James Kelly

Who was James Kelly?

Captain James Kelly was a former Irish Army officer who was found not guilty of attempting to illegally import arms for the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the Arms Trial in 1970. James Kelly was the eldest of ten children, born in 1929 into a staunchly republican family from Bailieboro in County Cavan.

He was a central figure in the Arms Trial, having travelled to Hamburg to arrange the purchase of arms. It emerged later that Neil Blaney had ordered him to do so outside normal legal channels, but before the weapons arrived the Garda Special Branch had heard of the plan and tipped off the Taoiseach, resulting in criminal charges. Although in his summing up, the judge said it was no defence for Kelly to say that he believed that the Government had authorised the importation of arms, Kelly was acquitted.

Although Kelly was acquitted, he suffered financially because he had felt compelled to resign from the Army even before the prosecution was brought. He printed and published a personal memoir in paperback format called "Orders for the Captain?" in 1971.

Though acquitted, Kelly did not deny that he had been involved in extra-legal arms purchase talks, but that he had been ordered to do so by some ministers. A typical version of the events is found in a 1993 hostile biography of Charles Haughey, claiming: "As early as October 1969, to the certain knowledge of Charles Haughey, James Gibbons, the Department of Justice, the Special Branch and Army Intelligence, there were meetings with leading members of the IRA, when they were promised money and arms. The critical encounter took place in Bailieborough [sic], County Cavan, on Saturday, 4 October 1969. It had been arranged by Captain James Kelly, an army intelligence officer, and Cathal Goulding. Kelly, at that stage, was already the subject of several security reports to the Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter Berry, from the Special Branch, implicating Kelly with subversives and with promises of money and of arms." Kelly did not object to such versions of the events of 1969.