EX-RUC SPECIAL BRANCH HANDLER Tells His Story | Informers, IRA & M*rder | William Matchett
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- William Matchett is an ex-RUC officer who spent years working in the secretive and murky world of informants and agents during his time in Special Branch while “the troubles” raged on.
William shares with us his motivations for joining the RUC during such dangerous times, the techniques they utilized to recruit informants, death threats he’s received over the years and his encounters with the notorious South Armagh unit of the IRA.
We discussed paramilitaries who have committed m*rders and terror attacks while simultaneously working as an RUC Special Branch agent, the subject of collusion between RUC and Loyalist paramilitaries as well as policing a post-Good Friday Agreement state.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Growing up, seeing Catholic family petrol-b*mbed out of their house
08:20 JOINING THE RUC- policing in South Armagh
22:50 Negative view of the RUC & Threats on William’s life
36:00 SPECIAL BRANCH
52:30 Martin McGartland, Ken Barret, Mark Haddock, William Stobie
1:16:00 MEETING WITH INFORMANTS
1:27:05 THE NUTTING SQUAD
1:30:45 UVF/UDA
1:35:55 RUC interrogation
1:44:25 Post-GFA Northern Ireland
1:52:40 What should the RUC done differently throughout the conflict
PLEASE EMAIL ANY & ALL SUGGESTIONS FOR GUESTS & EPISODE TOPICS (if you're reading this and were involved in paramilitary activity please give me a shout if you would like to tell your story, even anonymously to thegoodlistenerpodcast@gmail.com)
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This Chanel is up there with the best if not the best….
Every single episode bang on the money without any bias opinion.
Amazing work
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I'm around the same age as William and his explanation of growing up is spot on. I lived in a very much mixed community and like William when my best friend and I started school, for the very same reasons had to go our separate ways. As catholics the family, who we still keep in touch with today, some 50yrs earlier, had felt under so much pressure, left and moved to Canada. I was witness as a child to break down of the IRA ceasefire on 9th July 1972 and the beginning of the "Battle of Lenadoon". I also followed a similar path as William, but through the military and spent similar times in Newtownhamilton amongst others, probably rubbing shoulders with him, unknowingly. When I joined in 1981, I never thought for a minute that experience would have lasting into the new decade, but so thankful now that my children and grandchildren will never experience this. I too, like William was fortunate enough never to have fired a shot in anger, and as he said, very long periods of relative boredom. Great interview, great series.
Hard to make head nor tail of that story
@@liamg1706 Dude.
Deserves more subs, always great guests.
Was looking forward to this one all week! Even popped off early from watching the France v Portugal match! Thank you, your podcasts are the “go to” for Irish history. Love it! Thank you from Anna in Belfast! Ps please get Toby harden on your podcast, bandit country is the best book
Brilliant read.
The RUC as a whole are heroes to a man but SB are the best of the best, bless them all.
Another wonderful watch!! Love your channel, can't recommend it highly enough!! The book "SECRET VICTORY" by William Matchett is also a wonderful read. Thanks for another brilliant podcast..
Another great interview. Keep em coming
Great content as always bud 👍
To everyone who reads this comment, I think we should all share the link to the channel, there’s absolutely no way that the subscription should be so low especially looking at some of the content of other channels.
All the hard work and dedication from @thegoodlisternerpodcast should be rewarded for such an amazing job he’s doing.
Outstanding
I’m glad this man seems to know his history! That’s a big plus in my books. He also seems genuinely a nice guy!
Thanks for sharing
Fair play to you William a bit of levity and truth that we had ignorance on both sides to history ! We had a chuckle at the realism of being a cop in that you never fired a shot in anger ! But on a serious note chatting to ex branch and RUC guys I know , they seen the absolute madness on both sides and became immune to taking any side ! But nice decent gentleman who was among the decent people ! God bless you William
No such thing as a ‘Protestant school’….. there are state schools, officially for all , And there are schools that are controlled by the Roman Catholic Church ,( and funded by first, the Northern Ireland government , and later by the British government).
Apologies for nit picking….!
Love the school story, I had the same thing in Glasgow as a young child.
Brilliant interview
Film called 50 dead men walking great film about I formed I think it's loosely based on a true story I watched it on prime video etc...great 👍 interview stay blessed people
Just to give you an idea of the Ruc, back in 1986 I was 14 years old and I was hit by an ordinary car as I was crossing a road in Derry. It was my fault, I didn't see the car coming. I was in total shock, lying on the road till an ambulance man brought me back to reality. Just so happened, the driver was an RUC man coming from Belfast on official business and making his way to "Fort George" which was the major British army base in Derry and only a short distance down the road I was lying on.He thought this was an "IRA hit" , he thought it was staged.I spent a week in hospital with serious injuries. If ,in his wildest dreams, it was a "hit" it would have been the first of its kind here and it would have been classed as a suicide attack by a 14 year old boy (IRA boy),,,,He got out of his car, looked at me and then ran off down the road. The RUC interviewed me in my hospital bed and officially charged me with "J Walking" and told me to appear at their station in two weeks time. I will never forget it, they agreed to drop the charge to just a warning if I promised to "never pull a stunt like that again",,,,,,Even as a 14 year old I thought it was crazy the way they behaved.
I wonder how many did he beat a confession out of knowing they were innocent?
There is no offence of J walking in the UK, good try!
@@speedster2464that's the point
Is that right aye
J walking has never been a crime in the UK but it is a crime in the US nice try Walter mitty 😂😂😂😂
This is going to be good Don't miss this if you're interested in Irish boarder history.
Just my luck to start watch at 1.30😂
William comes across well. However, I would be still very sceptical about the activities of Ruc special branch.
It's was the murders in Derry that started it all. My father was a civil rights activists. His live was threatened numerous times.
😊
The british government and the ruc played both sides of the troubles.
When deployed we regularly seen plain clothes from certain areas of police military and government in areas of conflict (as they labelled them) talking with people you would think they should not be talking to.
Greatest pleasure I had was seeing a certain Paisley face down in the dirt beetroot in the face screaming do you know who I am, apparently we were in more trouble than we could handle.
Still waiting on a reprimand or glass house the irate litrle man promised
We haven’t gone away you know
Talking about the supergrass system… most of these people who turned supergrass ended up dead. It could have taken years for the IRA to get that person but 9 times out of 10 they were eventually found & killed. Anyone known as a supergrass too, their name was completely destroyed & even their family would have been targeted.