LETTERS True repentance
Sir: Mary Ellen Synon (Letters, 27 April) asks if Sean O'Callaghan is a liar as well as a killer. I know him, admire him and can vouch for his trustworthiness.
Mr O'Callaghan joined the Provisional IRA in 1970 at the age of 15. A few years later he murdered two members of the Northern Irish security forces. Sickened, he resigned in 1975, but in 1979 he rejoined the IRA as an agent (unpaid) of the Irish Garda Special Branch.
While OC of the IRA's Southern Com- mand, Mr O'Callaghan inflicted serious damage on his own organisation. In 1985, fearing exposure, he went to England. In 1988, although there was no evidence link- ing him with the 1970s murders, he gave himself up and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mr O'Callaghan has not had to lie to anyone since 1991 when he went public on his true attitude to the IRA. He devotes his considerable intelligence to trying to help others understand the republican move- ment and defeat terrorism.
What impresses me most about Mr O'Callaghan is how he honestly faced the dreadful acts he had committed without (pace Sheridan Gilley, Letters, 27 April) making excuses, and then set out to make what practical amends he could. By emerg- ing with honour out of such a moral infer- no he gives others hope.
I am sure Mr O'Callaghan would be delighted if Miss Synon were to visit him in Maghaberry Prison. His clear-eyed assess- ment of Sinn Fein and the IRA could help dispel that misty-eyed romanticism about Irish nationalism which she shares with so many of her fellow Irish-Americans and which inhibits her customary intellectual rigour.
Ruth Dudley Edwards
40 Pope's Lane, London W5
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