Skibbereen Eagle runs out Russians

In 1983, former Cork South West TD Jim O’Keeffe was involved in the discovery of a Russian spy ring in Dublin. His story now features in a new RTÉ documentary, writes Robert Mulhern

A heavy rain shower has just passed leaving a glistening sheen on the steep incline leading up to the front door of Jim O’Keeffe’s home.

Up until his retirement in 2011, O’Keeffe was best known as the long-serving Fine Gael TD for Cork South West. In a time long before that he was an Irish minister at the centre of a bizarre, unheralded and unprecedented incident in Irish history.