Bank Levies - SFWP Style

Sinn Fein, the Workers Party, strenuously denies that any of its finance comes from robberies. In spite of these denials however we have identified the following robberies as having been carried out by members of the Official IRA since 1975.

We have been able to identify robberies that amount to only about half a million pounds in all and much of this was recovered by the security forces. However, we are aware that these represent only the tip of the iceberg èthat very very much more money has been robbed by memmbers of the Official IRA over the last several years. One former member of the army council estimates that the Official IRA robbed a total of about £2 million since the 1972 cease fire.

We have also been informed that two major robberies were conducted. in the run up to the June 1981 general election campaign. One of these took place in Belfast in early 1981 when a bank on the Ormeau Road was raided. The other robbery took place in the south and the takings were very considerable. We are not aware of the precise details of either of these operations and have therefore left them out of this narrative. However we wish to point out that there was a major jewellery robbery in McDowells Jewellers in O'Connell Street, Dublin on April 24, 1981, when jewellery valued at £100,000 was taken. We have no evidence that this was stolen by the Official IRA but this is the only robbery of its size undertaken in the run-up to the 1981 election. Also, as outlined below, the Official IRA was involved in another jewellery robbery in May 1980 and therefore must have means of disposing of jewellery on the. black market.

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Glens of Antrim (£229,997)

On April 26, 1977 a Securicor van was halted on its way from Limavady to Coleraine by a spiked chain thrown across the roacl. Twenty three bags of money were taken from it by five armed men. The gang was later arrested by an RUC patrol as it was packing the bags of money into meat carcasses in a disused quarry, four miles from the scene of the robbery. The five men were convicted of the robbery at Belfast City Commission on December 14, 1977. Four were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and one to four years.

The convicted men were: James Michael Feeney of Seaapark, Banbridge; Hugh Murphy of Richmont Gardens,

Lurgan; John Paul McGeown of Ridgeway, Craigavon; Andrew Mumin of Drumbeg North, Craigavon; and William Barr of Belmont, Derry. The latter, William Barr, was manaager of Securicor Ulster Ltd. in Derry. Feeney and Murphy admitted to being members of the Official IRA.

CIE Pay Office, Inchicore (£150,000)

This was one of their most successful operations and it took place on November 1, 1978. Five armed men held up the cashier's office. They were armed with shotguns and they were wearing scarves and balaclava helmets.

They locked the wages staff in the canteen after they got the money and then drove away in a CIB van. The van was later abandoned as the raiders got away in another vehicle.

Nobody was ever caught for the operation. We have been informed by several sources connected with the movement that this robbery was conducted by the Official IRA to provide finance for Sinn Fein The Workers Party.

Dundalk Jewellers (£60,000)

This robbery which took place on May 9, 1980, could have proved a major embarrassment to the party because the men involved got caught and were identifiable as being associated with the movement. However, the media missed the story at the time and the Gardai do not seem to have realised the significance of the incident.

The jewellers shop that was raided was owned by John Walsh and jewels to the value of £60,000 were taken. A gardaon duty nearby gave chase to the raiders but failed to catch them. However two men who correspond to the description given by the Garda were later spotted by other Gardai who also gave chase and, this time, caught them.

The car involved in the incident had been hijacked in Belfast the previous day. The hijackers told the owner that the car was being taken over by the Official IRA and would be returned later that day. When this did not happen the man went to the Provisional Sinn Fein incident centre on the Falls Road and a man who liaises with the Official IRA for the Provisionals contacted the local Official OIC in the Cyprus Street Republican Clubs drinking haunt. He was told that the car would be returned the next day. However the car was then found to have been involved in the Dunndalk jewellery robbery.

The two men who were caught were sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court. They were Leonard McAteer of Newry and James Tracey of

Hom Drive, Suffolk, Belfast. Two of the Gardai involved in the incident were decorated.

Bank of Ireland, Westland Row (£25,000)

This robbery took place on November 22, 1977 while security men from Brinkmat security firm were making a delivery to the bank. Three armed men accosted them at the door of the bank and forced them inside. One of the raiders was armed with a shotgun and the other two had hand guns. They got off with £25,000 but missed a larger sum of money which was still in the security van. Two of the raiders escaped on a motorbike, while the third made off on foot. The Gardai later apprehended a man and interroogated him but it was found that he was a barman in a local pub who was confused by locals with one of the raiders.

AlB, North Wall (£11,000)

Three armed men entered the bank at 10.14 am. Two jumped over the counter and one of them screamed "give us the rent". They got away in a car which was driven by the fourth man. Two of the men involved visited the scene on the following day to point out the location to their girl friends. One of these is a prominent trade unionist today.

Cork CMP Dairies (£10,000)

This was probably the most embarrassing robbery for SFWP because (a) the people involved were caught and (b) many of them were very well known members of the moveement. Five men, all armed, held up the wages office and took £10,000. One of them fired at a wages clerk, Maura Collins, who failed to comply swiftly enough with their orders. She was hit in the lower back. The sound of the shot alerted 3 Special Branch detectives who were invesstigating a break-in at the rear of the premises. They rushed around to the front and exchanged shots with the raiders. When one of the detectives produced a machine gun the five raiders surrendered.

The five men were Thomas Patrick Cosgrave of Cork; James Martin McKevitt of Newry; Rory O'Hagan of Dunndalk; David Russell of Belfast and Hugh Gorman of Newry. Counsel for the men stated at their trial in the Special Criminal Court on October 9, 1978 "while there were members of the Official IRA the incident in question was of the nature of a maverick operation for themselves."

The statement, which of course was given in good faith by the counsel, was designed to minimise the political emmbarrassment caused by the incident. It was, however, unntrue, according to a variety of sources at~fched to the movement. In addition, one of the men involved gave an alias. This man was a prominent operative fo~the Official IRA over the previous number of years.

AIB Head Office Site (£6,000)

This robbery took place in 1977 when the AlB headdquarters was under construction. Two armed men forced their way into the site office of Crampton's, the builders and got away with £6,000 - a third man was waiting for them in a car opposite the RDS. Specific details of this robbery were not available from Crampton's - the foreman at the site at the time was able to remember only the above details. Sources connected with the Official IRA have informed us that they were responsible for the robbbery.

International Meat Packers (£30,000)

This, according to the Gardai, was a "particularly well organised" job. The payroll arrived in the factory on Lower Grand Canal St. at 9.00 am on Friday, July 22, 1977. Forty five minutes later two raiders, dressed in white coats and protective helmets (the uniform of workers on the site) arrived. They held up the cash office at gunpoint as the staff there were in the process of filling out wage packets. They opened fire on a member of the staff who pursued I .• them and got away in a white Ford Cortina which had been stolen and was later abandoned.

CIE Train Robbery

This happened on Thursday, February 5, 1981 but where we are not exactly sure. Neither do we know what if anything the raiders got.

Two train hold-ups occurred on the same day. One on Dublin-Belfast train, which left Connolly station at 17.30. It appears that there were just two women involved in this raid and they held up five crew members on the train and threw out 5 mail bags onto the tracks. The mail bags were later found by Gardai on the line between Skerries and Balbriggan. While at least some of the bags contained registered mail, it is not known what, if anything of value the raiders may have got. Incidentally, the two female raiders got off the train, when it came to an unscheduled halt at Balbriggan.

The other train hold-up occurred later that same night at Ballybrophy, Co. Laois on the Dublin-Cork mail train. It appears that there was no money on this train and the raiders left the scene in a state of some agitation.

The Gardai linked the two incidents together believing that the same organisation was responsible. However, we have discovered that one of the raids was conducted by the Official IRA and the other by the Provisional IRA. We are not sure which was responsible for which.