In 1980 I was 16 years old and on my school holidays, I had secured a job in a factory in Monaghan Town. I had chosen Monaghan Town as I was politically motivated and I wanted to join Sinn Fein/PIRA. While I was politically motivated, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do, on a personal level, I was a child that knew little of the ways of the world.
I began working in Monaghan Poultry Products as a general labourer and I was paid what was officially known as child’s wages at that time. I worked hard in the factory and this meant that I got on well with everyone as I was well able to pull my weight. I was the only child working in the factory, the youngest of the other lads working alongside me would have been 18 years-old and upwards, all good lads and we got on well.
As there was no public transport from my hometown of Aughnacloy on the border, I secured a bedsit for 7 punts (pounds) per-week in Monaghan Town so that I could be on time for work each day. By the end of my first week in Monaghan I had joined Na Fianna Eireann (Junior PIRA), my quick entry to the Fianna was due to the fact that some older lads in the factory were already in The Fianna. The Fianna in Monaghan Town was harmless, more like the boy scouts, no weapons or anything, just marching on Easter Sunday and so forth.
The older lads invited me to The Hillgrove Hotel as there was a disco there on a Friday and Saturday Night. On my first social outing a girl called Mary asked me to walk her home, the lads thought this was great crack as it was my first encounter with a girl. I walked Mary home, she sat on one seat and I sat on another, we listened to The Undertones record and then I said I better go. As I walked out the door, she kissed me on the cheek, I got embarrassed and walked on.
The bedsit was not a great environment to go back to in the evening after work, the people who owned the big house were good people, but there was no TV in the bedsit so it was a bit lonely. I got into a habit of going into one of the local pubs, having a bottle of coke and a packet of Tayto crisps and watching the big colour TV. It was like going to the cinema and it was better than being in the bedsit. Back then a big TV was probably 20inchs.
One night while I was in The Clara Inn (later The Chieftain) in Monaghan Town, I was having my crisps and coke and watching TV in the bar when I was approached by a big man. This man introduced himself as Michael Lynagh and he explained that he was Jim Lynagh’s brother. Michael Lynagh chatted to me for a while and then invited me back to a house. As Michael Lynagh was Jim Lynagh’s brother I went back to the house with him. The house was not far from The Clara Inn and belonged to a couple who had a serious drink problem.
Michael Lynagh poured two glasses of whiskey for he and I, it was horrible stuff, but he was insistent and I suppose I thought it was manly to be drinking whiskey. When Michael believed I was drunk enough he forced me face down on the coach and drove a knife through the back of my left hand and pinned me to the wooded arm of the couch and he raped me, I fought like mad but he was a brute, an animal. I was very small for my age due to childhood illnesses.
Michael Lynagh warned me not to tell anyone, he reminded me who he was and so forth. I left and went back to my bedsit, I understood the violence, I cannot say that I understood everything that had happened. The next day I went to work as normal and I made an excuse and went and got my hand stitched. I decided to speak with a member of The PIRA, I told him what had happened. A meeting was arranged and I was taken to meet other PIRA members, the most senior of which was J.B. O’Hagan.
J.B.O’Hagan told me how important Jim Lynagh was to The Republican Movement, he told me that the Gardai would use the attack on me to damage Sinn Fein/PIRA, and he remined me what had happened to 17 year-old Columba McVeigh 5 years earlier in Monaghan. J.B. O’Hagan finally told me that Michael Lynagh would be moved to Dublin.
Following the meeting with Sinn Fein/PIRA I simply got on with life, back then there was no counselling services, help-lines and so forth. In the weeks following my meeting with Sinn Fein/PIRA I went to the Hillgrove Hotel with the lads and tried to keep going. I was approached at The Hillgrove Hotel by Fiona McCleary, who was a friend of the girl called Mary that I had walked home a couple of weeks earlier. Fiona said that Mary had told her I was very innocent, and we had a laugh about that, as I still had no clue what walking somebody home meant.

Fiona and I got on well together, although even then she was drinking heavily and had been hospitalised on a couple of occasions when she got too drunk. Fiona and Mary went off to The Isle of Man for a holiday as they would have been older than me. I thought that was probably the end of my friendship with Fiona, but then she sent me post-cards from The Isle of Man and kept the relationship going.
Vincent McKenna petitions for Divorce
I was working hard in the factory, I would often work late so that I did not have to spend long in the bedsit, just to sleep. I stayed out of the pub where I had meet Michael Lynagh until I was sure he was gone away.
When Fiona McCleary returned from The Isle of Man we would meet at McKenna’s Pub on Dublin Street and then we would go to The Hillgrove Hotel or The Four Seasons Hotel for The Disco or Country and Western Band.
One day Fiona asked me to babysit with her, it was for the Bank Manager of the Bank at the bottom of the Hospital Hill back then. I agreed, it was August 1980, as it had just been Fiona’s birthday, she was 18 years old. I worked that day and then walked up to Fiona’s family home at 13 Glenview Heights. Fiona’s Father Seamus drove us to the Bank Manager’s house out The Scotstown Road.
I had worked all day and I had nothing to eat since lunch-time, I was really hungry. When the Bank Manager and his wife left the house, I asked Fiona if there was anything to eat. Fiona went to the kitchen and brought back a pint glass of orange juice and said there was absolutely nothing to eat. I thought Fiona was joking and I went to the kitchen, there was no food, not even bread.
I sat on the couch with Fiona to watch the colour TV and drink my juice. I was very tired and I fell asleep or passed out. When I woke up, I was on the floor, and Fiona was on top of my engaging in sexual activity. I pushed Fiona off me and I was in a rage, asking her what she was doing. She then told me that she had half-filled the glass of orange juice with Vodka, I had never tasted Vodka before so I did not know the difference.
Fiona began to regret what she had done to me and began to explain that she had been raped by Michael Lynagh when she was a child. I was just stunned; I simply did not know what to say. I did not tell Fiona what Michael Lynagh had done to me; I was too ashamed to say anything.
Fiona and I continued going out together, there was a good crowd of us that hung about together around The Fianna and we would meet in various pubs and then go to The Disco.
In September/October 1980 Fiona told me she was pregnant and she wanted to go to Dublin to get engaged. I had just got my emergency tax back and so I had some money, looking back I suppose Fiona knew that. We went to Dublin and got engaged. When we returned from Dublin the night we got engaged we were in McKenna’s Pub in Dublin Street with the usual crowd.
As we were socialising and having the usual laughs and crack, one of the older lads made a nasty comment about Fiona being pregnant, I challenged this individual outside and I gave him a good beating in a fist fight. As I was walking away having won my fight, two of the older lads got stuck into me, I don’t know why, I suppose I was the outsider and I had just beaten one of the locals. I was beaten and kicked onto the street and I fell in front of a car, my head hit of the bumper of the moving car and I was unconscious for a few minutes.
Back then bumpers on cars were made of chrome steel and not plastic like today. Initially it seemed that I was ok and we walked out to The Four Seasons Hotel for the Dance. While I was in the Dance Hall I collapsed and was taken to hospital, I had a fractured skull from my head hitting of the car. When I woke up the next morning the man in the bed opposite me was Seamus McAleer a GAA County footballer who had been hurt in a hunting accident. He told me there was quite a fuss when I was brought in, medical staff were calling for Gardai and so forth.
The lads who had attacked me arrived at the hospital a couple of days after I was admitted and apologised for the attack, blaming drink. They asked me not to make a statement to Gardai, I told them I had no intention of making a statement and they were happy with that.
I was released from hospital after four-days and returned to work. Fiona then admitted to me that she was not pregnant at all, I suppose I just drifted along, I don’t know, I was more interested in politics, that’s what kept me going.
I was working in the factory, living in the bedsit, working with Sinn Fein/PIRA and going out with Fiona, I was busy. I had worked for the first Hunger Strike at the end of 1980 on which my cousin Sean had almost died before Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarland had called the Hunger Strike off.
In early 1981 it was clear that there was going to be a second Hunger strike and there was a great deal of campaigning to do. In March 1981 Fiona told me she was pregnant, this time she actually was pregnant. I went with Fiona to tell her Mother and Father, Seamus and Mary that we were getting married. Seamus was a big man, Ulster Heavy Weight boxing champion 1968, only 12 years earlier. Seamus was at the back of the house and pulling nails out of an old door frame with a claw hammer, you don’t forget those moments.
Seamus was grand, he and I had got on well together and he simply said, “Have you told her Mother yet?”, we both heard the shouting coming from the kitchen, he looked at me and said, “You did”. Fiona’s Mother, Mary McCleary was very angry because her and Seamus would be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 1981 and there would be no money for a wedding.
I was satisfied that I was doing the right thing, and so we pushed on with plans for the wedding. Both Fiona and I were placed under extreme pressure by Mary McCleary to terminate the life of our unborn child. I had no clue what all of this meant but I was determined that the baby would be born and not harmed.
On the 12th June 1981, Fiona and I got married, the wedding was in St Macartan’s Cathedral in Monaghan and the reception in The Westenra Hotel. It was election day in Cavan/Monaghan for Hunger Striker, Kieran Doherty the day before we got married and Fiona had to ask Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin to find me to remind me that I was getting married. I was simply busy working for the election and had forgotten what day of the week it was.
When Fiona and I got married we initially lived with Fiona’s brother Tom McCleary at Highfield Close. Tom McCleary had returned from Algeria and was married to a native Algerian who could not speak English. Tom and his wife were both unemployed at this time and Tom was drinking heavily, Canadian Club whiskey. Fiona was pregnant and so I was the only one working in the house we were sharing.
One evening I returned from work earlier than expected, I heard someone shouting in the house as I walked to the front door, I thought Fiona had hurt herself or something. I got into the house and ran up the stairs, Tom McCleary was in a drunken rage and was beating his wife on the bathroom floor. Tom had a knife in his right hand, I wrestled with Tom and took the knife from him. I helped Tom’s wife to her bedroom, I remember her eye really swollen and the bruise was multi-colour although her skin was black.
I got Tom down to the sitting room and he calmed down. Fiona was at her Mother’s house that was a short walk away. When I was sure that Tom was not going to engage in further violence, I left the house. I had his knife in my pocket, it was a flick-knife with a 3inch blade, it was a fancy knife with Algeria written on it. I gave the knife to a member of An Garda Siochana as I did not want it and I did not want to give it back to Tom.
Following this violent incident, I decided that it was not safe for Fiona and our unborn child to be in that house and so we rented a small flat in Park Street. Soon after we left the house with Tom and his wife they went back to Algeria, I had been the one paying all the bills.
I was working hard and also engaged in various roles for Sinn Fein/PIRA. In November 1981 our first child Sorcha was born and all was going well. In 1982 Fiona’s sister Ann was pregnant and again her Mother Mary McCleary was insisting that she go to England to terminate the child’s life, I found this outrageous and I begged Ann not to go, but she went and the child was no more.
When Ann McCleary returned from England she told Fiona and I about the abortion, the detail was horrendous and remains vivid in my mind today, terrible thing to put a young woman through. In 1982 abortion was a criminal offence in Ireland and so everything had to be done secretively.
Ann McCleary would call up to our flat each day for her lunch and Fiona and I encouraged this as she was able to engage with our daughter Sorcha and I think this brought her some comfort because of what she had been through.
Fiona and I then got a house in Mullaghmatt Council Housing Estate in Monaghan Town and we were doing ok. Due to Fiona’s Rape at the hands of Michael Lynagh, Fiona would often go into a very dark place in her mind, she had extreme pornography sent to her from America and so forth, it was getting more and more difficult to live with Fiona. I thought things might change in 1982 when Michael Lynagh hung himself in Mountjoy Jail, but it did not.
This picture shows Fiona McCleary (Prosecution Witness) dressed in paedophile paraphernalia after Vincent McKenna was convicted of sexual assault in 2000, this picture was sent to VMK while he was in prison and a cover letter signed by Fiona McCleary.
My rape at the hands of Michael Lynagh had made me very protective of our children and children in general. In 1985 I was approached by a woman who said that a member of Sinn Fein/PIRA had sexually abused her child, I meet the man concerned and he admitted that he had touched the child while drunk, I simply gave him a good beating with my fists. I was then in trouble with Sinn Fein/PIRA for literally taking the law into my hands and not leaving them to deal with the individual concerned.
In 1986, our eldest child Sorcha made a complaint to me about a member of Sinn Fein/PIRA who had stayed in our house, I brought this complaint to Sinn Fein/PIRA. If I had again taken the law into my own hands I would have been dismissed from Sinn Fein/PIRA, and for reasons that I cannot explain at this time, I did not want to get dismissed.
3. At what point did you return to Monaghan from Tyrone?
4. I left school when I was 16 years old and immediately moved back to Monaghan. I worked in Monaghan Poultry Products, which is now sadly closed, and I lived in a bedsit.
5. So you were living on your own and working in a factory when you were 16 years old?
6. That is correct, I was earning 38 pounds (punts) per week initially as I was only a child and not entitled to ‘mans’ wages, my bedsit was costing me 7 pounds (punts) per week. However, I was getting a good dinner in the factory every day and that kept me going. Eventually, Jack O’Connor (SIPTU President), who was my ITGWU Branch Secretary at the time secured what were called man’s wages for me. At the time I was the youngest Union rep in Ireland.
7. At what point did you get involved with the republican movement?
8. In Monaghan Poultry Products a number of the older lads were already members of Na Fianna Eireann, which is the junior IRA and I joined immediately.
9. What did you do in the Fianna?
10. To be honest the Fianna was really like the boy scouts, we simply marched on Easter Sunday and went to march at Bodenstown every June. We would meet in Rossmore Park to practice marching and sometimes we would meet in a prefab where the new county council offices now stand in Monaghan Town.
11. So you had no weapons training or anything of that nature while in the Fianna?
12. No, most of the lads that were in the Fianna were harmless; it was just like a boys club.
13. Did you join Sinn Fein?
14. Yes, I was in Mc Cague’s pub in Park Street one Saturday night and I was talking to Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, he asked me to join Sinn Fein, I told him that I was only interested in fighting the Brits and not simply sitting at meetings. However, Caoimhghin said that I could do both and he invited me to a Cummann meeting. I went to the O’Hanlon Sinn Fein Cummann meeting the following week, the meeting was held up stairs in St Maccartans Hall in Park Street. Those present on the night I joined Sinn Fein were Caoimhghin, JB O Hagan, PO’M, and Kieran Starrs. It would have been 1980 as Caoimhghin was still working in the Bank of Ireland.
15. Were you sworn in?
16. Yes, Caoimhghin read out a statement and I had to swear to that statement.
17. Were you joining Sinn Fein or the IRA or both?
18. I was joining Sinn Fein.
19. At what point if any did you join the IRA?
20. As far as I am concerned I joined the IRA when I joined Na Fianna Eireann, however, I did not have a significant role in the IRA until Jim Lynagh engaged me as an Intelligence Officer.

21. I am sure you are aware that there are some people who contradict the fact that you were a member of the IRA?
22. If you are talking about people like Owen/Eoin Smyth and Dennis Donaldson then I am sure you will understand if I treat their previously publicly stated comments about me with contempt, as both provided information to the RUC about Irish Republicans. Smyth made dozens of statements when he was arrested by The RUC in 1981 in relation to the killing of Norman Strong and his son James, and only fell short of turning State's Evidence against myself and other republicans, he only served 2 years. In 1990 Smyth was arrested by Gardai in relation to a Human Bomb attack, however, I always believed that this was a publicity stunt so that Smyth could ingratiate himself further with The PIRA, Smyth was arrested and, according to the interrogating gardaí, admitted to the abduction and attempted murders relating to the human bomb attack and he did so in graphic language. Smyth was charged with abduction and, given the evidence there was against him (that is, the identification by a witness and the explicit self confessions), one would have thought conviction and a long jail sentence would have followed. However, mysteriously, charges against Smyth were dropped.
Equally, I almost fell out of my chair when I read that Owen Smyth had told a public meeting in New York that he had been the subject of four assassination attempts, if he was, he was the only one that ever knew. Smyth would do anything to garner publicity for his Walter Mitty existence especially after he turned tout in 1981. What is actually bizarre about Smyth is that when he was working with certain people to do me down, they were the very people who were bringing UDR men into Monaghan Town, and there are independent witnesses to prove this. One should not underestimate the personal jealousies that exists within Sinn Fein/PIRA, Owen Smyth was always stabbing Caoimhghin O'Caolain in the back, yet it was Caoimhgin and I that organised a party for Smyth on the night of his release from prison in 1983 at a time when certain PIRA Volunteers wanted to execute Smyth for touting and bury him in a hole in the bog in Scotstown.
“It was against this rising tide of dissension that Owen Smyth, a burly Sinn Féin councillor from Monaghan…” By Eamon Lynch, (http://observer.com/1998/05/citys-irish-exiles-arent-thrilled/)
23. So what role had you in the IRA?
24. My job was to gather information about British targets that information was typed up on an old IBM type writer that I had, it was coded and passed to Jim Lynagh. Jim compared my coded reports with reports that he had seen from a female republican in Tyrone.
25. What type of information are we talking about?
26. I will have to leave that to your imagination.
27. When did you first meet Jim Lynagh and when Lynagh was killed in 1987 how did you feel?
28. I meet Jim Lynagh in 1980 he had just served a sentence in Long Kesh, I was devastated when Jim was killed, Jim had been so excited about the fact that new weapons and explosive supplies were at hand, he really wanted to take the war to the Brits, but he was betrayed.
29. Do you honestly believe that Loughgall was the work of British agents within the republican movement?
30. I know for a fact that RUC touts within the republican movement were responsible for the Loughgall executions.
31. How do you know?
32. I have dedicated the past 31 years establishing the truth about those responsible for Loughgall.
33. But surely you can’t say you have spent the last 31 years establishing the truth about Loughgall when you were a public campaigner against the IRA?
34. You say I was a public campaigner against the IRA, I say I was a public campaigner against criminals; it just so happened that those criminals were within the IRA. The British had given their agents within Sinn Fein/IRA a free hand to do as they liked, they were able to murder and rape Catholics without sanction, Mo Mowlam, then British Secretary of state described the torture, murder and rape of Catholics by Sinn Fein/IRA members as “Internal-House-Keeping”, Sinn Fein/IRA had taken on the role of the Black and Tans to suppress Catholics in the north. The leadership were focused on the 'peace process' and tried to be all things to all people, they took their eye of the ball, the British were using their agents within Sinn Fein/PIRA to keep the violence going and the British were doing exactly the same thing on the loyalist side, and in the middle of this Catholics were being murdered. I refused to tolerate this and I done what I had to do to stop the violence against the Catholic community.
35. Are you then saying that your public persona was different from your personal position?
36. I am saying that I was and remain opposed to those people who use the republican movement for criminal activity; my position has been vindicated with all that is now known publicly about people such as Slab Murphy, Liam Adams, Dennis Donaldson and so forth.
37. When Jim Lynagh was killed did you severe your connection with the IRA?
38. No, I was approached by another member of the East Tyrone IRA and I continued to work as an Intelligence Officer for the IRA.
39. Is that IRA member still alive?
40. Yes, he is alive and well.
41. Can you name him?
42. I can, but I won’t.
43. It has been suggested that while you were in FAIT you were still working for an IRA intelligence unit, is that the case?
44. I have already made my position clear, my interest has always been to establish the truth about Loughgall, I would have went to bed with the Queen of England if that would have brought me any closer to the truth about those who betrayed Jim Lynagh.
45. It has been stated that you had meetings with IRA Leader Joe Cathal when you were in FAIT, is that true?
46. I had known Joe for many years, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin had introduced us in the early 1980s at 44 Parnell Square, and it is fair to say that I remained in contact with Joe while I was in Belfast.
47. How does that fit with your public campaign against the IRA?
48. I have already answered that question. My campaign was against criminals and British agents within the republican movement, not against true republicans.
49. If that was and is your position, why did the republican movement use their paper An Phoblacht and their press facilities at Stormont to run a campaign against you?
50. The people who ran the campaign against me were RUC informers such as Owen Smyth in Monaghan and Dennis Donaldson in Belfast, I do not believe that the Republican movement ran a campaign against me, simply criminals and agents within that organisation, some of those criminals have since been exposed and some are dead.
Vincent McKenna set up the Northern Ireland Human Rights Bureau which he operated out of a small room in his house, McKenna had no funding from any source and funded his work from part-time work.
51. Do you take any pleasure from the fact that Liam Adams, Gerry Adams Snr, Thomas Slab Murphy and others within the republican movement have been exposed as criminals?
52. No, I am now and always have been an Irish Republican and for that reason I take no pleasure from these latest exposures. However, it must be said that it is beyond my understanding that Gerry Adams can be exposed as someone who concealed the rape of several children and still top the poll in Louth, I think that says a great deal about corruption in this country.
53. When you were involved in FAIT did you pass information to the IRA?
54. Firstly, when I was asked to go into the FAIT office and sort it out, I was absolutely amazed. A short time before I was asked to go into FAIT, FAIT had threatened me with legal action as I said in The Irish News that FAIT were a front for drugs dealers.
55. So who asked you to go into FAIT?
56. Liam Clarke from the Sunday Times, he and his wife Cathy Johnston had been involved with FAIT and Liam told me that FAIT was going to close unless they got someone in there quick, I could not believe that I had been asked to go into FAIT.
57. Who was involved in FAIT and who was funding FAIT?
58. When I went into the FAIT office on High Street there was nobody left in the group, they had all abandoned ship and a vast amount of money was gone missing.
59. What do you mean money gone missing?
60. Firstly, from 1996 I had been lecturing in Start Your Own Business at Queens University, so I had a very good understanding of accounts and business. FAIT had been funded to the tune of almost one-million pounds sterling, the majority of this money had come from the Central Community Relations Office at Stormont. The core funding was for rent, rates, phone, petty cash and wages for two members of staff. However, when I went into FAIT I quickly discovered that tens of thousands of pounds were missing and basics like rent, rates, electricity had not been paid for a very long time. It is also worth mentioning that Sinn Fein groups such as those opposing loyalist parades are all funded out of the same fund at Stormont.
61. What had happened to the money?
62. From my investigation, it was clear that certain people involved with FAIT had been using the petty cash account to fill their pockets, large amounts of money had been transferred through the petty cash account to facilitate this embezzlement.
63. Did FAIT have any assets?
64. No, even basic things such as a video camera that had been purchased to interview victims of violence had been taken from the office and never returned.
65. Was Sam Cushnahan not the Director of FAIT?
66. Sam was a man in serious financial difficulty when I meet him; he had just asked his brother John Cushnahan MEP to co-sign a bank loan of £20,000 to save him from bankruptcy. Sam’s wife had not spoken to him for years; Sam was having a relationship with a woman from east Belfast. Sam’s unhealthy life style lead to him having a heart attack and he often borrowed money from me to buy wine and cigarettes to take up to his mistress in east Belfast. This mistress had lost a 12 year old child to suicide.
67. Was Martin McGartland involved in FAIT?
69. What was Liam Clarke’s role in FAIT?
70. Liam was simply feed ‘exclusive’ stories by Sam Cushnahan, if someone came to FAIT seeking help Sam would usually phone Liam to see if he wanted the story.
71. FAIT had several public fall-outs among its members, why was that?
72. It was really about egos and money; they all had their hand in the cookie jar.
73. Did you receive any wages or expenses when you were in FAIT?
74. Absolutely not, there was no money in FAIT and it owed tens of thousands including rent and other basics that had been directly funded by the NIO.
76. I was only aware of that money being paid to Sam Cushnahan after I left FAIT.
77. How did you become aware of that payment?
78. When I left FAIT I received a tax rebate for a few pounds and I made inquires about that tax rebate, Revenue told me that two salary payments had been made in my name. When I challenged Sam Cushnahan about these payments, he told me that Martin Mc Gartland had paid two-thousand to FAIT and that the only way he (Sam) could get the money out of the FAIT bank account was to say it was for wages.
79. Did FAIT actually help any victims?
80. I can only speak for the time that I was in FAIT and what I seen there, FAIT was very poorly organised and was not subjected to the public scrutiny that it should have been. Vast amounts of tax payers’ money was pumped into FAIT simply because it was an anti-Sinn Fein platform. People in FAIT got free trips to America and certainly misused their position. Victims were a secondary consideration to people such as Sam Cushnahan.
81. Vincent, let me ask you again, were you working for the PIRA when you were in FAIT?
82. I have already answered that question.
83. Were you questioned about the shooting of RUC informer Martin Mc Gartland?
86. I would say that Mc Gartland was the only person who compromised his own security, he was in regular contact with journalists in the north and on occasion he invited a teenage girl over to his hideout in England where he showed off his legally held handgun.
87. This interview would not be complete if I did not ask you about the allegations that eventually seen you fall from grace, are you guilty of those allegations or do you maintain your innocence?
88. My position is today as it was in April 1998 when those allegations were first muted. I have consistently and persistently made my case before the courts and that will continue. As for those who ran a malicious and vexatious campaign against me, I can assure you that they are guilty of much greater crimes than any crime alleged against me.
89. Are you angry about the campaign that was run against you?
90. Not really, when you know that those shouting loudest are doing so to drown out the screams of their victims, you take some consolation in that, when you watch certain people campaign against you in the media when you know that those people have disposed of their unborn children and grandchildren like dogs in the waste bins of London hospitals, or that they participated in, facilitated and concealed the rape of children you know that they are simply in pain.
91. Are you talking about anyone in particular? And is it true that Dr Marian Smyth has admitted feeding unlicensed-mind-altering drugs to the person at the centre of the case against you?
92. Does it matter, they know who they are, I know who they are and some day they will stand before God. As for Marian Smyth, she was having a sexual relationship with Pete Ryan and had a child to him. Marian Smyth assumed some sort of blinkered allegiance to Pete, however, Pete was having a number of sexual relationships at the same time, and while he had Smyth pregnant he also had another woman from Ballybay pregnant, Pete thought more of his motor-bike than he did of any woman. We now know that Dr Marian Smyth feed unlicensed-mind-altering drugs (Seroxat) to the alleged victim, we know that Marian Smyth meet on several occasions with her brother-in-law Owen Smyth (RUC Tout) to see how they could advance the claims against me. We know that Owen Smyth used Patrick ‘the dwarf’ Tierney to feed information to the British tabloids.
93. Why do you think Owen Smyth went to such lengths to do you harm?
94. I meet Owen Smyth in the republican ‘A’ Wing of Crumlin Road Jail in 1981 when I was 17 years old, Smyth had just told the RUC everything he knew about republicans in Monaghan. Smyth attached himself to me for the short time I was in Crumlin Road Jail, Smyth told me that he and Jim Lynagh had planned the killings of Norman Strong and his son James at Tynan Abbey, Smyth also told me that he had told the RUC everything he knew about the IRA in Monaghan as he did not want to go to jail for the murders of Norman Strong and his son James. I think Smyth always had a chip on his shoulder about the fact that I knew he was an informer, however, my view on that was, if people were stupid enough to tell Owen Smyth anything then they must take responsibility for the consequences. Seamus McElwaine from Scotstown was also in Crumlin Road jail in 1981 and he told me to stay clear of Smyth, however, I made my own decisions about who I associated with.
95. What about Dr Marian Smyth’s role, why would she want to do you down?
96. As I have said, Marian had a blind loyalty to Pete, particularly as she had given birth to one of his children; this coupled with encouragement from Owen Smyth created the ingredients for a good old fashioned conspiracy. Fiona had told me on several occasions that Marian Smyth was angry with me for publicly campaigning against the ‘IRA’.