State papers: IRA and Sinn Féin leaders were ‘paralysed’ by 2003 Stakeknife revelations
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The emergence of reports in 2003 about a high-level British secret agent in the IRA, known as Stakeknife, left republican leaders in Northern Ireland “paralysed and damaged”, according to newly-released State papers.
Confidential files made public by the National Archives reveal the disclosure about the British spy — who was widely believed to be the late Freddie Scappaticci — rocked Sinn Féin and the wider republican movement at a critical point in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Scappaticci ran the IRA’s internal security unit, which was involved in torturing and murdering informants.
The revelation that Stakeknife himself was a double agent working for the British authorities sent shockwaves through republican ranks.
This was at a time when the Good Friday Agreement was being reviewed and negotiations to get the IRA to decommission its weapons were ongoing.
Declassified documents now show the contents of private conversations between British and Irish officials about the matter, which they regarded as changing “the political landscape”.
The documents also highlight how the revelation sparked widespread conspiracy theories within the republican movement, with allegations that Stakeknife had been used to eliminate opponents of the peace process.
An internal document from the Anglo-Irish Division in May 2003 noted that the Stakeknife affair had “convulsed the republican movement,” which was already reeling from the British government’s decision to postpone Northern Ireland Assembly elections along with the failure of Sinn Féin’s statements to meet government expectations.
It also observed: “The political process is without focus or direction, and the Sinn Féin leadership has — for the moment — exhausted its capacity to propel the wider movement in the right direction.”
Irish officials warned that the scandal posed “potentially very negative implications for the stability of the Sinn Féin leadership”.
They stated: “The two governments need to get a firm grip on the situation and not allow matters to drift.”
A separate document from May 2003 said the allegations about Stakeknife suggested “complicity in murder by loyalists was matched by complicity in murder by republicans”.
It also referenced the possible role of Stakeknife in the death of the Co Louth farmer, Tom Oliver, who was tortured and murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1991.