Priest gave warning

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 8

Priest gave warning

NZPA-Retuer London A Roman Catholic priest who has said he knew in advance about the renewed I.R.A. bombing campaign in Britain has said he gave a warning to a senior British Government official last Thursday. Monsignor Michael Buckley, a founder of the Peace Movement in England, saw a senior official of the Northern Ireland Office and his warning was “noted,” a spokesman for the office has said.

Mr Buckley, who lives near Leeds, said in a radio

interview that he had not kept back any information. i He has come under attack from the Right-wing member of Parliament, Mr Enoch Powell, who has said he will ask. the Attorney-General to refer to the Director of Public Prosecutions Mr Buckley’s statement that he knew a bombing campaign was coming.

The row blew up after Mr Buckley, said he had inform mation “from inside in the sense that I work a lot in Northern Ireland and go into areas where priests and vicars normally do no go. . .” i Mr Buckley said he had

given warnings about suspect I.R.A. activity on the mainland since October. It was “completely false” to suggest that he had withheld information.

“Every bit of information which I have had I made available to the Government and my own bishop and the police. What could I do that I have not done.”

He said no-one had come to him in “a black cloak and black hat” and said bombs would go off in such and such a city at such and such a time. “I knew of certain areas and I was able to make a , forecast," he said.