The former UVF leader’s papers give information on secret meetings and correspondence
A SECRET meeting between leaders of the Provisional IRA and the UVF in 1974 had to be abandoned when a Dundalk publican ejected the group because he was “afraid of trouble when he heard the Ulster accents”. A report of the meeting at Jimmy’s Bar is contained in the archive of the late UVF leader Augustus “Gusty” Spence, which has turned up in a Dublin saleroom.
Spence, who died last year, was a leading figure in loyalist organisation the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He spent 18 years in prison for the murder of a Catholic man, Peter Ward, in 1966, but later in life renounced violence and supported the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Spence’s private papers have now been consigned to an auction of historical memorabilia at Whyte’s auctioneers which takes place next month.
Auctioneer Ian Whyte described the archive as “similar to the release of State papers after the 30-year secrecy rule, but containing, instead, a rare version of recent history from the paramilitary perspective”.
Even while in prison, Spence played a major role in orchestrating the activities of the UVF – which is believed to have murdered more than 550 people, the majority civilian Catholics.
His archive sheds light on the thinking of the UVF and the organisation’s efforts, in 1974, to establish dialogue with “senior Provisional and Official IRA leaders to discuss the possibility of a general ceasefire”. The talks collapsed when reports were leaked to the media. Further decades of bloodshed ensued.
A memo in Spence’s archive claims the collapse of the talks was a lost opportunity as “the agreements made between the two organisations could have led to a better understanding and to a permanent ceasefire”.
But the blame is laid on the intransigence of hard-line fellow unionists: “There need not have been any loss of principle, but the super-Prods would not wear it so all further talks with the IRA were hit on the head.”
The document outlines some of the secret meetings between the two groups – providing a rare version of recent history from the perspective of the paramilitaries. The first meeting in 1974 was arranged by “two journalists (K Myers and V Browne)” and took place in “a fishing lodge on the shores of Lough Sheelin” in Co Cavan which was “patrolled by armed Provisional IRA members” – some with sub-machineguns.
At a follow-up meeting in McCabes Hotel, Mountnugent, Co Cavan, the memo records that a UVF delegate “specifically asked Martin McGuinness (o/c Derry Provisional IRA) what objectives he had in mind when he ordered the bombings of shops, bakeries and other small businesses in Derry”. McGuinness’s response, if any, is not recorded but the memo states: “After some discussion the Provisionals, especially O’Connell and Keenan, said that they would certainly consider this aspect of their campaign.” The late Dáithí Ó Conaill and Brian Keenan were two leading figures in the IRA.
The memo reveals that the UVF seems to have regarded British soldiers and civil servants as legitimate targets for the IRA: “If the Provisional IRA wish to combat British imperialism, we believe that they should direct their bombs and bullets against the armed British forces, British civil servants and other agents of the Crown, and not against the Ulster businessman and worker.”
The perceived loyalism of the UVF is also called into question by the memo, which reveals that its delegation “stated that they had their belly full of the fur-coat brigade and were resolved to seek some form of government and leadership that excluded the landed gentry and upper/middle class. The UVF men stated that they saw no difference between green Tories and orange Tories, between the fur-coat brigade and the castle Catholics; they wanted no more to be cannon-fodder for the politicians. The Provisionals agreed on this part too.”
The archive also includes correspondence to Spence from Peter Robinson MP and Gen John de Chastelain; Christmas cards to him in prison from the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich; and photographs from inside the Maze.
A letter to Mrs Louie Spence from the Department of the Taoiseach in July 1980 is signed by the private secretary to Charles J Haughey with regrets that it “would not be possible” for the taoiseach to “intervene with the British authorities” to secure her husband’s release from prison “on licence”.
Spence was released in 1984 after serving 18 years. He joined the Progressive Unionist Party and announced a ceasefire on behalf of loyalist paramilitary groups in 1994.
