SBP Revealed: How IRA "publishers" lured Holroyd to Dublin Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - Elizabeth Platt Sunday Business Post 5.16.99 Revealed: how IRA `publishers' lured Holroyd to Dublin By Frank Doherty The IRA lured a key British intelligence officer from his home in England to Dublin in 1987 in a bid to identify the planners of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings after British media reports about dirty tricks operations south of the Border. The officer flew to Dublin after accepting and believing an IRA cover story that an Irish firm wanted to publish his memoirs. Captain Fred Holroyd, was serving as the Military Intelligence Officer (MIO) attached to the RUC Special Branch in Juliet division which has its headquarters in Portadown when four car bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan on May 17, 1974, killing 33 people. Some of the vehicles had been stolen from Portadown railway station which was in his area of operations . Holroyd was debriefed by the IRA during a three-day stay in central Dublin. He was unaware that the "publishers representatives" he met were members of a special IRA Dublin-based unit whose existence has never been previously made public. Told by The Sunday Business Post that his visit to Ireland had been organised by the IRA, Holroyd said he had ceased to be surprised at anything that happened in Ireland. During question-and-answer sessions Holroyd refused to discuss the Dublin bombings. He said he had been under considerable family pressure at the time and had no knowledge of any link between Portadown and the bomb cars. Holroyd was protected during his stay in Dublin by the IRA which made elaborate security precautions. In a separate development some weeks earlier, following claims made by Holroyd in the British media and inquiries made by Taoiseach Charles Haughey, Holroyd was flown to Dublin by C3, the intelligence and security unit at Garda headquarters. C3 left a ticket in Heathrow after sending travel instructions through an Irish embassy official. The operation almost ended before it began when Holroyd tried to collect a ticket arranged in his Garda Special Branch cover name "Mr Green." Aer Lingus in Heathrow asked him for identification. After revealing that he was on confidential Irish government business, an executive was called. He contacted Aer Lingus in Dublin, who told Garda headquarters and the ticket was released. On his return to England, Holroyd wrote to the Taoiseach saying he was unhappy with the way the Garda investigation into his allegations had been conducted. He asked for a copy of the lengthy statement he had made. Last week he said that despite writing to garda headquarters and the Taoiseach he had still not been given a copy of the detailed statement in which he named garda officers who were allegedly co-operating with British intelligence. Holroyd was removed from his post and placed under armed guard at Musgrave Park military hospital, Belfast, after his wife made various allegations about him to senior officers. He was flown to Netley military psychiatric hospital and discharged with a clean bill of health after one month as an in-patient. He later served as a major in the Rhodesian army. Holroyd claims that his dispatch to a mental hospital was part of a plot to remove him from Ireland at a time when MI6 was losing a power struggle with MI5 rivals for control of intelligence operations in Ireland. His MI6 chief in Lisburn was replaced by an MI5 operative around this time. Some of Holroyd's claims about the power struggle between the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5) were later echoed by senior MI5 officer Peter Wright in his memoir "Spycatcher" which was banned by Mrs Thatcher. The Holroyd story is just one of the mysterious facets of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. Another is a report file which military sources say has gone missing from G2 at Irish Army HQ. It contained a report from Commandant Paddy Trears, who was then serving as EOD (explosives ordnance device) officer in Eastern Command. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-05.23.99-01:17:22-30628