{"id":369958,"date":"2026-03-28T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369958\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:00:14","slug":"gardai-sacrificed-ira-informer-to-protect-a-more-useful-one-ex-special-branch-officer-claims-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369958\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed sacrificed IRA informer to protect a more useful one, ex-Special Branch officer claims \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sitting in the Imperial Hotel on South Mall in Cork<\/a> on a sunny afternoon, former Garda<\/a> Special Branch officer JP O\u2019Sullivan, now aged 79, is adamant that the past cannot be left to rest.<\/p>\n

For a decade from the mid-1970s, O\u2019Sullivan \u201cran\u201d an agent inside the IRA<\/a> in Cork: father-of-eight John Corcoran. He was to die in a field in Kerry in 1985 at the hands of the IRA.<\/p>\n

However, O\u2019Sullivan claims Corcoran was sacrificed by senior garda\u00ed, including then commissioner Laurence Wren<\/a>, who led the force from 1983 to 1987, to protect the more useful informer, Sean O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, for me, this is a matter of conscience. It has been a burden on me since it happened. It had to come out sooner or later. It\u2019s a bit later, though, than I would have liked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Now, the Ardfert, Co Kerry-born ex-garda has written his account of those years, a book titled Veil of Silence, which includes allegations that he was framed on a harassment charge.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan says that although, today, the 1970s is a forgotten decade, it was an period when the IRA threatened the State\u2019s security: \u201cThere was no threat from England; it was only the Provos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early on, O\u2019Sullivan was just one of three garda\u00ed in Cork, where he has lived for decades, on \u201cthe political stuff\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe did nothing else. Gradually, the numbers increased. Nobody else in the cops knew anything about what was going on.\u201d <\/p>\n

Corcoran \u2013 then a 35-year-old store clerk, \u201calways well-dressed in a casual way\u201d \u2013 came to the Special Branch\u2019s attention in 1975 once he was suspected of being a local IRA intelligence officer.<\/p>\n

During an interrogation, Corcoran \u201cdidn\u2019t tell us very much\u201d, bar that his sympathies were with the IRA, but said he did not approve of armed actions by the IRA in the Republic.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Corcoran: An IRA member and Garda informer, he was murdered by the IRA in February 1985 <\/p>\n

The first encounter with Corcoran was gently handled; the second, less so. On that occasion, he was told he would be jailed for IRA membership on the word of a Garda chief superintendent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe let that sink in before we discussed the possible implications for him in a more sympathetic way,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan says. <\/p>\n

Initially, he told garda\u00ed little but in time he became more valuable.<\/p>\n

Clandestine meetings followed, sometimes on a poorly lit but relatively busy road close to University College Cork where \u201cnobody would glance twice at a couple of people sitting in a car\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rules brought in by Garda commissioner Edmund Garvey \u2013 who was sacked in 1978 \u2013 caused problems for O\u2019Sullivan and his colleagues, requiring them report to directly to Garda headquarters and not to local superiors.<\/p>\n

In January 1976, O\u2019Sullivan and his two colleagues reported that the Provisionals, the Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army had met in Dunmanway, Co Cork on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n

They had discussed merging if \u201ctotal war\u201d erupted in Northern Ireland. Faced with the threat of a united republican front, Garda headquarters reacted strongly, angering local officers left out of the loop.<\/p>\n

In September 1976 Corcoran passed on information that led to the capture of an IRA gunman, which led to Wren approving payments to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut John was always reluctant to accept them,\u201d says O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n

Even more angered, a senior officer in Cork \u201chounded\u201d Corcoran, wanting control of him \u2013 so much so that O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s team told Corcoran to pass on some information to the officer \u201cto get him off his back\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Garda commissioner Laurence Wren, who died in 2016, pictured in 2005, after he had retired. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

A \u201csingle telephone call\u201d from Wren \u2013 who was then in charge of C3\/Special Branch \u2013 would have ended the turf war, O\u2019Sullivan says: \u201cHe could and should have sorted it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

By now, the IRA was funding itself through bank and post office robberies in the Republic. Corcoran passed on information about a plan by Kerry IRA members to raid a post office in Cork city.<\/p>\n

On October 6th, 1981, the gang struck Togher post office on Cork\u2019s southside, but they were quickly forced to surrender by garda\u00ed who had been lying in wait.<\/p>\n

IRA morale in Munster plummeted, and informer suspicions grew. <\/p>\n

By 1983, Corcoran, who passed on information about a Kerry IRA training camp, had built a relationship with the increasingly influential Sean O\u2019Callaghan.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan was already a double killer \u2013 killing UDR \u201cGreenfinch\u201d (female member) Private Eva Martin in a 1973 mortar attack in Clogher, Co Tyrone, and Catholic RUC special branch officer Peter Flanagan four months later in a bar in Omagh.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sean O\u2019Callaghan: Former Provisional IRA commander and informerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

By February 1984, Corcoran had told O\u2019Sullivan that leading IRA figure Michael Burke was staying in a safe house in Kerry. But O\u2019Sullivan feared for Corcoran\u2019s safety if Burke was arrested.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan says he sent three warnings to assistant commissioner Stephen Fanning, but could get no reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was baffled and worried by the silence from Garda HQ,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Corcoran had driven Burke, so O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s report had emphasised the risks \u201cthat any rash action would almost certainly compromise [his] cover and put his life in jeopardy\u201d.<\/p>\n

In August, Burke, later jailed for kidnapping Don Tidey, had handed himself in, but only because O\u2019Callaghan had told him that a Garda contact had said garda\u00ed did not have enough evidence to convict.<\/p>\n

\"\"When the IRA kidnapped Don Tidey <\/p>\n

Corcoran feared that O\u2019Callaghan would be wrongly blamed for Burke\u2019s fate and wanted O\u2019Sullivan to explain this to Garda HQ, which he did on September 4th. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a cruel irony, John just wanted to protect O\u2019Callaghan,\u201d says O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n

Today, the former Special Branch officer believes O\u2019Callaghan was, in fact, preparing his own defences against being accused of being an informer and was ready to see Corcoran sacrificed.<\/p>\n

Just weeks later, the Naval Service seized the fishing vessel Marita Ann, with Martin Ferris, later a Sinn F\u00e9in TD, onboard. It was intercepted off the coast of Kerry, carrying arms for the IRA from Boston.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The life of an IRA gunrunner: \u2018I was in a corner in a dark basement with Whitey Bulger\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that feedback to O\u2019Callaghan from C3 about my September 4th report confirmed to O\u2019Callaghan that John was, in fact, a Garda agent,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan says of Corcoran.<\/p>\n

By late 1984, the net was closing around the informer. In February 1985, he was told to drive an IRA man \u201cof some importance\u201d to houses in Cork. If the information leaked, Corcoran would be caught.<\/p>\n

Having picked up the man at the West End bar in Ballincollig, Co Cork, he drove him to a house in Churchfield on Cork\u2019s northside. O\u2019Sullivan told his superiors to do nothing, lest it endanger Corcoran. However, the house was raided. <\/p>\n

On March 10th, O\u2019Sullivan telephoned Corcoran at work; Corcoran told him that he was going to \u201cdo a job\u201d in Kerry \u2013 the usual code for IRA activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the last time I spoke with him,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan says. The two were due to speak the following day, but there was no contact. Corcoran\u2019s body was found five days later in Ballincollig after, garda\u00ed believe, he was murdered in Kerry.<\/p>\n

Frozen out of the subsequent murder investigation, which was rapidly wound down, O\u2019Sullivan insists Corcoran\u2019s life could have been saved by the Garda\u2019s most senior officers: Wren, deputy commissioner John Paul McMahon and assistant commissioner Stephen Fanning.<\/p>\n

He had sought direction as his fears for Corcoran\u2019s safety grew, but had received no reply. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in that vacuum of silence and inaction by Garda officers of the highest rank that John\u2019s fate was sealed,\u201d says O\u2019Sullivan. \u201cHe became the victim of murky manoeuvres in high places that ran parallel to a legitimate Garda intelligence-gathering operation against the IRA.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month after Corcoran\u2019s killing, O\u2019Sullivan sought a one-to-one meeting with Wren. Instead of getting that, he faced Wren, McMahon and Fanning. The three \u201csat there stony-faced\u201d as he laid out his \u201chorror\u201d about Corcoran\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

With hindsight, he believes they feared what he knew about O\u2019Callaghan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was their only concern; they wanted to know what I knew. That was why they had gathered in strength,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Speaking slowly, he continues: \u201cThe three top rankers did nothing when they should have acted to save John Corcoran\u2019s life. It could have been done.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sitting in the Imperial Hotel on South Mall in Cork on a sunny afternoon, former Garda Special Branch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,1346,42,27238,7727,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-369958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cork","tag-garda-siochana","tag-headlines","tag-irish-republican-army","tag-kerry","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}