Loyalist paramilitaries became much better at covering their tracks in the early 1990s, learning to destroy forensic evidence, to burn getaway cars and to shower after killings, the State papers reveal.
Equally, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Loyalist Volunteer Force from the mid-1990s began to organise in cells and were better trained to resist RUC interrogations.
The new habits landed one loyalist in trouble, however, when he showered after being involved in an attack shortly before he had to sign on at an RUC station to honour bail conditions for another offence.
Certain ‘State papers’ or official archives are declassified at the end of every year. This week, thousands of documents in archives in Dublin, Belfast and London are being made public for the first time, bringing new insights into events of times past. This year’s Dublin archives mostly date from 1994.
State Papers: Five things we learned, from details of Boris Yeltsin’s Shannon no-show to blocking Mary Robinson’s UN role
How John Bruton, the last Redmondite, got to grips with the IRA, the UK and the peace process
Irish government feared retaliation over decision not to prosecute Dessie O’Hare
Bertie Ahern overruled objections to continue weapons purchases from Israel in 1990s
Suspicions were raised among RUC officers when he turned up “still dripping wet from his shower” because he “was not known for his regular bathing habits”, so he was immediately arrested.
However, the loyalist paramilitaries’ increased professionalism was a serious concern to the Irish government, the papers show, especially after a series of random killings of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
Equally, there were fears that the SDLP leader, John Hume, could be a target, along with concerns of attacks on Irish government figures if loyalists judged them to be part “of a pan-nationalist front” with Sinn Féin.
Department of Foreign Affairs’ officials picked up intelligence from Northern Ireland sources that this “pan-nationalist” language was the work of a still-unidentified academic.
In addition, members of the Democratic Unionist Party and elements of middle-class unionism generally were giving “a political and intellectual focus” to loyalist paramilitaries.
However, one loyalist contact advised Irish officials not to overstate this political sophistication, adding chillingly: “In the final analysis, recruits join the UVF to shoot people.”
The political representatives of loyalism – David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson of the PUP, linked to the UVF, and Gary McMichael and Davy Adams of the UDP, which represented the UDA – were well regarded in Dublin.
Following the collapse of the IRA ceasefire in February 1996, Ervine told Irish officials of “the trouble we’ve been having trying to keep [loyalist paramilitaries] away from the Border.”
