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Raymond Gilmour AI simulator
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Raymond Gilmour AI simulator
(@Raymond Gilmour_simulator)
Raymond Gilmour
Raymond Gilmour (1959 – October 2016) was an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who worked clandestinely from 1977 to 1982 for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) within those paramilitary organisations. His testimony was a main element of the supergrass policy, which was aimed at convicting large numbers of paramilitaries.
He was born in 1959 into a working class Catholic, nationalist family in Creggan, Derry to Patrick and Brigid Gilmour, the youngest of eleven siblings and grew up as The Troubles began in Derry in the early 1970s.
A cousin, Hugh Gilmour (usually spelt "Gilmore"), was shot dead by the British Army on Bloody Sunday, a seminal event in the development of the "Troubles" and a traumatic event witnessed by the 12-year-old Gilmour himself. His parents were reportedly split over the issue of political violence. He described his father as an "armchair supporter" of the IRA, while his mother was reportedly fiercely opposed to their actions.
Two of Gilmour's brothers were kneecapped by the IRA for alleged anti-social behaviour. He was also given a beating by British soldiers at age 13 for petty crime and they attempted to recruit him as an informer.
He left school without sitting for his O Level exams and drifted into crime. When he was 16, he was again in trouble with the authorities, this time for armed robbery. On remand in Crumlin Road Prison, he was severely beaten by IRA prisoners. It was at this point that he apparently agreed to become an undercover agent for British security forces.
Several months later, he joined the INLA. He chose the INLA over the IRA as a number of his friends were already in the organisation. Gilmour participated in, among other activities, a botched car hijacking in which a friend, Colm McNutt, also an INLA member, was shot dead by an undercover soldier. In 1978, after two years with the INLA as an RUC agent, he left on police instructions. He got married the same year and fathered the first of two children.
After an interlude of several months, Gilmour was instructed by his RUC handler to join the IRA. He was offered £200 a week with bonuses for arrests and weapons finds. The IRA vetted him for several weeks before accepting his application in late 1980. They attached him to an active service unit in the Brandywell area of Derry. Over the following two years, he was involved in many IRA operations, mostly as a getaway driver.
Most of these operations were "shoots" or sniping attacks, but on only one occasion, in January 1981, did his activities result in the death of a British soldier who was shot and killed at Castle Gate, near Derry's city walls. Gilmour claimed that he helped to foil many other IRA attacks, saving the lives of numerous police officers and soldiers.
Raymond Gilmour
Raymond Gilmour (1959 – October 2016) was an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who worked clandestinely from 1977 to 1982 for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) within those paramilitary organisations. His testimony was a main element of the supergrass policy, which was aimed at convicting large numbers of paramilitaries.
He was born in 1959 into a working class Catholic, nationalist family in Creggan, Derry to Patrick and Brigid Gilmour, the youngest of eleven siblings and grew up as The Troubles began in Derry in the early 1970s.
A cousin, Hugh Gilmour (usually spelt "Gilmore"), was shot dead by the British Army on Bloody Sunday, a seminal event in the development of the "Troubles" and a traumatic event witnessed by the 12-year-old Gilmour himself. His parents were reportedly split over the issue of political violence. He described his father as an "armchair supporter" of the IRA, while his mother was reportedly fiercely opposed to their actions.
Two of Gilmour's brothers were kneecapped by the IRA for alleged anti-social behaviour. He was also given a beating by British soldiers at age 13 for petty crime and they attempted to recruit him as an informer.
He left school without sitting for his O Level exams and drifted into crime. When he was 16, he was again in trouble with the authorities, this time for armed robbery. On remand in Crumlin Road Prison, he was severely beaten by IRA prisoners. It was at this point that he apparently agreed to become an undercover agent for British security forces.
Several months later, he joined the INLA. He chose the INLA over the IRA as a number of his friends were already in the organisation. Gilmour participated in, among other activities, a botched car hijacking in which a friend, Colm McNutt, also an INLA member, was shot dead by an undercover soldier. In 1978, after two years with the INLA as an RUC agent, he left on police instructions. He got married the same year and fathered the first of two children.
After an interlude of several months, Gilmour was instructed by his RUC handler to join the IRA. He was offered £200 a week with bonuses for arrests and weapons finds. The IRA vetted him for several weeks before accepting his application in late 1980. They attached him to an active service unit in the Brandywell area of Derry. Over the following two years, he was involved in many IRA operations, mostly as a getaway driver.
Most of these operations were "shoots" or sniping attacks, but on only one occasion, in January 1981, did his activities result in the death of a British soldier who was shot and killed at Castle Gate, near Derry's city walls. Gilmour claimed that he helped to foil many other IRA attacks, saving the lives of numerous police officers and soldiers.