The Spy Who The Spy Who Jailed the Omagh Bomb Plotter | Inside Britain's Vast Espionage Network | 4
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Jan 27, 2026 
Cara McGoogan, investigative journalist and author who researches British intelligence and Troubles-era espionage. She dissects the Stakeknife saga, the scale of undercover networks, and how handlers and security services shaped violence. Short, sharp accounts cover recruitment, protected identities, families seeking truth, and the lingering secrecy that blocks accountability.
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Agent At Center Of State Collusion
- The Kennevar/Canova report exposed that a high-ranking IRA member acted as a long-term British agent while committing killings and interrogations.
- MI5 and the Army were aware of his actions and treated them as acceptable to protect his intelligence value.
Protecting Cover Cost Lives
- Handlers sometimes knew where interrogations and killings would occur and chose not to intervene to avoid blowing cover.
- That meant protecting an agent's usefulness came at the cost of permitted deaths.
Scale Meant Trade-Offs
- British services ran hundreds or thousands of agents across both republican and loyalist groups during the Troubles.
- That scale meant intelligence was selectively used to avoid exposing sources, not always to prevent attacks.
