May 1970: Arms Crisis
May 1970: Arms Crisis
Charles Haughey, Neil Blaney & Political Unrest.
May 1970 saw the birth of one of the best journalists currently on air in the UK; Louis Theroux. It’s a funny old world, because, in May 1970 in Ireland, there was some scandal that Louis himself would have loved to have covered.
On the 6th of May, Jack Lynch, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), sacked 2 ministers from the Irish Government, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, over allegations of illegal arms importation. Lynch then survived a vote of confidence in the government. To this day, it remains one of the most defining scandals in the history of modern Ireland.
So where did it all begin? The origin of the crisis dates to a meeting of the Irish cabinet the previous year in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Bogside and the arrival of British Army troops on the streets of Northern Ireland. At this meeting on the 16th of August 1969, government ministers authorised the establishment of a four-man Northern Ireland sub-committee to deal with "certain aspects" of Northern Ireland affairs. Along with Blaney and Haughey, two border county TDs, Joseph Brennan and Pádraig Faulkner, were appointed.
Haughey combined his role on this new sub-committee with control of a special Northern Ireland relief fund of £100,000, voted for by Dáil Éireann, to provide "aid for the victims of the current unrest in the Six-counties". As Minister for Finance, it was Haughey’s responsibility that £100,000 was used for its intended purpose. What occurred, however, was that approximately £50,000 at the very least was used to purchase guns for Northern republicans.
Before any possible plans could be put in place to supply weapons, Haughey realised that a line of communication must be opened between the Irish government, under the auspices of the Northern Ireland subcommittee, and those Northern republicans on the ground. On the suggestion of Col. Michael Hefferon, director of Irish Military Intelligence (IMI), the name of a young officer on his staff, Captain James Kelly, was put forward as a possible intermediary.
Captain Kelly had been in Northern Ireland when the violence first broke out in August 1969, experiencing first-hand, the chaotic nature of events. Significantly, in one report during the summer riots in Belfast, following discussions with John Kelly (no relation but a leading figure in the citizens’ defence committees springing up throughout Belfast at this time), Captain Kelly advised that the Irish government should provide monies to John Kelly to purchase guns and ammunition. Captain Kelly later testified to the Public Accounts Committee (established to examine the Arms Crisis) in 1971 that his recommendation to arm Northern republicans met with Haughey’s expressed approval.
Not only had Haughey opened a line of communication with leading republicans in Belfast and elsewhere through his relationship with Captain Kelly but he had also allegedly held secret discussions during August/September 1969 with the IRA’s chief-of-staff, Cathal Goulding, or Mick Ryan, O/C of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA (and later quartermaster general of the IRA).
According to the Irish Special Branch, which had apparently placed Haughey under surveillance in and around August/September 1969, “a deal had been made” between an unnamed Irish government minister (believed to be Haughey) and a senior IRA figure (Goulding or Ryan) that the IRA would have a “free hand in operating a cross-border campaign in the North”, provided that it called off its campaign of violence in the Irish Republic. According to Garda intelligence, Haughey even supplied the IRA leadership with £2,500. Haughey subsequently vigorously denied this accusation.
Haughey and Blaney disapproved of the cautious policies of Taoiseach Lynch on Northern Ireland and favoured a more robust approach. In August 1969, after Blaney had proposed military intervention in Northern Ireland, Lynch had asked Irish Army Intelligence to draft proposals for limited military intervention in Northern Ireland to protect nationalist areas from Ulster loyalist mobs, known as Exercise Armageddon. However, it was seen as unworkable and not adopted by the cabinet. The nationalist regions were given a form of protection later in August by British forces in Operation Banner, and Lynch saw this as an effective short-term measure. On the 30th of October 1968, Lynch met with Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in London and called on Britain to take steps to end the partition of Ireland.
Blaney, the then Minister of Agriculture, was an outspoken critic of government policy on Northern Ireland. In a speech in 1969, he said
"the Fianna Fail party has never taken a decision to rule out the use of force if the situation in the Six Counties so demand"
Haughey had not publicly opposed Lynch's policy but was concerned about being outflanked by his Fianna Fail leadership rival.
The first known attempt to supply Northern republicans with weapons involved John Kelly, a leading figure in the Citizens’ Defence Committees springing up throughout Belfast at this time and Pádraig 'Jock' Haughey, the Minister for Finance’s older brother. In November 1969, they travelled to London to meet a purported arms dealer, Captain Markham Randall. £11,450 was provided to purchase the weapons via a Baggot Street Munster and Leinster bank account, under the name of "George Dixon". The arranged deal, however, fell through, when Kelly became suspicious, believing Randall to be a British Intelligence spy.
In mid-December 1969, there was a further attempt to import guns into the Republic of Ireland, this time from the United States. This time, Kelly travelled to the US with Neil Blaney's "express orders" to "ascertain how quickly arms would be available in New York from the Irish-American community". This venture failed due to insufficient funding and Blaney’s preference for the purchase of guns from continental Europe rather than the US.
The third attempt to import guns occurred during the early months of 1970. On this occasion, with the support of Blaney and Haughey, the importing of weapons was to be carried out under the supervision of Colonel Michael Hefferon, director of Irish Military Intelligence. Significantly, Hefferon believed that he was working under the direct orders of the Northern Ireland sub-committee and thus his actions had the endorsement of the Irish government.
On this occasion, Blaney contacted Otto Schleuter, a professional arms dealer based in Hamburg, Germany. Using Captain James Kelly, a young officer of IMI, as a go-between, Blaney also employed the services of Albert Luykx, a Belgian-born businessman, who ran a restaurant in Sutton, Co. Dublin.
In-mid February 1970, Captain Kelly made arrangements to travel to Belgium to inspect an arms shipment, bringing with him £10,000 drawn from the George Dixon account in the Munster and Leinster Bank. The deal was to consist of ;
"200 sub machine guns, 84 light machine guns, 50 general purpose machine guns, 50 rifles, 200 grenades, 70 flak jackets and 250,000 rounds of ammunitions and 200 pistols".
Captain Kelly met Schleuter in Antwerp where arrangements were made to ship the cargo to Dublin. But when the ship assigned to transport the arms consignment, The City of Dublin, docked in Dublin on March 25th, the guns were not onboard. Rather, the consignment was impounded in Antwerp due to the lack of an "end user’s certificate".
The following month, April 1970, in a last-ditch attempt to procure guns, Captain Kelly travelled to Hamburg and, with the support of Schleuter, made arrangements to bring the arms consignment to Dublin on a scheduled Aer Lingus flight. When it became apparent that international regulations did not permit the transportation of firearms, Captain Kelly approached John Squires, managing director of a charter subsidiary of Aer Lingus. Once again, though, this attempt failed due to legal considerations.
It was at this point that Peter Berry, secretary of the Department of Justice, was made aware of this unfolding debacle. In a telephone conversation on the evening of Saturday the 18th of April with Haughey, Berry informed the Minister for Finance that the Irish Special Branch would seize the guns if the attempted shipment arrived at Dublin Airport. At this stage, Berry was unaware of the extent of Haughey’s involvement in this affair.
On hearing Berry’s words, Haughey noted that "I had better have it called off". The following day, Captain Kelly received confirmation that Haughey had decided to call an immediate halt to the attempted importation of guns into the Republic of Ireland.
Several days later on the 29th of April, Taoiseach Jack Lynch summoned Blaney to his office. He made it clear that he knew all about the covert plans to import weapons and demanded Blaney’s ministerial resignation (it remains unclear exactly when Lynch was first made aware of the Blaney/Haughey conspiracy). Blaney vigorously protested his innocence and refused to resign.
Later that day, Lynch visited Haughey at the Mater Hospital. Haughey was recuperating having purportedly injured himself, either falling from his horse or having been badly beaten with an iron bar during an altercation in a public house on the morning of the 22nd of April. Haughey also protested his innocence. Because of his ill health, Lynch felt that he could not continue his meeting with the frail minister, who was reportedly in a "very weak, sedated state".
As Lynch considered the fate of his ministers, events outside his control forced his hand. On the 5th of May, Fine Gael leader Liam Cosgrave received a tip-off about the plot to import guns. Later that evening, Cosgrave confronted Lynch about this information. After some procrastinating, Lynch again demanded Blaney's resignation, but the minister refused. Lynch then phoned Haughey in the hospital who also refused to resign.
Returning home, Lynch consulted a small number of his closest circle of advisers. The following morning, the Irish Government Information Bureau issued a statement announcing the sacking of Blaney and Haughey for their alleged involvement in an illegal attempt to import arms. It was an astonishing turn of events. In the space of two days, the Fianna Fáil government had lost three of its ministers (Lynch having also forced the resignation the previous day of Minister for Justice Michael Moran, who was understood to have a ‘serious drink problem’).
Events reached a crescendo on the 28th of May. Following Haughey’s arrest and transfer to the Bridewell at noon, the disgraced former minister was charged ‘with conspiring to import arms illegally into the State’ contrary to Section 17 of the Firearms Act (1925), as amended by Section 21 of the Firearms Act of 1964. After being cautioned Haughey replied, ‘Not guilty’.
Soon after, he appeared before District Justice Good in Court No. 4. Despite opposition from the Gardaí, the district justice agreed to grant Haughey bail on his own bond of £500, with one independent surety of £1,000. Neil Blaney, John Kelly, Captain Kelly and Albert Luykx were also arrested and charged. On the 2nd of July, the charges against Blaney were dropped. District Justice Dónal Kearney determined that there was ‘not enough evidence linking the former minister to the specific charge of conspiring to import weapons between the 1st March and 24th of April’.
The trials would continue throughout 1970. The first Arms Trial commenced in the Central Criminal Court on the 22nd of September 1970. Haughey and his three co-accused pleaded their innocence. Séamus McKenna, senior counsel for the State, commenced proceedings by focusing on Haughey’s telephone conversation with Peter Berry on the 18th of April, which concerned the request for security clearance for the cargo due to come into Dublin Airport. McKenna argued that this phone call was “of paramount importance”, the “final act in a conspiracy in which the accused jointly and illegally agreed to import weapons and ammunition, in contravention of the Firearms Acts”. Captain Kelly, John Kelly and Luykx all admitted their role in the attempts to import arms; they claimed, however, that their actions were not illegal or covert but had been sanctioned by the Irish government and facilitated through Haughey, Blaney and Jim Gibbons, Minister for Defence.
Haughey had a different strategy. His defence team sought to dispel the argument that he was aware of attempts to import weapons into the state. Haughey’s evidence directly contradicted four witnesses, including Peter Berry. During cross-examination by the prosecution, Haughey accepted that he did try to arrange the importation of cargo through Dublin Airport, but he argued that he only did so to facilitate military intelligence and because he was under the “clear impression that the shipment was required under the contingency plans agreed by the government”. He maintained that at no time was he aware that the mentioned cargo included arms or ammunition.
Jim Gibbons next entered the fray with crucial evidence. Under the terms of the indictment, the prosecution had to prove that the attempts to import weapons were illegal because the Minister for Defence played no role in the matter. Under oath, Gibbons categorically denied that he ever agreed to sanction, or even support, attempts to import weapons.
On the 29th of September 1970, the first Arms Trial dramatically and unexpectedly collapsed, following Justice Aindrias Ó Caoimh’s withdrawal from the case.
The second Arms Trial commenced on the 6th of October 1970. On the 19th of October, Haughey addressed the court for the first time. Under oath, and by his arguments during the first trial, Haughey said that at all times he had operated in the best interests of the state and that in his capacity as chairman of the Northern Ireland subcommittee, he had always ensured that monies designated to help alleviate the distress of Northern Catholics were dispersed appropriately. He vigorously denied that he had any knowledge that monies were misappropriated to help arm Northern republicans.
On the 23rd of October, Haughey was acquitted; the jury took less than two hours to come to its decision. The verdict was apparently determined by Gibbons’s admission that Captain Kelly had told him of attempts to import arms and a “wider sense that the plot was an understandable response to the plight of Northern Catholics”. In the end, the jury found it difficult to accept that the arms importation did not have at least covert government sanction. In arriving at an acquittal verdict, the jury concluded that the four accused had “operated under properly delegated authority”. Haughey felt vindicated. Nonetheless, considering Justice Séamus Henchy’s observation that either Haughey or Gibbons had committed perjury, the trial cast a long shadow over Irish democracy.
To this day Haughey’s role in the Arms Crisis continues to fascinate. In truth, there will never be a definitive account of his involvement. The three investigations charged with examining the Arms Crisis (the two trials in 1970 and the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts in 1971) failed to arrive at any concrete conclusions about what had occurred, and more specifically about Haughey’s involvement.
In the short-term, the Arms Crisis consolidated Lynch’s control of Fianna Fáil, with Blaney leaving the party, while Haughey was demoted to the political doldrums. But Haughey had the last laugh. Almost ten years after his ministerial sacking, he was appointed Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach in December 1979.
There is a great lecture by Dr Séan Ó Duibhir from An Cumann Staire (Historical Studies Society of NUI, Galway) that covers these events in great detail below.