Gardaí defied salute order for IRA dead, tribunal told

GARDAÍ IN Dundalk decided en masse to disobey an order that they should salute the coffins of IRA personnel killed in Gibraltar, the Smithwick Tribunal has been told.

Former inspector Dan Prenty of Dundalk Garda station said the order was given by former chief superintendent Owen Giblin to a room full of gardaí in Dundalk Garda station in early 1988.

Mr Prenty said the order had been to salute the coffins of the “Gibraltar martyrs – so called”, but “nobody who was in that room saluted”.

He said that on the day the IRA coffins passed, Mr Giblin had been the only one to salute and his salute “appeared in the paper and appeared a rather sad sight as a consequence I must say”.

Mr Prenty also said he had been ordered by Mr Giblin to show files on subversives to his junior officer Det Sgt Owen Corrigan. But he said he had thrown the order “in the bin”.

He recounted a litany of complaints and allegations about Mr Corrigan including an allegation that Mr Corrigan was “doing a lot of dodgy deals along the Border” and had been the subject of an RUC “red ribbon” intelligence file.

He said Mr Corrigan was known as a man “who did not pay his share” and who owned three houses, as well as a valuable development site in Dundalk. He said he believed Mr Corrigan had exaggerated and plagiarised intelligence information before sending it in his own name to Garda headquarters.

Darren Lehane, counsel for Mr Corrigan, put it to Mr Prenty: “You don’t like my client do you?”

He said the tribunal had heard evidence that Mr Corrigan had been an effective opponent of subversives in the Border area and had personally suffered for this in public. On one occasion Mr Corrigan’s image had been placed on posters hanging from lampposts, effectively calling him a traitor. Mr Corrigan also had a pint poured over him in a local pub.

Mr Prenty told the tribunal that the pub where the alleged incident was said to have taken place was, he believed, not a place where gardaí normally drank”.

Sittings of the tribunal resume on October 18th.