🔗 Share this article

During 1996, police raided a British apartment and detained Michael Gallagher accused of Irish Republican Army operations. His partner, an scholar focused in scientific research, was astonished and outraged.

She found it impossible to accept that her cerebral partner – a one-time public employee who helped people with addiction issues – could be participating with Irish republican militants. He had even won over Attenborough by completing a difficult puzzle in merely record time.

The Charges

The accused was prosecuted with plotting to enable the IRA carry out explosive assaults at Heathrow Airport in 1994. While these actions caused no injuries or deaths, they produced major security concerns.

She mustered funds and backing from others to defend her partner's innocence. In spite of her campaign, Gallagher was sentenced of plotting bomb attacks and received a 20-year jail term.

With the exception of a handful of others, I hardly inform anybody,” Attenborough stated. “It wasn’t something I was that proud of because Gallagher had misled me.”

Revealing the Truth

Today, nearly three decades afterward, the partners are still in a relationship and have jointly authored a publication that confirms Gallagher was, actually, involved.

He had been a facilitator for the IRA who assisted various missions, among them the airport incident. Gallagher kept secret the truth from his partner and just revealed following his guilty verdict, leaving Attenborough devastated.

Life After Prison

Subsequent to Gallagher's release under the provisions of the Northern Ireland settlement, the pair settled to rural County Donegal and set up a web development business, which they still operate.

The publication, named Unbroken: Deception, Truth and Lasting Love, alternates perspectives between the both and postpones the admission of his involvement until post his trial.

I am certain Gallagher isn’t a evil man, he is a truly decent man,” she remarked. “He just did not consider me above all, and I am uncertain whether I view it as betrayal. He didn’t intend it.”

Background and Relationship

Attenborough and Gallagher met in 1985 through groups that aided labor activists and protested against racial segregation.

Attenborough, from near Birmingham, held a advanced degree in mathematical physics. He, from Glasgow, was an hopeful author and someone overcoming addiction.

He had ancestral ties and performed errands for republican groups, organizing accommodation, transport and paperwork for IRA members in the UK.

Uncovering the Lies

He hid his involvement from his partner, who favored Irish unification but rejected IRA methods.

“I’d made a vow to the IRA and a vow to Mary and I believed I could manage both – I could to handle each,” Gallagher said.

Security forces identified Gallagher as a individual under investigation who had entered a storage facility with traces of bomb-making materials. Authorities watched his movements and monitored the couple’s home for nearly 24 months, concluding in the early morning police action at their London residence on 28 October 1996.

Consequences and Thoughts

For 16 months – throughout her trips to see him and the legal proceedings in the late 1990s – Gallagher maintained his truth.

“There was no way share with her because if I had revealed it then, she would have had to inform her brother: ‘Do not trouble yourselves looking for bail for Gallagher because he’s guilty,’” he explained. “That was truly an terrible time.”

The possibility of being found not guilty sustained his fiction until the court decided against him. Shortly after, when she met with him to talk about possible legal challenges, he confided his involvement.

Initially, I didn’t even know whether to believe him,” Attenborough said. “I thought, so, what account of the facts should I accept?”

Distraught, she considered leaving the partnership, but in future encounters she agreed to his apologies and understood his hidden involvement.

“Obviously I was opposed with these actions with the IRA. However, it wasn’t a leading position that he performed.”

Last Disclosures

In the writing of their memoir, he shared a further long-hidden truth to his Attenborough: when he speedily finished the puzzle in the publication of the Guardian, he had previously done it in a different version.