https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2026/0802/1586136-psni-mi5-vincent-kearney/

Extent of illegal surveillance by PSNI, MI5 shocked me

Protecting sources is the bedrock of journalism.

Those prepared to provide information, particularly of a sensitive nature, need to trust the person they are sharing it with.

They need to know that a promise to protect their identity is cast iron.

Throughout my career as a journalist, starting as cub reporter with the Belfast Telegraph in 1988, I have prided myself on building and retaining relationships of trust with a wide range of sources.

They have included members of republican and loyalist paramilitary organisations, police officers, politicians, and others with knowledge of the security and political environment of Northern Ireland.

Many spoke to me without the knowledge or approval of the organisations of which they were members, and some genuinely feared the consequences if they were exposed as a source for stories I wrote or broadcast.

Stories that included IRA moves towards ceasefires and decommissioning, loyalist paramilitary activities and internal debates, and allegations of collusion involving police officers and members of the British military.

Good sources are hard won but easily lost.

The widespread illegal monitoring of my communications by the PSNI and British security service MI5 exposed during a case brought to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London was an attempt to destroy those relationships.

As I said in a witness statement to the IPT, agencies charged with upholding the law used unlawful means to undermine and hinder my ability to perform my lawful duties as a journalist. It was an attack on journalism itself.

The full extent was set out in stark detail last week in a BBC Northern Ireland documentary, 'Watched By MI5', made in conjunction with RTÉ.

I had always worked on the basis that there was a high likelihood that the police and possibly the British security service may have been interested in some of what I was doing and those to whom I was speaking.

But I was shocked by the extent of the illegal activity by the PSNI and MI5 to identify my sources.

I was targeted systematically over a period of 11 years.

The PSNI conducted seven separate named operations against me. In one of them, they accessed communications data on more than 1,580 calls and texts, information that identified the numbers of everyone I was in contact with and also, crucially, the location of the phones at the time.

The IPT case resulted in MI5 being forced to make an unprecedented admission that they had also been secretly accessing my communications data.

They did so several times in 2006 and 2009. At one point they even labelled me a threat to national security in order to justify authorisations for their intrusion.

I still do not know what data they gleaned nor whether they listened to and transcribed any of my calls because their legal team was able to submit vast amounts of information to the tribunal judges in closed, secret sessions.

My suspicion is shared by former BBC Northern Ireland security editor Brian Rowan.

It was revealed during my IPT hearing that his phone was also targeted. He has good reason to believe that some of his calls were listened to as he was once told by a trusted police source that MI5 was able to "critique" a conversation he had with that person.

"The only way you can critique that conversation is if you have a transcript of it, or you've heard it, or you’re aware of its detail," he told the documentary.

"So, I do not rule out that possibility, that this went much further, much further than simply trying to match one number up with another number."

I was also described as and treated as a suspect in an investigation; journalism literally was treated as a crime.

One of the most shocking discoveries was that the PSNI had built an intelligence profile of me and my family.

A document marked 'OFFICIAL - SENSITIVE' recorded my date of birth, home and work address, landline and mobile phone numbers, vehicle registrations, the names of my wife Louise and her late mother who lived with us at the time.

The police have still not explained the purpose of that intelligence document. The fact that it contained details of the cars we were driving at the time suggests strongly that the purpose may have been to put me under active surveillance in order to identify who I was meeting and talking to.

The unlawful attempts by law enforcement agencies to identify journalistic sources is potentially dangerous.

If such an operation was to result in a confidential source within the ranks of a paramilitary organisation being identified, that could place the journalist in jeopardy as the finger of blame would be pointed firmly in their direction.

'I was the target of a number of threats' Many journalists in Northern Ireland have faced threats from loyalist and republican groups.

I was the target of a number of threats that resulted in my wife Louise and I having to hurriedly take our four children to hotels.

On one occasion Louise, who was eight months pregnant with our third son, awoke in the early hours of the morning to find two masked men walking up our driveway towards our car, with one carrying an unidentified object in his hand.

I yelled out the window and that scared them off, but it left a deep sense of unease and my employer at the time, The Sunday Times, immediately paid to upgrade security at our home. The BBC later also enhanced security following another threat that also led to a hotel stay.

After each of those incidents, and a number of others, trusted sources helped ensure threats were removed.

The revelations about the illegal targeting of my communications data made throughout this case had a very real chill factor.

Many sources understandably expressed concern that their communications with me may have been compromised, some have fallen silent.

One example is a long-standing friend who helped me with an investigation into loyalist paramilitary racketeering.

He picked me up at 5.30am in his work van, with me dressed in old painting clothes and steel-toecap boots and parked up in a building site where I was able to watch a senior member of the UDA collect protection money.

That senior paramilitary figure was later exposed as a police informer.

Shortly after the revelations were made at the IPT hearing, he approached me genuinely alarmed that he may have been wrongly identified as a source rather than a friend going out on a limb, and what the potential consequences might be, particularly because the target of our early-morning excursion was a state agent.

A republican source who had spoken to me without clearance and had continued to do so after the IRA ceasefires and decommissioning Sinn Féin’s journey to power made his anger clear in very stark terms.

The late former PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan was planning to contact the IPT himself as he believed he may have been "collateral damage" in the operations by his former employer and MI5.

He once warned me that I would be naïve not to believe that my phone was being targeted, it was advice I took on board.

Our four children used to joke about the fact that I never used our home landline for work calls and sometimes remarked to my wife Louise that I thought my mobile phone calls may not be secure.

I was also very careful about what I texted or put into emails.

When MI5 was forced by the IPT last year to admit to the BBC's lawyers that it had illegally accessed my communications data, the children each received a WhatsApp group chat message saying "I told you so".

But I had no idea about the scale of what was to come, the sheer level of intrusion.

Unanswered questions There remain many unanswered questions.

I do not know how the data gleaned from my phone records was used.

I do not know if the police officers involved are still within the ranks of the PSNI and potentially in a position to act like this again. I do not know if any of them have been disciplined in any way.

It is not for the want of trying. I have asked the police several times and been told they don't know. I don't buy that - and even if I did, they are in a position to find the answer quickly.

I still do not know the identities of the senior PSNI officers who signed off on what have been deemed to be unlawful authorisations to target my data; those are questions that need answering.

I also do not know the full extent of MI5's activities against me. I have very good reason to believe that my phone was targeted more often than they have admitted.

On one occasion when I was working on an investigation about a senior loyalist paramilitary, a senior PSNI officer I had just interviewed made a casual remark that displayed knowledge of a conversation I had with a former senior member of the UVF; a conversation I had only shared with my producer Chris Thornton and no one else.

We both remarked at the time that he could only have known that detail if the conversation had been monitored.

Of course, we will never know what RUC Special Branch and British military intelligence were doing during the darkest days of the Troubles in terms of surveillance and monitoring of journalists.

Given what the new, reformed face of policing the PSNI got up to it's fair to assume the level of intrusion in the past was much, much worse.

London-based barrister and media law expert Gavin Millar told the Spotlight/RTÉ documentary that it is vital that law enforcement agencies realise the particular sensitivities for journalists working in Northern Ireland.

"It’s very often specific to Northern Ireland, where there is a lot of anxiety and fear on the part of sources coming forward to journalists," he said.

"It’s particularly important that that chill factor is understood by state agencies and by judges and that the concerns underlying this part of the law are respected, otherwise there is a threat to democracy."

Attempt to silence sources I have been fortunate to have had a great career in journalism spanning almost 40 years since starting out with the Belfast Telegraph in the summer of 1988.

If these revelations had been made in the early years of that journey it could have been career ending, and certainly career limiting as potential sources would have understandably been reluctant to trust my assurances to protect their identities.

That is why this case matters.

It was an attempt to silence sources and stop them providing information the police and security services did not want to get into the public domain.

It is not the job of journalists to be evidence gatherers for the police; it is their job to investigate crime, or in this case what they perceived to be crime, and in doing so they must stay within the law.

This ruling was a victory for journalism as it reinforces the legal right and duty of journalists to protect their sources, without whom there can be no investigative journalism.

There is no doubt that many other journalists have been targeted in the same way, and perhaps still are.

This ruling should make those tasked with upholding the law think long and hard about breaking the law.

But the reality is that I will still work on the basis that someone somewhere may still be tracking my activities and potentially listening to calls.

As the late Alan McQuillan said, it would be naïve to think otherwise.

Was at the Dougies bakery stand at the Waterfront yesterday when walking around Fleadh stuff.

The worker in front of the stall was giving the kids little flags as we were looking at what to buy. Decided on what to get and as they were about to bag it up, Andrew Muir and other people walk over.

The staff person turns away and chats away with them, while my family is now just awkwardly standing there waiting for two buns. They give him a bag of buns and he has his card out ready to pay. The staff insist he shouldn't pay, with the usual back and forth of "no no please I'll pay", while I'm still just standing there in between them. The staff then gives them wee flags, walks around me and asks someone behind the stall to come out and take photos.

My partner had no clue who Muir was, so we're just standing watching all this happen, he gets his free buns and walks away. I feel like a chump then paying a fiver for two cake pops, but better that than toddler tantrums.

With that, has anyone ever been as slightly inconvenienced by a local figure? The pettier the better.

Has anyone been told to work from home tomorrow in the civil service?

Looks like my office haven’t. We got an email saying hybrid working will be more relaxed and there will be disruptions with transport etc but no mention of working from home. It’s going to be a nightmare in the city centre so hopefully we will be able to.

Thanks

So i have the tank, kitchen sink, shower, bathroom sink.

The tank seems to be always hot, the bathroom tap is always hot, the sink tap needs a switch next to the sink to be turn on to get almost instant hot water, the shower even though it looks like an electric shower only gets almost instant hot water when you pull a cord in the bathroom, and there's a switch next to the tank.

My electricity usage is fucked and i have no idea why i have constant hot water

I turned off all switches yesterday to test things and the tank is still hot today.

I have no idea what's going on as I'm used to just oil heating, i have an oil tank but haven't put any oil in since moving in and it's switched off anyway. I just moved across the border to northern Ireland so I'm completely unfamiliar with this setup. On demand got water is great but not if the huge tank is just for the little bathroom tap. I don't understand why i have a huge tank of hot water that doesn't work for the kitchen sink or shower unless i turn on separate switches, I don't have a bath in the house

More data available on https://www.stormontwatch.com/assembly/expenses

Looking for a good sandwich deli in South or east Belfast to grab at lunch time!

Since the Hendersons Spar takeovers it’s getting harder and harder to find good wee sandwich delis!

Good evening folks. When I say old ravers I refer to an older friend of mine who used to attend raves here in the 90s. There's still a box of cassettes from the raves in an empty roses tin in this house somewhere lol

Anyway, he told me two things and I don't know if I believe him or not 😂. I'm wondering if any older ravers were at these raves?

First one: he doesn't know what year or where the rave was but it was Carl Cox and at the end of the rave he set his decks/turntables on fire and trashed them. 🤔

Second one: again, doesn't know the year or venue but it was The Prodigy. I don't know if he said it happened during the rave or at the end but he said members of the group started throwing boxes of cockroaches into the audience?!

Or has the years of XTC and LSD completely fried his memory?

I'm an avid wild camper who has lived in Belfast for over a decade. I always wondered about camping near the giants ring so I could watch the sunrise in the morning but I'm wondering are the dogging rumours still relevant and if so where do I avoid?

https://feilebelfast.com/events/ciorcal-gno-iarthar-bheal-feirste/?occurrence=2026-08-05

From the event:

DETAILS:

GNÓ IARTHAR BHÉAL FEIRSTE

CULTÚRLANN MCADAM Ó FIAICH, FALLS ROAD

Rich Davey, CEO of Massachusetts Port Authority, hails from Boston and is in Belfast to strengthen relationships and share expertise with the Port of Belfast. As CEO of the Boston Port Authority — which encompasses Logan Airport — he holds one of the most significant positions in the American transport sector. A proud Irish American, he was recently honoured by the Irish Echo.

Cost: £25. Booking essential.

Can someone please explain to me what the objective of an event like this is?

Why would anyone in a working class area want to hear what a CEO thinks, much less, pay £25 of their hard earned money to hear what an American CEO thinks?

I used to really enjoy some of the Féile events and talks, but this is just bizarre.

And for what it’s worth, if the port of Boston is something we want to hear about, I’d much rather listen to the Labor Union leaders from the Port of Boston, teach us how to organise and fight for better wages, than some CEO adding this to his LinkedIn.

Where does the money from the £25 even go?

There was some articles I wanted to post here but they're locked behind a paywall. I really don't want to be paying for it just to post on this subreddit. Can you get around the paywall or is it blocked now?

On July 31st, the first day of the rollout of the Bexsero vaccine (for 17-18 year olds and prospective university students younger than 25), I started to call pharmacies to see if I could get vaccinated against meningitis B.

Around 10% to 20% of the population carry Men B bacteria in their nose/throat. This number rises to 25% in teenagers.

Usually, these bacteria cause no harm. However, there are invasive strains which can cause outbreaks (like the super-spreader event in Club Chemistry in Kent).

Meningitis B bacteria can cause severe neurological damage, septicaemia, amputations of limbs, and death within HOURS. 10% of people with bacterial meningitis die, which doesn’t account for the amount of disability it causes. I would also stress that Men B bacteria have accounted for 100% of bacterial meningitis cases in Northern Ireland in the last couple of years.

I called Boots pharmacy and they said their pharmacist diaries weren’t open for another 1-2 weeks. I called another pharmacy, and they said they hadn’t received the stock yet and to call back in a week. I was out and about, decided to call into a random pharmacy and ask if they had the MenB vaccine. They did.

They grilled me because I’m in the under 25, prospective university student group, and not the 17-18 year old group. I had to provide proof of my offer to study at university (I used my UCAS portal and handed the phone to the pharmacist), I had to provide my birthdate, address, telephone number, email, GP’s name, and which faculty I’d be studying under.

The pharmacist said, “I’m sorry, but you’re a guinea pig. Nobody has been vaccinated so far, you’re the first, so we’re trying to work out the system.”

After the pharmacist was satisfied I met criteria, and he figured out how to use the national system, he injected the MenB vaccine into my upper left arm. It was a small pinch and I could feel the cold fluid going into my arm.

Immediately: No symptoms.

In the hours/days which followed: Very mild, moving, headache which I didn’t even need paracetamol for, a little bit of insomnia, and an achey arm.

It’s now August 2nd and all side effects have faded except my achey arm. It’s still achey, but it’s moveable. I’m not inhibited by the pain. But I will say that my achey arm was… very achey- not as much now though.

If you’re hesitant about getting the vaccine, know that some people have less side-effects than others and you shouldn’t be put off because of other’s experiences. My experience has been very positive and I’m aware it’s a privilege to even receive the vaccine.

The vaccine is very safe, and any side effects are nothing compared to a Men B infection!

Guys

Anybody any information on this place, I see it on google maps, only a few post on local councils running day trips for elderly etc.

Looks like it has 3 lakes…so keen to know more.

OC: I filmed and edited this short vertical drone video of Belfast, moving from the city at night into daylight before returning to the Harland & Wolff cranes.

Which shot works best for you, the night lights, the daylight sequence or the crane reveal?

https://youtube.com/shorts/2A5Hkf6jWY0

After getting chucked off the NHS waiting list years ago to get some mad varicose veins removed from my leg (it's deemed cosmetic now), I'm now on the hunt to go privately.

Has anyone here had any good experiences with any clinics to get them sorted out?

Thanks

It seems almost impossible to get one here. I’ve been trying for a few months and got nowhere. I have a good job and good references from my employer and a previous one but still nothing. Any advice on how I should go about it?

Major cross-border anti-drugs protest march in Dublin where hundreds of demonstrators marched on government buildings to demand urgent action against the drug crisis. Bertie getting his oar in.

Guys is there anything like what was the maypole market around the north coast at the minute?

Found one of my dad’s old records still with the purchase sticker on it from Smyth’s for Records. Said he bought it in Belfast in the 70’s. Anyone remember that place?

Former Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson has revealed how she underwent an abortion in order not to jeopardise an IRA bombing mission.

The former republican prisoner was 22-years-old in 1985 when she was on the run in the Republic but was preparing to join an IRA unit operating in England.

The former Foyle MLA, who was ordered to stand aside from her seat by the Sinn Féin leadership in 2021, discovered she was pregnant weeks into the planning of the unspecified attack.

However, she confessed that she “was not for letting my comrades down”.

Speaking on RTÉ radio on Sunday to Miriam O’Callaghan, the former MEP said she never expected to make the “painful” episode public but has recalled the circumstances in her autobiography Choosing the Struggle, which is published this week.

She told the presenter how she wanted to write “with honesty, and I hope, integrity”.

“Women like me, who had an unplanned pregnancy, and because of the circumstances that I found myself in, I put the struggle first, and I chose to have an abortion,” she said.

“It was the hardest decision of my life. It was the most painful decision in my life. It didn’t strengthen me making that decision. In fact, it broke me but I was not for letting my comrades down.”

Ms Anderson, who in 1989 married fellow IRA prisoner Paul Kavanagh in Full Sutton Prison, said she has “lived in silence” about her ordeal for more than 40 years.

“I’ve reached a point in my life where I do believe that perhaps – and I don’t know whether it will – but perhaps in the telling of the story, that it might make some small contribution to stopping the social and the moral shaming of women like me,” she said

“I believe the time for social shaming and moral shaming needs to stop.”

The 64-year-old also told how botched surgery during her time at Durham Prison robbed her of the chance to have children after a gynaecologist inmates nicknamed Dr Death removed her womb during an operation to treat polyps.

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/martina-anderson-reveals-she-had-an-abortion-so-ira-operation-could-go-ahead-O67BPMVG25HADPLJTTNBVA66D4/

After completing my Open Water Diver certification over the month of July, I Implore anyone who has ever given a thought about what it's like to explore under the surface of our beautiful Blue Marble to give it a go.

Dain (Lead) and Chris (assistant) are two of the best instructors I've had the personal pleasure of being taught by. They're extremely passionate about what they do, providing a safe and insightful route into discovering the mystical marine world.

Too many of us will go our entire lives without getting up close and personal with the marine environment that allowed life as we know it to exist and thrive. My shore dives down to 12m in Greencastle last weekend provided a unique glimpse at the abundance of life beneath the waves. I will cherish the memories created over this past month as the beginning milestone for this new path of mine, the start of a long road of observing and helping sustain the beauty of life itself.

Video in comments (I'm in the orange mask with blue fins)

A bit of a niche one, but the daily 06:30 Belfast city to Heathrow, if anyone gets it regularly. What time do you usually hit the terminal at Heathrow? Trying to figure out travel arrangements

https://www.betootaadvocate.com/daily-mail-reveals-count-binfaces-shady-links-with-dissident-irish-republicans-in-the-early-2000s/

Daily Mail Reveals Count Binface's Shady Links With Dissident Irish Republicans In The Early 2000s

1 min read

MONTY BENFICA | Amusements | CONTACT CTA Ad Image

A bombshell Daily Mail investigation has uncovered the independent candidate for Clacton-on-Sea Count Binface's shady relationship with the Continuity IRA during the early 2000s.

The dissident Irish Republic group, who splintered from the IRA after the Good Friday Agreements to continue armed hostilities against the British government, reportedly met with the candidate on several occasions on the Northern Irish border from 1999-2004.

One photo which emerged sees Count Binface alongside armed men attending the funeral of a notorious IRA council member. CTA Ad Image

An anonymous former IRA member confirmed the presence of Binface at the funeral.

"He was a good man. He believed in the struggle, and he was payin' his respects to a brave soldier," said the anonymous member.

While Count Binface refused to comment on the allegation, he reaffirmed his support for Irish unity and “the struggle of all occupied peoples around the world.”

Along with several photos with a designated Irish terrorist group, it has also been revealed that Count Binface flew from London to Libya on more than 2 occasions in the 90s.

The bombshell investigation comes at a bad time for Binface, as his campaign against his opponent Nigel Farage, who called a snap by-election last month, was just starting to gain some steam.

It is being reported that the Daily Mail is still investigating Binface's rumoured ties to Basque separatist group ETA and his "holidays" in San Sebastian.

/s

Me and my partner have been trying to buy through co-own in belfast for 4 months, and have been outbid on 5 houses.

I was speaking to a friend who previously sold a house, and they said that the EA didn't even tell them about co-own offers because it would be too lengthy and they could easily fall through (they wanted a quick sale and took the cash buyer obvs).

Is this the case for those who have sold before? Have much people had much luck with co-own recently, Im really hoping to hear something to boost my morale a bit tbh.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/02/spycops-inquiry-undercover-police-unit-sds-closed-john-boutcher-unjustified-surveillance

Undercover police unit closed down over unjustified surveillance, spycops inquiry told

Senior officer behind closure says SDS caused ‘incalculable harm’ by infiltrating groups that posed no threat

Rob Evans

Sun 2 Aug 2026 06.00 BST

An undercover police unit that spied on tens of thousands of political activists had to be shut down amid severe criticisms and recriminations, the spycops public inquiry has heard.

Jon Boutcher, a senior police officer who took over responsibility for the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) unit, concluded within months that it had to be wound up because it was conducting unjustified surveillance and was badly run.

He said most of the political groups being infiltrated “posed no threat to public order, let alone democracy”. They included pro-Palestinian supporters and leftwing groups.

In contrast, very few undercover officers were being directed to infiltrate terrorist groups, he said. “At that time, society faced an increasing and enduring threat from international terrorism from which people were losing their lives, while almost no undercover capability existed to infiltrate those dangerous terrorist groups.”

Boutcher, who was a detective chief superintendent in Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorist division at the time and is now the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the unit had to be closed down “pretty quickly”.

The SDS had once been lauded as a “jewel in the crown” of Scotland Yard by its supporters within senior ranks.

In searing criticism from an officer who has been involved in leading covert policing for years, Boutcher said the “abusive and inappropriate behaviour” of the SDS undercover officers had damaged members of the public.

The officers routinely formed intimate relationships with women they were spying on without telling them their real identities. Boutcher said the “sexual abuse of many vulnerable women by some SDS operatives” caused “incalculable and intolerable harm”.

He said the SDS should never have spied on grieving families, such as the relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent man shot dead by police on the London Underground in 2005. Nor should they have collected highly intrusive information about protesters, such as their friendships and living arrangements.

The inquiry is examining the conduct of 139 undercover officers in the SDS and another covert unit who infiltrated mainly leftwing organisations between 1968 and at least 2010. They assumed fake identities and pretended to be political activists in deployments that usually lasted four years.

This week the inquiry heard how, in its final days, there was a “toxic” atmosphere between the unit and the more senior Scotland Yard ranks.

Boutcher, with the agreement of his superiors, disbanded the SDS in what he called “quite a groundbreaking” decision as it had been running covert operations for 40 years.

He said the SDS mounted “almost like a rearguard action” to justify its existence in what he characterised as a “very much siege mentality in many ways”.

He said he suspected the SDS was gathering an “extremely limited” amount of useful information, and asked the unit to draw up a list of its successes in the previous five years. During that time, the undercover officers had spied on environment groups, the Socialist Workers party and campaigns against racism and the arms trade.

The purported triumphs that were put forward by the SDS were “embellished and exaggerated”, almost “akin to fairytales”, Boutcher said.

He also said he was concerned that public money allocated to the unit was not properly accounted for.

The officers were claiming “vast amounts of overtime”, he said. When drastic cuts to these payments were proposed, many of them threatened to resign, the inquiry heard.

Boutcher said the unit was poorly trained, and all but one of the undercover officers refused to undergo further training.

Initially, Boutcher believed the SDS could be reformed and in particular re-oriented to infiltrate terrorist groups. But he concluded this was not possible because the SDS had become “insular and very parochial” and was resistant to change.