Disappeared victim Columba McVeigh was ‘exploited’ by British intelligence

The family of ‘vulnerable’ Co Tyrone teenager Columba McVeigh who was recruited to work for British military intelligence before the IRA killed and secretly buried him believe he was “exploited” by his handlers.

The 19-year-old, from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone, was last seen in November 1975 and was later shot and secretly buried by republicans.

He is one of the group of victims known as the ‘Disappeared’, whose remains have yet to be found despite going missing almost half a century ago.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains has carried out several searches of bogland in Co Monaghan for the teenager’s remains without success.

In a new book, veteran journalist Martin Dillon reveals rarely details about the circumstances leading up to Mr McVeigh’s death.

In ‘The Sorrow and the Loss – The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women’, Mr Dillon tells how the tragic teenager was recruited as a British army agent.

Details of Mr McVeigh’s back story were first revealed by journalist Duncan Campbell based on an account given to him by Fred Holroyd, a former British army intelligence officer based in the north in the 1970s.

Mr Holroyd believed that Mr McVeigh was compromised in 1974, a year before his disappearance, after he was brought into an undercover military operation in part to infiltrate the IRA.

The plot was devised by another military intelligence officer Tony Poole, who later described Mr McVeigh, as “woolly headed”.

Holroyd claimed to Mr Dillon that the teenager was encouraged to keep ammunition in his own home, which would then be raided.

Mr McVeigh was then to seek sanctuary with the IRA.

The ultimate objective of the operation, according to the book, was to “use him to compromise a local priest he believed was running an escape route for IRA men fleeing Northern Ireland to the Republic”.

Mr McVeigh’s home was later raided, the ammunition was found and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

After being dismissed by the target priest he turned himself into the RUC who told him to go home.

He was later arrested and charged with possessing ammunition.

After being remanded to Crumlin Road prison he was placed in an IRA wing.

While in prison it was quickly established he wasn’t a member of the IRA and after being accused of being an informer and subjected to “harsh treatment”, he admitted working with Tony Poole.

It is now claimed the intelligence officer had previously told him that if under pressure while in jail he was to admit to being an agent and provide a bogus list of other ‘informers’, which included a politician, solicitor and milkman.

The IRA subsequently shot a Protestant milkman in the Pomeroy area, but it was not the man on the list.

The victim was doing relief work because the regular milkman was off sick.

Although not stated in the book, Duncan Campbell reported that “Holroyd noted the milkman’s death in his notebook at the time, commenting that ‘the milkman in Pomeroy was head of Tony’s man’s confession list….mistaken identity’.”

Mr McVeigh received a suspended sentence for the ammunition and was released from prison a month before the milkman was killed.

He later moved to Dublin and disappeared without a trace.

His sister Dympna described him as “not the full shilling” to the author, a point that Mr Dillon pressed her on.

“When I asked her if she meant that he was naive, she agreed that this was a better description of him,” he said.

“It could, I believe, explain why Poole chose to exploit him.

“After all, he had called him ‘woolly-headed’.

“‘Our Columba,’ said Dympna, ‘was the kind of kid that if he was about to throw a stone through a window and I said, ‘Don’t do it’, but a stranger said, ‘Do it’, he would do it.

“This suggested that he was a contrarian of sorts who was keen to impress others.”

‘The Sorrow and the Loss – The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women’ by Martin Dillon and published by Merrion Press is available now.