGE

Copyright 1996 National Public Radio (R) All Rights Reserved

AFP story, 2/29/96
Agence France Presse -- English

February 29, 1996 28:13 GMT

Unpredictable journey of a young bomber

BYLINE: Philippe Bernes-Lassere

SECTION: International news

LENGTH: 1307 words

DATELINE: GOREY, Ireland, Feb 29

Edward O'Brien, the IRA "volunteer" buried here on Wednesday 10 days after being blown up by his own bomb on a London bus, followed an unpredictable but not unprecedented path from a featureless Irish adolescence into the "adventurous" world of nationalist terrorism.

Nobody here in his native village south of Dublin, the family included, suspected that he belonged to the outlawed Irish Republican Army. Likewise in the London suburb of Lewisham where he had lodgings there was nothing to connect the young man with crime.

And with good reason: the 21-year-old O'Brien, two years after moving to Britain, had become the perfect IRA "sleeper" -- he kept to himself, had no social or political activities, and a clean slate with the police. He was a complete unknown.

A relative described him in the press this week as "a very shy, gullible kid who wouldn't even raise his finger to anyone."

There was nothing really to say about him, the boy who left school at 15, happier in the boxing ring or playing hurley than in the schoolroom. The red-headed lad who looked so young -- his newsagent in London thought he was barely 16 -- worked for a few years in a local bakery then suddenly left almost two years ago.

It was then that he left Ireland too, out of work like nearly 20 percent of the village's active population. There had also been a row with his father, it seemed.

Gorey's Catholic parish priest Walter Forde takes up the tale. O'Brien, he said, was "a young guy going to a strange city. He's lonely and he is also aware of his ethnic background. It becomes a breeding ground and the IRA have become experts in spotting them."

It is unclear whether he was sent to England specifically to be a sleeper or was recruited after arrival.

His only known flirtation with republican nationalism was in 1992, when he distributed copies of the newssheet put out by Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing. He never joined the party, however.

In the general election of that year, Sinn Fein got 0.89 percent of the vote in Gorey (population 4,000).

As far as his father and mother Myley and Margot were concerned, O'Brien was working on the railways in Scotland. He had made it up with his father, and came home for Christmas. He used to telephone the family once a month.

The last call was made on Sunday February 18. Three hours later he took the 171 bus, carrying a bomb which someone else had probably assembled, to place it where he had been told.

On the phone, he had told his mother he loved her.

IRA members, including convicted terrorists, on Wednesday ignored pleas from his family and attended the funeral, under the eyes of scores of police, to hear Forde say that O'Brien had been "hijacked by the Godfathers of the IRA".

There was none of the display of arms during the ceremony that has characterised funerals of other IRA members who have died in "active service" and been buried with "military honours" from the armed paramilitary fighters.

O'Brien's family had condemned the bombing, which injured nine other innocent victims, as well as the Sinn Fein movement, and the vast majority of mourners gathered under the spring sun wore white ribbons on their lapels, that the priest had supplied as symbols of peace to demonstrate their horror and rejection of IRA violence.

Forde commiserated with the bomber's family, who must "try to make sense of how a young man, barely out of his teens, was drawn into the sordid and terrible world of terrorism".

He added that the entire community must try to understand how 0'Brien's "misguided idealism was hijacked, reshaped and distorted by the godfathers of the IRA".

The "overwhelming majority" were consumed by a "humbling sense of sympathy, understanding and a sense of solidarity" with the O'Brien family, according to the priest.

pbl-pip/mb

AFP

IRA members, including convicted terrorists, on Wednesday ignored pleas from the family of IRA bomber Edward O'Brien and attended his funeral 10 days after he blew himself up on a central London bus.

The brother of Martin McGuinness, the deputy leader of the Irish Republican Army's political wing, Sinn Fein, was in the aisles of Gorey parish church along with convicted IRA terrorist Raymond McCartney, to hear priest Father Walter Forde say that O'Brien had been "hijacked by the Godfathers of the IRA".

Outside the church, two IRA members who had escaped from prison in England, Nessan Quinlivan and Pierce McCauley, were watched by scores of policemen who have staked out the 4,000-strong village over the past three days.

There was none of the display of arms during the ceremony that has characterised funerals of other IRA members who have died in "active service" and been buried with "military honours" from the armed paramilitary fighters.

O'Brien's family condemned the bombing, which injured nine other innocent victims, as well as the Sinn Fein movement.

Armed police stopped and controlled any vehicle trying to enter the village, where the church has been under guard since Monday to ensure that no IRA graffiti or insignia would be posted ahead of the ceremony.

The vast majority of mourners gathered under the spring sun wore white ribbons on their lapels, that the priest had supplied as symbols of peace to demonstrate their horror and rejection of IRA violence.

Father Forde commiserated with the bomber's family, who must "try to make sense of how a young man, barely out of his teens, was drawn into the sordid and terrible world of terrorism".

He added that the entire community must try to understand how 0'Brien's "misguided idealism was hijacked, reshaped and distorted by the godfathers of the IRA".

The "overwhelming majority" were consumed by a "humbling sense of sympathy, understanding and a sense of solidarity" with the O'Brien family, according to the priest.

pip/g

AFP

SUBJECT: BOMBS & EXPLOSIVES (90%); TERRORISM (89%); POLITICAL PARTIES (89%); TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS (78%); ADOLESCENTS (77%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (76%); ELECTIONS (74%); ETHNICITY (72%); CATHOLICS & CATHOLICISM (64%); RELIGION (64%); CHRISTMAS (60%); BAKERIES (50%);

PERSON: EDWARD O'BRIEN (96%); WALTER FORDE (67%);

ORGANIZATION: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (90%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (57%);

COUNTRY: IRELAND (92%); ENGLAND (79%); UNITED KINGDOM (79%); SCOTLAND (76%);

CITY: LONDON, ENGLAND (91%); DUBLIN, IRELAND (73%);

COMPANY: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (90%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (57%);

LOAD-DATE: February 28, 1996

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 1996 Agence France Presse

USA Today story, 3/14/96
USA TODAY

March 14, 1996, Thursday, INTERNATIONAL EDITION

IRA seeks members with clean face, clean record

BYLINE: Tom Squitieri

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

LENGTH: 261 words

In the early 1970s the Irish Republican Army's criterion for members of its British operations was simple: find the most ruthless of its members and send them to Britain with guns and explosives.

British security forces quickly caught on and began watching known terrorists. So the IRA switched to recruiting agents with a "clean face and clean record," Scotland Yard officials say.

That apparently is how Edward O'Brien wound being up in the IRA cell. O'Brien, 21, died when the bomb he was carrying exploded on Feb. 18 on a London bus. He had no known IRA ties. But an obituary in the An Phoblacht newspaper, which backs the IRA, protrayed O'Brien as a committed terrorist who had volunteered for active service in England.

Officials in Scotland Yard and MI5, the British intelligence service, say there are perhaps no more than 300 highly trained, highly motivated IRA militants.

According to British officials, the IRA raises about $ 16 million a year. Its sources are money laundering, protection and extortion rackets, some armed robberies and donations from U.S. sympathizers.

The nucleus of IRA operations is the active service unit, a self-contained cell of four to six agents. The cell includes an explosives expert, a quartermaster, a logistics person who arranges safe houses and transportation, and operators who plant the bombs.

Outside of that core cell is a wider group of individuals who may not be official IRA members, but help store supplies, provide cars and safe houses and get travel documents.

PERSON: EDWARD O'BRIEN (90%);

ORGANIZATION: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (97%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (93%);

COUNTRY: UNITED KINGDOM (94%); UNITED STATES (79%); SCOTLAND (57%);

CITY: LONDON, ENGLAND (58%);

COMPANY: SCOTLAND YARD (73%);   IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (97%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (93%);

GEOGRAPHIC: ASIAN

SUBJECT: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY ; MEMBERSHIP; PROFILE TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS (90%); TERRORISM (90%); BOMBS & EXPLOSIVES (90%); DEATHS & OBITUARIES (87%); LAW ENFORCEMENT (77%); POLICE FORCES (76%); ROBBERY (72%); PASSPORTS & VISAS (72%); MONEY LAUNDERING (52%);

LOAD-DATE: March 15, 1996

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 1996 Gannett Company, Inc.

Anchorage Daily News story, 2/24/96
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)

February 24, 1996, Saturday, FINAL EDITION

OPINION

SECTION: METRO, Pg. 8D

LENGTH: 757 words

London bombing Bomber was seduced by the IRA

The Irish Republican Army bomb that exploded in a London bus last weekend killed only one man, the bomber, 21 year-old Edward O'Brien. It's tempting to say Good riddance, but Mr. O'Brien was in some measure as much a victim of the IRA as its agent.

For more than a hundred years, Irish revolutionary groups opposed to the British presence in Ireland have recruited young men and women for violent actions against Great Britain. The courage of these young people played a major role in freeing 26 of Ireland's 32 counties after World War I.

But the IRA refused to accept the partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. In 1922, the IRA launched a civil war against their more pragmatic brothers and were crushed. Since then -- for more than 70 years -- underground remnants of the IRA have fought a guerrilla war against the British presence in Northern Ireland. Their violence became especially intense after 1969, when Protestant police forces attacked peaceful Roman Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry and other cities.

The six counties of the north of Ireland cry out for justice. But the IRA offers not justice but hatred and violence. It's a criminal organization masquerading as the people's protector.

Only by feeding young people like Edward O'Brien a steady diet of myth and folklore about the blood sacrifice of Irish martyrs of yesteryear can the IRA recruit its bombers. The IRA, in other words, does not offer young people a future -- it offers them a past in which they can stand shoulder to shoulder with those who gave their lives for Irish independence. The blood tradition is the key to transforming criminal activities -- like bombing London civilian targets -- into heroic actions.

Catholic, Protestant, British, and American participants in the Northern Ireland peace talks aspire to change the future. But the future has a bloody link to the past. And that link can be broken for good only when young people turn their backs on the IRA's myths of martyrdom. Farewell, Brush UAA coach made Alaska college hockey

The game finally is over for University of Alaska Anchorage hockey coach Brush Christiansen. After 17 years as head man, he's retiring.

The 1995-96 Seawolves have had a forgettable season, with 7 wins, 21 loses and 5 ties as of Friday afternoon. But there's plenty to remember about Coach Christiansen's tenure.

Brush Christiansen was the father of UAA hockey. In the late '70s and early '80s, he transformed a pickup team into a club that could compete with the collegiate national powers. Rival coaches who asked Where's UAA? soon learned to fear Coach Christiansen's scrappy clubs. In time, he beat Minnesota, North Dakota and other traditionally top-ranked teams. His 1991 Seawolves made it to the second round of the NCAA playoffs, after upsetting Boston College during the first round. In 1993, UAA joined the prestigious Western College Hockey Association.

Tens of thousands of fans have flocked to Sullivan Arena over the years to cheer on the Seawolves when they're winning and second-guess the coach when they're losing. But nobody should second-guess this: Brush Christiansen built UAA hockey from the ground up, and the gold-and-green Seawolves are his monument. QUOTABLE

''I might need a bodyguard for bringing it up. But it has to be put on the table. It's inevitable if people don't want to touch the Permanent Fund.''

-- Rep. Carl Moses, D-Unalaska, after introducing a bill that would bring back the income tax next year.

''They keep talking about how if you have $ 100 in your checkbook but expenses are $ 300, how do you get it down to $ 100? Do you cut your food budget in half? Maybe instead of giving milk to the baby, you give water to the baby? I want to know the other options before I can tell you what I want to cut. Do I need to get another job or maybe three jobs to bring in more money?''

-- Sen. Georgianna Lincoln, D-Rampart. Many Democrats in the Legislature say that lowering expenses alone will not solve the state's financial problems and that higher taxes must be considered.

''We are definitely more concerned about the spending side. A lot of us think we need to have a guaranteed amount of cuts before we start raising revenues.''

-- Rep. Mark Hanley, R-Anchorage, co-chairman of the House Finance Committee. Republicans have said they will not consider new revenue proposals until spending is substantially reduced.

EDWARD O'BRIEN (62%);

IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (94%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (84%);

IRELAND (94%); NORTHERN IRELAND (94%); UNITED KINGDOM (93%); UNITED STATES (92%);

ALASKA, USA (92%);

LONDON, ENGLAND (91%);

COMPANY: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (94%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (84%);

SUBJECT: WAR & CONFLICT (90%); TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS (78%); COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY SPORTS (75%); WORLD WAR I (73%); ORGANIZED CRIME (73%); REBELLIONS & INSURGENCIES (73%); CATHOLICS & CATHOLICISM (71%); POLICE FORCES (70%); FOLKLORE (69%); RELIGION (66%); TALKS & MEETINGS (62%); PEACE PROCESS (50%);

LOAD-DATE: February 27, 1996

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 1996 Anchorage Daily News

CBS News story, 2/28/96
CBS News Transcripts

February 28, 1996, Wednesday

SHOW: CBS EVENING NEWS (6:30 PM ET)

FAMILY OF IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY MEMBER KILLED IN BOMBING REQUESTS THE IRA NOT TO ATTEND FUNERAL; IRA MAY NOT HAVE PUBLIC SUPPORT AS IT ONCE DID

ANCHORS: DAN RATHER

BYLINE: MARK PHILLIPS

LENGTH: 413 words

DAN RATHER, anchor:

The peace process in Northern Ireland, jolted by two bomb blasts in London, is wobbling toward being back on track tonight. Britain and Ireland agreed to convene all-party talks June 10th, including the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Correspondent Mark Phillips reports on war and peace, and the IRA.

MARK PHILLIPS reporting:

Governments may be trying to put the peace process back on the rails, but in the Irish town of Gorey today, they were burying one of the bombers who had knocked it off. The remains of Edward O'Brien had been brought back here after the bomb he was carrying accidentally went off last week, killing O'Brien, and seriously injuring four others who were unlucky enough to have been on the same London bus. The funeral may have been the most significant in recent IRA history. O'Brien's family insisted there be no IRA trappings. In this Irish town, there are no IRA heroes.

Unidentified Man: We do not support you. We abhor what you are doing. We want our peace back now.

PHILLIPS: The IRA has a serious PR problem. In the bandit country along the border and in the mean streets of Catholic-Republican Belfast--the IRAs home turf--things have changed.

Throughout the decades of conflict, an IRA volunteer could come to expect not only support from Republican communities like this, but refuge. A safe haven behind every door. That may not be true anymore.

Even the man who created the modern Provisional IRA when the current troubles began in the '60s, thinks the current gang created its own problems by getting into the negotiating game in the first place.

Mr. RORY O'BRADAIGH (Founder, Provisional Irish Republican Army): The Provisionals have created--they've dug that ditch for themselves.

PHILLIPS: They have a PR problem.

Mr. O'BRADAIGH: And now, if they have difficulty in scrambling out of it, that is their problem.

PHILLIPS: The IRA has always been concerned with its image. Now, though, it may have bombed itself into isolation from its own people.

Mr. O'BRADAIGH: It is not possible to mount a guerrilla war without extensive and basic public support.

PHILLIPS: And has that gone?

Mr. O'BRADAIGH: That will be seen.

PHILLIPS: What will be seen is whether the widespread movement for peace can produce enough results to force the bombmakers off the streets, and perhaps take the gun and the coffin out of Irish politics. Mark Phillips, CBS News, Belfast.

PERSON: DANIEL IRVIN 'DAN' RATHER  (74%);

ORGANIZATION: IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (95%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (91%);

COUNTRY: UNITED KINGDOM (92%); NORTHERN IRELAND (92%); IRELAND (91%);

CITY: LONDON, ENGLAND (90%); BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND (90%);

COMPANY: CBS NEWS DIVISION (50%);   IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY  (95%); IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (91%);

SUBJECT: TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS (90%); BOMBS & EXPLOSIVES (90%); PEACE PROCESS (90%); INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (89%); POLITICS (77%); REBELLIONS & INSURGENCIES (72%);

LOAD-DATE: February 28, 1996, Wednesday

LANGUAGE: English

TYPE: Newscast

Copyright 1996 CBS Inc. All Rights Reserved