Man who claimed to be on "drinking session" is jailed for IRA membership

A 53-year-old Cork man has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years imprisonment for membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army. Martin McHale, with an address at Blackwater Grove, Togher, Cork, was convicted by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in February following trial. The court found McHale travelled to Monaghan in a van containing approximately 500 kilogrammes of agricultural fertiliser. He had initially denied knowledge of the contents, claiming to gardaí he had borrowed the van for a drinking session. However, forensic evidence recovered from a glove in the van established both fertiliser residue and McHale's DNA. The Special Criminal Court panel, presided over by Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy alongside Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge Gerard Haughton, determined that McHale's statements to gardaí were false and misleading and that he was a trusted transporter of the material. McHale refused to identify the van's owner. Evidence from Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn indicated McHale was an IRA member.