Covert History Ireland & UK Magazine @CovertHistory

He survived the Titanic and braved the Somme. But perhaps his greatest achievement was photographing peasants and priests across a long lost Ireland with a sympathetic yet unflinching eye. Meet Father Francis Browne SJ. Jesuit, war hero, and accidental documentarian of a vanishing world. He was born in 1880 in Cork into a life privilege but tragedy. His ma died days after his birth, and his da drowned when he was just nine. Frank was raised by his uncle, the Bishop of Cloyne, who gave him two things that shaped his life. A Jesuit education and a box camera. He studied alongside James Joyce (who immortalised him in Finnegans Wake) and snapped his first great photo in 1897 on a Grand Tour of Europe. Years later, Pope Pius X let him take his portrait. In 1912, Browne was given a first-class ticket for the Titanic's maiden voyage, the lesser notorious trip from Southampton to Queenstown. He photographed its gymnasium, wireless room, dining saloon, and fellow passengers. The fateful vessels officers, abundant millionaires and children playing on the doomed decks. A wealthy American couple offered to pay his fare on to New York. This was an oppurtunity of a lifetime for the budding photographer, but he had to ask his Jesuit superior via cable for persmission. The stern reply left no room for further debate. "GET OFF THAT SHIP!" The cable said, Browne obeyed. Two days later, Titanic sank. His photos instantly became world-famous. Eastman Kodak even gave him free film for life. Then came the Great War. As a chaplain with the Irish Guards in WWI, he witnessed the horror of the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele. Gassed, wounded five times and decorated with the Military Cross and Bar, his courage in the trenches matched his quiet obsession with taking snaps. His war album "Watch on the Rhine," is still studied for its stark humanity. After the war, he returned to Ireland and never stopped shooting. From Dublin slums to Kerry farms and Belfast shipyards, Browne recorded over 42,000 photographs. He cycled from parish to parish on mission work, always with camera in tow. Children stared back from barefoot streets. Coal darkened workers strained under the weight of tools. Nuns scrubbed floors in silent convents. Aeroplanes thundered into Shannon Airport as his last rolls clicked into place. He meticulously archived everything, but they were to him simply a private collection and so were essentially unknown to the world. He died in 1960 and was buried in Glasnevin. It wouldn't be until 1985, when a rusting trunk was discovered in the Jesuit archives. Inside were thousands of perfectly preserved negatives, a priceless treasure of Irish culture. The Sunday Times called it “the photographic equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Browne’s images are now digitised, restored, and published in dozens of volumes. In 2012, he was honoured with his own postage stamp. Have a gander at some here: edwindavison.com/collections/sh… Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

Heroin flooded Dublin big time in the late 1970s. Before then a few dozen addicts were grinding up and injecting Diconal and similar shite in to their veins. Then the Iranian Revolution in 1979 sent a wave of wealthy exiles fleeing the new regime. They needed to move their assets fast and quietly. Gold was bulky and cash was traceable. Brown heroin was compact, easy to hide and suddenly in enormous supply. The result was an unprecedented flood of cheap, high-quality heroin washing into European black markets, pooling particularly in Amsterdam and London. Authorities in Dublin hadn't a breeze what was coming. The man who brought the skag here was scumbag Laurence "Larry" Dunne, from Dolphin's Barn. His family had been running armed robberies and other rackets for years. Larry had done time in British jails as a young man and kept the contacts he made there. He saw what was happening in Europe and recognised an opportunity. He built unsophisticated but effective distribution network, with himself insulated at the top. He used young local lads as runners and street dealers, never handling the gear himself. His underworld nickname was "Larry doesn't carry." The drug didn't hit Dublin evenly. It devastated the working class flat complexes like St Teresa's Gardens, Hardwicke Street, Fatima Mansions, and the Ballymun towers. These were communities already on their knees economically deprived. Traditional inner-city industries had collapsed through the 1970s. Unemployment in some estates was running at 60% or higher. These families, trying to raise their kids in crumbling concrete blocks, already had feck all. And smack took even that from them. Into that vacuum, Larry Dunnes minions offered a magic escape to people who'd no comprehension what even one cheap hit would really cost them and their loved ones. Incidentally in the UK and on the continent, smoking heroin was the common route in. But in Dublin first timers were guided straight to the needle. Not that smoking it was safe but needles exposed addicts to HIV and Hepatitis C as well as the infections and circulatory conditions associated with intravenous drug abuse. A survey of St Teresa's Gardens in 1981 found that out of 340 residents, 63 were addicted to heroin. The numbers in treatment at the Jervis Street Drug Advisory Centre is shocking even by todays jaded standards. In 1979, 294 new patients presented for opiate treatment. By 1983, that figure had reached 1,314. Dublin was getting called the heroin capital of Europe, with estimates suggesting up to one in ten young people in the worst-affected areas were addicted. The state was completly caught lacking, with Gardaí and medical services totally unprepared. Attempts to cope with the crisis were severely hampered by the social stigma and the goverments denial of the inconvenient truth this "overnight" epidemic was a consequence of decades of poverty and neglect. So in desperation the communities themselves acted in the form of Concerned Parents Against Drugs. This group emerged from Hardwicke Street and Teresa's Gardens in the early 1980s. Mothers, local priests and community workers and figures like "Whacker" Humphrey. They marched to dealers' doors, named names publicly, and invited known dealers to face their neighbours. A Fatima Mansions meeting in August 1983 was so huge it became impossible for authorities and pushers to ignore. Larry Dunne was jailed in 1985, sentenced to fourteen years. As he was being led away, he told the Gardaí: "If you think we're bad, you should see what's coming up behind us." He wasn't wrong. The names coming up behind him were Tony Felloni and Christy Kinahan. Dunne died in May 2020, aged 72, in St James's Hospital. He had developed a heroin addiction himself in Portlaoise Prison. His daughter Anita also became an addict and contracted HIV. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

William 'Mo' Courtney has lost a challenge to the terms of reference of the Tribunal into the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane who was shot dead in 1989 by UDA gunmen.

Today in 1986, Ireland West Airport, aka Knock Airport, was officially opened. Roughly 3.5 miles from Charlestown, Co. Mayo, it was the brainchild of Monsignor James Horan, who had famously invited Pope John Paul II to visit Knock Shrine on his 1979 visit to Ireland. Monsignor Horan had already overseen the construction of the Knock Basilica, a church with a capacity of 15,000, having the entire cost covered before it was even consecrated. The Fine Gael-Labour government of the day had little appetite for the airport project. Jim Mitchell, Minister for Communications, dismissed the idea as "ill-advised in the extreme," the site being "far distant from any sizeable town, high on a foggy, boggy hill." When RTÉ reporter Jim Fahy stumbled across the Horan on that remote hilltop, surrounded by bulldozers and construction workers, and asked what exactly was going on he replied with a wink: "We're building an airport. Now don't tell anybody. We've no money but we're hoping to get it next week or the week after." Fahy asked if he had planning permission. "I'm not sure whether I have permission or not but I'm going ahead anyway, just taking a chance." The government had supplied a grant of £9.8 million, but the estimated cost ran closer to £13 million. When Fianna Fáil lost the 1982 election, even that funding was cut, the airport left half-finished. He plugged the gap by organising a "Jumbo Draw," a massive national lottery that required a painstaking fundraising tour of Ireland, Australia, and the United States. Horan was characteristically defiant when reporters pressed him on it. He invoked the charity concert Live Aid in his explanation: "There's Live Aid and Sport Aid and Self Aid. The people of Mayo have been practising self-aid for generations, otherwise they would have disappeared." The first flight from Knock had actually taken off five months before the official opening, carrying pilgrims from Mayo to Rome in November 1985. But the ribbon-cutting came on 30 May 1986, with a crowd of 4,000 people gathered at Barnacuig to watch Charles Haughey, then leader of the opposition, do the honours. Haughey had originally provided permission and initial funding when Taoiseach, and late Mayo journalist John Healy had been the one to put Horan in contact with him. Their alliance had proved the key that unlocked everything. Horan himself called it "the greatest thing that has happened in Connacht in the last 100 years and the greatest day of my life." He was dead within two months. He died peacefully in his sleep on 1 August 1986 in Lourdes, aged 75, worn out by the effort of building the impossible thing. His remains were flown home to Knock, the first funeral to arrive at the airport he had built. Horan was buried in the grounds of the Basilica. The airport, for a time, bore his name: Horan International Airport. It has since been renamed Ireland West Airport Knock, a somewhat functional title for an institution with a rather extraordinary origin story. By 2016, it had welcomed its ten millionth passenger, a woman named Lorna Conway from Athlone. Aer Lingus had largely kept its distance in the early years, but Ryanair stepped in and proved crucial to keeping the fledgling operation alive. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

@2N2L @Davidjrb12345 @RobLooseCannon It's comments like that that make the effort worthwhile. Thanks again. David

@Davidjrb12345 @2N2L @RobLooseCannon After the book came out, I was given a document about Crinnion which revealed lots more about him. See: coverthistory.ie/2025/08/23/nes…

Today in 1970, two Fianna Fáil TDs, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, were arrested and charged with conspiring to import weapons and ammunition in what became known as the Arms Crisis. Both had held senior positions in government until a few weeks earlier. Haughey was Minister for Finance. Blaney was Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Taoiseach Jack Lynch had dismissed them both, saying he was "satisfied that they do not subscribe fully to Government policy in relation to the present situation in the Six Counties." That situation had been building for some time. In August 1969, the sectarian violence in Derry and Belfast had sent thousands of nationalist families fleeing south. Lynch had publicly ruled out sending the Irish Army across the border. But privately a four-man cabinet subcommittee had been established to deal with "certain aspects" of Northern Ireland affairs. Haughey and Blaney were both on it. So was a £100,000 relief fund, which Haughey oversaw, ostensibly to help displaced northern Catholics. The allegation was that the two ministers had used the apparatus of the state to facilitate an attempt to smuggle arms to nationalists in the North. Arms dealer Otto Schleuter in Hamburg was contacted. Captain James Kelly of Irish Army intelligence was the go-between. Albert Luykx, a Belgian-born businessman who ran a restaurant in Sutton, was the fixer with continental connections. John Kelly, a Belfast republican, was the man on the northern end. No weapons ever actually made it across the border. Haughey flatly denied everything. "I now categorically state that at no time have I taken part in any illegal importation or attempted importation of arms into this country." Blaney was far more scathing. "Ireland has always had its British lackeys; you can pick them out in every generation, those hypocrites, those who for their own ends are always ready to play Britain's game in this country." A third minister, Kevin Boland, resigned in protest, accusing Lynch of "the greatest treachery of which an Irishman could be guilty." The charges against Blaney were dropped in July. But Haughey, Captain Kelly, John Kelly, and Albert Luykx went forward to trial on 22 September. The first trial collapsed when the presiding judge, Aindrias Ó Caoimh, withdrew after allegations of bias. A second trial opened in October, and it was there that the real confrontation happened. Haughey denied any knowledge of what the cargo contained. Minister for Defence Jim Gibbons contradicted him directly. As Justice Séamus Henchy observed from the bench, one of the two men was lying under oath. The jury decided it didn't matter. On 23 October 1970, all four defendants were acquitted in under two hours. Their finding, that the accused had "operated under properly delegated authority," was a pointed verdict. Haughey immediately called on "those responsible for the debacle" to consider their positions. He clearly meant Lynch, though his career survived. The state papers, released decades later, showed that Colonel Michael Hefferon had given statements substantially altered before they went into the book of evidence, bolstering the case that the cabinet knew far more than it let on. Bertie Ahern would eventually issue a statement saying Captain Kelly had done nothing wrong and had been acting under orders. Haughey never spoke publicly about the Arms Trial again and in 1979, he became Taoiseach. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

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According to Willie Frazer the killing of Adrian Carrroll was a 'False Flag' operation, to divert attention from the 'Shoot to Kill' cases the year before ((1982). Carried out by a UVF aligned asset, planned by shadowy forces. Latimer bore a resemblance to the alledged shooter from Armagh.

Deirdre Younge @Youngded

3 weeks ago

Neil Latimer was set up to provide cover, not just for the two assets who were the real shooter and getaway driver, but their handlers and the UVF middleman. A very murky tale. BBC Newsnight did a programme on the 4 showing how their RUC statements were changed and falsified.

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🚀 BATT NI: Paper Trail's British Army Tracker Tool Northern Ireland unlocks the British Army's Operation Banner records so researchers can target the files of specific units during the conflict. 🆓 FREE to use ⏰ Time-saving opbanner.papertrail.pro

Ex IRA representatives including one said he was in a 'leadership position on the day' first interacted with the Smithwick Tribunal in 2008. They refused to give evidence in the public sessions but gave the Tribunal a 'final statement'. This was only revealed to other lawyers in 2012. @CovertHistory

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The South Armagh representive who was in a 'leadership position' on the day wouldn't answer why they didn't interrogate Chief Superintendent Harry Breen to discover the Loughgall informer. They already knew who he was. He had escaped from a car transporting him to Monaghan for a meeting - and an inevitable fatal encouter with the ISU. Life and Death in South Armagh. [WebBook.] – Covert History Ireland & UK Magazine. [Home] share.google/WXHJJtNxiessmq…

Neil Latimer was set up to provide cover, not just for the two assets who were the real shooter and getaway driver, but their handlers and the UVF middleman. A very murky tale. BBC Newsnight did a programme on the 4 showing how their RUC statements were changed and falsified. Three of the four were released but Latimer had to stay in prison to ensure the case was closed. @CovertHistory reopen the investigation.

The Irish News @irish_news

3 weeks ago

Buried intelligence files at the centre of new innocence bid by former UDR man convicted of sectarian murder irishnews.com/news/northern-…

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There is extraordinary sensitivity displayed by the Security Service re intelligence relating to murders committed by the LVF in the late '90s. This is apparent in the cases before the courts, including the Supreme Court UK. Were they carrying out surveillance on members of the RUC ? @CovertHistory

Deirdre Younge @Youngded

4 weeks ago

From the McClean report: "Billy Wright continued to direct operations from his prison cell. "Such was the perception by the Security Service of the seriousness of Billy Wright's influence the discussions took place in September and October 1997 with Alan Shannon about the

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The substantive NIO files in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland relating to the Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre are closed for 100 years. A few pages from the NIO archive were released a few years ago. The same applies to files relating to killings in Armagh in the 1970s and many others. How much will be left by then ?. The Chinook files were being 'pruned' a few weeks later.

Royal child abuse, suicide and murder. coverthistory.ie/2025/03/09/mou…👇

Dublin is asking Belfast to stick to committments in the new UK Legacy Bill. Operation Kenova revealed "overwhelming evidence that some victims were lured to the Republic". Will Dublin release that evidence in the new renewed spirit of cooperation? coverthistory.ie/2025/04/06/the…

The Government asks the Secretary of State for Northern to stick to committments in the new Legacy Bill. The Operation Kenova report gives a glimpse of evidence of offences carried out in the Republic -"overwhelming evidence that some victims were lured to the Republic". Will the Irish Government release that evidence in the new renewed spirit of cooperation ?

The Russian secret service, the FSB, has access to a set of dusty old KGB files. They describe the sexual antics of the British aristocracy, including those of the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.👇 coverthistory.ie/2025/01/20/pri…

coverthistory.ie/2023/09/29/kin…👇