Episode 4
At the end of the Seventies, the IRA built its own internal security system to root out informers. But British intelligence found a fatal flaw that unlocked many of the IRA鈥檚 secrets.
New revelations about how agents of British intelligence infiltrated the Irish Republican Army. By 1979, the British security forces believed the IRA had become so security conscious that they were impossible to penetrate. But reporter Jennifer O鈥橪eary reveals how one weakness in the IRA鈥檚 internal security was exploited to unlock many of the group鈥檚 secrets. She charts how Britain used informers and combined that advantage in secret intelligence with the use of special forces to take on
one of the IRA鈥檚 deadliest units 鈥� a strategy that culminated with the Loughgall ambush, when the SAS killed eight IRA men attacking a police station. The programme shows that the aftermath of the attack
only made the IRA鈥檚 informer problem worse.
