My readers would surely have noticed this report on alleged INLA involvement in brothel-keeping in the Belfast area. There have been expressions of both surprise and anger at the idea that republicans could be running such sordid establishments.
This is where the growing years and still active memory come in useful. There is absolutely nothing new in members of the INLA’s political tradition running whorehouses and therefore there should be nothing shocking either.
Back in the mid to late 1970’s the INLA’s political precursors, the Official IRA ran massage parlours in various parts of Belfast. In fact they ran some of them, especially those in so-called neutral areas like the University district, along with the UVF, sharing the spoils and goodness knows what else, e.g. blackmail intel on customers and so on.
The Loyalists had their own separate networks of course – a ‘secretary’ at the UDA’s headquarters on the Newtownards Road at one point was said to have been capable of creating rapture with a few spoonfuls of baby oil – and some believe that even the British Army got in on the act, setting up a massage parlour in North Belfast as an intelligence/blackmail source.
At the time of the November 1972, Four Square Laundry ambush, the IRA claimed to have raided the parlour where two undercover soldiers were killed. The brothel, on the Antrim Road was called the Gemini Health Studios.
The IRA claims were denied by the military and journalist Kevin Myers reported that he had visited the premises not long after the alleged shooting but found no evidence of a gun attack.
Anyway, the point of all this is that if the INLA has been running brothels they are only observing a long and sordid tradition.
Isn’t it also alleged that Paddy Wilson was a visitor to the Gemini Health Studio and that it was here where he “let slip” the names of the IRA members involved in the killing of the Scottish soldiers in 1971?
Never heard that. Doesn’t sound right to me…..
Fair enough. I seem to recall it was Martin Dillon who wrote about it, possibly in The Dirty War but I don’t have it near to verify.
indeed…….
Managed to find the reference. My memory is working!
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Kc1jtzUNiFAC&pg=PA417&lpg=PA417&dq=martin+dillon+dirty+war+brothel&source=bl&ots=PLbkWqUfB0&sig=ePsvE6kFeycMAP7LeqvB7HTTueU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0kc_GsL_aAhUOPsAKHcz7DRUQ6AEIaDAN#v=onepage&q=paddy%20wilson&f=false
I imagine MI6 were also ‘in on the game,’ so to speak?
It is very strange the “Collusion fanatics” have never jumped upon the story about Paddy Wilson, the massage parlour and the identity of the soldiers killers? I would suspect John White could maybe shed some light on the matter?
There is another fact the “Collusion fanatics” have yet to come to terms with.
If “Loyalists” did collude with the various arms of the British intelligence agencies as alleged. Then those “Loyalists” have the British government over a barrel as they can blow the lid off everything.
“Loyalists” who have colluded as informants are nobodies, and they have to do what their puppet masters bid them to do!
Here is a simple riddle for you to solve? http://northbelfastchessclub.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/chess-riddles-and-british-establishment.html
All this fevered speculation would come to naught if the truth was simply that Dillon had plucked the story from his ass. Also, Loyalists who worked for the British have as much power ‘to blow the lid of everything’ as did Colin Wallace or Fred Holroyd, assuming of course there was truth in what they said. Go ask them where the lid is now……
Do you think Dillon did? Or that he was in the habit of doing so?
I’ll pass…….
It’s a shame that Dillon is probably the most widely read writer when it comes to the Troubles. Although The Dirty War and The Shankill Butchers were the books that made me take an interest, the salacious, tabloid style writing hampers any real academic interest. As well as this, Steve Bruce demolished the “Murphy = psychopath” angle that Dillon uses, which makes the rest of his theories in the book suspect.