The Yank: The True Story of a Former US Marine in the Irish Republican Army

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He would later be sentenced at the Old Bailey in May 1996 to thirty-five years for conspiring to blow up the electrical grid that fed south-east England and was released from a British prison on 22 May 2000, as a consequence of the Good Friday Agreement. In all, Crawley would spend fourteen years in prison for his IRA beliefs. The crew from the Irish fishing trawler lined the gunwale of their boat. I didn’t recognise any of them. Mr Crawley, an ex-member of the US Marine Corps special forces, believes Mr O'Callaghan wasn't the only informer and others based in Ireland also provided information. So we had people at the top, I'm not saying all of them, there were people who were on the same mission as us, but there were other people in crucial positions who are not on the same mission as us, who had a different agenda." You know, when insurgency takes off or a guerrilla campaign takes off, the Brits want to know a few things and they psychologically profile the movement," he said.

In 1984 Mr Crawley was on board the Marita Ann when it was boarded by Irish authorities in the Atlantic Ocean resulting in the seizure of a huge hoard of weapons. Although he declined to name any individuals, he said some of the suspected informers he has identified remain active in the Provisional movement and other factions.

Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has long denied he was a member of the IRA. Crawley says he understands the “political practicalities” behind the denials. “I can understand the political necessity of not putting yourself in prison but at the same time sometimes you just admire people who came out and said exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it,” he says. Crawley was in-and-out of the England team over the next few years. In 1996 he scored 106 against Pakistan, his first Test century, and in 1998 he scored 156 not out against Sri Lanka, his highest Test score. However, a poor performance during the 1998–99 Ashes series led to him being dropped from the side, apparently for good.

He along with several others were later arrested and in 1997 he was sentenced to another 35 years but was released three years later under the Good Friday Agreement. The purpose of the book isn't to point fingers at people, it's really just to talk about the narrative, we were a republican movement, we were fighting for a republic," he said. Initially suspicious that an American might be working for US intelligence on behalf of the British, the IRA vetted Crawley thoroughly, but finally in 1980 he was “sworn in”. Crawley remains tight-lipped about operations he took part in. “I must be careful what I say, but I became a full-time active member. I gave my all to it.”

By Dan Kaufman

Former IRA gunrunner John Crawley says he used to meet Martin McGuinness in the 1980s in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin to discuss operations. They brought peanuts and fed the squirrels, he says. They also talked about guns and building the IRA’s arsenal of weapons. JC:My biggest challenge was figuring out what to say without incriminating myself or anyone else. The Irish Republican Army is still an illegal organization in Ireland and Britain. I hope I have managed to do that. Another challenge was simply remembering. Some of these incidents happened over 40 years ago. Having said that, many are seared into my memory and will never be forgotten. Furthermore, I had never previously written with a view toward publication and didn’t know if I had the ability to do so. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” John Crawley was born in New York to Irish immigrant parents, and moved to Ireland as a young teenager to attend school. Inspired there by the struggle for Irish freedom against British rule in the North of Ireland, he returned to America to receive military training in an elite, special forces “Recon” unit of the US Marine Corps. Afterwards, he returned to Ireland to volunteer for the IRA and conducted many missions, including gun-running from the US, working with Boston criminal head Whitey Bulger. Crawley would be captured and imprisoned twice, both in Ireland and in England, while on major missions, done in both times by informers. He is now retired and married with a family, and lives in County Monaghan, Ireland. He remains as committed as ever to the ending of British rule in Ireland and the establishment of a united Irish Republic.