Tribunal hears of IRA coffin salute

An instruction that gardaí should salute the coffins of IRA members who had been shot dead in Gibraltar as they passed through Dundalk in 1988,originated with the Garda commissioner, the Smithwick Tribunal has been told.

Former Garda chief superintendent Owen Giblin of the Louth Meath division told the tribunal he received the instruction directly from former commissioner Eamon Doherty at a meeting in Harcourt Square in Dublin, on March 14thm 1988.

The instruction was given in the wake of the killing by security services of IRA activists Daniel McCann (30), Sean Savage (24) and Mairead Farrell (31), who were shot in Gibraltar on March 6th, 1988, moments after they allegedly planted a 500lb car bomb near the British governor's residence.

As preparations were being made to bring to bring the coffins back to Northern Ireland via Dundalk, Mr Giblin said he was called to a meeting in Garda Headquarters in Harcourt Square Dublin, chaired by deputy commissioner John McMahon.

He said at the meeting he was told by Mr Doherty that gardaí in Dundalk should be told: “Unless you are otherwise engaged you should salute the coffin”.

He said he wanted to clarify the situation as the tribunal had earlier been told he himself had issued the instruction, which had been ignored by gardaí.

Mr Giblin told tribunal chairman Judge Peter Smithwick; "I want to make clear the circumstances of that. The salute instruction was given on the specific instructions of the commissioner”.

Mr Giblin later repeated the assertion that he was “acting on the instructions of the commissioner. Nobody queried it, disagreed with it. I never met anybody who said I did wrong”.

A number of other gardaí have told the tribunal the tribunal gardaí in Dundalk generally ignored the instruction. In the event Mr Giblin was the only member of an Garda to salute the coffins as they passed.