Informer took murder secrets to grave

Seán O’Callaghan was never brought to account for the murder of John Corcoran, most likely because the State may well have found itself in the dock beside him, says Michael Clifford

IT WAS a mundane end to a lonely life. If Sean O’Callaghan had drowned 20 or even 10 years ago, as he did in Jamaica last Wednesday, it would have been highly suspicious. Murder would have been suspected. He had many enemies within the so-called republican movement as a result of his status as a high-profile informer in the IRA.

Life has moved on. The republican movement, as it then was, is now simply Sinn Féin the political party, and O’Callaghan was an occasional irritant in the party’s project to rewrite the history of the Northern Troubles. His testimonies of the sectarianism, the wanton criminality, the expedient killing, all gave lie to the bright shining image of selfless freedom fighters protecting their families.