Exiled, hunted then executed, Donalson’s demise shames all parties to NI conflict
SUZANNE BREEN, Sunday Life, April 5th, 2026
Denis Donaldson is the man who died twice. His first death was social erasure. A pariah to his former comrades, he was evicted from the only world he'd ever known for being a British agent.
His physical execution came when republicans broke into the pre-Famine Donegal cottage where he'd been exiled, blasting him with a shotgun.
The first two shots smashed through the front door as Donaldson unsuccessfully attempted to barricade himself inside: two more came when the killers entered his home.
Claiming responsibility for the murder, the Real IRA told me Donaldson had been totally vulnerable. “He had no plan to defend himself. He hadn't a baseball or hurley, a knife or anything like that at hand,” the paramilitary spokesman said.
It's 20 years this weekend since Donaldson's life was extinguished in the loneliest of places. Even by Donegal standards, the location is remote.
It's five miles from Glenties, up a single-track road that takes you to Doochary. Apart from those tending sheep, few people travel on it.
In other parts of Donegal, wild daffodils light up the landscape, and the hedgerows are ablaze with the colours of spring. It's darker and more untamed around Donaldson's old abode. There's a savage bleakness to the place.
On Monday, a man appeared before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, charged with murdering the former key Sinn Fein figure.
Antoin Duffy, a 49-year-old with an address in Kincasslagh, Co Donegal, had been extradited from Scotland.
So many questions about Donaldson's life remain unanswered. Gardai have refused repeated requests to hand over the journal he was writing.
It's understood that after he admitted to being an informer, he was questioned on at least four separate occasions by Sinn Fein. The party has been as secretive as the British in declining to reveal the details of what was said.
Born in east Belfast's Short Strand, Donaldson joined the IRA as a teenager in the mid-60s, when it was far from the fashionable thing to do.
Hostage
In 1971, he was sentenced to 10 years in Long Kesh for explosive offences. It was there he made friends with Bobby Sands, with whom he was famously photographed.
Released after five years, he became involved with Sinn Fein, but he was also a senior IRA intelligence officer, travelling the world to meet organisations like the PLO and ETA.
He had extensive contacts in Libya, and in the late 1980s, he visited Lebanon in an effort to secure the release of Belfast hostage Brian Keenan, who was held by a pro-Hezbollah group.
After the Good Friday Agreement, Donaldson was at the heart of Sinn Fein's machinery in Stormont as the party's chief administrator.
The late John Kelly was a founder member of the Provisional IRA and a central figure in the 1970 arms trial in Dublin.
“Sometimes, I'd look around and wonder who the British agents were. Denis never crossed my mind,” Kelly told me after Donaldson was outed.
“Denis was trusted. He was very affable. He wasn't intellectual but smart in a streetwise kind of way. He was meticulous about his work.”
As a Mid-Ulster MLA, Kelly knew Donaldson at Stormont as a man who displayed “no excesses” in mood or habits. “He must have been on big money from his British paymasters, but he was never flash,” he said.
“He drove a 10-year-old car. He was a thrifty kind of fellow, always counting his pennies.”
Kelly recalled Donaldson's courtesy to Stormont staff — sometimes treated arrogantly by other parties — in those early years of devolution: “Denis went out of his way to be nice to them. He saw it as good PR for Sinn Fein.
“Every year, he'd invite the cleaners, canteen staff and civil servants to our Christmas party. He'd go and get the sandwiches, biscuits and buns himself.”
The one controversy Kelly remembered was when a female Sinn Fein worker at Stormont complained that Donaldson had accessed porn on an office computer.
The Short Strand republican had a reputation for what was referred to in those days as being a 'womaniser'.
Years earlier, he had shown up one night with a bottle of wine at the home of lesbian Belfast community activist Marie Mulholland. She told him she “didn't vote that way”. He said he knew, but thought it was worth a try anyway.
“It was impossible to be offended,” she later wrote. “Indeed, I may even have been a little flattered. We were both laughing.”
Donaldson's pleasant, unassuming nature meant he was privy to countless confidential conversations over the decades. No one ever worried about his presence. “Ach, it's only Denis,” they'd say.
Sinn Fein's chief administrator had been working for two decades for RUC Special Branch and MI5.
Loyalty
Some security sources have recently suggested Donaldson could have been a “double double agent” reporting back to the IRA.
But it's impossible to believe he would admit to being an informer — widely regarded in Irish society as being the lowest of the low — if he was, and always had been, a bona fide republican.
Rather, his reticence at times in relaying specific information to his handlers was likely down to self-survival and a loyalty to individuals in certain cases.
In the early 1990s, Donaldson was sent to run Noraid's office in New York. He clashed with publicity director Martin Galvin, who told Sinn Fein he was an agent.
“I'd liked him at first, but then I increasingly found him to be a fraud,” Galvin said. “He lied while smiling into your face.”
After Donaldson was outed, his family home in Belfast was put up for sale. Viewers noticed a rack of James Bond DVDs.
The senior Sinn Fein figure had travelled across the Middle East and had enjoyed his time working in Manhattan. Yet this wasn't high-octane espionage with a happy ending. A cinematic sunset was denied.
That image of him hiding in a Donegal cottage 20 years ago as his killers smashed down the door is the most unglamorous portrait of life as a spy imaginable.
There were no tuxedoes, cocktails or slick exits. Denis Donaldson's departure was as basic as it was brutal.
Feuding dissidents provide rival shows of strength at 1916 events
SUNDAY LIFE REPORTER, Sunday Life, April 5th, 2026
MORE THAN 200 SUPPORTERS SHOW UP AT MILLTOWN FOR COMMEMORATION ORGANISED BY POLITICAL WING OF ONH
A dissident republican gang involved in a violent feud with a rival faction brought around 250 supporters onto the streets of west Belfast yesterday.
The crowd assembled in Milltown Cemetery for an Easter commemoration organised by Glor na hOglaigh, the political wing of terror group ONH.
ONH split 18 months ago, with a separate faction aligning itself under the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) political banner.
Both groups have been feuding since then, with the Glor na hOglaigh-linked ONH trying to murder prominent dissident Sean O'Reilly.
The ex-ONH prisoner, who is associated with RNU, was seriously wounded in a gun attack on the outskirts of west Belfast last year.
The newly-formed Glor na hOglaigh held its first ever Easter commemoration yesterday, bringing around 250 supporters into Milltown Cemetery.
Republicans have described the display as a show of strength intended to intimidate the RNU-linked ONH faction, which will hold its own Easter commemoration today.
One said: “This was Glor na hOglaigh telling RNU and Carl Reilly that they have greater numbers and that Reilly and his gang should back down.”
Reilly, who recently served a prison sentence for ONH membership, is under threat from the rival faction and has been warned that his life is in danger.
The Glor na hOglaigh group is associated with his former close pal Tony McDonnell, a convicted terrorist who previously told Sunday Life he had no involvement in paramilitarism. ONH members who spoke to Sunday Life last month said they were planning a drug dealer kneecapping purge.
The group also claimed it was recruiting heavily among young republicans disaffected with the PSNI, but there are no current plans to target the police or other branches of the security forces.
In Milltown Cemetery yesterday, a colour party of masked men and women marched to the republican plot to hear a speaker pay tribute to republican prisoners described as the “backbone of the struggle” who “have made great sacrifices”.
Republicans said that with 250 supporters at Glor na hOglaigh's Easter event, Carl Reilly's RNU will be under pressure to replicate these numbers today.
Killings
“It's not even so much the numbers, but who will be there with Reilly,” said a source.
“He's been abandoned by a lot of heavy hitters who have walked away from RNU.
“People like Ta Cosgrove (convicted IRA bomber) and Sean O'Reilly (ex-ONH prisoner).
“If Reilly shows up (to the commemoration in Milltown with a bunch of kids and nobodies on Sunday, you'll know that the game is up for him.”
ONH, which has carried out seven killings in Belfast over the past seven years, including major drug dealers Jim 'JD' Donegan and Sean Fox, split in 2024 amid rows about maintaining its 2018 ceasefire.
Before silencing its guns, it was behind a series of high-profile attacks, including the attempted bombing of MI5's headquarters in Holywood, and a bomb blast that seriously injured Irish-speaking PSNI officer Peadar Heffron.
While Reilly was serving a prison sentence for ONH membership, a new leadership took over, opposed to his attempts to secure government funding for projects linked to the on-ceasefire dissident group.
After being freed last year, Reilly attempted to take back control of ONH, but this was opposed, leading to the current feud.
Meanwhile, only a dozen people showed up for an Easter commemoration yesterday organised by Saoradh, the political wing of the New IRA.
'Anti-drug' new ira hands easter oration honour to...drug dealer
EXCLUSIVE JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, April 5th, 2026
DISSIDENTS SO DESPERATE FOR NUMBERS THEY'LL ACCEPT 'THE DREGS OF SOCIETY INTO THE RANKS' CONVICTION OF SAORADH MEMBER HUGELY EMBARRASSING FOR GANG
This is the image that shatters the myth the New IRA is opposed to drug dealing.
It shows convicted drug dealer Ian Cotter leading an Easter commemoration organised by Saoradh, the dissident gang's hardline political wing, of which he is a member.
The 52-year-old was on bail at the time of the 2025 event, charged with illegally supplying the dangerous painkiller pregabalin to addicts in west Belfast.
His arrest came as part of an operation into what the PSNI said targeted New IRA drug dealing.
Two weeks ago, Cotter, who lives in the St James area of the city, pleaded guilty to four counts of supplying pregabalin and was sentenced to two months in prison, suspended for three years.
He told Sunday Life to “f**k off” when challenged at his home.
Welcoming his conviction, the PSNI said: “The offences were detected in May 2024 as part of an investigation by Serious Crime Branch Detectives into drugs criminality linked to the New IRA.
“We recognise the harm that illegal drugs can cause communities, and we are committed to tackling issues of serious crime in our community.”
When Cotter led the Easter 2025 Saoradh event at Milltown cemetery, giving a speech next to the republican plot, the New IRA knew full well he was facing drug-dealing charges. But that did not stop Saoradh boasting of his role in the ceremony. In an online post, it said: “To begin events Saoradh Beal Feirste member Ian Cotter read the proclamation… while some proclaim to be republican organisations whilst meeting and greeting British royals, administering British rule and supporting British forces, and others ignore republican prisoners and accept the occupier's funding, we remain resolute, steadfast and committed to our ideals.”
Murdered
Republican sources said the statement was yet more evidence of Saoradh and the New IRA's hypocrisy as it was delivered at an Easter commemoration which a self-confessed drug dealer helped to organise and addressed.
The New IRA has in the past murdered men it accused of drug dealing, including Kevin Kearney and Conor McKee in Belfast.
But that did not prevent it from putting convicted drug dealer Cotter front and centre of its Easter commemorations.
“If anyone needs any more proof that Saoradh and the New IRA will take in the dregs of society, this is it,” a veteran republican told Sunday Life.
“I can't think of anything more embarrassing than having a drug dealer read out the proclamation at an Easter Rising commemoration. Does Saoradh not do background checks on morons like Ian Cotter?
“Both it and the New IRA are so desperate for numbers that they will bring in anyone, including drug dealers.”
Any semblance of credibility the gang retained in the eyes of dissident republicans was further eroded on Friday after the group claimed responsibility for a botched bomb attack on Lurgan PSNI station last Tuesday night.
The “amateurish” attempt to transport the crude but viable device to the police base via a pizza delivery driver who was held at gunpoint sparked a major security alert, with roads closed and homes evacuated.
When Cotter appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court two weeks ago to admit four counts of drug dealing, a prosecutor explained how police seized his blue Nokia phone during searches of his address in May 2024.
He provided them with the passcode to the device, the court heard, with officers going on to discover a group chat he was part of called North and West Belfast FTF Only.
The group contained messages relating to drug dealing, with pregabalin being offered at £50 per “strip”. One message warned the group was for “verified sales and sellers” only.
The court heard Cotter's partner, who sat beside him in the public gallery, was summonsed for possession of class C drugs last May and later accepted a caution.
Cotter was initially charged with offering to supply tramadol, cocaine and pregabalin, as well as four charges of supplying pregabalin. He later entered guilty pleas to the supply of pregabalin, while the offering to supply charges were withdrawn. Cotter's solicitor told the court: “It's clear on review of the papers that an individual named Ginger Brown was the organiser, but it is also clear the offences he has admitted are accurately reflected in the messages.”
District Judge Anne Marshall asked what 'FTF' was shorthand for, with defence counsel saying they were unsure, adding: “At least one of the words would be an expletive, your worship.”
Shot
Sentencing Cotter to two months in jail, suspended for three years, the judge said: “Anybody who involves themselves in the sale of drugs of any kind needs to know these are serious offences.
“People taking pregabalin without a prescription or doctor's supervision are in danger of causing themselves serious harm without medical oversight.”
Cotter's address on Rodney Drive in west Belfast is just yards from where two drug dealers were murdered by the dissident republican gang ONH. There is no suggestion he played any role in, or had any knowledge of, these attacks.
Warren Crossan was shot dead on Rodney Parade in 2020, while his best friend Mark Hall was gunned down a year later at his mum's home on Rodney Drive.
Cotter's drug dealing conviction is hugely embarrassing for both Saoradh and the New IRA because details of his links to the groups emerged just 24 hours before Saoradh staged its national Easter commemoration.
The event, which has been a magnet for trouble and rioting in the past, will be held in Derry on Monday afternoon.
Participants will march from the Creggan shops to the City cemetery for a wreath-laying service.
In previous years, masked men dressed in paramilitary uniforms have made up the colour party, while youngsters have thrown masonry and petrol bombs at the PSNI afterwards.
Controlled explosion by army on device at Belfast republican-loyalist interface
By ADAM KULA, Belfast News Letter, April 3rd, 2026
A controlled explosion has been carried out at a Belfast interface.
It focused on a suspect device left at the peace line gates separating the largely-loyalist Workman Avenue in north Belfast from the largely-republican Springfield Road.
The PSNI said they got a report about the object at about 11.45am today.
"Officers attended the scene, along with other emergency services colleagues, and a number of residents were advised to evacuate during the public safety operation that followed, with local facilities opened to accommodate this,” they said.
“Ammunition Technical Officers also attended the scene and carried out a controlled explosion on the item, which has been taken away for forensic examination.
"However, at this stage, we believe this was an elaborate hoax.
“Those who were evacuated are now able return to their homes and all roads have been reopened.
“We appreciate that people were out of their homes for a period of time as this public safety operation was conducted and we would like to thank them for their patience.
“Our enquiries are ongoing and we would appeal to anyone with any information which might assist us to contact 101, quoting reference number 510 of 03/04/26.
“You can also submit a report or information online using the non-emergency reporting form via www.psni.police.uk/makeareport, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org/.”
The incident comes after an attempted bomb attack against Lurgan Police Station on Monday, when a man was forced to transport an explosive device to the station at gunpoint. It failed to detonate.
There is often a heightened expectation of security alerts around Easter, given the significance of the period to republicans, with parades expected this weekend.
Dissidents were the likely culprits behind the Lurgan incident, and Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart said tonight: “The New IRA are no different to the Provisional IRA and ultimately will be defeated as they were.
"Thankfully even the Provisional IRA realised they achieved very little with all their murder and mayhem.
"People have moved on in Northern Ireland and have no interest in being dragged back to the past.
“Any right thinking person will condemn these people, whose only intent is to gain themselves some sort of notoriety or status as they stamp their feet around some housing estates this weekend.”
Irish Football Association condemns trouble which marred Friday's Irish Cup semi-final.
ADRIAN RUTHERFORD, Sunday Life, April 5th, 2026
A child was struck by a bottle and a teenager arrested after trouble broke out before and after the game in Belfast.
Nine police officers were injured after fireworks, flares and bottles were thrown.
Dungannon Swifts beat Cliftonville in a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw to reach the final.
However, the clash at Windsor Park was overshadowed by pre and post-game trouble, and 'Up the Ra' chants from some Reds fans during the match.
The Irish FA hit out at those behind the sectarian chanting, saying it had no place in football.
It said: “We are aware of incidents at last night's match and condemn those involved in any disorder.
“Whilst we are responsible for matters inside the stadium, the PSNI have jurisdiction outside of it.
“We unequivocally condemn all forms of sectarian chanting — it has no place in our game.”
A senior PSNI officer said that while most fans were well behaved, some engaged in disorder and “provocative conduct”.
The Parades Commission had placed restrictions on a pre-match march involving Cliftonville supporters.
Yesterday, the PSNI condemned the trouble.
A senior officer said a 19-year-old was arrested for offences including rioting and indecent behaviour during disorder before the game.
They confirmed a child had also been struck by a bottle during the trouble.
South Belfast District Commander Superintendent Finola Dornan said: “While the majority of football fans attending Friday evening's match behaved in a peaceful manner, a number of people chose to engage in disorderly behaviour and provocative conduct.
“During an approved public procession ahead of the match, which involved approximately 250 people, our officers witnessed provocative conduct and the heavy use of pyrotechnics and fireworks, despite various warnings being issued against this.
“There were a number of potential breaches of the Parades Commission determinations in relation to the procession, which will now be investigated.
Provocative
“A 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour, doing a provocative act, possession of fireworks/flares at a regulated match, indecent behaviour and attempted criminal damage. He remains in police custody at this time.
“Two other people were also reported for offences including the use of flares.
“The vast majority of fans were there to enjoy the match. However, there was completely unacceptable behaviour from a proportion of fans both before and after the match at what should have been an enjoyable and safe event for all attending.
“Police will not tolerate disorder or criminal behaviour of any kind and, as always, we will continue to work with football clubs to address any inappropriate behaviour linked to people attending matches and ensure that the local community is kept safe.
“We will therefore be conducting a thorough evidence-gathering operation in the wake of last night's occurrences.” Ahead of the game, an application was lodged with the Parades Commission for a fans' march involving up to 150 people.
The applicant was listed as 'Cliftonville Supporters & Red Fanatics'. The Parades Commission said it was the first time that a “fan walk” of this nature had been notified to it.
In its ruling, it referred to trouble after last year's final, which Cliftonville also lost on penalties to Dungannon after a 1-1 draw.
The commission added: “There have been occasions in the past where processions of fans proceeding to Windsor Park have resulted in disorder.
“On occasion, this disorder has been serious, including on May 3, 2025, where eight police officers were injured and there was damage to property.
“The commission therefore considers that it is necessary to emphasise the importance of compliance by all persons proceeding to sports events to comply with the Act [Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998] and also to act in a responsible manner, with respect for those who live in the area.”
Conditions applied to the march included ensuring the parade did not at any time deviate from any part of its notified route, and had no undue stoppages or delays.
The commission also said: “When the parade is in progress, participants shall not engage in any behaviour or display any items (including, but not limited to placards, banners or items of clothing) which could, in the prevailing context, reasonably be perceived as being provocative, threatening, insulting or abusive to any person or group.”
Killing Casement...the fall of British knight turned Republican icon
Sam McBride, Sunday Independent and Sunday Life , April 5th, 2026
When Sir Roger Casement sat in the dock in the Royal Courts of Justice in London 110 years ago, it was unprecedented in living memory — no knight of the realm had faced treason charges for centuries.
The evidence was conclusive and overwhelming. He had admitted to conspiring with Britain's wartime enemy, Germany, to not only smuggle weapons into Ireland for an insurrection but had persuaded captured Irishmen fighting for Britain to change sides.
In an age when deserting soldiers were shot at dawn, the penalty was always likely to be death.
And yet there was at the heart of this trial the final of many contradictions which surrounded Casement. The ferocious British Attorney General FE Smith, who prosecuted him, had himself supported insurrection against His Majesty's forces.
Smith had not only been a key aide to Sir Edward Carson as the UVF imported guns to Larne but had openly counselled sedition, saying there were no lengths “however desperate and unconstitutional” to which Ulster would not be entitled to go in resisting Home Rule.
Noose
Yet one man would be heralded, the other hanged.
At 51 years old, Casement's life was extinguished by the noose of John Ellis, Britain's chief hangman, who would later recall that Casement “appeared to me the bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute”.
A compelling new book by Rory Carroll, The Guardian's Ireland correspondent, explores this decorated British diplomat's final years as his allegiance shifts and British intelligence tracks him.
In A Rebel and A Traitor, Carroll describes Casement's “fractured identity” as “a nomad with no partner, no children, stranded somewhere between being Protestant and Catholic, British and Irish, servicing then scorning the Crown”.
Born in what is now Dun Laoghaire but raised on the north Antrim coast, Casement is contradiction in a suit. This Protestant who supports Home Rule is so opposed to violence that when a U-boat leaves him at Banna Strand, he refuses to even be shown how to load a pistol, saying “I have never killed anything in my life” — yet he was central to smuggling thousands of guns to Ireland for a violent insurrection.
He's a humanitarian of deep conscience (“a one-man Amnesty International,” in Carroll's words) who bravely exposed injustices to African and South American natives, yet his own accounts of his sexual relationships involve gross power imbalances where he pays money to young men, some still in their teens.
In his magnetic final address from the dock, Casement blasts the monarch, declaring that he isn't sovereign of Ireland — even though he'd been happy just a few years earlier to receive a knighthood from the King.
Casement defies easy categorisation. The explorer Henry Morton Stanley (of David Livingstone fame) described him as “a good specimen of the capable Englishman”.
Casement then came to detest empire yet was willing to work with an imperialistic Germany which he knew had slaughtered civilians on the Lusitania and elsewhere.
There's particular complexity for Irish nationalism because Casement speaks to oft-buried truths. Just as the brilliant bureaucrat TK Whittaker once observed that partition couldn't have happened without Irish acquiescence, so Casement may never have been hanged were it not for Irishmen and women.
He was betrayed by Kerry farmers and an Irish servant girl who alerted the authorities and gave evidence at his trial. Even after his arrest, Casement got a message to the Irish Volunteers via a doctor, but they decided not to save him when he was being held in a small rural RIC station which they could have attacked.
Casement tried again, this time through a priest, but he gave the message to his captors. Even after his death sentence and amid a clamour for his release which reached the White House, Carroll recounts how nationalist Ireland was “strangely unmoved”.
Casement was a thoughtful man capable of profoundly poetic prose. Writing about the fate of the Mohicans, he observed: “Poor Indians! You had life — your white destroyers only possess things. The one lives and moves to be; the other toils and dies to have.”
This involved the sort of self-reflection foreign to many of those rising up the ranks of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Yet it was also a highly idealised simplistic view, and that wasn't atypical for Casement. Carroll describes his worldview as “a mix of insider knowledge, shrewd analysis, blinkered naivete and foaming Anglophobia”.
When the 'Irish Brigade' he'd hoped to raise from Irish-born British soldiers in German POW camps flopped, he struggled to accept the reality that most compatriots, and certainly most Irish soldiers fighting for Britain, didn't support his vision.
When finally interrogated by his nemesis, the single-minded pioneering spy chief Blinker Hall, Casement was asked if he realised he had “committed treason of the most heinous kind”.
Complication
He replied with simultaneous simplicity and sense of occasion: “Yes, I do. I have committed what you call treason over and over again. I am not endeavouring to shield myself at all. I face all the consequences. All I ask you is to believe I have done nothing dishonourable.”
In some ways, Casement is a personification of Ireland to this day: entwined with Britain, for better or worse; wistful for a long-lost past; Protestant and Catholic (he converted in his final hours); heroic but also wilfully blind to injustice.
And today's Ireland has an added complication: It has grown rich on a flood of capitalist cash which would have appalled many of those who entered the GPO in 1916 — in a rising which Casement had actually returned to try to avert, not to lead.
Civil service silence over luxury gift of 'hilary hamper'
ANGELA DAVISON, Sunday Life, April 5th, 2026
LABOUR MAN AMONG 'GREAT AND GOOD' IN RECEIPT OF HANDOUTS WORTH £10K FUNDED BY RATEPAYERS
Under-pressure civil servants are refusing to reveal the contents of luxury hampers sent to 'the great and good' which were paid for by the public.
Seventy-four politicians, industry chiefs, business leaders and celebrities were gifted the hampers by Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon (ABC) Borough Council, totalling more than £10,000.
However ratepayers, who picked up the bill, are not being told what was in them.
Several of the recipients have no connection to the council area. But that they did not stop them being handed the unexpected present.
No one from ABC Borough Council was available to comment, while the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) would not comment officially — a move that has created more questions than answers.
Because the luxury hamper received by Secretary of State Hilary Benn, who the NIO represents, fell just under the £140 mark, he was not required to declare it officially as a gift.
The NIO's reluctance to comment on the matter has led to Mr Benn being branded 'Hilary Hamper' by fed-up councillors in Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon.
In another opaque response, the US Consulate neither confirmed nor denied that US Consul General Mr James Applegate received hampers in 2023 and 2024 from ABC council, or if former US Consul General Mr Paul Narain accepted one in 2022.
Questions
A US Consulate spokesperson said: “The Consulate occasionally receives gifts or gratuities from local government and business organisations. These items are accepted or declined in strict accordance with the Department of State's ethics rules.
“I refer you to Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council on their practices and polices around gifts.”
But while a red-faced ABC Borough Council keeps quiet on what is being referred to as 'Hamper-gate', local politicians have been much more talkative.
One source said that recent Sunday Life revelations about the hampers have caused anger among ratepayers.
One revealed: “In February, the council agreed a 2.79% increase in rates. The cost of living has increased and fuel prices have surged.
“Ratepayers are struggling, and to hear that the council has spent money in this way, without any record, has really rubbed locals up the wrong way.”
Among the recipients of the council's luxury hampers, sent between 2021 and 2024, were three lord lieutenants, the secretary of state, Northern Ireland's most senior civil servant and leaders of Invest NI, Tourism NI, Queen's University Belfast, Ulster University, National Museums NI, the NI Chamber of Commerce and the National Gallery in London.
Members of the Institute of Directors NI and the US Consul General were also gifted, along with London-based radio presenter Sean Rafferty.
The list of recipients was provided to councillors in a private session last month following an audit into gifts and hospitality. Councillors were shocked that hampers were given out without any official record.
Sunday Life understands an investigation is being carried out to establish who authorised the move and why gifts were given to external parties, some of whom are ABC Borough Council suppliers.
The 74 hampers, each with an estimated value of £100 plus delivery charges, would have cost ratepayers around £10,000.
It is not known if everyone on the list accepted them. However, the gifts were registered by Civil Service chief Jayne Brady MBE in 2022 and 2023, with estimated values of £100 and £50 respectively, and marked as “retained in office”.
Others receiving hampers included the Earl of Caledon, Archbishop John McDowell and Archbishop Eamon Martin. The Dean of Armagh Rev Shane Forster also received hampers in 2022 and 2023.
The revelations regarding the controversial gifts come after allegations that council chief executive Roger Wilson unlawfully suspended his deputy after she raised a grievance against him.
Councillors later took the unprecedented step of reinstating deputy chief executive Charlene Stoops.
Sunday Life understands Mr Wilson has been on sick leave from his £160,000-per-year job since September, remaining on full pay until recent weeks, when it is believed to have dropped to half pay. Last year, the Belfast Telegraph reported he was the third highest-paid council worker in NI.
Sunday Life tried to make contact with Mr Wilson about the allegations but received no reply.
ABC Borough Council said: “We do not comment on staffing matters.”
The council was approached again for comment this week, but no one was available.
