Wikipedia: The Secret Army is a 1972 documentary about the Provisional IRA, made by J. Bowyer Bell and Zwy Aldouby. It is notable for its footage of IRA members and their activities at the height of The Troubles.[1]

The film disappeared after its making, and was not released. Its existence was revealed by the BBC in 2019, and clips from it are incorporated in a 2024 BBC documentary about its making, also titled The Secret Army.[2][3] The book by Bell (opposite) does not contain the documentary.

References

 [1] MacIntyre, Darragh; Thornton, Chris (March 2024). “Exposed: The true story of a lost documentary”. BBC News. March 2024.

[2] McLaughlin, Sophie (26 March 2024). “Documentary on American film crew who had access to the IRA to air on BBC”. Belfast Live. Retrieved 27 March 2024.

[3] Loughnane, Joe (15 September 2019). “BBC’s documentary on The Troubles will show rare footage of the IRA carrying out an attack”. Joe. Retrieved 30 March 2024.

Steve Hedley (comment)

Secret Army Now on BBC I-player shows many volunteers unmasked including Martin McGuinness. A good programme but questionable tactics by the leadership allowing the filming of volunteers who were completely undisguised. The tapes soon fell into the hands of Brit intelligence and the film was made by a CIA man and Mossad agent

Facebook debate on the above

Michael O’Rourke

Now the Provos are supporting the British military in Ukraine against the people of Donbass Russia as they perform like glove puppets in Britain’s Mickey Mouse Assembly.

Mark Stevens

Michael O’Rourke: And you are supporting Putinite Tzarism against the people of Ukraine, must like Russian fist up your arse, or perhaps you are into settler rights and support the statelet and the Zionist entity too?

Michael O’Rourke

Mark Stevens: The truth hurts. Maybe that’s why you reply with personal insults? Here’s another truth for you: You support the Zionist Zelensky’s criminal, neo-Nazi regime, the NATO proxy established by the US/UK intelligence orchestrated coup (in 2014). These imperialist bastions are now also assisting the Zionist entity’s barbarism in Palestine with US and RAF flights over Gaza providing intelligence and targets for their client state Israel. You are a fake, you imply you support Palestine, while at the same time you support its absolute enemies. And I haven’t even considered insulting you personally.

Mark Stevens

Michael O’Rourke: Erm you are aware that the Zionist entity was sponsored and supported at the point of its birth by Stalinism/USSR – support in the UN and supply of arms – including via Czechoslovakia the worst piston engine fighter ever – the Avro copy of the Me 109. You started the insults by characterising the mainstream republican movement as “glove puppets”. Anyway I hope you will continue to insult the republican movement and they will eventually deal with you.

Michael O’Rourke

Firstly, my use of the term ‘glove puppets’ is a political criticism, it’s not personal. You chose to reply in a personal context. I did not use personal insults. But anyway, I’m not too concerned about all that. And if you think I would be deterred from criticising the Provo volte-face and open collusion with our eternal enemy by your allusion to a veiled threat (me being dealt with), you would be dead wrong. You are also revealing your own lack of political principle and integrity by resorting to that.

But as I’ve said, I’m not too concerned about all that. I am a republican socialist and I’ve been in the field, and threats, veiled or otherwise are not new to me and won’t deter me from calling out political betrayal or hypocrisy.

So back to the actual political point you raised regarding the USSR and Stalinism’s recognition of the State of Israel. You mention it as if you can apply it to me as a criticism, expecting me to defend it. But I don’t support it, I don’t support Stalinism now, or at any time in its history. And maybe also you think you can apply that to the present day situation with Russia and Ukraine?

If you want to examine Russia and Ukraine and their current relationship with Israel, it’s Ukraine, not Russia, who is the ally of Israel in military terms and in geo-political terms, and you are defending Ukraine. If you are trying to find a contradiction in supporting the Russian SMO in the NATO proxy war against Russia, and simultaneously supporting Palestine, you are completely mistaken. The hard truth is, by supporting NATO imperialism in Ukraine, you are supporting the enemies of Palestine.

Mark Stevens

Michael O’Rourke: Yep I support Ukraine – does not the Ukrainian people have an absolute right to exist in the whole of their territory as guaranteed to them by Russia and others, and to do so by all means necessary in the face of aggression by the Imperial Power, Tzarist Russia? That must include action against quisling settler elements in Donbas and the other eastern provinces. You presumably want a Ukrainian “fatar” (?) to emerge and facilitate Putin’s victory in the name of “peace”. Right there is no point with arguing with you, you and your ilk are Tzar Putin’s glove puppets.

Michael O’Rourke

But who are the Ukrainian people you speak of? And what is “the whole of their territory”? All of the territory you mention plus Crimea and Odesa are historically Russian. It was the Soviet Union that established Ukraine as part of the USSR.

The Ukrainian people you speak of were in Galicia part of the Hapsburg Empire and prior to that, part of Poland. The people of Donbass are not settlers, they are native Russian people in their own land who were stranded in Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukrainian nationalism derives from Galicia and it was revived by the Nazis and the  Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists under the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, a perpetrator of the Holocaust.

Are you serious? I didn’t take you for a fascist but your farrago account of the origins and current situation in Ukraine concurs with the utterly false Ukrainian fascist diatribes, shared and supported by Western gutter press and propaganda outlets.

Is that your source of information? If that is the case then prepare for a big wakeup, because those propaganda outlets are soon going to have to drop their wall-to-wall lying and admit they have lost, when their criminal regime in Kiev and its army is destroyed to the point where they can no longer hide that reality.

Russia is not interested in taking over Ukraine. But they can not allow a neo-Nazi regime, a proxy of NATO installed by an illegal coup orchestrated by the US/UK to commit genocide against the Russian population of former eastern Ukraine, and install nuclear missiles five minutes away from Russian cities, having openly stated its wish to destroy Russia. However, the important thing at this time is, NATO and Ukraine are already defeated, the only thing left is unfortunately, the Western powers are still insisting on fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Gerry Downing

Michael O’Rourke: Absolutely correct.

Chris O Prey

It (the 1972 documentary) dates from the period when it was a mass revolt, albeit starting to decline, and opposition was in the open. The confidence to show your face was rooted in that mass movement. It became increasingly a republican military conspiracy that sidelined mass actions. This changed with the prison struggle which again switched to mass mobilisations, followed by political realism and adaption to imperialism by the SFers, and we are where we are today with the Biden brigade thanks to that decline.

Gerry Downing (comment)

I do not go with the theory that McGuiness was an informer (tout) as some do. I think the British MI5 are very sophisticated and recognised they had a powerful weapon in that documentary; McGuiness could have got a long prison term for what he was filmed doing but they judged it more important to blackmail him and Adams so they could arrive at the Good Friday Agreement; they  recognised them as leaders of the PIRA who would ‘do business’ with them.

Historically ruling classes have understood those with weak anti-imperialist politics and went to some trouble to prevent them getting assassinated. Back in the Tan War from 1919-22 and the civil war Michael Collins (who adopted Arthur Griffiths politics) and later de Valera were allowed to live but those like Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joe McKelvey, Dick Barrett (undoubtedly on British urgings), and Liam Lynch were murdered because they understood they were Republicans who would not yield.

Similarly Nelson Mandela was held in custody but Chris Hani was assassinated in 1993 to allow Mandela’s assession to power in 1984. Today Turkey holds PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in jail since February 1999 and has not executed him as he may have a role to play for Turkey. ▲

Liam Mellows Rory O’Connor Joe McKelvey Dick Barrett Murdered by the Free State on December 8 1922 because the knew they were Republicans who would not yeild.