IRA man named to inquiry

An alleged Provisional IRA man who reportedly gave assurances the organisation would stay away from a march in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday, has been named.

Hugh McMonagle, a former civil rights official, did not publicly declare the name at the Saville Inquiry in Londonderry, but instead provided it to the tribunal in written form.

The inquiry was established to examine the events of 30 January 1972, when thirteen Catholic men were shot dead by British soldiers during a civil rights march in the city. A 14th person died later.

It never entered my mind that there would be trouble on the march

Hugh McMonagle

Giving evidence on day 100 of the public hearings in the Guildhall, Mr McMonagle said he spoke to the man two days before the civil rights march and had not seen him since Bloody Sunday.

Members of the Official IRA - the Provisionals' forerunner - have been named in the same way by civilian witnesses at the Inquiry, but the identity of Provisionals had not been.

Tribunal chairman Lord Saville of Newdigate said to Mr McMonagle: "I think you have taken the proper course, because if the individual concerned wishes to make any application for anonymity, then what you have done would not prejudice any such application, so thank you."

Mr McMonagle said he was the vice-chairman of the Civil Rights Association (CRA) in Derry's Shantallow district at the time, affiliated to the Derry or Creggan branch which organised the demonstration.

He said: "It never entered my mind that there would be trouble on the march."

He told the hearing he spoke to the Provisional IRA man on 28 January after spotting him while driving to visit a relative in the Creggan estate.

"I pulled in to try and clarify, say to him, we hoped that there was going to be no trouble on the march on Sunday.

"That is why we pulled in, to try to clarify, to make people aware in our area that it was going to be safe enough to travel."

The IRA man told him that the Provisionals would be at the area of the Creggan chapel along Eastway, at the top of Southway and at the Cropbie on Westway - all areas outside the Bogside.

Fear of confrontation

Asked by counsel to the inquiry, Christopher Clarke QC, if he was given a reason for their plans to be in those places, he answered:

"No. All I could take from it was that they were told not to appear or go to the march, to keep away from it."

He said he subsequently informed members of the civil rights committee what he had been told.

Earlier Mr McMonagle said Shantallow CRA activists had considered organising a march to the Creggan estate where the parade started that day.

However, they ruled it out on the advice of the Social Democratic and Labour Party's Ivan Cooper, who feared a confrontation with troops at Fort George on the way.