'MRF operatives uncovered and executed' – From An Phoblacht/Republican News Archives

Within hours of the attack on the 
laundry van, the IRA shot dead two
 more MRF members who were 
operating one of a series of massage
 parlours, the Gemini Health Studios,
 on the Antrim Road

 See the December An Phoblacht for more on the British Army Intelligence MRF death squad – subscribe for just €10 for 12 issues. 

PLAINCLOTHES British Army undercover units known as the Military Reaction Force (MRF) began operating in Belfast in 1972.

The main work of the MRF spy network – under the control of General
 Sir Harry Tuzo and consisting of
 British soldiers from the Military 
Intelligence Corps and the SAS – was to gather, collate and analyse intelligence
 on the Republican Movement and the 
IRA in particular.

The most spectacular example of an
 MRF undercover operation was the 
Four Square Laundry.

The Four Square 
did business as a real laundry.
 Laundry vans are usually big so there 
was a good excuse to have a vehicle
 capable of holding several men and their equipment. The van toured
 nationalist areas of Belfast, soliciting
 custom and making collections and
 deliveries. The washing was sent out to 
another laundry on contract.

Intelligence was collected in many 
ways. The ‘laundry people’ would chat 
with women and obtain apparently 
insignificant bits of information which
 could be of great importance when
 pieced together. Meanwhile, the two agents hidden under the roof
 of the van photographed the houses, occupants,
 streets and vehicles.

Once back from their tour, laundry 
lists were compared with previous
 ones concerning a given family. A 
difference in the size of a man’s shirt
 could indicate the presence of a second man; a woman whose 
husband was in jail or had been killed 
who gave men’s clothes for laundering 
could inadvertently give away the 
presence of an IRA Volunteer ‘on the 
run’. The clothes were also
 scientifically analysed for traces of 
blood, gun oil and gunpowder.

The Four Square Laundry was
 highly sophisticated and it took 
several months for the IRA’s
 Intelligence Department to unmask it.

On the morning of 2 October 1972, a 
laundry van bearing in large green 
letters the words “Four Square” was 
driving on its usual round in the
 Twinbrook area in Belfast. As it drove through Juniper Park, two Volunteers
 of a special IRA Intelligence unit
 sprang from a car and machine-gunned 
the van, killed two British Intelligence 
officers who were lying under the roof 
in a compartment specially designed as 
an observation post. The driver, Sapper
 Stuart, was also killed.

The IRA had killed three MRF 
members whose intelligence mission was to collect as much 
information as possible on republicans
 and republican sympathisers.

Within hours of the attack on the 
laundry van, the IRA shot dead two
 more MRF members who were 
operating one of a series of massage
 parlours, the Gemini Health Studios,
 on the Antrim Road.

The following
 day, 3 October, the British, realising 
that their undercover operations were
 blown, admitted to the death of the van driver and the aim of the 
operation. They failed, however, to
 disclose that not one but five MRF 
soldiers were executed by the IRA on
 this October day in Belfast.