A former policeman says British military intelligence was behind a plot to attack a Catholic primary school during the Northern Ireland conflict (also called the Troubles).
In a new feature-length television documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story Of The Glenanne Gang, it was revealed gunmen from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) were to carry out the tit-for-tat attack.
Sean Murray, who directed the documentary, says his aims in making it included helping Ireland’s healing and reconciliation process.
He describes his work as being part of a “mosaic” of truth-telling about the violent past.
Murray says the most chilling part of creating the documentary was speaking to former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) member Jon Weir, who told him he’d been a member of the Gang. .
“As a former member of RUC who admitted to being in the Glenanne Gang, his claim that British military intelligence tried to arrange for loyalist paramilitaries to attack a primary school is shocking.”
He says Weir (who now lives in South Africa) explained the plan was to shoot up a school and that the targets would be “children and teachers”. He claimed British intelligence hoped the massacre would cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
Murray, who comes from a west Belfast republican family, said his conversations with Weir led him to believe the alleged British military intelligence plot was to foment a civil war.
“From their vision such a war would be quite short; they thought they could have a quick, short and sharp process of cleansing out the IRA.”
The plot never got off the ground because the UVF refused to carry out the attack, the programme makers said.
Source
- Evening Express
- Irish Times
- Image: Vimeo