Informers, the dirty war and the realities of revealing ‘the truth’

DENIS BRADLEY, Irish News, January 2nd, 2026

Freddie Scappaticci has been widely named as the IRA agent known as Stakeknife. But should all informers be named, regardless of the consequences for their families and communities?

“ The lasting truth is that violence begets violence and there are no just or clean wars

THE truth and only the truth is the current mantra. God look to us all!

Words and sentences that come from our mouths without an appreciation of the complexity and dichotomy that they often contain, especially when we are referencing our past.

Our past – violence and hurt and death that embroiled us for the greater part of 40 years.

The legacy of grief and anger from those years has lost some of its political repercussions, but little of its human impact.

We can expect that phrase about the truth is going to play an important role in the coming year and in the continuing tension of how this community addresses the pain that remains after and because of those 40 years.

The realisation that the Kenova Report did not have the legal right to name Freddie Scappaticci as the person referred to as “Stakeknife” refocused the debate about naming informers – ‘touts’ as they are called in the slang world, and informants or assets in the official world.

The “Stakeknife” case was, in this regard, easy because it appeared to be a silly anomaly.

Scappaticci had been named in the printed and broadcast media for years.

There are few repercussions from that naming.

But it is not always as straightforward or as simple.

The problem with naming ‘Informers’

I remember a discussion, years ago, with one of the human rights groups in the north and there was no doubt or hesitation from them as to the wisdom of naming all informers in any mechanism for dealing with the past.

I was shocked because I could think of a whole lot of families who would be devastated, who would be torn apart, if they were to learn that their son or daughter had been an informer.

This was long before we knew the great number of those who had been compromised and/or in the payment of one or other of the state secret service agencies.

The human rights response was so middle-class and so simplistic. There was little or no recognition that the conflict – the war that had taken place – for the greater part, had been fought in working-class areas.

Those who joined the paramilitary groupings came mostly from working-class communities.

Middle-class areas of Belfast and Derry and the leafy suburbs suffered less disruption, daily tension, threats and fear.

Life in suburbia was not normal but the conflict was never as destructive as in the working-class enclaves.

Yet the working-class areas were the least prepared and able to withstand the intensity and the longevity of the Troubles.

The extent and depth of the infiltration, the collusion and the corruption that was the legacy became public, came into the open, in stages.

Firstly, it was assumed that loyalist paramilitaries were heavily infiltrated to the point of control by secret service agencies.

It was much later that we discovered that republicanism was also infiltrated to a degree that would have initially been denied and unexpected.

The IRA was so ruthless in dealing with informers and apparently so disciplined in its cellular structure that the numbers of compromised volunteers came as a surprise to both the organisation and the public.

Political unionism was so intent in denying the possibility of what it called ‘moral equivalence’ – good state, bad paramilitaries – that it blinded itself to the reality of the ruthless perversion and illegality that was so often practiced by state forces.

But, ultimately, the truth, as is its wont, leaked out between the cracks to where the skulduggery and illegality could no longer be denied or hidden.

The lasting truth is that violence begets violence and there are no just or clean wars.

Many families understandably seek justice and truth for the pain and the loss they suffered and cling to the hope that they will at least get ‘truth’.

But we need to be very, very careful that in assuming the right to transparency and rights, we don’t destroy other families and communities.

50 years on from Kingsmill, Britain and the IRA still have questions to answer

CORMAC MOORE, Irish News, January 2nd 2025

The bullet-riddled minibus at the scene of the sectarian massacre of 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmill, Co Armagh in January 1976

FIFTY years ago, on January 5 1976, republicans calling themselves the ‘South Armagh Republican Action Force’ stopped a minibus of textile workers on their way home from work on the Kingsmill Road near Whitecross in Co Armagh.

In a nakedly sectarian attack, they asked which among the workers was Catholic.

After the one Catholic man was told to “make himself scarce”, the remaining 11 men were shot. All died except one, Alan Black.

As with the brutal loyalist murders of members of the Reavey and O’Dowd families nearby the previous night, many questions remain unanswered to this day about who exactly was responsible for the atrocities in south Armagh in January 1976.

People in the area had been in a heightened state of anxiety on Monday January 5 after two Catholic families – the Reaveys of Whitecross and the O’Dowds of Ballydougan – were targeted by loyalists from the Glennane gang the previous evening.

Brothers John Martin (24) and Brian Reavey (22) died at the scene after gunmen opened fire as they watched television in their home.

Their 17-year-old brother Anthony, who was badly wounded in the attack, looked to be recovering after being discharged from hospital, but tragically suffered a relapse and died almost a month later.

Around the same time, 16 miles away, gunmen burst into the O’Dowd home in Ballydougan, killing brothers Barry (24) and Declan (19) and their 61-year-old uncle Joseph.

In her book ‘Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland’, Anne Cadwallader described the IRA’s retaliation for the killings of the Reaveys and the O’Dowds as “immediate, terrible and inexcusable”.

Like the method used by loyalists to stop the Miami Showband’s van the previous July, republicans set up a false checkpoint at Kingsmill Road the following evening to stop a minibus carrying workers coming home from work from Glennane Mill to Bessbrook.

As the bus approached, a man stepped out onto the road, flashing a light. A dozen gunmen emerged from the hedges. The driver assumed it was a security checkpoint and stopped.

The only Catholic on the bus, Richard Hughes, was told to step forward. Fearing for his life, brothers Reginald and Walter Chapman tried to shield him from being identified but eventually he was and was told to run down the road.

The gunmen then opened fire on the 11 remaining men, firing more than 100 bullets in less than a minute.

The 10 who died were: John Bryans, a 46-year-old widower whose children became orphans; Robert Chambers, an apprentice fitter who was 19 years old; the Chapman brothers, Reginald (25), a Sunday school teacher, and Walter (23), a factory labourer; 50-year-old Robert Freeburn, a married father of two; Joseph Lemmon (46), a joiner whose daughter was due to be married; John McConville, a 20-year-old cloth finisher whose family received a letter the day after he was killed saying he had been accepted into Bible school to train as a missionary; James McWhirter (58), a cloth finisher; the minibus driver Robert Walker (46) from Glennane, the only person killed not from Bessbrook; and Kenneth Worton a 24-year-old machinist who left two young daughters behind.

Alan Black and the Reavey family

Despite being shot 18 times, Alan Black survived. He recuperated in Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry where he struck up a friendship with Anthony Reavey.

Although neither spoke about the horrors they suffered, their common experience bonded them together.

Alan was devastated when Anthony died shortly afterwards. He became friendly with the wider Reavey family too. On their visits to Anthony in hospital, the Reaveys always called to Alan’s bed.

Anthony’s father, Jimmy, had appealed for no retaliation the day after the attack on his sons. It fell on deaf ears.

On the same month that the Reavey, O’Dowd and Kingsmill atrocities occurred, a letter writer protested in The Irish News about south Armagh being referred to as “Bandit Country”, claiming that while “there have been terrible atrocities and horrible murders committed in our midst, that is no reason to brand the many peace-loving, decent people, who live here. I have yet to hear anyone from this region condone these brutal actions”.

The quiet, dignified manner in the way people like the Reaveys and Alan Black carried their burdens, and the support they received from many people from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, demonstrated that it was a small minority who supported the tit-for-tat sectarian violence visited upon south Armagh during the Troubles.

To date no-one has been prosecuted for the Reavey, O’Dowd and Kingsmill atrocities.

The UVF Glennane gang, believed to be responsible for up to 120 murders during the Troubles, carried out the attacks on the Reaveys and the O’Dowds.

Although not admitted, there are strong claims that the Glennane gang was aided by security forces.

As Eugene Reavey claimed in his recently published book ‘The Killing of the Reavey Brothers: British Murder and Cover-Up in Northern Ireland’, written with journalist Ken Murray, there are also many questions for the British Army and RUC to answer over their potential involvement with the Kingsmill massacre, questions they have refused to answer thus far.

Shambolic and threadbare

The shambolic and threadbare approach to the investigation into the massacre has never been explained and there remains persistent rumours that controversial British Army officer Robert Nairac played some part in the atrocity.

In 2011, an Historical Enquiries Team (HET) report claimed that the IRA was ultimately responsible for the Kingsmill massacre, despite never admitting to it.

All but two of the weapons used in the attack were used in other attacks by the IRA.

Although it was a retaliation for the Reavey-O’Dowd attacks the previous night, such a ruthlessly efficient assault would need to have been planned well in advance.

While the British clearly have many questions to answer over those two awful nights in south Armagh 50 years ago this week, so do members of the IRA from the area who know more than anyone else who was responsible for that horrific sectarian atrocity at Kingsmill.

FRESH CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR 10 MEN KILLED AT KINGSMILL AHEAD OF 50TH ANNIVERSARY

REBECCA BLACK, Belfast Telegraph, January 2nd, 2026

A fresh call has been made for justice for 10 men killed at the roadside by republican terrorists in Co Armagh before the 50th anniversary of the atrocity.

The 10 Protestant workmen were shot dead outside the village of Kingsmill in Co Armagh in January 1976 when republican gunmen posing as British soldiers ordered them off a minibus on their way home from work.

The killers asked the occupants of the bus what their religion was before opening fire.

The only Catholic on board was ordered to run away before the sectarian shooting started.

Of the 11 Protestants who remained on the roadside, one man, Alan Black, survived, despite being shot 18 times.

No-one has ever been convicted of the murders.

In 2024 a coroner described the Kingsmill massacre as an “overtly sectarian attack by the IRA” but did not name those individuals suspected of involvement.

Those killed will be remembered during a religious service this weekend, and a service at the scene of the atrocity on Monday, 50 years on.

SEFF

Victims campaigner Kenny Donaldson from the group SEFF said their thoughts and prayers are with the families of those impacted.

He said thoughts are also with the Reavey and O'Dowd families, who had been targeted by loyalist gunmen shortly before the Kingsmill massacre. Mr Donaldson said all of those acts of terror were unjustified and unjustifiable.

“For those immediately involved with Kingsmill the pain will be as raw now as it was at the time,” he said.

“For 50 years the Kingsmill families have been denied justice, truth and accountability for a crime which was amongst the most depraved of the terror campaign.

“The Kingsmill bereaved families and survivor Alan Black have held themselves with immense dignity throughout the last five decades; they have not uttered words of vengeance or sentiments of wanting retaliation.

“What they do however demand is that justice, truth and accountability be served and it is a stain not only on the UK and Republic Of Ireland Governments but moreover the local community of South Armagh that those remain within their midst who have not been held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

“Sadly many first generation Kingsmill victims went to their graves without ever seeing accountability for what occurred.”

Mike Nesbitt stands down as Ulster Unionist leader 

By David Thompson, Belfast News Letter, January 2nd, 2025

Mike Nesbitt has stepped down as Ulster Unionist Party leader, saying that he has now completed the short-term job of getting the party “match fit for the forthcoming election campaign”.

The UUP says that it will shortly “outline the leadership selection process, ensuring an inclusive, engaging and seamless transition”.

All eyes will now turn to whether newcomer Jon Burrows or current deputy leader Robbie Butler will put their names forward for the top job.

In October, Mr Butler said he could put his name forward if the party can “match” his ambition – and while Mr Burrows has yet to comment on any leadership bid, he is widely seen as a potential successor.

Jon Burrows has been touring Northern Ireland speaking to local UUP associations – with many grassroots members enthused by his approach at Stormont.

In an episode of the Stormont Sources podcast in October, Robbie Butler said if the leadership came up, “I wouldn't be discounting myself at all”.

The announcement of Mr Nesbitt’s resignation comes after months of speculation prompted by comments he made during a podcast interview, in which he said that he would make a decision on whether to run again in early 2026. However, in an interview with the News Letter the outgoing UUP leader subsequently branded the ensuing speculation as a “media invention”.

In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, announcing Mr Nesbitt’s decision to step down, the UUP said it “marks a pivotal moment as the Party builds on strong foundations and accelerates towards a bold, forward-looking vision for the 2027 elections”.

A party spokesperson said: “Since returning in 2024, Mike has led from the front as Minister of Health, reinforcing the UUP’s reputation for responsible, effective governance. He has also delivered key internal reforms, restored financial stability, modernised Party rules, and strengthened policy and communications teams – leaving the Party resilient, and ready for the future.

“Mike’s earlier leadership saw notable electoral successes, including strong local and European results in 2014, two MPs elected in 2015, and increased Assembly representation in 2016”.

Commenting on his decision, Mr Nesbitt said: “The next five-year mandate stretches to May 2032, the month I hope to celebrate my 75th birthday. That’s a commitment to fulltime politics I just do not feel I can make. And I would not be comfortably seeking a vote knowing that privately I was intending to retire during the mandate.

“I retook the leadership to do a short-term job of getting the Party match fit for the forthcoming election campaign. That job is now done so the time is right to select the politician who will lead us into the May 2027 polls promoting our brand of confident, responsible unionism.” Party Chair, Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard, said: “We are deeply grateful to Mike for his decades of service and unwavering dedication to improving our society.

“As we enter 2026, we look forward to building on the strong platform he has created. Our next Leader will champion forward-looking Unionism – safeguarding Northern Ireland’s place in the UK while promoting prosperity, reconciliation, and a shared future for all.”

Since taking over the leadership in August 2024, Mr Nesbitt had delegated much of the party leadership role to his deputy Mr Butler, while he focused on running the Stormont health ministry.

In an episode of the Stormont Sources podcast, Robbie Butler said if the leadership came up, “I wouldn't be discounting myself at all” – but said Mike Nesbitt would have his full support if he decided to stay on in the role.

Host David McCann pushed Mr Butler on what had changed that prompted him to declare his intentions.

He said he wouldn’t take on the role if he didn’t feel he could make a difference – and said he had considered it when Doug Beattie ran for leader.

Pushed for clarity on whether he would stand if Mike Nesbitt stands down in January, Mr Butler said “If the party can match my ambition, which I believe it could, match my ambition.

“There is a formula for it, if they can do that and I believe it’s in the right place, I can put my name forward. But listen, there could be a better face”.

Call for more PSNI officers to get Tasers as attacks on them spiral

Call for more PSNI officers to get Tasers as attacks on them spiral

REBECCA BLACK, Belfast Telegraph and Irish News, January 2nd, 2026

POLICE FEDERATION CHAIR SAYS DEVICES WOULD PROTECT HIS MEMBERS AND PUBLIC

A representative group for police in Northern Ireland is urging consideration of a wider rollout of Tasers amid thousands of attacks on officers.

There were 2,630 attacks on police officers between October 2024 and September 2025, and more than 100 reported incidents of police cars being rammed in 2025.

This has continued over the Christmas period, with 14 officers assaulted between the evening of Friday, December 26 and the morning of Saturday, December 27, and one receiving hospital treatment for a bite injury.

Five police officers were assaulted as they responded to a report of burglary in Dunmurray in the early hours of Wednesday.

Police Federation for Northern Ireland chairman Liam Kelly said a knife attack on two officers in Londonderry in November could have resulted in them losing their lives.

He said many are reluctant to use their guns as a potentially fatal force, but Tasers could give a non-lethal option to defend themselves. Currently, only specially trained officers carry a Taser.

The number of times Tasers have been deployed by officers here has been falling, from 35 in 2017-18 to 19 in 2024-25.

Mr Kelly said there is a knock-on effect of assaults on police for the public, when there are fewer officers available to help them.

He said assaults on police must be called out, and officers must have the ability to defend themselves.

“We've seen the discussion around a wider rollout of the Taser device, and we've seen An Garda Siochana have now piloted issuing 128 in their service because of the rising assaults on their officers,” he said.

“We want to reduce the assaults on our officers, and one of the options is issuing Taser to our frontline, particularly our response and neighbourhood, because the metrics from the assaults show that those officers are the ones that are most vulnerable to people attacking them.”

Mr Kelly acknowledged concerns have been raised, including at the Policing Board, around Tasers.

“But this, for me, is quite an easy equation. I think the wellbeing and welfare of our police officers has a higher priority than the wellbeing of somebody who's attacking them with a sword, or machete or a knife,” he said.

“It's a tactical option. It's a less lethal option, and again, as we've seen in that incident in Derry, we could quite easily have had two officers killed, and that's despite them having conventional firearms with them.

“There is a reluctance from officers to use what is potentially deadly force. They would always try and use something, their baton or their PAVA spray, and I think the Taser sort of fills that gap between that.”

Mr Kelly said metrics from other police services indicate Tasers are “both safer for the offender, but ultimately safer for the officer”.

He added: “They can put more distance between themselves and bring an incident to an end very, very quickly.”

He said the federation is suggesting a pilot programme using Taser in an area with the highest level of assault against police officers, and examining the data to see if it reduces those numbers, and also the number of injuries to members of the public.

“Unfortunately when you have to use force on someone, whether that be using a baton or PAVA, it can have medical consequences for the people concerned, even just hands-on stuff can have medical consequences, as can Tasers,” he said.

“I'm not saying it won't cause injury or long-term injury, but I think the data from our colleagues in England, Wales and Scotland will show that, and the medical complications for people are a lot less than what people would seem to suggest on social media.

“I would rather that we look after our welfare and wellbeing of our officers when they're put into these particularly violent scenarios, keeping the public safe, but also keeping themselves safe.”

Plan to increase target for PSNI officers

REBECCA BLACK, Irish News, January 2nd, 2026

A NEW plan is expected to increase the target number of police officers in Northern Ireland to more than 7,500.

It comes as Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer numbers dropped to 6,190 last summer, well below the target number of 7,500 set in the Patten Report in 1999.

Police Federation for Northern Ireland chairman Liam Kelly said that 7,500 had been based on a lower population, and also assumed the support of 2,500 part-time officers, whereas there are currently 142 parttime officers.

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has created a recovery plan that aims to boost officer numbers to 7,000 by 2028.

Mr Kelly said the first year of this recovery plan was funded by an allocation from the December monitoring round, and blamed funding uncertainty for numbers falling.

“We actually had our lowest number of officers just before the summer, we had 6,190,” he told Press Association.

“We are now in December. Our numbers are now 6,245.

“The business case for the recovery plan was based on our starting figure being 6,350, so we’re behind where it needs to be.

“There will be a number of student officers coming into service here over the next three months, but the starting point on the recovery plan was by April 2026, we would have 6,500 officers. I can tell you now that is not going to happen.

“So the funding that we’ve been given in year one, which was £7 million is probably going to result in us being back to and around 6,350 so we’re 150 behind already, and that will have to be made up either in year two or year three of the recovery plan and that will come at an additional cost, because they’ve prevaricated and delayed actually issuing the funding.”

New Plan

A new plan is expected to increase the target number of police officers in Northern Ireland to more than 7,500

He said the rioting in Ballymena, Larne and Portadown over the summer highlighted the short numbers, with a mutual aid request having to be made.

“That’s the reality that our officers have found themselves in, less people to do more work, and that has had an impact, not only on our officers well being, but actually on the sickness levels we’ve seen in service as well, which then has a normal effect of having even less people to do more work,” he said.

“The key to all this is proper investment in the PSNI.”

Mr Kelly pointed out the 2024 Leapwise report indicated the PSNI requires from 8,000 to 8,500 police officers to effectively manage demands.

“Even with the recovery plan being paid for over the next few years, we’re still going to be significantly down on the resource that we need,” he said.

“I’ve had a conversation with the Chief Constable, and he wants to nail down once and for all this number of police officers that we actually need.

“As we approach the 25th anniversary of the PSNI, there will be a report being commissioned from the Department of Justice, the Policing Board and the PSNI, which is actually going to nail down this number of officers that we need and then the Chief Constable can produce a business plan around that.

“I can tell you now it’s going to be, obviously, more than 7,000 and I think most parties are in agreement that our numbers are not what they need to be.

“So let’s get this report done, let’s look at a proper number, the PSNI should be working towards, and then let’s get the funding in place to make it happen.”

Legacy of Troubles is a 'millstone round the neck of PSNI'

By Rebecca Black, Belfast News Letter, January 1st, 2025

​The legacy of Northern Ireland's Troubles has been described as a "millstone round the neck of police".

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is contending with the cost of the past in financial, as well as reputational, terms, the chairman of the Police Federation has said.

Liam Kelly was speaking as the Government progresses its Northern Ireland Troubles Bill aimed at finding a way forward on the past.

It aims to replace aspects of the previous Conservative government's controversial Legacy Act, which shut down all UK police investigations into Troubles-related killings in May last year.

Mr Kelly said it is not sustainable for the PSNI to have to spend £20-30 million a year from their current budget.

But he said it has also been difficult for police officers and their predecessors being "tarnished" by events from the past.

Last month saw a Supreme Court ruling in favour of a Government appeal which prevents a coroner in Northern Ireland disclosing certain sensitive material at a Troubles inquest.

It unanimously overturned a decision by coroner Louisa Fee to disclose summaries, or gists, of the evidence in a sensitive security force file related to the murder of a man in west Belfast 30 years ago.

The court said while it has "considerable sympathy" with the desire of PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher to be transparent, the responsibility lies with the Northern Ireland Secretary over assessing risks to national security.

Mr Kelly said the judges made it very clear it is for Secretary of State Hilary Benn to make decisions around disclosure.

"Unfortunately, as we've seen with neither confirm nor deny processes, people can write their own narratives around whether that's done or not done, and personally I don't think that's fair," he said.

"Equally, it's not fair to my former colleagues who were policing around those times, as they're left with this sort of perception around that they were involved in all manner of things, when the reality is there's very few, if any, officers from the past have actually been brought through the courts and criminally prosecute it for things that may or may not have happened.

"Now we're in 2026 I think legacy is something that needs firmly gripped, and it hasn't been gripped over the years.

Legacy issues handicap PSNI

"Our officers need the support of the public in the here and now, but unfortunately legacy is something that is tarnishing that and needs to be addressed, and addressed urgently."

Mr Kelly said modern day standards are often applied to incidents which happened 40-50 years ago in what was "simply a different world", adding: "There needs to be some sort of concession around that."

He said in the 1970s the then RUC were quite small in numbers, and officers were "trying their best to manage" amid sometimes several major incidents in a day during that period at the start of the Troubles.

"The modern day standards being applied to that really are not fair, and don't look at that whole context," he said.

"From speaking to former senior officers and former police officers who policed in those times. I always get the impression from them that they did their best, and they really did do their best, and that, just by modern day standards, is just not acceptable to some people.

"But I don't doubt their bona fides around what they wanted to do. They wanted to make Northern Ireland a safer place. They wanted to bring people to justice, and unfortunately, the environment at that time just did not make that happen.

"I think we need to see a more balanced narrative being put into the media around this, because we see quite outrageous things being said at times, but unfortunately, because the counter narrative can't be produced, that means that it must be correct, and I disagree with that.

"The RUC were never disbanded, and that was a narrative that happened, that the RUC were disbanded in some way in disgrace.

"But they were actually incorporated into the Police Service of Northern Ireland , and Her Majesty the Queen gave the organisation the George Cross, which is the highest honour they could have received as an organisation, so we should be very proud of their service."

MLA hits out at critics of his ‘Victory to the Palestinian Resistance’ social media post

MARK ROBINSON, Irish News, January 2nd, 2026

WEST Belfast MLA Gerry Carroll has said that critics of a tweet he made in the wake of the October 7 attacks in 2023 would have found another reason to “try and misrepresent” him and others in the Palestinian solidarity movement as antisemitic.

The People Before Profit (PBP) politician defended the post when asked if the backlash to the tweet ever made him regret it.

The tweet, which remains online, was posted on the morning of the Hamas terror attacks in which more than 1,200 civilians were killed and over 250 taken hostage, included the message, ‘Victory to the Palestinian Resistance’ alongside two closed fist emojis.

Opponents claimed that Mr Carroll’s tweet was in celebration of the attacks and was reported to the assembly standards commission as a result.

He was later cleared of any wrongdoing after Mr Carroll stated his post was related to images of “civil disobedience” and he had no knowledge of the attacks on innocent civilians.

However, Mr Carroll did not remove the post when he became aware of the cross-border attacks into Israel, and the X post remains on his account

Since those attacks, Israel has killed an estimated 70,000 Palestinians.

On yesterday’s episode Stormont Sources podcast, Mr Carroll added that there was “a narrative being pushed” by those who complained against his tweet and those who “stand up in Stormont and thank the IDF”.

While he said he accepted that some people may have genuinely misunderstood his tweet, it had been used by others as “an attempt just to completely try and besmirch my politics and the politics of the solidarity movement”.

“There’s definitely been a very coordinated attack, mainly from the unionist parties in Stormont for the most part, to try and sort of misrepresent people who are for Palestine as antisemitic,” he said.

“I’m receiving all sorts of slurs online, in the Stormont chamber, about being antisemitic and it’s completely disgusting.”

Mr Carroll said that claims the pro-Palestine movement is antisemitic were based in a number of inherently antisemitic conspiracy theories, including a ‘replacement theory’ type conspiracy.

However, despite the abuse he has received, he said that he didn’t regret posting the message online on October 7 because if he didn’t post the tweet there would still have been accusations made.

“It would have been, ‘You’re chanting ‘from the river to the sea’, that’s antisemitic’ it would be ‘you’re on a protest’ – I think reason would be found by, mainly unionist parties let’s be honest, to try and misrepresent,” he said.

He said that the strong response to him from Paul Givan and other DUP politicians was because they had been “rattled and spooked” by criticism over the education minister’s trip to Israel from “quarters that maybe not are always pro-Palestine”.

“As much as I fundamentally, totally disagree with it, I don’t doubt the DUP’s commitment to supporting Israel,” he said.

“It gets into really dangerous territory when you start throwing out antisemitism left, right and centre because obviously it’s inaccurate towards myself and the solidarity movement, but also it disguises and ignores real antisemitism which we saw in Australia which is disgusting and is real and has been growing”.

KNEECAP 'WILL NOT BE SILENT' OVER APPEAL AGAINST DECISION TO END TERROR CASE

ELLIE CRABBE, Belfast Telegraph, January 2nd, 2026

NEW LEGAL THREAT BY UK GOVERNMENT TO BEGIN LATER THIS MONTH, SAYS BAND

Kneecap said they will “not be silent” ahead of a further legal challenge over a court's decision to throw out the terrorism case against rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh.

O hAnnaidh was accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig in November 2024, until a technical error in the way he was charged led to the chief magistrate ruling he could not try the case.

Prosecutors had alleged O hAnnaidh was seen in a recording of a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, which shows him wearing and displaying the flag of Hezbollah while saying “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.

Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring agreed with O hAnnaidh's lawyers that prosecutors needed to seek the permission of the Attorney General to charge the rapper, before informing him on May 21 that he would be charged with a terror offence.

The chief magistrate called the decision to charge O hAnnaidh “unlawful”, as he dismissed the case while sitting at Woolwich Crown Court on September 26.

It is understood the CPS's position is that permission only needed to be obtained before his first court hearing, which took place about a month later.

The rap trio said in a post on X yesterday morning that the Government has issued them with a notice that it intends to appeal against the court's decision.

Last year, the Crown Prosecution Service said it would be appealing against the decision because “we believe there is an important point of law which needs to be clarified”.

‘At it again’

In the X post, Kneecap said: “The Brits are at it again...

“The British government has issued us notice that they will appeal the decision of their own magistrates court to throw out the case against Mo Chara (O hAnnaidh's stage name).

“It is the view of our legal team that there is not an iota of logic for this, it is without any sound legal basis.

“It is another flailing arm to distract from, and to try and silence those who stand on the right side of history as they are complicit.

“As Israel today moves to ban charitable organisations providing lifesaving aid and primitive shelter to millions, the British state once again turns to vilify those who oppose genocide.

“It will be heard on Jan 14th at the High Court, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London.

“We will not be silent. Free Palestine.”

The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have been contacted for comment.

O hAnnaidh was initially charged by post on May 21 with supporting proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah during a gig on November 21 last year — but the permission of the Attorney General (AG) or the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had not been sought.

After a retrospective decision to seek permission, the Metropolitan Police re-sent the postal charge to O hAnnaidh the following day — but if May 22 was considered to be the charging date, it would fall outside the six-month window in which defendants should be charged.

During legal argument at an early hearing over whether the case should be thrown out, prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said permission was not required until the defendant's first court appearance.

The judge agreed with O hAnnaidh's lawyers that under the relevant law, legal proceedings are instituted at the moment a prosecutor issues a written charge and requisition — meaning the DPP and AG's permission would be needed on that date.

Mr Bisgrove also argued that permission did not need to be sought in order to bring a criminal charge.

In his judgment, chief magistrate Paul Goldspring cited law which states any offence under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 “shall not be instituted in England and Wales without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions” where the alleged offence is “wholly or partly connected with the affairs” of another country.

STATE PAPERS

British Ambassador - IRA are being retrospectively legitimised by youngsters

SAM MCBRIDE, Belfast Telegraph, January 2nd, 2026

AHERN SAID HE BELIEVED BOTH GOVERNMENTS SHOULD GO AFTER SHINNERS OVER THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN PARAMILITARY BEATINGS AND ABDUCTIONS

Two decades before the emergence of what has been described as the 'Ooh, ahh, up the Ra' generation, the British Ambassador to Dublin warned of what he saw as the growing retrospective legitimisation of IRA terrorism in the Irish Republic.

Among files declassified at The National Archives in Kew is a cable in which Sir Ivor Roberts observed shifting attitudes to the IRA from young people and from those who while the IRA were killing would not have supported its actions.

In a valedictory despatch as he left Dublin in April 2003, the outgoing British Ambassador said that a decade earlier, in 1993, “our guesstimate of the scale of the Provisionals' [manpower] was around 900” but “despite their strength, the IRA were already coming to accept that their aims could not be met by the Armalite, or indeed by a combination of the Armalite and the ballot box.”

He went on to say that “one of the paradoxes, however, of the peace process is that it has now in this part of the island become respectable again to be a republican nationalist.

“While the IRA were on the rampage, many people declined to cloak themselves in the tricolour and the wearing of the green” but that the ceasefire years had “conditioned most of the younger generation at least in the Republic to regard Sinn Féin in an entirely new light”.

He said the “really worrying development for the other political parties is the extent to which Sinn Féin are second only to Fianna Fail among students in their representation in the universities”.

He added: “The other parties here can only envy them their organisational skills and, above all, their wealth, whether accrued through smuggling, extortion, or continuing contributions from naïve Irish Americans whose blinkers remain firmly in place, despite the repeated evidence of Cuba, Colombia, and Castlereagh.”

Sir Ivor added: “The Ireland I visited in the 1970s was not a comfortable place for a British diplomat. Venturing into rural pubs, we are as likely to encounter outright hostility as the fabled Irish welcome. But when I describe my life now to my predecessors, they cannot believe the way life has improved. Some, like Nicholas Fenn, were actively targeted by the IRA and Christopher Ewart-Biggs was not only targeted but eliminated.

“It is one of the endearing traits of the Irish that there are many people who still tell me how shocked and shamed they were by the events of that day over a quarter of a century ago.”

Dublin ‘too weak’

Sir Ivor's successor as Ambassador in Dublin, Stewart Eldon, wrote the following year that the Irish Government was in his view too weak with Sinn Féin in relation to indefensible IRA behaviour.

He said the Irish Government knew the IRA was involved in serious criminality, knew that Sinn Féin was firmly linked to the IRA, but often was unprepared to take action against the party even years after the Good Friday Agreement, the British Ambassador told London.

In a confidential February 2004 cable to London, the Ambassador reported that there were “growing signs of Irish impatience with Sinn Féin's ambivalence about continued paramilitary activity” and that “privately, the Taoiseach was scathing of Sinn Féin”.

It added: “In the margins of the Wales-Ireland rugby match on Sunday, he made it clear to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that he believed both governments should continue to go after the Shinners over their involvement in punishment beatings and abductions and, more generally, their failure to deliver acts of completion.”

The British Ambassador said it had been “a bad PR week for Sinn Féin” and that Sinn Féin's rise in the polls was “steadily sharpening the attitude of the established parties to Republican misdemeanours” and that Sinn Féin was finding the pressure “uncomfortable”.

In a September 2005 note to Blair, Tom Kelly, the PM's Ulster-born director of communications, told him that their key problem might not be convincing people that the IRA had really given up but convincing them that “a devolved government centred on the DUP and Sinn Féin is not just possible, but also desirable”.

He said the public feared a “shoddy deal” in which “Sinn Féin continues to benefit from its ill-gotten gains, gaining power in the North and infiltrating the institutions of the State North and South to undermine democratic authority” while “DUP and Orange Order sectarianism is unchecked and “loyalist paramilitarism continues unchecked”.

He warned: “For many, particularly professional, people, that is not a welcome prospect” and that “some of the exiles who came back to Northern Ireland in the wake of the GFA are thinking of leaving again”.

He said they needed to put out a message which said Northern Ireland should be “a society in which the normal standards of democracy and the rule of law apply”.

Blair wrote by hand: “I agree with this totally…”

Richard Haass on IRA and Sinn Fein

Another file shows the extent of British efforts to use its global diplomatic reach to draw the American government's attention to some of Sinn Féin's controversial global links.

Bob Peirce, a diplomat in the British Embassy in Washington, emailed colleagues on September 20, 2001 to say that George W Bush's envoy to Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, had “made some tough remarks in a meeting with members of the Irish American community” that day “about the need for SF/IRA to clean up its act”.

The diplomat wrote: “He referred to the Turkish connexion [sic], about which I had previously spoken to him to confirm that Maskey had seen the DHKP last week. Many thanks to Jim King for getting me this info so quickly. A good result.”

He said Haass told the group that the US was seeking to establish more about the IRA members caught in Columbia and “if the IRA had been doing business with the FARC it should never happen again. Evidence of cooperation would have serious consequences. US intolerance of terrorism had just increased enormously. Sept 11th had been a transforming event.

“One person present at the Haass meeting has told us that there was real anger in Haass's voice as he said this.”

IRA engaged in mutilation and intelligence-gathering five years after deal

SAM MCBRIDE, Belfast Telegraph, January 2nd, 2026

More than five years after the Good Friday Agreement, Downing Street knew that the IRA was still engaged in mutilation, developing weapons, gathering intelligence, targeting, training and intimidation, with Tony Blair telling Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness “they must stop”, declassified files reveal.

The long list of serious crimes was set out in a document almost a year before the Northern Bank robbery in which the IRA terrorised the wife of a bank manager in order to pull off what was then the biggest bank robbery in British history.

In a confidential January 2004 cable from the British Ambassador to Dublin, Stewart Eldon, Downing Street was told: “Ahern and his ministers accept that it is the republicans who were, in the final analysis, responsible for the failures to reach an agreement in 2003. But they have something of a mental block over the notion that Sinn Féin/PIRA might be anything less than totally committed to peaceful change.

“This has had an impact on their approach, for example, to the IMC [the International Monitoring Commission which assessed paramilitary ceasefires]. They will listen to our assessment of the position on PIRA activity but not necessarily act on it.”

Ahead of a meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that month, Blair was advised to tell him that “it is time for republicans to deliver a real winding down of PIRA. This is the central issue that has not been addressed….PIRA needs to become non-operational.

“Punishment shootings and beatings, weapons development, intelligence gathering, targeting, training, intimidation are all live and current. I have told Gerry and Martin that they must stop, and PIRA must build confidence by showing they are winding down.

“They are also disfigured by their involvement in organised criminality, as Michael McDowell has pointed out.”

The Prime Minister was also advised to tell Ahern that it was essential to quickly establish “whether the DUP are really serious about doing business”, saying that “we have picked up some positive signals from the modernisers that they are prepared to deal imaginatively”.

He was also told that “we need to ensure that we maximise any opportunities for a dialogue between the DUP and Sinn Féin where we can. Don't expect that to be direct, at least for now.”

That implies that the Government wasn't aware of the secret talks between Jeffrey Donaldson and Martin McGuinness which had been going on for years, facilitated by the Rev Harold Good.

However, by October 2005, that had changed.

In a note of a meeting between Blair, Adams and McGuinness, a Downing Street official wrote that Blair “asked if Sinn Féin were talking to the DUP.

“Adams confirmed that they had met Donaldson. But what was the point of talking to Robinson and Donaldson if Ian Paisley was still in charge of the party?”