Fianna like 'boy scouts', Saville Inquiry told

A former leader of an organisation, widely regarded as the IRA’s youth wing, today compared it with the boy scout movement.

Patsy Moore, who was the co-leader of the Fianna in Derry until the split between the Officials and the Provisionals, denied it was part of the republican movement and insisted youths were not trained in weapons while he was in charge.

He told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry: “The Fianna was never involved in any military activity as far as I was concerned. It was just like the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland. There is nothing military about that organisation.”

Mr Moore said he ended his role in the organisation in 1970, two years before Bloody Sunday when 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by paratroopers in the Bogside area of the city.

Despite claims by another witness that members of the Fianna were handed nail bombs on Bloody Sunday, Mr Moore said there was no difference between it and English scouts.

“As far as I am aware, the Fianna was not affiliated to either the Official IRA or the Provisional IRA.”

Pressed by Counsel to the Inquiry Cathryn McGahey that it was indeed a republican organisation, he replied: “Does that mean the scouts in England are affiliated to the British army?”

Earlier this year, Paddy Ward, a former IRA man, who claimed he was officer commanding the Fianna at the time of Bloody Sunday, claimed that Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness handed him detonator parts of nail bombs in preparation for an attack on Guildhall Square.

Mr Moore said he knew Mr Ward but his recollection was that he was never a member of the Fianna.

“I was not in the Fianna by the time of Bloody Sunday and had not been organising a group for at least a year. I understand that Paddy Ward has described a leadership hierarchy in the Fianna but this is not what I remember,” he added.