Ex-IRA bomber’s group to get cash from Lyra McKee’s book

The posthumous book by paramilitary murder victim Lyra McKee is helping to fund a group directed by a former IRA bomber, the News Letter can reveal.

Robert McClenaghan was revealed last year to be a member of the Victims and Survivors Forum despite having admitted to planting bombs across Belfast on a daily basis.

The News Letter has also discovered that he is a director of the organisation Paper Trail, which is set to receive Ms McKee’s share of proceeds from the publication of her book ‘Angels With Blue Faces’.

He has told the paper he does not regret his past paramilitarism, stating the IRA had no choice but to use violence to “destroy the Orange state”.

Gay campaigner and writer Ms McKee, 29, was shot dead by a New IRA gunman during republican rioting in Londonderry in April.

Last month, publisher Excalibur Press announced Ms McKee’s book was due out soon, describing it as the “result of a five-year investigation by Lyra into the IRA killing of MP Robert Bradford in 1981”.

The blurb for the book states that “many members of the unionist community believe he was about to reveal something sensational when he was murdered”, and that “Bradford’s death could have been prevented” because the security services had advance knowledge of the attack (in addition, a 29-year-old man, Kenneth Campbell, was shot dead by the IRA in the same attack).

Excalibur went on to add: “As per Lyra’s wishes prior to her death, her own proceeds of the book will be donated to the organisation Paper Trail.”

Paper Trail is registered with both the Charity Commission and Companies House, and Mr McClenaghan is listed as both being on the charity trustee board and being company director.

Its address is the Ashton Centre in the republican-dominated New Lodge estate in north Belfast.

Its website says that its activities have been funded by the EU’s Peace IV programme.

It describes itself as helping “ordinary families access official information buried in archives for decades”, and offers “targeted legacy archive research to the legal profession, the media and academia”.

Paper Trail’s company secretary is Ciarán MacAirt, and besides Mr McClenaghan, there are five other directors: barrister Stuart Andrew Magee, management consultant Joanne Kinnear, solicitor Rosie Kinnear, legal executive Niall Pádraig Ó’Murchu, and lecturer Lesley Veronica.

There is no suggestion Mr MacAirt or any of the other directors are connected to violence or criminality.

Mr McClenaghan has been a director of Paper Trail ever since it was registered as a company in late 2014.

‘WE HAD TO DESTROY THE ORANGE STATE’

Mr McClenaghan is described as a “community worker” in the directors’ register.

When his bomb-planting past was initially exposed last year, he told the News Letter he did not want to comment.

But in light of Paper Trail being given cash from Lyra McKee’s book, he has now spoken to the News Letter.

He was asked what kind of community work he does, and said: “We’re just generally dogsbodies. We just help out whatever way we can within the community.”

Asked if he was a member of Sinn Fein, he said: “Of course, yes.”

Does he regret or feel sorry for having joined the IRA and planted bombs?

“No. But that was when I was a child. That was when I was a teenager. That was when I was growing up in the middle of the conflict.

“Now I’m trying to go in a different direction by promoting peace, reconciliation and trying to bring together people. That’s what we do. That’s what Paper Trail does.”

It was put to him that a way to do that may be to say that his past actions were wrong.

“But I don’t believe I was wrong,” he said.

“That was a particular part in my life that’s now over so you’re a different person when you’re 18 as opposed to a different person now aged 60.”

He went on to say: “I believe the Orange state was never going to give up its power and privilege and the whole sectarianism they perpetrated for 50 years before they were brought down in 1972. So you had to destroy the Orange state in my opinion.”

And it had to involve bombs and guns and killing people?

“Unfortunately yes. It had to be destroyed. There’s no easy way. But that was in the ‘70s. Now we’re in a completely different era politically, where you don’t need any type of violence from any quarter and specifically the group who killed Lyra.”

He said that the killing of Lyra McKee by a dissident gunman during a riot in Londonderry’s Creggan estate, who had apparently been intending to kill a policeman instead, had been “a complete and utter disaster – not only for Lyra’s family, but for all of us; what a tragic loss of such an aspiring young journalist”.

As to what the difference is between what he did in the IRA, and what happened to Mr McKee, he said that “now there is a political alternative”.

He said he had met Ms McKee a few times, and she had known Mr MacAirt well.

It was put to him that some people may see it as ironic for money from her book to go to a group he is helping to run.

He said: “She was a lovely human being. So to try and reduce it down to what you’re trying to say now I think it’s very disrespectful to Lyra’s memory.

“In the sense that you’re trying to make a point that Lyra would somehow disagree with my background. And she wouldn’t. She didn’t. We got on very well ... Lyra was a person who would understand people. I don’t think you can.”

According to the research project Lost Lives, from 1966 to 2006 republicans killed 2,152 people, whilst loyalists killed 1,112 people, and security forces killed 367 people.

The IRA was by far the most prolifically violent group. It’s single biggest group of victims, in terms of fatal casualties, was civilians.

‘WE WERE REALLY UNDER PRESSURE AS WE BOMBED CITY’

Robert McClenaghan’s grandfather was killed in the McGurk’s bar bomb in 1971, and he was appointed to the Victims and Survivors Forum in 2017.

His own background as a bomber was publicly brought to light in spring 2018 by the News Letter.

It emerged because a fellow member of the forum, Jackie Nichols (whose son was murdered in an IRA bomb attack), saw a documentary called ‘When The War Ends’ by director Thijs Schreuder.

It was released in 2011 and is available to view on YouTube.

In the film, Mr McClenaghan says: “We went in and placed bombs in Belfast city centre. Some of the bombs would’ve been, you know, small. Or some would be very big.

“That just became like a common part of your job, or common part of your day after a while.

“It’s hard to forget what it was like when you were really under pressure ...

“The community looked after us, was 100% supportive of what we were doing ... we had the weapons, we had the explosives, and we went in to place the bombs.”

He recounted that police found a palm print on the window of a car, giving them his fingerprints.

It is understood he served 12 years of a 20-year sentence.

The film repeatedly shows images of soldiers and police either beating or grabbing individuals, or being attacked during public disorder situations.

A significant segment deals with Mr McClenaghan’s hardships in prison.

Save for mentioning the McGurk’s bar bombing, carried out by loyalists, there is little focus on the massive casualties inflicted by paramilitaries.

At one point in the film Mr McClenaghan is seen blessing himself with holy water and walking into a chapel, telling a priest “peace be with you”.

Mr Nichols, who had previously regarded Mr McClenaghan as a friend, resigned from the forum soon after seeing the film.

However Mr McClenaghan remains on the victims’ forum (a non-departmental public body), which continues to make no mention of his paramilitary past.

Instead this, in full, is how it describes him:

“On 4th December 1971 Robert’s grandfather, Philip Garry, was killed in the McGurk’s Bar bombing. He was a 73-year-old school lollipop man and was the oldest of the 15 men, women and children killed at McGurk’s.

“For the past 25 years Robert has campaigned to establish what happened that night and hopes that others can learn from his experience of seeking acknowledgment, truth and justice, if they wish.

“He explained his motivation for joining the Forum: ‘By joining the Forum, I want to share my knowledge and experience and to be an agent for positive change on the Forum, by building consensus. I have been a campaigner with the McGurk’s Bar families for 25 years and during that time I have acquired a range of skills that I hope will benefit others.”

“Robert hopes that as a Forum member he and others can reach consensus on how to deal with the past. He also aims to gain a greater understanding of others’ personal journeys.

“He added: ‘I hope that collectively, the Forum will have helped achieve the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement proposals as well as adequate services for those who survived the conflict’.”

‘LYRA SUPPORTED PAPER TRAIL FROM THE START’

Ciaran MacAirt, the secretary of Paper Trail, has said Lyra McKee had supported the organisation “at every stage”.

Mr MacAirt is author of the book ‘The McGurk’s Bar Bombing’ about the loyalist massacre of 15 people in north Belfast in 1971 – an attack in which his grandmother was one of the murder victims.

Among the praise for Mr MacAirt’s work quoted on his own website is that he has “lifted the lid on Britain’s dirty war in Ireland” (from An Phoblacht) and has shown “determination to expose the lies and criminal actions of the RUC and British Army” (from Gerry O’Hare of the Bobby Sands Trust).

Mr MacAirt said he was “blessed to have Lyra as a pal for many years, as we shared a love of writing and oral history – especially the stories of people impacted by the conflict”.

Mr MacAirt added she was “a whirlwind of fun, positivity and steely determination”, and that he was devastated and angered by her shooting.

She helped launch its ‘research and pilot group’ and sat on a steering group for the charity, said Mr MacAirt, and he is “humbled” Paper Trail will get her proceeds.

The charity helps “survivors of the conflict regardless of religion, political belief, or other affiliations” he said, and this “includes victims and survivors of republican violence”.

He added that Paper Trail has key researchers who are “former British soldiers”, that one trustee’s father was killed by the IRA, and that “in fact in 2018–2019, 58% of the participants of our archive and oral history training were loyalists”.

Concerning Mr McClenaghan’s views, Mr MacAirt said: “I work with people who have wide-ranging beliefs, personal opinions and past experiences. As an advocate, my role is to listen and learn from the experiences of the people I engage with, be they former combatants or civilians.

“I believe that I can fulfil my role better if I meet every individual without pre-judgment or prejudice.”