| Sean O'callaghan |
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Born into a Republican family in Tralee , County Kerry , O'Callaghan was radicalised by the Troubles in Northern Ireland , and joined the IRA . However, he was arrested and jailed after he accidentally let off some explosives, which caused damage to his parents' house and those of his neighbours. During the 1970s, he was involved in a mortar attack on a British Army base at Clogher , County Tyrone in which a female Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, Eva Martin, was killed, and shot dead a Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch officer, Peter Flanagan, in a bar in Omagh , County Tyrone. In 1976 , O'Callaghan resigned from the IRA, and moved to England , where he later decided to become an informer. He returned to Tralee, where he had a meeting with a local Garda, who had previously arrested him, and disclosed that he wanted to be an informer. He was allegedly the head of the Southern Command and was a substiture delegate on the IRA Army Council . He was the most senior Provisional IRA defector to have emerged so far. He was elected a local councillor for Sinn Féin , and was in regular contact with its leaders, Gerry Adams (now MP for West Belfast ) and Martin McGuinness (now MP for Mid Ulster ). In 1984 , he helped to foil a bomb on a theatre in London, where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were to attend a Duran Duran concert. He escaped to Ireland, wanted by the British police, and was hailed as a hero by republicans, who were totally unaware that he was an informer. In that year, he was responsible for the detection of the Marita Ann Arms shipment for the US. Martin Ferris , who was elected as Sinn Fein TD for Kerry North in 1999, was jailed for his role in the arms importation. Some time after leaving the IRA he walked into a police station in England and confessed to the killings of Eva Martin and Peter Flanagan, and more controversially, to the death of another informer, Sean Corcoran. O'Callaghan has subsequently argued that he had tried to prevent Corcoran's death, by tipping off the Garda and telling the IRA not to execute Corcoran until he arrived at the safe house. He subsequently served a jail sentence in prisons in Northern Ireland and England, where he continued to spy on the IRA. While in jail he told his story to the Sunday Times and after he was released he wrote an autobiography entitled ''The Informer''. He now lives fairly openly in England , having refused to adopt a new identity, and works as a security consultant, occasional advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party and media pundit, usually whenever the IRA has made a major announcement. SEE ALSO
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