By Debbie McCann, Michael O’Farrell
THE Sinn Féin member who controversially called to a young woman’s door and told her to delete criticism of Brian Stanley, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, facilitated an armed robbery in which a garda was shot dead, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Séamus Lynch was jailed for his part in the IR£200,000 robbery of a post office cash van at Drumree, Co. Meath, in August 1984, after pleading guilty in the Special Criminal Court.
Detective Garda Frank Hand, 27, was shot dead during the robbery and three Provisional IRA men were later convicted of his capital murder. They were sentenced to death but this was commuted to 40 years in prison.
A court heard at the time Mr Lynch, then aged 21, was approached by a member of the Provisional IRA and asked to arrange for money and guns to be hidden in a safe place as there was going to be a robbery.
When he attended at the Special Criminal Court for his trial, armed troops surrounded the court. He was refused bail.
The MoS has verified that Mr Lynch is the man who former Sinn Féin activist Christine O’Mahony said called to her house – and told her through her parents to delete the critical tweets.
She deleted the tweets and subsequently resigned from the party.
Asked this week if he had anything to say concerning the controversy surrounding his knocking on Ms O’Mahony’s door, or his involvement in the robbery that led to a young garda being shot dead, Mr Lynch replied: ‘No. Look it, these people are neighbours and friends of mine and I won’t be making any comment.’
Pressed again as to whether he would like to comment, Mr Lynch walked away and said: ‘I won’t be making any comment to you.’
Ms O’Mahony, who is of mixed race and is bisexual, has said that following her resignation and references online to Mr Lynch’s attendance at her house, she has received racist, homophobic and other abuse and bullying online from other Sinn Féin members.
Several other young Sinn Féin members have resigned over the matter, making them the latest in a long line of councillors and party activists to resign over bullying within the party in recent years.
Responding to the controversy, which has prompted Mr Stanley to address the Dáil on Tuesday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald – on RTÉ Radio One’s Claire Byrne show this week – played down the incident of a party member calling to the door of the young activist.
‘I know everyone in my cumann, they all know me,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t think twice about knocking on a cumann member’s door. Obviously, in this case, exception was taken to somebody knocking on the door but I can’t allow you to create an entirely false perception that some anonymous unknown figure landed on anyone’s door.’ Ms McDonald said she knows who the person is who called to Ms O’Mahony.
‘This person is a local person who is known to all of the members and was elected to the position that they hold,’ she said.
Meath East Sinn Féin TD Darren O’Rourke told LMFM radio that the person who called to Ms O’Mahony’s door is a ‘life-long neighbour and friend of the family’.
Mr O’Rourke said the suggestion from opposition TDs was that ‘it is the heavies marching down from West Belfast and it is not that at all’.
This weekend, Ms O’Mahony, who was an officer in the Meath branch of Sinn Féin, told this newspaper that the visit from Mr Lynch – whom she did not name – to her home the day after she had publicly criticised a tweet referencing Leo Varadkar’s sexuality, made her feel ‘uncomfortable’. ‘Whenever we have to do party stuff we do it in the office which is five minutes down the road. So, I didn’t know why he came to the house.’
Ms O’Mahony added: ‘Fine Gael were trying to spin it as a heavy, but he was a neighbour and I felt uncomfortable. Mary Lou on Claire Byrne said this is normal in the party and I thought, “oh, that’s even weirder”. This man is in his 60s. He doesn’t have Twitter, he only has Facebook, so the screenshot was taken and sent to head office and because he picked me to be PRO of the cumann it was his responsibility now.’
Det. Garda Hand – a committed garda who was involved two years earlier in the arrest of notorious killer Malcolm MacArthur at the attorney general’s house – was shot dead by the men wearing boiler suits and balaclavas in a ‘well-planned and carefully executed’ robbery.
Three IRA men – Tony Eccles, Patrick McPhillips and Brian McShane – were originally sentenced to death for the capital murder of the garda, but this was commuted to life and they were later released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
The young detective had been accompanying a cash delivery van. He had just married his wife when he was murdered and, heartbreakingly, she discovered she was pregnant after his death.
Det. Garda Hand’s parents, Mickey and Teresa, both now deceased, never recovered from their son’s killing. Earlier this year Frank Hand’s sister Teresa appealed in an open letter to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to show more sensitivity to people who were killed during the Troubles.
