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Willie Carlin

WILLIE Carlin was born in Derry into a devout Catholic family. As a teenager he contemplated joining the priesthood but was talked out of it. After leaving school at the age of 15 he got his first job at the Birmingham Sound Reproducers (BSR) factory in Derry. His family had links with the British armed forces, with his father Tommy having served in the army and worked in the Royal Navy base in the city. In his book Thatcher’s Spy: My Life as an MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin, the 71-year-old tells how he and his brother Robert joined the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars in 1965. After spending time in Germany he was stationed in England. While still a serving soldier he married and later returned home to Derry in 1974, leaving the army and settling in the nationalist Gobnascale estate in the Waterside. Before returning home he had been approached and asked to work for MI5 - a request he agreed to. His role was to gather political intelligence and he eventually became involved with Sinn Féin, rising to key positions in Derry. In 1980 he decided to end his links with MI5 after he lost trust in his handler. A year later, after the IRA killed census worker Joanne Mathers, he attempted to reconnect with MI5 but without success. He then got in touch with British army intelligence officials in Derry and was subsequently recruited by the undercover Force Research Unit. In 1985 his double life was exposed and he and his family left Derry for a new life in Britain where he has lived undercover ever since.

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