Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / Bittisode 017: Up and Away - The Mountjoy Helicopter Escape

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Bittisode 017: Up and Away - The Mountjoy Helicopter Escape · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Bitty Sword! The little bits of history that don't quite
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: fit in anywhere else. That is right! The bitty swords
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: are back! Oh yeah! Oh, also, um, ha! This is,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: with me, your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of books. You know, you know what I've noticed is
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: a lot of people call me Charleswood or Charswood. They
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: add an S in there. It's Charlewood. L, la la
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: la la la. It's, you know, there's no S there.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Even my kids get it wrong sometimes and I'm like,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: who raised you? So, um, this week I told this story, like,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: on the full episode of the podcast, I told the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: story of the largest prison break in British penal history.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: The 1983 Mays prison escape. Now, it may have been
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the largest, but it certainly wasn't the most audacious of
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: all the escapes. Now, I love escapes. I love jailbreaks.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. I just, I really
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: enjoy people breaking out of things and fleeing. I don't know.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I've got issues or concerns. But
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I know that I talked about my favourite Irish escape.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: The fruitcake jailbreak. It has everything. It has everything. A
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: 36-year-old altar boy. Arts and crafts. A drawing of the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: key to escape right on the front of a Christmas card.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that was posted out by the prison itself, it has
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: files baked into a fruitcake. Actual files. Tools. Like, it
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: has tools in a fruitcake. And drag. Oh, it has drag. Because,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of course, all of the best escapes have drag. Now,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I like to think of the fruitcake jailbreak as basically...
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Christmas escape right and granted it's not the biggest Christmas
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: escape because like the last the best Christmas escape I
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: think is the first world war is it the first
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: world war or the second the bicycle playing card company
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: anyway that will be another topic for another day no
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: anyway this escape is a Halloween escape like that's what
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: it is um the Mountjoy helicopter escape also known as
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Up and Away, which is a very jaunty, like, very
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: jaunty label. Like, it's like, in the last episode, in
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: the big episode, I gave a Cliff Notes version of
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: the history leading up to The Troubles and it was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: still very long. Like, sometimes I worry with this as well,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: is that history does not exist in a vacuum. And
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: so for a lot of people, you don't have that
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: history that leads up to the troubles, especially considering quite
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of my audience is on the other side
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: of the Atlantic to me. And so a lot of
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the time, I do need to fill in and explain
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: and give context to a lot of stuff. And especially
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: if I'm talking about even American history and I'm trying
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to tell it to a European audience, it's the same thing.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I've got to give context and explanations because history on
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: its own like just the facts of the matter they're
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: not interesting in isolation typically it's better to have an
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: understanding about how and why and I have a whole
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: theory about um cognitive stuff about, anyway, Gen Z and
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Gen A and Gen Alpha is really, well, that's my fault.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: That's Millennium's. We're raising them. So, sorry. I haven't done
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: my best. I'm trying to get them to learn. Anyhow.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: To slip into some context, in 1971, Stormont, which is
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the Northern Ireland Parliament, it proposed, the Northern Ireland Parliament proposed,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that anyone suspected of being in the IRA, let's just
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: clarify that, anyone suspected of being in the IRA to
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: be arrested and interred without trial. And the government at
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Westminster approved it. Now, it's interesting when you think of language,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: because they're like interred. They were interred. which is a
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: nice way of saying imprisoned. Someone can be imprisoned without trial,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: without evidence. What? What? Okay, so the North was doing that.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: It was up in that business. Meanwhile, in Ireland, the
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: coalition government led by Fianna Gael's Liam Cosgrave was also
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: trying to quash IRA activity. Now, sidebar, sidebar, I know, already, yes. So,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of people will call Ireland Southern Ireland or
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the Republic of Ireland, which, listen, the most northern part
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: of the entire country is in, quote, Southern Ireland, right?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: It is wild. Like, Ireland is a republic. But it's
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: not the Republic of Ireland. It's just... It was other
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: countries that seemed to make that label. It's just Ireland.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That's all it is. It's not all these other things.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: And because of the contention of the whole north of, northern, southern,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, the best way and the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: most even way to explain Ireland is you have plus
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: 353 Ireland. which is the one that has the euro,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: and then you've got plus 4 for Ireland, which has sterling,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: which has the pound. That's how you tell the difference.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Fine Gael, they're trying to crush IRA activity
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in Ireland as well. So Fine Gael, right, they got
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: into power. Their whole angle was being tough on crime. Right,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: that was their ticket. So, suspected IRA members were arrested
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and they were accused of being in the IRA by
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: a superintendent of the Garda Síochána. So, they were tried
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in the special criminal court in Dublin, which has no jury. Like,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: they're just seen by judges. And the thing about when
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: the IRA were brought into these courts is they wouldn't
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: defend themselves. They wouldn't recognise the court. Like, they just
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: wouldn't recognise it. So, this led to so many members
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: being convicted. And they would be, when I say members
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: being convicted, like, they would be convicted of IRA membership,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: which led to a minimum mandatory one-year sentence. So, like,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: that's at least one year. by not saying anything, by
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: not recognising the court, you're automatically, like, accused. You're convicted.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: And you have to serve at least one year. And yeah,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: it's effectively internment, but just in a different outfit. Like,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: it's a different font. You know what I mean? So... Yeah. So...
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: In 1973, in September.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Seamus Toomey, the IRA chief of staff, was found guilty.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Because again, he was like, I don't recognise your court, etc.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: And he was given a five-year sentence. And he was
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: to be sent to Mountjoy Prison. So there were 372
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: prisoners in Mountjoy. And these included, like, official IRAs. Provisional IRA.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Diet IRA. IRA Zero. You know, like all of them.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And all of them, right? So, September, Seamus Toomey, he's convicted.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: And the following month, like, the system, well, the command
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: structure was banjaxed. Because so many of the senior members
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: were held in Mountjoy Prison. So you had Seamus Toomey,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: He's held in Mountjoy, along with Kevin Mallon and J.B. O'Hagan.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And so from the get-go, a plan is afoot to
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: break the three men out. And so, on Halloween 1973,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Mountjoy Prison... Sorry, sorry. It is such a weird name
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: for a detention centre. Mountjoy. What? Anyway, about the escape. Now,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: this may shock you, but... helicopter was not the first
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: option or attempt, right, to break these men out. Now,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the first attempt was to blow the bloody doors off.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Explosives were smuggled into the prison, right, and the plan
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: was to blow a hole in the door that led
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: to the exercise yard. So, they would make their way
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: out to the exercise yard and they would climb a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: rope ladder that was thrown over the outside wall by
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the IRA's Dublin Brigade. Now, the Dublin Brigade would not only,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: you know, have the ladder there for them, but they
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: would also have a getaway car waiting. Now, considering I'm
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: not talking about this plan, that's not the point of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: this episode, yeah, that didn't come to fruition. Um... this
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: particular plan did not succeed because A, the prisoners could
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: not make it to the exercise yard. Like they couldn't
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: make a way through, right? So they couldn't actually get
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: to like the first destination, like point A of their plan.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: They couldn't get on the first rung of the ladder,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: so to speak. Speaking of ladder, point B, Guards saw
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the rope ladder. Like, you have one job, guys. Technically two. But, like,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the ladder was, like, chucked over this wall and guards
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: on their rounds were just like, that's a rope ladder? Seamus, Seamus,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: is that a ladder? I don't know whose accent this is, lads,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: because it's not mine. Whose horse is that? Is that
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: a ladder? Oh, call, call. Is that a ladder up there, boy?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Is it? Hiya! So they're like, there's a ladder. Now,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: seeing as the blow up the door and rope ladder
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: plan did not work, clearly the next logical step was helicopter. Now,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the IRA did float the idea of the helicopter before
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Although their plan was to break Jerry Adams out of
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Long Kesh. But the thing about the Long Kesh, the maze,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: is they had British Army helicopters were stationed at a
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: nearby base. Because remember, this was an old RAF base.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So if they're moving the RAF, they're not going to
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: be that far from this location. You know what I mean?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And also, and it's funny, they were like, let's break
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Jerry Adams out. The man who... continues to state that
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: he has no, has never, and, you know, any involvement
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: with the IRA, and we're all like, okay, Jerry, okay.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: The plan was to break the men out of Mount Joy. So,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: on the Monday before Halloween... A man with an American accent. Now,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: a man goes to Dublin Airport. He's got a white
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: suit and what they assume is an American accent. Now,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: they don't state which American accent. So.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I would like to think that he just showed up
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: like a valet girl and he's just got really bad
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: vocal fry. Or he tried to be from the South,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: but he doesn't know where on the South he's from.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: So we just can't end up making up these long
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: vowels for no reason. Or like, maybe he just did
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: like a really generic, really basic non-accent American accent. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: it's always funny because when you hear someone do an
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: American accent, he's They never get their A's right. So
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: if they're saying American, they just kind of go, American accent?
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: It's an accent. Like, you got an accent on. Like,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: there are so many ways to do it, and they just, like,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: mess it up. So what accent was he doing? But
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: all we know is that. I'm transatlantic now. This man
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: with a fake American accent and a white suit, he
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: goes to Dublin Airport. And he's looking to hire a
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: helicopter for an aerial shoot in Leish. If you also
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: listened to the last episode, or if you've listened to
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: anything where I've talked about Mary I of England, Mary, like,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: started trying to colonise Ireland in, like, King's County, Queen's County,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: which is, like, awfully and Leish. I actually have a
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: t-shirt somewhere from my friend Mary Clare, who... She's a comedian,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: children's TV presenter and ex-model. Anyway, maybe she still is
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a model. Maybe I've just been really rude and insulted her.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: But she has merch because she's originally from Leash, from
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: like a farming family in Leash. And I mean like
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: a proper farming family. They're great. But she has this merch,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: which is like live, laugh, Leash. That is the name
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: of a county. I'm not on about a dog's leash
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: for people who don't know Ireland. Um, it's, it's a thing.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: So county leash. And I love, it's, it's actually a
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: really high quality t-shirt. Like the cotton's really soft on it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It's very nice. Anyway, I think it's fun. Shut up. Right. So, um, yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So it's the seventies. Why wouldn't you expect an American
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: man to show up in a white suit? It's like, huh,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: can't be Irish. He's wearing a white suit. And God,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I really hope he was wearing cowboy boots because like
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: how convincing would that be? So he calls himself Mr. Leonard.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: No other information. A man shows up at the airport
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: with no identification and no surname. And he's like, I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: want to rent a helicopter to film Leash. And they're like, yeah, okay,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: no worries, buddy. Yeah. The IRA volunteer, Mr. Leonard, American
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: film director, he arrived at the West Point hangar at
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Dublin Airport on the 31st of October 1973. So, like,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: he had shown up, like, it was the Monday before Halloween.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: So he had shown up there. The purpose of which
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: was to just be like, I would like to rent
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: a helicopter on this day, etc, etc. And so they
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: bring him the Alouette D'Eau. So, the Alouette, I don't
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: know if you know this, that doesn't sound like an
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Irish name. It's not. It's because it's French. Alouette sur
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: les Alouettes. So, this plane was originally, like, a French plane.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a plane, a helicopter. This was originally a
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: French helicopter that was then sold to, I think, or
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: it was gifted to the Vietnamese leader. who then sold
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: it to Irish Helicopter Limited. So it was like the
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: French president gifted it to the Vietnamese leader, who then
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: sold it to Irish Helicopter Limited. So he gets in, Mr. Leonard,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: that is, in his white suit and Moroccan accent. He
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: gets into the five-seater car, And the plan is to
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: shoot over Leash. Now, the pilot, Captain Thomas Boyes, he
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: had only been with Irish Helicopter Limited for a month.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And so, like, he wasn't there for very long. Like,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they probably had procedures in place, but not
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that many, clearly. So, he had been with them for
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: a month. And he was supposed to take the director
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to Stradvale in Leish to get shots of these ancient
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Celtic monuments. Mr. Leonard requested that Captain Boyes land the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: chopper in a field near a farmhouse, which is near Stradvale.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's near there. And it was to collect the camera equipment.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: which all in all in this situation is the least
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: weird thing that's happened so far so when the helicopter
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: sets down two masked men emerge from the trees one
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: holding a pistol and the other holding a revolver They
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: get into the helicopter and Mr. Leonard gets out. So
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: you've got these two masked men and Captain Hay. So yes,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: in the helicopter, you have these two masked men and
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Captain Thomas Boyce. So, the masked men tell the captain
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: that they would put a bullet through him if he, quote,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: fouled up. They told him that they were to go
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: to Mount Hoy Prison to pick up three prisoners. They
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: showed a Dublin street map ordering the captain to fly
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: to the city following the Royal Canal and the railway
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: lines and to not register the flight path with air
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: traffic control. They're like, don't you dare. Don't you dare
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: tell them where we're going because they'll figure it out
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: if you tell them where you're going. So with a
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Fucking Dublin street map of all things. I actually do
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: better with a physical map than I do with a
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: digital one. I don't know what it is. I like
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: it to the touch of the paper. For me trying
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to get through Florida, Florida confuses
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: me so much. I have a big thing to help
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: me get through Florida. I have an actual AAA map.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: So I know my routes. Not that I'm driving. I'm driving.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Anyone know who wants to drive me through Florida? I
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: won't say no. Sorry. Can't help myself. Help. So the helicopter,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: like it, you know, makes its way to the prison
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: and it does one pass over the prison. Nobody reacts
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: to that. Nobody thinks, hey, isn't it weird that a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: helicopter is flying over the prison? So it does that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: It does one pass before touching down Right in the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: middle of the compound outside D-Wing. Right. It's just after
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: 3.30 in the afternoon on Halloween. Right. There was no
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: precedent for this. Nobody had ever considered. What if someone
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: tried to fly a helicopter into the middle of the prison? Right.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: One person.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: One prison officer who, again, did not even consider an
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: aerial escape, he assumed that the helicopter was that of
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Paddy Dunagan, the Minister of Defence. Because apparently that was
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: a thing he just did. He just showed up at
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: a prison in a helicopter. Like, he showed up in
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: the compound where people were running around. Prisoners. No, no. Officer,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: that is what some would deem as incorrect. So, like,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the officers, like, they just didn't realise, like, what was
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: happening until it was too late. And then fights break
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: out sort of on the yard. Like, it took two minutes, right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Two minutes for the whole operation to actually go through.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: So for the helicopter to land... like down, and for
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: the prisoners to get on board, right? Two minutes. Malin,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: O'Hagan and Toomey, they are brought onto the helicopter. Now,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: another guy, an extra fella, like he tries to get on,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: but he's stopped from doing so. They're like, you're not cleared.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: You're not coming with. And so they're just like, uh-uh,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: not happening. So because of like the extra bodies on
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the helicopter, there's added weight. Right? So, getting people in,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: you know, landing, getting people in, that's one thing, but
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: they still have to take off, right? And get over
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: the walls. So, so, Captain Thomas' boys, he didn't know
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: if they were actually going to make it, right? Because
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: of the extra weight and he's like warning them going,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is going to work. And
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: they're like, fucking try it. So, yeah, it did. It
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: actually did. like it's dodgy, dodgy, easy, easy, gets up
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: and the helicopter gets over the walls and flies away
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: from Mount Joy. Now, the original plan was that the
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: helicopter was supposed to land at this golf course, like
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a pitch and pop, right? It was over in South Dublin.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: But the owner who was a republican and like a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: known person effectively i want to say an associate right
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: he's supposed to be involved in this but he's sick
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: right so because the owner is sick because of course
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: instead of landing there instead they head up to an
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: old race course so the bald oil race course um
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: it's like disused and disrepair whatever up in north dublin
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And so that is where they end up going instead.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So the getaway car is a taxi, right? Not like
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: they called a taxi. They hijacked a taxi, right? And
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: the thing is, as well, is that So, if you
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: listened to the first episode, you will have heard of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Brendan Hughes. Brendan Hughes is one of the masked men
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: on this flight, right? And he's like, yeah, you got
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: us here, but we're late, buddy. Like, we're behind schedule. Because, like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the taxi is already waiting for them, their getaway vehicle.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And so they tell the captain that they have to, like,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: that he has to wait five minutes to you know,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: before doing anything, right? After they leave, you've got five
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: minutes and then you get to go. Now, he waits
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the five minutes, right? Did he think there was like
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: a sniper on them? Was he worried something was going
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: to go off? Was there, like, he waits the five
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: minutes anyway. Now the taxi goes off. He waits his
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: five minutes anyway. And then he flew back to base,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: which is like three minutes away from where he was.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And when he gets back to base, he raises the alarm. So,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: and they're like, oh no. So then they have to
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: go and like manhunt, right? They find the taxi abandoned
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: near Port Marnock. And within two days, Toomey was back
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: as Director of Operations in the North. So this manhunt, yeah?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: The Gardaí and the Defence Forces, they launched over 300
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: searches to find the escapees. And then, Sean McGintley, he
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: writes the helicopter song up and away about the whole debacle. Like,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: it becomes like a big hit for the Wolf Toans.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: And RTE bans the songs right I just love the
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: fact that it's like Naughty Holden who's I wish it
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: could be Christmas every day like he's knocked off the
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: top spot by this up and away song um until
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: RTE banned it but like I'm sorry I just think
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: that part to me objectively funny it's just like what
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: is this it's a song about a jailbreak knocking Christmas
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: song off number one um Okay, November, Brendan Hughes, one
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of the masked men who we meet in the Long
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Cache later, he was arrested in Rathmines and jailed for
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: three years. Kevin Mallon was captured in December after being
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: seen at a GAA dance in Portlaoise. He went to
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: a dinner dance and was caught at a dinner dance.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Now, J.B.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: O'Hagan... He wasn't recaptured until January the following year, right?
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And he was captured and he was also brought to Portlaoise.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: It did take them four years to arrest Seamus Toomey, though.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so back at Mountjoy, so this is... Meanwhile,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: so while the helicopter was leaving, right, the prisoners were
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: just running about the yard and they just kept running about. Right.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: And so the prisoners are running about and the whole
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: purpose is to confuse the guards so they don't know
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: who's gone. Right. It's so they don't know who's escaped.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And they don't. The warriors, they don't know who's gone
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: up until all of the prisoners are back in their
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: cells and they do a head count. They don't even
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: know how many's gone. So they do the head count,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: they realise it's three and then they realise which three.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And this is a massive, massive embarrassment to the UK.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Which is funny, right? Because it's always pushed as this
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: massive thing of like, oh, yeah. Because they escaped from Dublin, right?
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And it's always pushed as though they've embarrassed the British
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: government again. It's like they weren't held in a British prison.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: It was an Irish one. But anyway, anyway, they escape.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: It's audacious, right? It is. It's like they're, Sometimes I
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: think we need to have audacity and it's like, would
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: you take a helicopter into a prison, right? It just
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: feels like a bad idea from any angle and yet
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: it worked. So after this escape, all IRA prisoners at
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Mountjoy and the Currah were transferred to a maximum security
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: prison in Portlaoise. So at the Curragh, what happened is
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: they dug tunnels to get out. So it's just, they
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: were just constantly breaking out. Like there's just so many
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: prison breaks. They're like, we dug a tunnel. And then
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I think, I think at one point they dug a
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: tunnel in Mount Joy. There's so many. And then, so
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: there's like one going under, one going over. But yeah,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: there you go. That is, I don't know if we
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: ever learned Who Mr. Leonard was. I think it's one
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: of like the best kept secrets. As we have no
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: idea who Mr. Leonard was. But yeah. What was it?
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: No I think there's a funny story. But one of
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: the guards. I think it's one of the guards. Who said.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: The prison that. That the three men that escaped. Were
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: away trick or treating. Like it was like. I mean.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I say trick or treating. They would have called it
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the mummers back then. They would have been mummering. You know.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: But anyway, so ends the helicopter escape. I am looking
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: to bring back the bitty sword for everybody. I don't
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: know if it's going to be every week. It might
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: because some of these, there's so many jailbreaks I want
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: to talk about this month and I might have to
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: like smoosh some down into a 30 minute like idea.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I will see you next time. Get tickets
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: for the shows. Adios. Au revoir. Auf Wiedersehen, my friends. Bye-bye.