Free Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland by Ed Moloney Page A

contact in the hospital. —— was there for a year. And to this day he’s in terrible agony most of the time. He lives now with his mother, he looks after her. It’s only him and his mother in the house together now. He was only a kid, only a Fianna boy when I got to know him , then he came into the IRA. And he was a good Volunteer. He was a real good kid, a good wee operator .
     
    The British Army knew about Brendan Hughes from early on, but thanks to his father’s foresight, it would be some time before Military Intelligence was able to acquire his photograph, to put a face on the IRA leader they knew only as ‘Darkie’. They knew he was a leader of D Company, an organiser of many of the attacks that had claimed the lives of their soldiers, and that his elimination would badly hurt the IRA. He was a thorn in the flesh of the British Army and a priority target. One undercover effort mounted by the military very nearly succeeded in removing the thorn. It failed, only just, but it brought Hughes and Gerry Adams closer, helping to cement one of the IRA’s most famous partnerships.
    One day, I was standing on the corner of Varna Gap; two or three other people were with me – we hadn’t arranged a call house that day – and a van drove down Leeson Street. As the van passed I noticed there was something wrong with the driver – he was nervous. He drove past me and down McDonnell Street onto the Grosvenor Road. I crossed over to the other corner and saw the van going up the Grosvenor Road away from me. Five minutes later it came back down. At that time I always carried a weapon, a .45 automatic, but I’d given it to another Volunteer that morning to go and steal a car we needed, so I sent one of the runners to get a weapon. As the van approached, my eyes were on the driver the whole time, and the guy was really shitting himself. He drove about twenty yards past me, past Varna Gap, and the back doors flew open. Three guys with rifles jumped out and they immediately started firing at me. One had two .45s in his hands. They were wearing baseball boots and tracksuits … The bullets went whizzing off the wall, all over the place and there was nothing I could do, only run along Varna Gap, and they came after me firing. I turned round at Varna Gap into Cyprus Street and then I took a shortcut into Sultan Street which was where the call house and our weapons were . I ran the whole length of that street, and they were running and firing after me. Later I worked it out that they knew who I was. There was a derelict house directly facing Varna Gap that the Brits had been using as an observation post and they had obviously identified me, whether it was a photograph or description I don’t know, but they identified me obviously because they were trying to kill me. There was a baker’s van delivering bread – it was early- morning time – to Willie Dark’s shop at the corner of Sultan Street and the van was shot to pieces. I almost ran past the call house I was going so fast, so I grabbed the door as I was running and the momentum carried me right through the living-room window. But the weapons were there, and I grabbed an Armalite and I came out fucking firing. The next thing Saracens came from all over the place and the soldiers in the observation post, in the derelict house, were picked up; it pulled up outside and the two Brits jumped out onto the roof of the Saracen and into the back of it and the other ones who had been chasing me were picked up in another Saracen. They had been there all night. Why the Brits in the derelict house didn’t fire I do not know. I was a sitting target for them; they didn’t have to send the van down, I mean, they could have shot me from that window. The operation was aimed at assassinating me and whoever else I was with .
     
     
    I didn’t realise I was bleeding until afterwards and then I thought I had been hit but I had been badly cut in the arm by the glass when I crashed through the