Praise heaped on gardaí after arms finds ‘coups’
The British Government sent its praise and congratulations via the then Justice Minister, Maíre Geoghegan-Quinn, following a number of particularly spectacular seizures.
Key to these seizures was a top-level alleged Provo and Garda mole, a young Letterkenny native called
Adrienne McGlinchey.
These seizures, over a period of a year up to July 1994, included large finds of fertiliser and icing sugar, which could potentially be used in bombs. The finds that prompted the diplomatic congratulations were made at Rossnowlagh, Donegal town and Bridgend. No further investigations, forensic or otherwise, were made following the finds, the tribunal heard.
Ms McGlinchey was apparently so important that, despite her questionable activities and being arrested on a number of occasions under anti-terrorist legislation, she never faced any charges and was quickly released.
Gardaí were told to lay off her.
From June 1991, she was handled almost exclusively by Detective Garda Noel McMahon and Superintendent Kevin Lennon. Her allegations about the activities of these two men that they colluded in faking finds of explosives material that would be assumed to be the property of the IRA formed the centrepiece of the first day of the opening statement. The gardaí deny the allegations.
It was a complaint made by Garda McMahon's estranged wife Sheenagh that widened the Carty investigation from its initial remit of probing only the Richie Barron killing. Mrs McMahon first alleged the fake bomb claims and pointed gardaí in the direction of Ms McGlinchey.
Gardaí at grassroots and others who knew her had a different view of Ms McGlinchey, who moved in 1991 from Letterkenny to Buncrana, where she lived with a friend, Yvonne Devine.
Ms McGlinchey was described by gardaí as a "Walter Mitty-type person" who liked to draw attention to
herself.
Detective Garda Noel Jones said of Ms McGlinchey: "It was a regular occurrence to observe Adrienne McGlinchey on her own or in the company of Yvonne Devine dashing across the roadway, hiding in cars, in hedges, laneways etc.
"At night time it was as though she was waiting for the headlights of a car to come upon her before she would make her move." She was invariably carrying a holdall, with various implements such as two batteries laced
together.
Yvonne Devine, who reluctantly gave a statement to the Carty inquiry, claiming she wanted to leave those "mad days" behind her. She added that her former friend had never anything to do with the IRA and that the IRA would have nothing to do with her.
Ms Devine claimed members of the IRA had visited their Buncrana flat and told them to desist their activities as the group was getting blamed.
Apparently they did not want to get blamed for allowing a bomb factory to be quite obviously sited in the middle of Buncrana village. On one occasion fertiliser mix was discovered in the flat, on another, white powder was thrown out the window in full view of watching gardaí and neighbours. On another occasion, she and Ms Devine were supposedly asked to drop off bomb materials at Bridgend for the IRA to pick up and transport into Derry. They took a taxi to the alleged dump site. John Francis Quinn, the driver, said: "I remember (them) as, in my opinion, two loony bins."
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