'The trouble is that Gaddafi is mad': State papers reveal extent of Libya's support for PIRA

TAOISEACH CHARLES HAUGHEY told British Prime Minister John Major that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi “was mad”, as newly released documents reveal details of arms provided by Libya to the Provisional IRA. 

State papers released to the National Archives show that gardai estimated there were six major arms shipments and financial aid sent by Libya to the PIRA totalling $12 million.  

The figure can be estimated at some €40 million in today’s money and was provided in contact Libya had with the PIRA in the 1970s and 1980s.  

Libya was ruled by Gaddafi from 1969 until he was overthrown and killed during the Arab Spring in 2011. 

Secret government documents are released annually under the 30-year rule and sent to the National Archives, providing journalists and historians a fresh glimpse into historical events.

This year, even more recent files up to 1998 are also being released to bring the National Archives up to date with material released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.  

As part of these files, a garda memo to the Department of Justice in June 1992 provided details of the arms shipments from Libya to Ireland between March 1973 and October 1987.

Included in the cache of weaponry were Kalashnikov rifles, heavy machine guns, SAM-7 missiles, RPG rocket launchers, grenades, ammunition and the Semtex plastic explosive.

British authorities also informed the Irish government about admissions made by Libya about what the regime had provided to the PIRA. 

Libya said it first established links with the PIRA in 1973 but this contact lapsed three years later. 

Links between Gaddafi and the IRA re-emerged in the mid 1980s after Gaddafi’s adopted daughter was killed along with more than 100 other people by US bombing raids launched from UK bases.

Libya provided UK officials with details of its support for the IRA after the country sought to repair relations with the west following the Lockerbie bombing. 

The bombing saw Pan Am Flight 103 being destroyed and plummeting into the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 11 people on the ground as well as all 259 people on board.

Libya admitted responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and the regime of slain dictator Gaddafi eventually paid €2.4 billion in compensation to victims’ families.

Over a decade before that, Haughey and Major met at Government Buildings in Dublin in December 1991 and discussed the fact that Libya was responsible. 

The meeting between Haughey and Major took place two months before Haughey was replaced as taoiseach by Albert Reynolds. 

“The detective work on the blowing up of the Pan Am flight at Lockerbie has been absolutely staggering,” Major said.

There is no doubt that Libya is responsible for the blowing up of the Pan Am flight and also for the bombing of the French plane. The thing is, what do we do? Libya is a terrorist state.

The French plane Major is referring to is UTA Flight 772 which was downed by a bomb in 1989 with the loss of 170 people, with Libya subsequently admitting responsibility. 

Haughey replied that Ireland will support whatever UN or G7 action is taken even if it hurts the Irish economy.

“But we have had to punish ourselves on this. We have a major outlet to cattle which was very valuable to us in the past especially because it comes at a critical time of the year and helps to keep up factory prices. Libya was an important outlet for our live cattle,” he said.

Haughey said that while Ireland was foregoing the Libyan live cattle trade other countries were still trading with Libya, adding that much of the problem was with the Libyan leader himself. 

“The trouble is that Gaddafi is mad,” Haughey warned, with UK officials saying Egypt had tried to “bring him around” but didn’t get anywhere.