Harry White (Irish republican)

Harry White (1916 – April 1989) was an Irish republican paramilitary.

Born in Belfast, White worked as a plumber, and joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at an early age, being imprisoned several times during the 1930s. He travelled to England to take part in the IRA's "S-Plan" bombing campaign of 1939 to 1940, then returned to Dublin to pass his bomb-making skills onto new recruits, including Brendan Behan. He then returned to become the IRA's Manchester Operations Officer but, after a bomb he was working on went off in the flat he was renting, he fled to Glasgow, then back to Ireland.

Shortly after returning to Ireland, White was arrested while giving a lecture on explosives in County Offaly, and was interned at the Curragh Camp. The republican prisoners were split into two groups, one led by Pearse Kelly, and the other by Liam Leddy. White was unhappy with the situation and refused to take sides. Shortly after his arrival, IRA Chief of Staff Seán McCool was also interned, and was concerned that the locations of many of the IRA's arms caches were known only to him. He asked White to get the information to the new leadership, by "signing out": declaring that he was no longer involved with a paramilitary group. Morrison refused as doing so would be breaking IRA orders, but McCool persisted, suggesting that he could resign from the army before signing out, thereby not contravening IRA rules. Once released, he immediately rejoined the IRA and passed on the information; he was also made IRA Quartermaster General by Chief of Staff Charlie Kerins. However, he was suspected of involvement in the killing of a police officer, Dinny O'Brien - something which he always denied - and had to go on the run.

In November 1942, White and a comrade were cornered in a house. Here the details are unclear; Tim Pat Coogan claimed that he was in a house in Donnycarney in County Kerry with Maurice O'Neill, while Danny Morrison claims that he was at a wedding reception in Cavan with Paddy Dermody. Both agree that there was a shoot-out followed in which one officer was killed, enabling White to escape, but he fell down a railway embankment and hid for two days before emerging, hoping that the police hunt was over. In Coogan's version, he caught a bus to Dublin, covered in blood and mud; while, according to Morrison, he was assisted by a sympathetic soldier who helped him recover and cycled to Dublin with him. They agree that he reached a safe house once in the capital. Morrison claims that the Donnycarney shootout occurred four months later and that White travelled north, rather than returning to Dublin a second time.

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