The Nairac Mystery

[Heid the Ba]

This is one from the Bad Old Days in Norn Iron, an undercover British officer, Robert Nairac, was abducted and killed. His body was never found. There was a lot of doubt and misinformation bouncing about at the time.
That he had worked with the UDA/UVF to kill Catholics, despite being a devout Catholic himself. Doubtful.
That he had become a liability and was hung out to dry by British Intelligence. Possible as he was erratic and rash.
That his panic button had been disabled and the cover team that should have been there had been pulled out. Unlikely, but I know someone who swears this is true.
That he had been tortured by the IRA and given up others. Possible but unlikely as he was killed very quickly.
That he was SAS, something denied by the British Army. Not sure why this would matter, or why it would be denied.

He hung around Republican pubs under the guise of being a folk singer, with a tape recorder in his guitar. It wasn't unusual for him to be where he was or what he was doing, his bosses apparently had approved his movements. It sounds like a rush job when he was abducted rather than a well planned one, as he was killed quickly rather than tortured for information. Which does go against the British letting him be kidnapped but he might not have known much that wasn't common knowledge.

There is now credible information to where his body is and it is likely to be recovered in the next few days. I'm curious what will come out in the next few days.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxjzp4027go
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy54qkw4r05o
The BBC keep updating this so it is worth reading the links if you are interested. I would also be raging if the photo' they used of me was one with my cap on squint.

[g-one]

Very interesting. The second link gives the impression he may have just pissed off some locals. Badly.
Will be following.

[Heid the Ba]

It does sound like he pissed off the locals but it escalated very quickly. If he had been chatting up the wrong woman and it started as a beating and then they found his panic button it's possible. The locals panic, they tell the local IRA who kill him without referring it up the chain of command.
If it had been a planned abduction the IRA would have had somewhere prepared to take him and would have held him for days while he was interrogated.
South Armagh was the Badlands, right on the border and staunchly Republican.

[Heid the Ba]

Wiki has some interesting stuff. Remember it was a time of fear and paranoia with all those telling their versions unsure who to trust. This was stoked at various points by British Intelligence and the RUC who were largely responsible for at least one IRA - PIRA feud. There were very close links between the RUC and Protestant paramilitaries, the RUC being virtually all Protestant at this point.
By far the majority of those abducted and tortured by the IRA were loyal IRA members, of course it is claimed and denied that the head of IRA internal security was Stakeknife* a British Inteligence agent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nairac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeknife
Sorry, I’m off into the weeds here.
*no idea why it is spelt that way.

[Heid the Ba]

How queer, there is a claim there was a cover party there, but they didn't know who Nairac was. Could all be bollocks of course.
https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2024-08-27 ... ion-by-ira

[Richard A]

It could indeed be bollocks, but I would hesitate to rule out a cock-up like this. As Heid says, the majority of people lifted by the IRA were loyal IRA members. Others were Catholics who were deemed insufficiently loyal. And yet others had pissed off the wrong people - both Republicans and Loyalists had (and still have) their feuds. So you have a bunch of squaddies instructed to watch a pub, to observe but not intervene. They see someone whacked over the head and bundled into a car, but they quite possibly didn't know who it was. An IRA comrade being taken off for interrogation, maybe, or some local who hadn't toed the line. After all, who else would be in that pub? That they hadn't been told that an undercover soldier was in there I find entirely possible. At the start, need to know; later, well, a message over the radio would be heard by the Provos as well. Or possibly the base didn't know - the observers would likely have been told to keep radio silence.

Such cock-ups - and certainly such failures of communication - happen. I remember being told of one, which happily did not end in disaster, by someone I knew who had served as an officer in Norn Iron. Unlike many in the regular Army, as opposed to the UDR, he was actually from there, so when he went on leave, he spent it with family in the Province rather than back across the water. One evening, he was stopped at an Army checkpoint manned by soldiers he served with; when he rolled down the window, the reaction was, "Bloody hell, Sir, what are you doing here?" As another friend who knew those times said, slips like that could and sometimes did cost lives.

[Heid the Ba]

Indeed, and that is one of the many problems with Nairac’s cover; you use your real first name in case you bump into someone you know.

[Heid the Ba]

Apparently we are waiting for DNA confirmation. Odd, any show on the tellybox gets a full breakdown in minutes not weeks.

[Heid the Ba]

I missed this when it came out, in my defence I was travelling that day. They didn't find Nairac's body, or anyone else's by the sound of it. I would have sworn they found remains which they were trying to identify.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq64dz3g4njo

[Heid the Ba]

Relatedly, a body was exhumed from a cemetery four months ago after information that a second body was hidden in a grave after a recent burial in the '70s. After DNA tests it isn't a "Disappeared" or who should be in the grave. All very curious.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czrnzky1637o