39 Facts About Martin McGartland

Martin McGartland's identity became publicly known after a minor court case.

Martin McGartland was later shot six times by a gunman, but recovered from the injuries.

Martin McGartland has written two books about his life, Fifty Dead Men Walking: The Terrifying True Story of a Secret Agent Inside the IRA and Dead Man Running.

Martin McGartland's parents were separated and he had one brother, Joe, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Catherine.

One of the effects of the continuous rioting and the campaign of bombings and shootings in Belfast and all over Northern Ireland was to make Martin McGartland grow up quickly.

Martin McGartland described his childhood in West Belfast as one in which he would join with older boys in stone-throwing to goad the British Army.

Martin McGartland would join in with other Catholic youths to battle against Ulster Protestant boys from nearby loyalist estates; this mostly involved throwing stones at each other.

Martin McGartland was later killed after accidentally falling through a skylight at her school.

Martin McGartland attended Vere Foster Primary School, a controlled school located in Moyard, Ballymurphy.

Martin McGartland befriended a homeless man who sheltered in the disused Old Broadway cinema on the Falls Road, and provided the man with food and money.

Martin McGartland became involved in petty crime, which brought him to the notice of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Martin McGartland's activities attracted the attention of the IRA and on several occasions he narrowly escaped local disciplinary squads.

Martin McGartland has said that because he was sickened by increasing Provisional IRA violence directed at young Catholic petty lawbreakers in the form of punishment beatings and knee-cappings, in 1986 at the age of 16 he agreed to provide information to the RUC about local IRA members, thereby preventing them from carrying out many attacks against the security forces.

Martin McGartland then worked for a local taxi firm as an unlicensed driver, paying a percentage to the IRA.

Martin McGartland recounted in his book Fifty Dead Men Walking that he occasionally drove IRA punishment squads around and overheard them boast about the beatings they had meted out to their victims.

Martin McGartland asserts many were innocent people who had somehow incurred the wrath of a member of the IRA.

Martin McGartland was given the code name Agent Carol by the RUC.

Martin McGartland had a special tracking device attached to his car.

Martin McGartland was recruited by an IRA Active Service Unit which was headed by a man known as "Spud".

Martin McGartland convinced his IRA associates that he was a committed member of the organisation and he successfully led a double life, which was kept secret even from the mother of his two sons.

Martin McGartland worked closely with Belfast actress Rosena Brown, a prominent and highly skilled IRA intelligence officer.

Martin McGartland discovered how IRA sympathizers had infiltrated various public institutions and businesses, and many members acquired computer skills, thereby enabling the IRA to gain access to detailed information on a wide range of people in Northern Ireland including politicians, lawyers, judges, members of the security forces, Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, and prison officers.

Martin McGartland had driven the IRA gunmen's getaway car and had been brought into the operation so late he had no time to advise his handlers, though he had previously indicated the IRA's interest in the area.

In that same year 1991, Martin McGartland provided information about a mass shooting attack planned on Charlie Heggarty's pub in Bangor, County Down, patronised by British soldiers after a general football match between the prison wardens.

The RUC intercepted the two couriers delivering the guns to be used to shoot the soldiers and Martin McGartland was exposed as an infiltrator.

Martin McGartland wrote that diaries of the late Detective Superintendent Ian Phoenix, head of the Northern Ireland Police Counter-Surveillance Unit, showed that he and other Special Branch officers had advised senior RUC officers against stopping the gun couriers' vehicles, as doing so would put Martin McGartland's life at risk and allow the actual IRA gunmen to escape.

Martin McGartland later alleged that McCarthy and Hamilton were RUC informers based on what he had personally observed of the men during his kidnapping as he waited to be interrogated, tortured and subsequently executed.

Martin McGartland escaped being killed by jumping from a third floor window in the Twinbrook flat where he had been taken for interrogation following his abduction.

Martin McGartland failed in his attempt to receive compensation for his injuries.

Three years after moving to England, Martin McGartland says the IRA sent his mother a Catholic mass card with his name written on it.

Martin McGartland was cleared of perverting the course of justice.

Martin McGartland had attempted to wrestle the gun away from his assailant, but was shot in the left hand, the blast almost destroying his thumb.

Martin McGartland received assistance from his neighbours and was rushed to intensive care in hospital where he recovered from his injuries.

The day after Martin McGartland was shot, the incident, along with the murders of Eamon Collins, Brendan Fegan, and Paul Downey, was cited by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble in an interview with reporters in Belfast, to question whether the IRA ceasefire was being maintained.

Martin McGartland reminded Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, that this was a condition of the early release of paramilitaries under the Good Friday Agreement.

In 1997 Martin McGartland published a book about his life, Fifty Dead Men Walking.

Martin McGartland has said that his relatives have received harassment from Republicans; in 1996, his brother Joe was subjected to a severe and prolonged IRA punishment beating with baseball bats, iron bars and a wooden plank embedded with nails.

Martin McGartland additionally has a contract which was signed by MI5 after he was shot in England in which the representatives of the PSNI and Northumbria Police acknowledged his service in general terms.

Martin McGartland pointed out that the case had nothing to do with national security or his undercover work 24 years earlier.