r/IrishRebelArchive

Me and a fellow member were having a debate about his time as COS.

I didn't think it was impressive the other member who seemed genuine & a good Republican believed he did a good job.

I don't think it was impressive at all, but I did not fully blame him as I believe McGuinness & Adams were going over his head and making many decisions the COS should have made, it was when some awful botched operations went ahead, and McKenna who was a great Brigade O/C in Tyrone would have known better about letting operations like Enniskillen or Shankill fish shop go ahead. The member argued McKenna would not let Adams tell him what to do or be his puppet, but then if that is the case (I don't think it is) McKenna has to take the blame.

Initially I believed he was an Adams puppet, the more I looked however it seems like they had a similar relationship that Adams & Hughes had, it started very well but soured around the early 90's. The biggest disrespect was Adams giving James Gibney the go ahead to give the keynote speech at Borenstown. This part of the speech

"We know and accept that the British government's departure must be preceded by a sustained period of peace and will arise out of negotiations. We know and accept Ithat such negotiations will involve the different shades of Irish nationalism, and Irish unionism engaging the British government either together or separately to secure an all-embracing and durable peace process. We know and accept that this is not 1921 and that at this stage we don't represent a government in waiting. We're not standing in the airport lounge waiting to be flown to Chequers or Lancaster House; we have no illusions of grandeur. Idealists we are, fools we are not."

This really pissed off McKenna & other on the Army Council & Executive, who believed the IRA could make the British withdraw, and McKenna had a heated confrontation with Adams, as the speech should have been cleared with by the Army council, but Adams just bypassed it, and around this period McGuinnes & Adams just bypassed the Army council a number of times.

The other member also said the reason for the lack of IRA operations happening & recruits not joining was that war weariness had set in by the late 80's, but then how do you account for the fact in 1988 the IRA killed 23 British soldiers, the most they had killed since 1979, and the year after killed 25, that's more than they killed in 75, 76, 77, & 78, and the IRA was extremely active, carrying out at least one attack a day and sometimes as many as four or five in a day between 1989 - 1994, but there was an over reliance on rural units especially South Armagh & East Tyrone, despite Loughgall being a huge blow the brigade was still very, very active. If it wasn't for the South Armagh Sniper in 1993 no British soldiers would have been killed, which would have been the first time that happened since 1970, and in 1994 just 1 soldier was killed, of course by the South Armagh Brigade

An the IRA's over-reliance on killing RUC between 1983 to 1988 made Gaddafi complain to the IRA that they should be killing soldiers, and in 1992 Gaddafi publicly broke ties with the IRA, which lost them their biggest arms supplier.

This to me seems like a very poor job done by the COS, and from what I've read & heard he was not the one in control, whatever one thought of Sean McStofain or Seams Twomey they clearly were in control of everyone and had a certain presence about them that told you they were the leader.