The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

the names of those said to be responsible for the bombings gradually came to be generally known in informed circles. Fred Holroyd attempted without success to widen the circle in 1987. On 6 December of that year the Sunday World published a written statement from him. For fear of libel the paper suppressed the names he supplied, but printed his allegations. He said flatly that a Sergeant X of the RUC Special Branch controlled a number of key activists in the UDA/UVF. He gave details of Loyalist paramilitary operations planned by Captain Nairac when on secondment to the SAS. He also said that the weapons used in the Miami Showband atrocity (see p. 226) had come from a cache whose presence he had disclosed to Sergeant X. Holroyd said: ‘On one occasion while on duty with Sergt. X during a surveillance operation, he confided in me that the Portadown UDA/UVF were responsible for the car bombs that detonated in Dublin.’