Extent of Libyan backing for IRA ‘shocked’ British

19 comments
  1. “The Libyans supplied 1,450 Kalashnikov automatic rifles; 180 pistols; 66 machine guns; 36 rocket-propelled-grenade launchers; 10 surface-to-air missiles; ten flame-throwers; 765 grenades; 5,800kg of Semtex explosive; 1,080 detonators; and almost 1.5 million rounds of ammunition of various types”

    Jaysis

  2. Now remember this is the county that took fifty years to admit those they murdered at ballymurphy and Derry were innocent civilians so I’d take anything they believe with a mine of salt.

  3. It’s one of the reasons the UK govt realised they wouldn’t be able to defeat the Provos militarily. They caught the Eksund with 150 tons of weapons and realised that this was one of 4 maybe more ships that got in successful. With that amount of material the Provos would have been keep in business for another generation if not longer.

  4. I was in a bar in west Belfast a few years back. It had a small museums of Republican artefacts and one of the best was a pair of Gadaffi’s shoes that he gifted to the Ra. Pretty crazy that some fella from west Belfast managed to successfully broker a deal with the Libyans for arms and spent enough time with Gadaffi that he was throwing him spare shoes as a present. Mental

  5. Extent of UDR, UDA british intelligence & some RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitarys doesn’t ever seem to get as much traction with the press.

  6. > the equivalent of roughly €40m today.

    Where did this go/who has it now?

    I mean they had the guns, the volunteers (volunteers, right?), what other outlays did they have?

  7. Would be interesting to compare these sums with how much the British spent on ‘security’ in Ireland during the same period. As Brendan Behan famously remarked, ‘It’s easy to spot the terrorist – he’s the one with the small bomb!’

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