Marty said;- I joined the IRA only to infiltrate it, acted consistently to combat terrorism and save life, and did not betray my friends or my beliefs.
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Martin McGartland Letter;
Dead Men Walking
The Guardian, Wednesday 3 June 2009
When reviewing "Fifty Dead Men Walking" (The trouble with the Troubles, Film & Media, April 3), the film loosely based on my life as an RUC agent, Ronan Bennett discussed the cultural and political significance of informers, who, he observed, have rarely been viewed sympathetically on screen or - when he refers to criminals he met in the Old Bailey - in real life. Mr Bennett may have been commissioned on the strength of his many writings about Ireland but it would be understandable if his negative personal experience of the RUC, in that he was wrongly accused of murdering an RUC officer in the 1970s, had left its mark on him. While I have every sympathy for anyone who is mistakenly charged, I believe it would have been relevant here for the Guardian, or Mr Bennett himself, to point out this background either in the course of the review or as a footnote.
I can be distinguished from the fictional police informers, including those Ronan Bennett says were depicted in the film Battle of Algiers and the novel The Informer and to whom he compares me in this review. Unlike them, I joined the IRA only to infiltrate it, acted consistently to combat terrorism and save life, and did not betray my friends or my beliefs. On the contrary I am proud of my undercover role inside the Provisional IRA as a police agent between 1987 and 1991.
Martin McGartland
Address withheld
Link;- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jun/03/letter-dead-men-walking
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You can read the Ronan Bennett review of Fifty Dead Men Walking (The Film)
here;- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/200/apr/03/fifty-dead-men-walking
However, before you do you need to be aware that the film (Fifty Dead Men Walking) is in no way a true account of what took place, my life story. The film is 99% fiction. It was made with the help of IRA members. The IRA we paid to consult on film, carry out security etc. The film is as near to the Truth as Earth is to Pluto. I took legal action against film company, Kari Skogland. The result was that many last minute changes were made to the film. My Solicitor (Thank You Paul Tweed, Belfast) ensured that disclaimers were added to the start and the ending of the film. Those disclaimers make clear that the film is NOT a true account of my book (Fifty Dead Men Walking) nor of my life story. It is also made very clear that I was NOT in anyway connected or involved in the making of the film. I was also paid damages, compensation by film-makers. I also wish to place on the record that I refused an offer from film company to be a paid consultant on the film. I was not willing to be involved with a film when IRA were connected to it.
As for Mr Ronan Bennett - he is not the best place person to be writing such a review. Here are just some of the information I found on line about him;
1. In 1974 while at school Bennett was convicted of murdering Inspector William Elliott, a 49 year-old police officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during an Official IRA bank robbery at the Ulster Bank in The Diamond shopping area at Rathcoole, close to his Merville Garden Village home, on 6 September 1974. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 1975 and Bennett was released from Long Kesh prison near Lisburn, Co. Antrim. Later Bennett apparently displayed a sympathy towards the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an unpredictable Official IRA off-shoot terrorist group, which made its name after it murdered Margaret Thatcher's Northern Ireland advisor Airey Neave in 1979.
Link re above; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Bennett
2. Bennett then moved to London. In 1978 he was arrested for conspiracy to cause explosions and spent 16 months in prison on remand. Bennett conducted his own defence, and he and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1979. He studied history at King's College London receiving a first class honours degree, and later completed his Ph.D. at the college in 1987.
Link re above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Bennett
3. AN Irish republican sympathiser, commissioned by the BBC to write a definitive history of the partition of Ireland, has defended the film against claims that it is "hopelessly one-sided".
Link here; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1376477/Republican-writes-BBCs-Irish-drama.html
4. Bennett also stated; 'I would not turn in the bombers'.
Link here; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1369141/I-would-not-turn-in-the-bombers.html
5. Bennett denounced the former IRA man Sean O'Callaghan for informing against his erstwhile terrorist colleagues.
Link here; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1369141/I-would-not-turn-in-the-bombers.html
6. Mr Bennett, who is writing a script with Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, came to prominence in the late Eighties, when he was refused a Commons pass to work for Labour Left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
Link here; Mr Bennett, who is writing a script with Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, came to prominence in the late Eighties, when he was refused a Commons pass to work for Labour Left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
Bennett once wrote;- "I can tell them this: it does not work if the writer is blinkered, one-sided or tries to beat his audience over the head with a political message. I am not interested in writing placard drama, I am not interested in watching it. Contrary to what they have been saying, Rebel Heart has its own balance."
Link here; http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/dec/03/northernireland.theobserver
Each, ever report or review I have read by Mr Bennett are all; "Blinkered, one-sided, tries to beat his audience over head with political message ..."
One other important point I want to place on the record. On Sunday the 29th march 2009 the Sunday Times published the following; http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article5982263.ece under the headline; Martin McGartland police agent in IRA , disowns Fifty Dead Men Walking
"Martin McGartland disowns Fifty Dead Men Walking" However, 5 days later, on Friday 3 April 2009, Ronan Bennett published his review on Fifty Dead Men Walking (The Film) which he would have known that; (a) I was not involved nor connected with the film. (b) I had stated in public that the film was as Near to the Truth as Earth was to Pluto. (c) The Sunday Times only days before reported that; "Martin McGartland police agent in IRA , disowns Fifty Dead Men Walking." and Sunday Times also made clear; "after McGartland watched the film, he demanded, and got, several last-minute changes. For instance, a voiceover by Sir Ben Kingsley, who plays McGartland’s RUC Special Branch handler, sets the historical context and describes McGartland as “his own man”. A number of scenes were cut or voiced over, and disclaimers were inserted at the beginning and end to say that key events and personalities had been changed. .... He contends that the movie is fundamentally a lie that misrepresents his career and his motivation. He believes that if Kari Skogland, the director, had stuck closer to the account he gave in his book and in a BBC documentary, then she would have had a better film."
The Bennett Review; http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/apr/03/fifty-dead-men-walking
