Garda ‘told me to sprinkle fertiliser on carpet’

AN alleged IRA informant yesterday told the Morris Tribunal how she and two gardaí carried bomb-making equipment into addresses in Co Donegal.

She also reported being told at one stage by a garda detective to sprinkle ground fertiliser on to the carpet of the bedroom of her home.

But Adrienne McGlinchey denied ever being a member of the IRA or any other terrorist organisation or taking part in bombings, insisting: "I am against all that."

She also said she had not acted as a garda informer.

Ms McGlinchey provided the details to the Morris garda corruption investigation as she was shown a series of photographs of various locations in the county as well as vehicles.

She explained to tribunal counsel Peter Charleton how a shed in Rossnowlagh had been the last stop for "fertiliser and explosives and diesel," adding: "That's when we went in a garda surveillance van and we brought it in."

Ms McGlinchey said she had been at the time with Detective Garda Noel McMahon and Garda Superintendent Kevin Lennon, the two officers alleged by Sheenagh McMahon, the estranged wife of Noel McMahon, to have mixed explosives that were later to be found in "staged" strikes against terrorist oganisations.

She said the two gardaí had reversed the van down to the shed at Rossnowlagh "and loaded it in."

Asked by Mr Charleton what they had been doing, she replied: "It was all supposed to go into one house and it was all supposed to be before the 12th of July.

"I don't remember what happened, but Noel McMahon wanted it to be found around the 12th of July. I think I was taken because Noel McMahon was saying that I was in the IRA and that's why I ended up going with them.

"I don't know how many times he went by himself, but I know that I went in a garda surveillance van to this shed with them Superintendent Lennon and detective McMahon." Ms McGlinchey began giving evidence that was expected to go on most of this week early this afternoon.

The 39-year-old blonde-haired, smartly-dressed witness told Mr Charleton how she was educated for a time at the Mount Anville convent in Dublin before going back to Donegal and then to Britain for teacher-training.

But on her parents' separation back in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, she returned home to work in the family restaurant.

Ms McGlinchey said she now ran a hostel in Letterkenny, together with one of her two sisters. Her father, she added, owned a nightclub and bars.

She recalled at one point how she had ground down fertiliser at her home, and asked by Mr Charleton why and who she was grounding it for, she replied: "It has all to do with a chain of events.

"The first time I saw fertiliser was when Noel McMahon gave me a bag. He told me to put in my bedroom and sprinkle it on the carpet.

"He told me I would be left alone. I was this big IRA woman, and if I could show them something I would be left alone."

Ms McGlinchey said she was grinding the fertiliser "to appear as explosives; I was doing it on behalf of Noel McMahon. I always thought it was Noel trying to impress Kevin Lennon.But I knew that Kevin Lennon was just as involved, after the chain of events."

Ms McGlinchey said she was arrested in July, 1991, and questioned by Noel McMahon.

"I was there for hours before I knew why I had been lifted it was something to do with a lorry being found," she told the tribunal.

The tribunal will not sit today to let lawyers to study documents.