1983 escape IRIS
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IRIS
THE GREATEST ESCAPE Court appearance, his brother Pat - a highprofile Belfast solicitor involved in the shootto-kill and Gibraltar cases - was assassinated by loyalists. On 13 March 1990, the 26 County Supreme Court refused to uphold Finucane’s extradition (see separate article) and he was released. One of the eight men who hid under the floorboards for two weeks after the escape, Dermot singles out ‘Goose’ Russell as the “heart and soul” who made that uncomfortable situation bearable.” Goose was coming out with all these crazy ideas, but if it hadn’t been for him, it would have been much harder. While we were under the floorboards, he was working out a plan, in the event of our arrest, for taking over the holding block of Castlereagh and fighting our way out! He told ‘Spanner’ Campbell to work out a plan for Gough Barracks, in case that’s where we’d be taken. “Goose was always telling stories and getting carried away. If the people upstairs had people in visiting, we’d all be whispering really low, but Goose would get carried away and he’d bang his head against the floorboards, and we’d hear the visitors ask ‘What’s that noise?’ and the people of the house trying to cover up by saying ‘Oh, that’s just the heating pipes’. At night it was cold under the floorboards, and we’d be huddling together for warmth - Goose always wanted in the middle! The craic was brilliant.” Reaching the 26 Counties along with Gerry Kelly, the two were billeted together in a house. A short time after their arrival, Dermot celebrated his birthday. Learning of this from Kelly, the family bought vodka and beer although they were teetotal. “Gerry and I were sitting having a few drinks, some of the family had joined us and we were having a bit of a singsong, and then all of a sudden the lights were knocked out and the door was opened, and there was the mother and father
of the house with this giant birthday cake with my name on it. I was really taken aback by the whole welcome we were getting from people. Every house we were in, the people really went overboard to make us feel welcome. We were like part of their family.”
KIERAN FLEMING Arrested in Derry in 1976 at the age of 16, Kieran Fleming had been sentenced to indefinite detention as an SOSP prisoner. One of the key figures in the planned execution of the escape, Kieran had originally been intended to be part of the tally lodge rearguard unit. However, on the Thursday before the escape, while playing football in the H7 yard, he broke his arm in a clash with fellow-escaper Brendan Mead. Horrified at the prospect of being transferred to the prison hospital and missing the escape, Fleming was taken to see the doctor on Friday. “How is it?” asked the doctor, grabbing his hand and bending the broken arm. “Oh, it’s not too bad, doctor,” replied Kieran through clenched teeth, nearly fainting with the pain. Kieran stayed in H7 and on the escape, though his tally lodge role was given to someone else. Fleeing from Long Kesh in a car along with Gerry Kelly, Séamus Clarke, Dermot Finucane and Pádraig McKearney, suggestions were flying about what route they should take. Gerry Kelly recalls: “Everyone wanted to go towards their own home area because they knew it. Pádraig wanted to walk around and swim part of Lough Neagh. He kept saying ‘We’ll walk the lough, we’ll walk the lough, we’ll go up into Tyrone’. Kieran said then that he couldn’t swim but that he was willing to try.” Active along the Donegal border after the escape, Fleming – nicknamed ‘Hush Hush’ – remained willing to try whatever was necessary. On the night of 2 December 1984, following a shoot-out with the SAS, IRA Volunteers were forced to withdraw on foot
• Tony Kelly (left) and Kieran Fleming (right) pictured a month before Kieran’s tragic death in December 1984
and to swim the River Bannagh which marked the Fermanagh/Donegal border. Despite not being able to swim, as well as having an admitted fear of water, Kieran Fleming attempted to cross the river. It was nearly three weeks and after a prolonged search by his family, friends and other republicans that his drowned body was recovered from the river on 21 December. Mourners at his funeral in Derry were savagely attacked by the RUC using baton charges and firing plastic bullets.
GERARD FRYERS Serving a sentence of 20 years at the time of the escape, after his conviction in 1980, Gerard ‘Rinty’ Fryers was one of the group who hid under floorboards for two weeks before being moved to Crossmaglen and over the border. Fryers, from West Belfast is one of the escapers who was never re-captured.
BILLY GORMAN In the dash from the tally lodge, Billy Gorman from Belfast had got tangled in the barbed wire fence and despite the efforts of Harry Murray to free him had been recaptured. Gorman had been sentenced in 1979 to be detained indefinitely ‘at the Secretary of State’s pleasure’. He was released in 1993 after 14 years. After his release Gorman appealed his conviction and was subsequently acquitted.
PETER HAMILTON One of four escapers to be arrested hiding in the River Lagan, about half an hour after the escape, Peter Hamilton was among those most viciously beaten by the RUC and screws. Hamilton, from Ardoyne in North Belfast, was serving a life sentence at the time of the escape following his arrest in 1975. He was finally released in April 1993.
PAUL KANE Arrested outside Castlewellan along with 47