Armed robberies, kidnappings and counterfeit cash: The many ways the IRA sought to finance itself during the Troubles

Early one morning in 1983, a few days before the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, gardaí raided a home in Co Clare and discovered 150 forged £10 notes. Although acting on prior information, the scale of the counterfeiting was likely unknown to them at the time of the raid. They had in fact stumbled on the largest known counterfeiting operation in the history of the State, run by the Provisional IRA.

Over the following days, further raids and arrests led to the seizure of multiple stashes of fake £10 notes to a value of £24,000. The Garda operation was timely as the IRA planned to “wash” hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of these notes into the economy during the upcoming bank holiday weekend. Analysis of the counterfeit notes allowed gardaí to issue descriptions and a nationwide warning – they were slightly smaller, paler and crinkled more easily than real notes – to largely thwart the operation.

However, some limited “washing” did take place in counties as far apart as Cork, Monaghan, Mayo and Wexford the following week. Bars and shops reported being hit with fake notes, and banks noticed their appearance in their branches. Often, as people realised they had been given fake notes, their panicked reaction was to get rid of them by spending them as quickly as possible – banks did not refund the value of fake notes handed in to them – exacerbating the issue. Two years later, the notes were still being sold at 40 per cent of face value in north inner-city Dublin pubs. While several people faced criminal charges for possession of the notes over the years, no major stash was ever located, nor was the press ever discovered.

The 1983 counterfeiting operation was one of many ways the IRA sought to finance itself during the Troubles. Following the outbreak of conflict in 1969, their funding approach had been a pragmatic one of beg, steal or borrow. Traditional sources of money like newspaper sales and collection buckets were supplemented from 1973 onwards by armed robberies. As the conflict intensified, ever increasing amounts of money were needed and, by the 1980s, estimates on the IRA’s annual funding needs ranged from £2 million-£4 million.

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Already by the late 1970s, armed robberies in the Republic of Ireland were taking place almost every other day. In 1978, there were 237 armed robberies, with £837,000 stolen. The following year, nearly £2.25 million was taken in 250 armed robberies. The IRA were believed to be responsible for about half of the money being stolen.

That trend continued into the 1980s, including sizable bank robberies in Killarney, Co Kerry, and New Ross, Co Wexford, in April and June 1980. In New Ross, the unfortunate bank staff and patrons were padlocked into the building as the perpetrators made their escape. Following a Co Waterford robbery in 1982, the IRA unit escaped by boat across the River Suir, avoiding garda roadblocks on bridges. Much of the money went on the purchase of arms.

In 1982, a Belfast man arrested in an FBI sting operation in New York had told agents he had $1 million to spend on arms and explosives. Times were changing, however. In the early 1980s, under strong pressure from the government, new security measures were rolled out by banks, including metal doors, time locks on doors and safes, surveillance cameras and screens. Collectively, the measures cost Irish banks £5 million but they had an effect. A newspaper article at the time even ran a headline ‘Where have all the bankrobbers gone?’

In response, the IRA sought out other methods of fundraising. In 1981, businessman Ben Dunne was abducted from his car on a County Louth road. He was held in an unknown location, probably in the South Armagh area, for several days before being released unharmed near the parochial house at Cullyhanna. Although the Dunne family denied paying a ransom, it was widely reported that the IRA received £700,000. The Provisionals returned to kidnapping in 1983, making attempts on two more businessmen, Galen Weston and Don Tidey, as well as abducting the world-famous thoroughbred racehorse, Shergar.

Each operation would become a disaster in its own way and led to the replacement of the IRA’s director of operations. Shergar was owned by a syndicate, making any ransom payment inherently complicated, if not impossible. A statewide search of studs, horseboxes and barns carried out by thousands of members of the Irish Farmers’ Association put immense pressure on the IRA and it is believed they shot and secretly buried Shergar after the horse injured itself.

Gardaí received a tip-off about the planned Weston abduction and were lying in wait at the businessman’s home in Co Wicklow. They ambushed the IRA unit, wounding three of them and apprehending five men in total. Although at least one of the group managed to escape, those captured included highly experienced operatives.

Three months later, using a fake Garda checkpoint, the IRA abducted Don Tidey not far from his south Dublin home and transported him to a bivouac in a wooded part of County Leitrim near Ballinamore. After several weeks, gardaí narrowed their search down to this region and dispatched several search parties. Each party comprised a garda inspector, two sergeants, a local garda, members of the Special Branch, several detectives armed with Uzi sub-machine guns, and a group of cadets seconded from the training college at Templemore. A soldier armed with a rifle also accompanied each group.

Owing to the season and terrain, visibility was very poor and a shoot-out erupted when one of the search parties stumbled upon the bivouac. An Army private and a trainee garda were killed. While Tidey was rescued, the IRA unit escaped. In 1985, a British MP called for the prosecution of Associated British Foods (Tidey’s employer) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for making a payment to the IRA. The UK attorney general stated there was no proof of any such payment.

In April 1984, two masked men armed with handguns and reported as having “Northern accents” hijacked a lorry as it left the PJ Carroll cigarette factory on the outskirts of Dundalk, Co Louth. The lorry was packed with cigarettes with an estimated market value of £250,000. The raiders brought the lorry to a side road where the cigarettes were transferred to a waiting vehicle.

Six months later, a former lorry driver was charged with providing information to the IRA leading to the robbery. The defendant claimed he had been approached by a man seeking help for “the cause” who had asked him about PJ Carroll timetables and locks on the lorry containers. While he received a five-year suspended sentence, three others later received sentences ranging from two to nine years’ imprisonment for their part in the robbery.

A few months before the Louth cigarette robbery, an IRA unit of up to a dozen armed and masked men raided Oldbridge House, a large rural estate outside Drogheda owned by a retired British army officer. His son and daughter-in-law who were living in the house were tied up in an upstairs bedroom while the property was searched for silverware, paintings and prints, all of which were loaded into a vehicle. In total, over £100,000 worth of items were stolen. The raiders claimed to be from the INLA, but this was treated with scepticism by gardaí who initially believed it to be the work of Martin ‘the General’ Cahill. However, the profile of those subsequently arrested and charged indicates IRA culpability

Given the range of fundraising activities the IRA employed, the Irish government and the gardaí were always watchful for changing tactics or new ‘innovations’. In 1985, legislation was hurried through the Dáil to allow the seizure of £1.75m recently deposited into a Navan bank account by Alan Clancy, an Irish businessman based in the United States. The government claimed it was part of an elaborate money-laundering scheme and that the cash represented ransom payments linked to the Don Tidey kidnapping. Clancy responded that it was linked to an intended pork-exporting business which he and his Scottish business partner, David McCartney, had been in lengthy discussions with the Industrial Development Authority about, correspondence he could prove.

Journalists questioned why the IRA would transfer such a large sum into the country if they would have to move it out again for arms purchases, as well as the wisdom of transferring such a large sum in a single amount into a small provincial bank where it was bound to attract attention. Under the new legislation, Clancy’s legal team could not cross-examine the government minister who signed off on the seizure and the government did not have to provide evidence to support their suspicions as to the money source. The legal wrangling continued for years. After the High Court dismissed Clancy’s claims in 1988 and the issue stalled in the Supreme Court, the money remained frozen.

Gardaí would continue to tackle IRA fundraising methods throughout the Troubles, with allegations ranging from involvement in videotape piracy and the illicit importation of livestock steroids to “front” businesses including hotels and taxi firms. Not all of the Garda efforts were successful, however, and the IRA ceasefires of the 1990s certainly did not stem from a lack of liquidity on that organisation’s part.

As for the Alan Clancy money, it was kept in a government holding account until 2008, when it was formally handed over to the State. By that time, Clancy and McCartney were deceased, there were no outstanding claims by their estates, and the sum was then worth €5.9 million.

Gearóid Ó Faoleán is the author of A Broad Church – The Provisional IRA in the Republic of Ireland, Volume 2: 1980-1989, published by Merrion Press €19.99/£17.99