So it is now alleged that Sean MacStiofain, founding Provisional and IRA Chief of Staff, was an informant of the Garda Special Branch. Amazing. A few tweets on this. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/ira-chief-of-staff-tipped-off-garda%C3%AD-about-arms-trial-guns-says-se%C3%A1n-haughey-1.4361912

Sean MacStiofain was born John Stephenson in London in 1928. His Irish ancestry was quite tenuous - his mother was of northern Irish Protestant descent. But for whatever reason, in the late 1940s after a stint in the RAF he became involved in Irish republican groups in England

As you can hear from this 1972 interview, where he talks about his 'satisfaction' at the death of Crown forces, he tried, but did not fully succeed in suppressing his English accent.

At some point in the late 1940s he joined the IRA and in 1953 was imprisoned along with several others for a raid on a British Army base in England attempting to seize arms. was released in 1959 after which he moved to Ireland.

In the 1960s the IRA was in some disarray after the failed 'border campaign' of the 1950s. A number of people including Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding tried to take the organisation in a more left wing direction. MacStiofain was one of those who opposed this on grounds that +

it was against his Catholic religious beliefs, and de-prioritized the IRA's main goal of armed action to bring about a United Ireland. The IRA split in 1969, ostensibly over the alleged failure of the organisation to defend Belfast Catholics in the riots of August of that year.

MacStiofain was one of the leading 'splitters' and formed the Provisional IRA. So this is where the Sean Haughey allegations come in. It seems that MacStiofain was was giving information to the Garda Special Branch to undermine Cathal Goulding, just before the split

Apparently MacStiofain informed the Special Branch of an arms shipment, due to be flown in from Hamburg, with the knowledge of (at the least) certain government ministers, that was intended for the the defence of northern Catholics ( I suppose by the IRA?) it's still very murky

This caused a big crisis south of the border, allegedly ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney and Irish Army officer Captain Kelly acted on their own. All were later cleared. Now seems like it was really a government op that Special Branch would not stand for so made public.

Now from MscStiofain's pov,this was obviously a dangerous business if true. Becasue betraying arms to the authorities north or south was an offence punishable in the IRA by death. But in any case, MacStiofain went on to lead the Provisional IRA in its first two years.

If he was indeed a Garda informant this does raise all kinds of questions. Taoiseach Jack Lynch refused request by British PM Ted Heath to arrest him in Sept 1972. Though he was finally arrested after a fiery interview in Nov of that year & given 6 months for IRA membership.

Now here's the weird coda to the MacStiofain story. He went on hunger and thirst strike in prison, but was ordered off it by the IRA. When he was released in 1973 he never again played a part in leadership role in the IRA. In 1983 he even appealed to the IRA to call a ceasefire.

He died in 2001. There remain, to say the least, many unanswered questions about his life and times. Why did an Englishman of negligible Irish ancestry become a fervent Irish republican and Irish language activist? Was he really a Garda informer as well as P.IRA Chief of Staff?

Why did he suddenly and completely fall out of prominence in the republican movement after his hunger strike in 1972? END