Gardaí sacrificed IRA informer to protect a more useful one, ex-Special Branch officer claims

John Corcoran’s fate sealed by ‘vacuum of silence and inaction by Garda officers at highest rank’

Mark Hennessy, Britain and Ireland Editor, Irish Times, March 28th, 2026

Sitting in the Imperial Hotel on South Mall in Cork on a sunny afternoon, former Garda Special Branch officer JP O’Sullivan, now aged 79, is adamant that the past cannot be left to rest.

For a decade from the mid-1970s, O’Sullivan “ran” an agent inside the IRA in Cork: father-of-eight John Corcoran. He was to die in a field in Kerry in 1985 at the hands of the IRA.

However, O’Sullivan claims Corcoran was sacrificed by senior gardaí, including then commissioner Laurence Wren, who led the force from 1983 to 1987, to protect the more useful informer, Sean O’Callaghan.

“First and foremost, for me, this is a matter of conscience. It has been a burden on me since it happened. It had to come out sooner or later. It’s a bit later, though, than I would have liked,” he says.

Now, the Ardfert, Co Kerry-born ex-garda has written his account of those years, a book titled Veil of Silence, which includes allegations that he was framed on a harassment charge.

O’Sullivan says that although, today, the 1970s is a forgotten decade, it was an period when the IRA threatened the State’s security: “There was no threat from England; it was only the Provos.”

Early on, O’Sullivan was just one of three gardaí in Cork, where he has lived for decades, on “the political stuff”.

“We did nothing else. Gradually, the numbers increased. Nobody else in the cops knew anything about what was going on.”

Corcoran – then a 35-year-old store clerk, “always well-dressed in a casual way” – came to the Special Branch’s attention in 1975 once he was suspected of being a local IRA intelligence officer.

During an interrogation, Corcoran “didn’t tell us very much”, bar that his sympathies were with the IRA, but said he did not approve of armed actions by the IRA in the Republic.

The first encounter with Corcoran was gently handled; the second, less so. On that occasion, he was told he would be jailed for IRA membership on the word of a Garda chief superintendent.

“We let that sink in before we discussed the possible implications for him in a more sympathetic way,” O’Sullivan says.

Initially, he told gardaí little but in time he became more valuable.

Clandestine meetings followed, sometimes on a poorly lit but relatively busy road close to University College Cork where “nobody would glance twice at a couple of people sitting in a car”.

Rules brought in by Garda commissioner Edmund Garvey – who was sacked in 1978 – caused problems for O’Sullivan and his colleagues, requiring them report to directly to Garda headquarters and not to local superiors.

In January 1976, O’Sullivan and his two colleagues reported that the Provisionals, the Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army had met in Dunmanway, Co Cork on New Year’s Eve.

Total War scenario

They had discussed merging if “total war” erupted in Northern Ireland. Faced with the threat of a united republican front, Garda headquarters reacted strongly, angering local officers left out of the loop.

In September 1976 Corcoran passed on information that led to the capture of an IRA gunman, which led to Wren approving payments to him.

“But John was always reluctant to accept them,” says O’Sullivan.

Even more angered, a senior officer in Cork “hounded” Corcoran, wanting control of him – so much so that O’Sullivan’s team told Corcoran to pass on some information to the officer “to get him off his back”.

A “single telephone call” from Wren – who was then in charge of C3/Special Branch – would have ended the turf war, O’Sullivan says: “He could and should have sorted it out.”

By now, the IRA was funding itself through bank and post office robberies in the Republic. Corcoran passed on information about a plan by Kerry IRA members to raid a post office in Cork city.

On October 6th, 1981, the gang struck Togher post office on Cork’s southside, but they were quickly forced to surrender by gardaí who had been lying in wait.

IRA morale in Munster plummeted, and informer suspicions grew.

By 1983, Corcoran, who passed on information about a Kerry IRA training camp, had built a relationship with the increasingly influential Sean O’Callaghan.

O’Callaghan was already a double killer – killing UDR “Greenfinch” (female member) Private Eva Martin in a 1973 mortar attack in Clogher, Co Tyrone, and Catholic RUC special branch officer Peter Flanagan four months later in a bar in Omagh.

By February 1984, Corcoran had told O’Sullivan that leading IRA figure Michael Burke was staying in a safe house in Kerry. But O’Sullivan feared for Corcoran’s safety if Burke was arrested.

O’Sullivan says he sent three warnings to assistant commissioner Stephen Fanning, but could get no reply.

“I was baffled and worried by the silence from Garda HQ,” he says.

Corcoran had driven Burke, so O’Sullivan’s report had emphasised the risks “that any rash action would almost certainly compromise [his] cover and put his life in jeopardy”.

In August, Burke, later jailed for kidnapping Don Tidey, had handed himself in, but only because O’Callaghan had told him that a Garda contact had said gardaí did not have enough evidence to convict.

Corcoran feared that O’Callaghan would be wrongly blamed for Burke’s fate and wanted O’Sullivan to explain this to Garda HQ, which he did on September 4th.

“In a cruel irony, John just wanted to protect O’Callaghan,” says O’Sullivan.

Today, the former Special Branch officer believes O’Callaghan was, in fact, preparing his own defences against being accused of being an informer and was ready to see Corcoran sacrificed.

Just weeks later, the Naval Service seized the fishing vessel Marita Ann, with Martin Ferris, later a Sinn Féin TD, onboard. It was intercepted off the coast of Kerry, carrying arms for the IRA from Boston.

“I believe that feedback to O’Callaghan from C3 about my September 4th report confirmed to O’Callaghan that John was, in fact, a Garda agent,” O’Sullivan says of Corcoran.

Saving O’Callaghan

By late 1984, the net was closing around the informer. In February 1985, he was told to drive an IRA man “of some importance” to houses in Cork. If the information leaked, Corcoran would be caught.

Having picked up the man at the West End bar in Ballincollig, Co Cork, he drove him to a house in Churchfield on Cork’s northside. O’Sullivan told his superiors to do nothing, lest it endanger Corcoran. However, the house was raided.

On March 10th, O’Sullivan telephoned Corcoran at work; Corcoran told him that he was going to “do a job” in Kerry – the usual code for IRA activities.

“That was the last time I spoke with him,” O’Sullivan says. The two were due to speak the following day, but there was no contact. Corcoran’s body was found five days later in Ballincollig after, gardaí believe, he was murdered in Kerry.

Frozen out of the subsequent murder investigation, which was rapidly wound down, O’Sullivan insists Corcoran’s life could have been saved by the Garda’s most senior officers: Wren, deputy commissioner John Paul McMahon and assistant commissioner Stephen Fanning.

He had sought direction as his fears for Corcoran’s safety grew, but had received no reply.

“It was in that vacuum of silence and inaction by Garda officers of the highest rank that John’s fate was sealed,” says O’Sullivan. “He became the victim of murky manoeuvres in high places that ran parallel to a legitimate Garda intelligence-gathering operation against the IRA.”

A month after Corcoran’s killing, O’Sullivan sought a one-to-one meeting with Wren. Instead of getting that, he faced Wren, McMahon and Fanning. The three “sat there stony-faced” as he laid out his “horror” about Corcoran’s murder.

With hindsight, he believes they feared what he knew about O’Callaghan.

“That was their only concern; they wanted to know what I knew. That was why they had gathered in strength,” he says.

Speaking slowly, he continues: “The three top rankers did nothing when they should have acted to save John Corcoran’s life. It could have been done.”

Boston College tapes to remain closed for 75 years from when first created

ANDREW MADDEN, Belfast Telegraph, March 28th, 2026

HOW A US ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ON THE TROUBLES LED TO ARRESTS, COURTS CASES AND EVEN THREATS

The Boston College tapes archive is now formally closed, and will remain so for 75 years from when it was first created, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

This was never the plan.

The Belfast Project, as it is officially known, featured heavily in the recent civil trial of former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams over liability for three IRA bombings, last week concluded with the claimants withdrawal of the case by agreement.

Beginning in 2001, it was an oral history project examining the Troubles through interviews with former members of the IRA and, later, the UVF, overseen by Boston College (BC).

The project was directed by Irish writer and journalist Ed Maloney, who died earlier this year, with the republican interviews conducted by former IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre and the loyalist testimonies recorded by researcher Wilson McArthur.

Key to the endeavour was the stipulation that the tapes were to remain secret and unreleased until after the deaths of the participants, with the recordings stored securely in Boston College's John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections, specifically, its Treasure Room.

Prior to the project being established on paper, Maloney, McIntyre and Robert K O'Neill, head of the Burns Library, who would be the Boston Tapes custodian, met in Belfast to discuss its parameters.

The three men would have very different recollections of exactly what was subsequently agreed: Maloney and McIntyre believed the project's secrecy would have “ironclad” legal protection, while O'Neill, who is now dead, insisted he would have never given such a blanket promise.

Given many of the interviewees would be admitting to criminal acts, including murders and bombings, ethical and legal questions around the whole process abounded.

Unusually, the project was so secret in the beginning no one else at BC even knew of its existence. Only Bob O'Neill and Thomas Hachey, executive director of the university's Center for Irish Programs, were involved.

Everything changed in 2010, when the project was unveiled to the world, initially with a whimper, followed by a bang.

First, two press articles came out in February. Their subject was IRA bomber Dolours Price.

Dolours Price

The first article detailed how Price was prepared to tell the authorities about her role in the abduction and murder of several people during the Troubles, including Jean McConville. Price also alleged, like Hughes, that Gerry Adams was her commanding officer.

While the first story didn't mention the Boston Tapes, the second published a few days later revealed that Price had made admissions to “academics at Boston University [sic]”.

A month later, Maloney published a book, Voices from the Grave, based on the Boston Tapes of former IRA commander Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes, who died in 2008, and UVF man-turned-politician David Ervine, who passed away in 2007.

The preface of the book announced it was to be “the inaugural volume of a planned series of publications drawn from the Boston College Oral History Archive on the Troubles in Northern Ireland”.

The secret archive was not secret anymore.

In the book, Hughes recounted the activities of the IRA's notorious Belfast Brigade and the even more notorious 1972 murder and disappearance of widowed mother-of-10 Jean McConville.

Hughes alleged Ms McConville was an informer for the British Army and the order was given for her to be abducted, killed and secretly buried. The order, he alleged, was given by Gerry Adams.

On May 5, 2011, a proverbial bomb went off at Boston College. A subpoena from the US Department of Justice arrived, seeking the Hughes and Price tapes, on behalf of the PSNI as part of an investigation involving abduction and murder.

The request was made under the obscure Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), a binding agreement between countries to exchange information and evidence for criminal investigations, that Maloney nor McIntyre even knew existed.

Panic stations were duly activated.

McIntyre and Maloney believed the tapes had “ironclad” legal protection. This was about to be tested, and they would find out just how wrong they were.

To many observers, the subpoena was not about solving the McConville murder, but rather damaging the authorities' nemesis, Gerry Adams.

Maloney decided one line of defence was to go to the media. In what would rankle O'Neill and Hachey, he told a Boston Globe reporter that, if forced to hand over the tapes, BC may have to destroy the entire archive.

The living and the dead

Less than two weeks after the subpoena was issued BC handed over the Hughes tapes, given Hughes was dead, but withheld Price's.

By this stage, graffiti had appeared on walls in republican west Belfast reading: BOSTON COLLEGE TOUTS.

As was suspected, the PSNI were not going to stop there. Three months later a second subpoena was issued, requested all tapes that mentioned Jean McConville.

BC hired Boston lawyer Jeffrey Swope, who argued that the court should refuse requests for the tapes for several reasons, including due to the promises of confidentiality give to interviewees, the valuable nature of the Troubles research itself, and the safety of the participants.

Mr Swope even argued such was the gravity of the tapes' contents that they could threaten the very peace process itself.

McIntyre and Maloney, doubting BC's will for a prolonged legal battle, hired their own lawyers, while also launching a public campaign, giving scores of interviews and soliciting the help of academic organisations, lawmakers and members of congress.

Words of recrimination were exchanged publicly between McIntyre and Maloney and BC administrators.

College spokesman Jack Dunn told RTE at the time: “I think quite frankly that Mr Moloney was so excited about this project and quite frankly so eager to write a book from which he would profit.”

Dunn did not mention that Hachey and O'Neill wrote the preface of the book and were each to receive 25% of the royalties.

The BC spokesman added that Maloney “chose to ignore the obvious statements that were made to him, including a contract he had signed expressing the limits of confidentiality”.

McIntyre told the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Bob O'Neill made it very clear that nothing — and the words he used were 'legal repercussions' — he said nothing would be permitted or accepted into the library if there were legal repercussions for those involved.”

Eventually, a judge ordered BC to hand over the Price interviews and 85 interviews with seven other former IRA members the court deemed relevant to the investigation.

In May 2013, the US Court of Appeals of the First Circuit significantly reduced the number of tapes to be released to the PSNI, from 85 to 11, after finding the earlier district court “abused its discretion” in determining what tapes were relevant to the investigation.

Throwing in the towel

Professor Ted Palys of Simon Fraser University's School of Criminology co-authored a paper on research confidentiality in relation to the Belfast Project.

He said that, by not fighting the subpoenas from the very beginning, BC “threw in the towel before any legal battle even started” and had “already blown it”.

“They could have taken this all the way to the Supreme Court,” he said.

“We've found, interestingly enough, that courts in the United States and increasingly in Canada, they are actually incredibly protective of university research and academic freedom.

“The weak link is actually university administrators, ironically enough.”

The core of the problem lay in the wording of the contracts, both between Maloney and BC, and the contracts signed by the interviewees.

Maloney's contract guaranteed confidentiality only “to the extent American law allowed”, but this phrase was not included in the “donor agreements” with the interviewees.

The donor agreements gave the impression of confidentiality until death.

“Access to the tapes and transcripts shall be restricted until after my death except in those cases where I have provided prior written approval for their use following consultation with the Burns Librarian, Boston College,” they state.

“Due to the sensitivity of content, the ultimate power of release shall rest with me. After my death the Burns Librarian of Boston College may exercise such power exclusively.”

It appears BC gave promises they couldn't, or wouldn't, keep.

An oversight

In court in 2016, Bob O'Neill was asked why he did nothing to correct the impression of 'until death confidentiality' that the interviewees had.

“It was an oversight on my part and I will accept responsibility for that, that the agreement with the interviewees did not include the restriction 'to the extent American law allows',” he replied.

The release of the tapes, which McIntyre and Maloney saw as a capitulation and betrayal from BC, soon had ramifications on the ground in Belfast.

March 2014 saw the arrest of former IRA commander Ivor Bell, who was subsequently charged with soliciting the murder of Jean McConville, however the real coup for the PSNI and UK Government was the April 2014 arrest of Gerry Adams.

Adams was held for four days and questioned repeatedly over the McConville murder, but was later released without charge.

Soon after the Adams arrest, BC saw the writing on the wall — the project was finished.

The university offered to return all tapes and transcripts to interviewees, on request, but it was too little, too late.

Legal battles continued and in May 2014 the PSNI revealed it was seeking the entire Belfast Project archive.

“Detectives in the Serious Crime Branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have initiated steps to obtain all the material from Boston College as part of the Belfast Project,” the PSNI said.

“This is in line with PSNI's statutory duty to investigate fully all matters of serious crime, including murder.”

Reluctant witnesses

In June 2016, former UVF and Red Hand Commando member Winston 'Winkie' Rea was charged with 19 offences, including aiding and abetting murder, as a result of his admissions he made in the Boston Tapes.

Already in ill health, he died in December 2023 while awaiting trial.

In July 2016 Ivor Bell was due to stand trial, but he was deemed unfit to do so after developing vascular dementia. Instead, what is known as a 'trial of the facts' was held, in which the truth of the allegations against the defendant, rather their guilt or innocence, is examined.

Following this process, Ms Justice O'Hara ruled the evidence in the tapes was unreliable and Bell was cleared.

For now, it appears the PSNI has not sought subpoenas for the entire archive, as it indicated it would in May 2014, but a few cases over access are continuing.

Last year, Anthony McIntyre himself lost a legal battle to prevent the PSNI listening to his own Boston Tapes.

Now, the Belfast Project is dead, but its ghosts continue to appear from time to time.

It featured it the TV drama series Say Nothing, based on the eponymous book by Patrick Radden Keefe, which tells the story of Brendan Hughes, Gerry Adams, Dolours Price and the Jean McConville case.

Testimony given to BC also formed part of evidence given in the civil case against Gerry Adams, which was withdrawn earlier this month.

In time, the Boston Tapes story will be confined to memory and history, just not the history it was intended to tell when it was born in the early 2000s.

Ted Palys said one of the main lessons to be learned from the endeavour will be one of “how not to do an oral history project”. He's probably right.

BC declined to be interviewed for this piece, but spokesman Jack Dunn revealed in a statement to this newspaper: “The Belfast Project archive is closed and the oral histories will remain closed to the public for 75 years from the date of their creation.”

It appears some secrets will stay buried, for now.

Anthony McIntyre declined to comment.

Republican rivals held ‘doomsday’ summit

CONNLA YOUNG, Irish News, March 28th, 2026

SEVERAL republican groups set aside bitter differences to discuss a ‘doomsday’ scenario as the Troubles raged in the north 50 years ago, it has been claimed.

Details of the summit are revealed by former Garda Special Branch officer JP O’Sullivan in his new book Veil of Silence about the killing of IRA informer John Corcoran in 1985.

From Co Cork, the father of eight was shot dead after it emerged he had been working for Garda Special Branch in his home city.

Mr O’Sullivan, who was Mr Corcoran’s handler, was also involved in carrying out surveillance against various republican groups in Co Cork during the 1970s.

Republican factions had meeting to discuss ‘united front’

He reveals how he and colleagues provided intelligence about an unlikely meeting involving the Provisional IRA, Official IRA and INLA in 1975 – during a period of intense conflict in the north.

The unlikely meeting took place during a decade that saw several fallouts between republican factions.

“My two colleagues and I had submitted intelligence on what we described as a ‘Doomsday’ situation in the North of Ireland,” he writes.

“Cork-based members of the PIRA, the OIRA and the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP)/INLA had gathered in Dunmanway on New Year’s Eve in 1975 to discuss how they could present a united front in the event of ‘total war’ in the North.

“Two members of each group had attended. This was a notable event because until then the three groups had been openly hostile to each other.”

Known as The Rebel County, Co Cork has historically been a republican stronghold.

During the Troubles a number of Cork natives are known to have travelled north to help the IRA.

In May 1973 Cork city man Tony Ahern was killed in a premature explosion near Roslea in Co Fermanagh. His friend and former neighbour Dermot Crowley died in similar circumstances, along with two other IRA members, six weeks later near Omagh in Co Tyrone.

It has been previously been reported that in the early 1970s the Provisional IRA’s officer commanding in Tyrone was also from Cork.

Speaking to The Irish News, Mr O’Sullivan said Garda Special Branch “had general knowledge there was movement up and down”.

“That was fairly obvious to anybody in the intelligence section,” he said.

In his book Mr O’Sullivan reveals that the republican summit was of interest to colleagues at the Garda’s Crime and Security Branch, known as C3, in Dublin.

“This intelligence report attracted strong attention in C3, as a united republican front would present a significant threat to state security,” Mr O’Sullivan wrote.

“It came back down from C3 to Union Quay, and it became very clear to us, almost immediately, that one officer was determined to discover the source of the information and identify the detectives involved.

“I learned from another colleague that the disgruntled officer had made remarks inferring that a ‘maverick’ unit was operating within Special Branch at Union Quay, which he was not going to tolerate.”

Mr O’Sullivan reveals he was later questioned about the origin of the tip-off.

“In a small unit such as ours was, it was difficult to hide anything, and so it did not surprise me when the officer questioned me about the information,” he wrote.

“However, I refused to identify our source.

“I did not realise it then, but this incident and the proper reporting of intelligence being received from John Corcoran would be the genesis of the most serious trouble of my career.”

Northern Ireland’s Sir Humphrey on saving Stormont’s bacon

Sir David Sterling, former head of NI civil service, talks about being left in charge of government,

DAVID McCANN, Irish News, March 28th, 2026

MANY of us have an image of what we imagine top civil servants to be.

For politicos, our view of those who advise and implement policy is unavoidably shaped by the classic comedy series Yes Minister.

On screen, the crafty character of Sir Humphrey Appleby is forever attempting to manipulate ministers to bend to his will.

In Northern Ireland, our civil service has even been more prominent and pivotal to our governance than in most areas of these islands.

From 1972 to 1999, and on at least three occasions since, our public officials have been relied upon either to support direct rule ministers or run the place themselves while attempts to restore devolution took place.

Yet we actually know very little about some of the key figures who have had the task of keeping services going when our elected assembly is not sitting.

One man who, from 2017-2020, had the unenviable job of heading the civil service whilst Stormont was down was Sir David Sterling.

David was a senior civil servant during many tumultuous times in our politics, managing prolonged periods without ministers including the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Growing up in Dundonald, he joined the civil service in the late 1970s at the height of the Troubles.

First working in the Police Authority and then the Northern Ireland Office during the decades of direct rule from Westminster, he rose steadily up the ranks.

I asked how he felt about the Good Friday Agreement, which would mark not only an end to the conflict but the return of locally-elected ministers for the first time since 1974.

Good Friday

He remembers the optimism he felt in 1998 and on the Good Friday with the announcement that agreement between the parties had been reached.

“I am not a particularly emotional person… I remember actually choking back the tears because I thought, here is a real opportunity to make this place better.”

I wondered whether civil servants were excited about the prospect of answering to local ministers, none of whom had served a single day in government, as opposed to the direct rule set-up that had been in place for so long.

In the early months of devolution, Sterling moved to the Department of Finance and Personnel, where he would work under Mark Durkan of the SDLP.

He recalled the “heady days” as the new administration, made up of the UUP, SDLP, Sinn Féin and DUP, took office.

He also has warm words for Durkan, whom he believed tackled the role with energy and a determination to make things work.

That first experiment in power-sharing in the Trimble-Mallon years was marked by various collapses and disputes over issues such as decommissioning.

However, Sterling reflects on this period fondly, notwithstanding the political difficulties: it was a busy time when ministers were attempting to do the right thing.

Whilst the imagery was often characterised by public disagreements, the atmosphere behind the scenes was much more cooperative and respectful.

“There was a lot of mutual respect between people like Mark Durkan, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds. They were big people, they were very capable, and you could detach the hard politics. There was a lot of working together… there was a lot done behind the scenes, which I think has never been properly recognised.”

That executive, led by the UUP and SDLP, fell in late 2002, with the optimism and expectations of those early days being frustrated as yet another attempt at power-sharing ended and direct rule was reintroduced.

Remembering that moment, Sterling says: “We were all disappointed it went down. There was probably also a little element of we can catch your breath now, because we had been flat out for two years, the pressure had been intense.”

For this official, the collapse of the executive coincided with a move to the Department of Regional Development in early 2003, where he worked on the controversial issue of water reform.

This programme created several prominent government-owned bodies, such as Northern Ireland Water and the Utility Regulator.

However, it also examined an issue that has been a key question in politics here for 20 years and was being seriously examined during the years of direct rule from 2003 to 2007.

Water charges united politicians

Sterling says this was one of the biggest programmes he worked on, one which ultimately would have led to the introduction of water charges.

In a political sliding doors moment, he tells me we were just days away from sending out the first water charges before devolution was eventually restored, with the DUP and Sinn Féin now leading the executive.

For the future head of the civil service, who was working to reform our water system, there was concern about how we would properly finance sewerage infrastructure in the long-term – an issue the most re-cent administration is still confronted with.

When I asked how he felt when the new Paisley-McGuinness government took office and decided not to proceed with these reforms, he admits there was “huge frustration”.

Sterling, however, is quick to highlight that the civil service’s role is to facilitate the wishes of political leaders in Northern Ireland.

“The model we have on these islands is one where the civil service should be able to serve any administration, and here we were, we had been serving direct rule ministers for five years, taking forward a programme which the local ministers were totally opposed to… But I do remember talking to the team and saying look, we now have to prove all over again that we can work and serve new masters.”

The period of devolved government that followed was the longest we have had since the Good Friday Agreement.

Throughout these years, David Sterling continued to rise throughout the ranks of the civil service, becoming permanent secretary at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in 2009, then moving to the Department of Finance in 2014.

He worked alongside a host of ministers, including Arlene Foster and Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.

Various theories and explanations have been offered for why the executive came down in early 2017. In the months leading up to it, the political mood music had sounded positive.

Following the 2016 assembly election, the executive was made up of the DUP, Sinn Féin, and the independent unionist Claire Sugden in the justice department. The other parties had gone into opposition.

Sterling recalls that the two main parties were “reasonably comfortable” working together without the other three in the executive.

Brexit

However, within weeks, the issue of the UK’s exit from the European Union came into sharp focus as the referendum resulted in a leave vote, with the implications for Northern Ireland starting to be mapped out.

With Sinn Féin and the DUP on opposite sides of the issue, an often-forgotten moment was a joint letter to Prime Minister Theresa May, signed by Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness, outlining key asks for Northern Ireland.

What is remarkable about this letter, which ended up being the only joint communication from the heads of government on Brexit during this entire period, was how quickly it was agreed.

“A lot of people wondered about that letter, like it must have taken an endless amount of time to produce. They more or less signed off on a very early draft; there wasn’t a lot of change.”

The fall, when it came in early January 2017 due to a host of reasons, left Northern Ireland without a devolved government for a further three years.

Unlike the previous period, when direct rule was introduced, Northern Ireland was effectively governed by the civil service, which operated without local ministers.

Stepping into the role of leading the civil service in June 2017, Sterling remembers how “we didn’t want direct rule, but I felt it was intolerable that we were being asked as a civil service to continue to deliver government without any ministerial direction”.

Covid

When devolution returned in January 2020 with Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill leading the executive, they were quickly confronted by the Covid pandemic.

For Sterling, who was secretary to the executive, he watched the dynamics of a power-sharing coalition grappling with a fast-moving situation throughout March 2020.

He remembers the “clear split” within the executive over the issue of school closures: whether to follow the Republic on this or mirror the UK government’s approach.

“That tension was really difficult to manage over two or three days,” he recalls.

However, he does highlight that the local pandemic response was not always characterised by disagreement.

Once the debate about school closures subsided, “I actually think we saw the executive at its best during the next few months”.

Sterling acknowledges that decision-making was long and at times tense, but says that generally, agreement was reached.

On today’s challenges facing the executive, he says of the budget that “I think this is one of the biggest financial crises we’ve seen in the last 25 years, and we’ve been through a lot”.

A Billion overspend on the cards

Sterling says issues that have been parked for a long time, combined with an ageing population and increasing demand for public services, are putting real pressure on finances.

With no easy solution, he believes that “the Treasury is going to have to step in because the draft budget is simply not deliverable”.

“I have looked at Pivotal’s numbers, and I would agree that other things being equal, the Executive, if they have to deliver this budget, they’ll overspend by anything up to a billion.”

With all the challenges facing devolution, not just in policy terms but also stability, I put to him the oft-debated question of whether we are better off with devolution or direct rule. Sterling is unequivocal.

“I know that actually having our own people, charting our own destiny, having our own ministers deciding on strategy and policy, has to be the best way forward.”

He does concede that recent executives have had issues standing up to that challenge, which needs to be fixed quickly, but direct rule is not the answer.

The former head of the civil service admits he does not know what the alternative to what we have at the moment looks like, but he does outline the challenge for the parties.

“I think it’s important now that the various parties recognise that if they don’t find a way of working better together, to actually deliver us the outcomes we need, well then this place is going to face some huge difficulties.”

What SF thought was a stepping stone to united Ireland is really a barrier

PATRICK MURPHY, Irish News, March 28th, 2026

WHEN Sinn Féin recently branded the DUP as having a “wreckers’ agenda” in the executive, the party appeared to be finally accepting what this column has been suggesting for some time – Stormont is not working.

The solution for Sinn Féin would appear to be either to reform it, or abandon it. However, the party has not indicated support for Stormont’s reform.

Instead, it has stated that since the Good Friday Agreement was a peace settlement, but not a political settlement (although it did not say that at the time), the political institutions “are not an end in themselves”.

This presumably means that it sees Stormont as a temporary arrangement, which will disappear in a united Ireland.

In the meantime, the social and economic problems heaped on us by Stormont’s failure will, by Sinn Féin’s logic, leave us temporarily in purgatory, rather than permanently in hell. However, Stormont’s institutionalised sectarianism is beginning to look disturbingly permanent.

If a united Ireland means uniting people, Stormont’s battle-a-day between Sinn Féin and the DUP makes that unity unlikely and probably impossible.

The DUP knows this, so they are effectively wrecking the path to a united Ireland. Welcome to hell disguised as purgatory.

Sinn Féin is not the first party to journey from supporting violence to preaching peace.

De Valera took that same path when he resigned as Sinn Féin president 100 years ago this month. He had failed to convince the party to abandon its policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann, so he formed his own party, Fianna Fáil.

In 1932, six years after it was formed, and just 16 years after the 1916 Rising, Fianna Fáil entered government. It has been there for 66 of the past 100 years and has held the Irish presidency five times. It might reasonably be regarded as the most successful party in Irish history.

SF’s roundabout

Sinn Féin has pursued a more roundabout route.

In 1986, 70 years after the Easter Rising, it decided to end abstentionism from the Dáil. Eleven years later its first TD was elected.

Today, nearly 60 years after the Troubles began and 110 years after 1916, it is the largest (and richest) political party in Ireland, but it has still not achieved power in Dublin.

So why has it taken so long? Three factors have made a difference:

IRA violence, the changed nature of southern politics and, of course, engaging in a sectarian Stormont.

In de Valera’s case, the Easter Rising lasted a week and the War for Independence lasted about three years. The modern IRA’s campaign lasted almost 30 years.

The longer the war went on, the more reluctant southern electors were to support violence.

After all, in the 1940s de Valera’s government had executed six IRA men, including Lurgan’s Thomas Harte.

In the north, the war entrenched sectarian division, so it halted rather than hastened Irish unity.

In electoral terms, de Valera had only to counter Fine Gael and, by courting the Catholic Church, he had an ally which guaranteed electoral absolution for any policy failings.

Today, Sinn Féin faces a combined Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition which, although it has a poor record on many social issues, often fends off SF by referring to its support for IRA violence and its failings in Stormont.

Those failings are of Sinn Féin’s own doing. It bought into the Good Friday Agreement’s analysis that the Troubles were caused by two opposing nationalities. This was a direct contradiction of the republican philosophy which recognises a single Irish nation, uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.

They may have got the peace right, but they got the politics wrong.

Sinn Féin decided it would represent only Catholics. It tried to replace a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people with a Catholic party for an increasingly Catholic population.

De Valera stuck by the single nation concept of republicanism and Fianna Fáil stayed out of the north. Although he was elected MP for South Down from 1933 to 1938, he never took his Stormont seat. Instead, his 1937 Irish Constitution laid claim to the whole island of Ireland and he left it at that.

Sinn Féin abandoned that claim in the Good Friday Agreement and opted to govern the north instead.

What it saw as a stepping stone to a united Ireland is now proving to be a barrier. It bought into the wrong model of government – a mistake which it now appears to recognise.

It is guaranteed a share of sectarian power in Stormont, but that share perpetuates rather than resolves division – which is why we can probably expect a lot more wrecking.