Willie Carlin - Thatcher’s spy: my life as an MI5 agent inside Sinn Féin

THATCHERS SPY

Willie Carlin was born and raised in Derry. Joining the British Army in 1965, he was recruited by MI5 in 1974, and later the Force Research Unit, to infiltrate Sinn Fin. Over the next 11 years, he built up close contacts with Martin McGuinness and Mitchel McLaughlin, becoming one of Britains most valuable long-term agents in Northern Ireland. His cover was blown by a former handler in 1985, and he and his family were extracted to a new life with new identities. He continues to live outside Ireland to this day.

THATCHERS SPY

MY LIFE AS AN MI5 AGENT INSIDE SINN FIN

WILLIE CARLIN

First published in 2019 by

Merrion Press

An imprint of Irish Academic Press

10 Georges Street

Newbridge

Co. Kildare

Ireland

www.merrionpress.ie

Willie Carlin, 2019

9781785372858 (Paper)

9781785372865 (Kindle)

9781785372872 (Epub)

9781785372889 (PDF)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

An entry can be found on request

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

An entry can be found on request

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Typeset in Sabon LT Std 12/17 pt

Cover front: The Molostock/Shutterstock.com;
Malivan_Iuliia/Shutterstock.com.

Cover back: Gareth McCormack/Alamy Stock Photo.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Liam Clarke, my dear friend, who sadly passed away before this book was published. Liam was the Sunday Times journalist who befriended me and helped join the dots of my life as a spy. I miss him dearly.

Hugh Jordan of the Sunday World is a journalist and a friend who has worked tirelessly over many years to keep my story in the public eye.

My thanks to Henry McDonald of the Observer who worked endlessly on my raw manuscript and reshaped it into the book it is today.

To Neil McKay of the Herald , simply the best journalist Ive ever met.

Jennifer OLeary from BBC NIs Spotlight team is a reporter whose courage I greatly admire.

Bernie from the Kenova Inquiry team.

Aaron Edwards. A colleague from Sandhurst.

Imran Khan, my lawyer and friend, who has always been there for me and my family.

To Conor Graham, Publisher with Merrion Press, for believing in me and risking his entire business in order to publish this book.

Finally to my friends in Ayrshire, Scotland.

This book is dedicated to all those men, women and children of Derry who lost their lives during the Troubles, and to all those who strove for peace, either openly or behind the scenes.

PROLOGUE

YOULL BE DEAD BY THE MORNING

B y the mid-1980s my star was rising inside Sinn Fin. I was well regarded as a republican activist in Derry and was known to have the ear of leading republicans like Mitchel McLaughlin and Martin McGuinness. But there was another side to this story, for since 1974 I had led a double life, part Sinn Fin activist and part undercover secret agent for the British government, and to MI5 I was simply known as agent 007. This would all end abruptly when I was warned one day that if I didnt leave Northern Ireland I would be dead by the morning. Before you dismiss the end of my covert life as a highly placed agent inside the Irish republican movement as a pale imitation of the spy fiction of Ian Fleming or John le Carr, please read on.

It was thanks to a fellow spy, codenamed Stakeknife, and with a little help from one of British historys most controversial prime ministers that I was spared interrogation, torture and a bullet in the brain. I really was within hours of summary execution by the IRA were it not for Margaret Thatcher and, more crucially, the Provisionals spy catcher supreme, who, unknown to Martin McGuinness and the rest of the IRA leadership, was also a highly placed British agent operating at the heart of their organisation. Were it not for him I would have ended up dumped on the side of a lonely border road or in the back of an alley in Derry, my bloodied corpse left like a dog as a warning to others, killed for treachery by my old friends and comrades.

The end arrived innocuously enough in March 1985. I was watching the television news at home in the Waterside in Derry, when I received a telephone call through from my handler, Ginger, who was stationed at Ebrington, a military-security barracks built in the nineteenth century overlooking the River Foyle. There was an unusual urgency in his voice as he told me to get to the base as quickly as possible. I could tell something was off when he offered to pick me up at the end of my street, not at our usual secret rendezvous point. As I entered the intelligence briefing room I was met by another British military intelligence officer, Karen, who looked at me gravely. The Boss wants a word, Willie, she said, as a medium-sized stocky man with black hair, wearing a blue V-neck jumper and grey trousers, entered the room.

The casually dressed spymaster looked at me seriously and bluntly laid out the situation, Right Willie, Im not going to beat about the bush, but I have to tell you. Your covers been blown. He went on to stress that my relationship with British military intelligence had not been compromised. However, it was my previous role working for MI5 from the mid-1970s that had been exposed. We have intercepted an order from the IRA to lift and interrogate you. Its our information that you will probably be taken away in about eight hours time, the head of the military intelligence unit continued. Willie, youll be dead by the morning, so Im pulling you out of here tonight.

I was speechless as he carried on with his orders.

What I want you to do is go home now, tell your wife and give her the choice of coming with you. But you must emphasise to her that her life will be in danger if you disappear on your own. I can have you and your family out of here in a couple of hours and Ill take you all up to Belfast tonight where youll be safe, but we must move fast because I dont know who else knows or who might move against you.

Then he informed me that Margaret Thatcher herself was personally aware of the situation and was furious I had been unmasked as a traitor (in the Provisional IRAs eyes), and that my reports of the political intrigue and machinations within Sinn Fin had been carefully read over the last few years by the Prime Minister herself in 10 Downing Street, You can be sure of one thing though, the Prime Minister already knows and is said to be livid, so you can bet she will be asking questions. You dont have to worry about being abandoned, youll be well looked after.

Just before my exposure I had been rising up the ranks of Sinn Fin in Derry and was getting ever closer to Martin McGuinness, then the IRAs chief of staff as well as one of the partys key strategists, and later Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. My briefings to my handlers in Ebrington included information on McGuinnesss internal battles with even more hardline republicans, as well as his thoughts, ranging from participation in elections to his hostility to the extension into Scotland of the IRAs English bombing campaign. Some of the secret political intelligence I had provided was mulled over and analysed by the Prime Minister, as well as her Cabinet ministers; it gave them a unique insight into the evolution of Sinn Fin and, critically, McGuinnesss own thinking.