Sunday Business Post
By Barry McCaffrey
20 August 2006
Security sources believe the bomb attack on a house owned by Ulster Unionist peer Edward Haughey last week was part of a series of attacks that may signal the start of a dissident republican campaign to destabilise the North ahead of attempts to reestablish the Stormont assembly.
Security sources believe the bomb attack on a house owned by Ulster Unionist peer Edward Haughey last week was part of a series of attacks that may signal the start of a dissident republican campaign to destabilise the North ahead of attempts to reestablish the Stormont assembly.
Sources on both sides of the border were increasingly concerned last week after the Real IRA bomb attack on the house owned by Haughey, who is also a high-profile businessman.
Last Tuesday, the Real IRA was blamed for a bomb attack on a house belonging to Haughey, a former member of the Seanad, at Drumgooley near Hackballscross in Co Louth.
The 70lb bomb, made of homemade fertiliser, was packed into a gas cylinder and placed against a wall in the house, which is being renovated.
The device, connected to a command wire running 100 feet down a laneway, only partially exploded.
Garda sources said the device would have completely destroyed the building if it had fully exploded.
The Haughey estate is situated between Dundalk and Carrickmacross close to the border and is only a short distance from the main Dublin-Belfast rail line where the Real IRA planted two bombs last weekend.
In January 1981, the Provisional IRA shot dead former Ulster Unionist politicians Sir Norman Stronge and his son James on their family estate at Tynan Abbey near Middletown in Co Armagh.
The IRA said it had killed the men because they were ‘‘the symbols of hated unionism’’.
In the late 1990s, the south Armagh home of former IRA supergrass Eamon Collins was destroyed by fire shortly after it had been renovated. Collins had implicated a number of IRA colleagues in a catalogue of murders. He subsequently retracted his evidence and the IRA allowed him to leave the North unharmed.
However, he later returned to his native Newry and testified against senior south Armagh republican Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy in a libel case he had taken against the Sunday Times newspaper. Collins was found stabbed to death near his home in January 1999.
No group has admitted responsibility for his murder.
Haughey is regarded as the second wealthiest man in the North with a personal fortune estimated at stg£350million (€514 million). The father-of-three lives with his wife Mary at Ballyedmond Castle in the village of Rostrevor, near the border town of Newry.
In 2004, he became the first person to take a seat in the House of Lords and Seanad in nearly 80 years when nominated by then Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble. He took the title Lord Ballyedmond of Mourne.
Security sources believe that Haughey’s decision - as an Ulster Unionist peer - to build a house in the heartland of militant republicanism led him to be targeted by the Real IRA.
Haughey’s family are from the Kilcurry area, close to the scene of Tuesday’s bomb attack, while he grew up in nearby Dundalk.
The 62-year-old was educated at Kilcurry primary school and at the Christian Brothers School in Dundalk.
In 1964, he emigrated to the United States where he found work in the burgeoning pharmaceutical industry.
He returned to Ireland four years later and established a veterinary pharmaceutical business which prospered, due to the introduction of European Union legislation connected to the safety of veterinary drugs.
Haughey’s company, Norbrook, expanded widely during the next 30y ears and is believed to be the largest producer of veterinary medical products in the world. It exports to 120 countries, making products for nine of the ten largest multinational pharmaceutical companies. It has a workforce of 1,300, with most of its business based around the Newry area.
Outside the pharmaceutical industry, Haughey has business interests in a helicopter company, as well as farming, sports and leisure facilities in Britain and Ireland. He has been involved in a number of high-profile court cases in recent years.
He has had a long association with Fianna Fail and, in 1994, was nominated to the Seanad by then taoiseach Albert Reynolds. In 1997, he was again nominated to the Seanad by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. In the same year he became a member of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation and the British/Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body.
He has strong links with the Conservative Party in Britain and has donated several million pounds to the party, including helping to finance the then Conservative Party leader Michael Howard’s use of helicopters to travel around Britain during the last general election campaign. He is also Chile’s honorary consul in the North.
Then UUP leader David Trimble said Haughey’s appointment to the House of Lords in May 2004 ‘‘reflects and emphasises the breadth of Ulster Unionism’’.
‘‘Edward Haughey commands respect in all of his endeavours,” Trimble said. ‘‘He will, I am certain, become a valued, trusted and talented part of the Ulster Unionist team.”
Speaking of Trimble, the multi-millionaire businessman said: ‘‘He has provided us with international credibility and has gone a long way to extinguish the bad images inflicted on us by 30 years of terrorism.
‘‘My job will be to support him in his noble task so that he can continue to make Northern Ireland an economically and socially prosperous place in which to live and work and where people can justifiably say: ‘Our past is our history not our destiny.’”
Security sources were last week undecided as to whether the attack on Haughey’s home was an opportunistic ‘‘one-off’’ or the beginning of a concerted campaign against him.
‘‘He has brought hundreds of jobs to the local community and was born in the area,” said one PSNI source. ‘‘But this is the heartland of republicanism and they regard him as a symbol of unionism in their backyard.
“He will have to think long and hard before he decides if he is going to continue building that house.”
On the death of INLA Volunteer Michael Devine at 12 minutes to eight on Thursday, 20 August 1981, his brother-in-law Frankie McCauley said, “One thinks,’Ten men, how many more have to die? We have ours now over us. Next week it will be big Laurence’s people waiting for the same thing. Then the Devlins after that and another boy will go on hunger strike and another. They’ll never break them.’”
Conversation on the day revolved around the courage and determination of the Hunger Strikers and the wavering attitude of the Irish Government, the SDLP and the Catholic hierarchy. Another topic of conversation was the election in Fermanagh/South Tyrone of Owen Carron, who attended the funeral. He was repeatedly mobbed by well-wishers. Three British military helicopters flew overhead. The cortege made its way to the top of the cemetery and to the plot where Michael Devine’s comrade Patsy O’Hara was buried three months previously. A piper playing laments was followed by a guard of honour of eight men in uniform. The two leading Volunteers carried the Starry Plough and Tricolour, followed by six more carrying semi-automatic shortarms in their belts. Three drummers then marched silently forward. A second guard of honour of 16 men flanked the coffin on the last few yards of its journey.
