Bobby Sands was an Irish patriot and politician. He was born in 1954 at Belfast, Northern Ireland and died in 1981 following a hunger-strike at Long Kesh prison. Following the civil unrest in Northern Ireland, and the Sands family being harassed out of their home, Bobby Sands joined the IRA and in 1973 was arrested on arms charges. He is best remembered for his political writings (at the time of his death he had been elected to the British parliament) and the hunger-strike in which a number of IRA members starved themselves to death in protest at being treated as criminals, rather than political prisoners, by the British government. Research Bobby Sands More information about Bobby Sands
Lord Louis Mountbatten was a British admiral and statesman. He was born in 1900 and died in 1979 when he was assassinated by the IRA. He was chief of combined operations in 1942 and the last viceroy of India. Research Lord Louis Mountbatten
Martin Cahill was an Irish gangster. He was born in 1950 at Dublin and died in 1994. Martin Cahill was known as 'The General' and was renowned as a clever, but vicious gangster who was responsible for a number of major robberies including the 1973 £90,000 Rathfranham Shopping Centre robbery and probably the 1983 £2 million Thomas O'Connor and Sons jewellery robbery. Martin Cahill was shot dead by the IRA in 1994 while driving his car, 'because of his involvement with, and assistance to pro-British death squads' the IRA claimed. Research Martin Cahill
Ira Frederick Aldridge was an American actor. He was born in 1804 at Baltimore and died in 1867 of typhus fever. A negro, or mulatto, in 1826 he was valet to Edmund Kean and accompanied him to England and he was prompted to become an actor, returning to America in 1830 as an actor making his debut at Baltimore. In 1833 he made his British debut at Covent Garden as 'Othello'. Research Ira Aldridge
Jeff Chandler (real name Ira Grossel) was an American actor. He was born in 1918 at Brooklyn, New York and died in 1961 following a minor operation. Research Jeff Chandler
Agent Stakeknife was the British army's top agent within the IRA during the 1980s, infamous for his supposed involvement in the death of fellow agents so as to protect his own identity. He was identified, by unnamed sources, as 'Freddie Scappaticci', in May 2003, as part of the Stevens enquiry into how the security services recruited and ran paramilitary agents in Northern Ireland. However, Freddie Scappaticci refuted the allegations, claiming that he had never been an informer or received money from the security services. Research Agent Stakeknife
The Special Air service (SAS) began life in the desert. It was founded by David Stirling, a lieutenant in the Scots Guards, who had fought with No.8 Commando in the Mediterranean. Injured during parachute training, he drew up plans for a new type of long-range commando organisation while hospitalised in Cairo. He presented them through General Neil Ritchie to the perceptive commander of British Forces in the Middle East, General Auckinleck, and was rewarded with promotion and command of the 'L' detachment,
Special Air Service Brigade. The unit designation was a fiction intended to deceive but the SAS had been born. Stirling planned the SAS as a strategic force, attacking targets deep in the enemy heartland where they thought they were safe. From air bases in North Africa to the valleys of southern France, the SAS inflicted constant damage and tied down thousands of enemy soldiers guarding installation and sweeping the countryside for these elusive raiders. The SAS was disbanded after the war, but resurrected within two years. A territorial regiment, 21 SAS, was created and some members volunteered for a new organisation, the Malaya Scouts (SAS). The latter were formed for counter-guerrilla operations against the communist rebels in Malaya. In 1952, this unit was redesignated 22 SAS and spearheaded the jungle war. Stirling's original belief that a small elite force could achieve results out of all proportion to its size was proved correct a second time. As the British Empire disintegrated, the SAS were involved in guerrilla wars from Asian
jungles to the Middle East. From 1969 the regiment was committed to action much closer to home, as handfuls of men were detached to Northern Ireland. SAS involvement was on a small scale until Prime Minister Harold Wilson publicly announced in January 1976, that he was sending in the SAS. This was without reference to the regiment, which had very few men available at the time. A counter-terrorist role was developed in response to the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich during the 1972 Olympic Games. In 1980 the world saw the SAS in action for the first time when they were unknowingly filmed storming the Iranian Embassy in London, releasing the hostages and executing all but one of the terrorists. Later the SAS were again at the centre of controversy for the assassination of civilians suspected of being members of the IRA in Gibraltar, a move which had the full backing of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, though not the British press, most notably ThamesTelevision which produced a documentary entitled 'Death on the Rock',
a program many believe led to Thames losing their broadcast license shortly afterwards. Research Special Air Service
Jack Higgins' Midnight Man is an action thriller starring Rob Lowe, Kenneth Cranham, Deborah Moore and Daphne Cheung in a story about a former IRA soldier forced out of retirement by his old enemies in British intelligence who want his help tracking down an assassin planning to kill members of the royal family. Jack Higgins' Midnight Man was directed by Lawrence Gordon-Clark in 1995. Research Jack Higgins' Midnight Man
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Abbreviations
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