The conclusion of Charlie Bird's incredible account of the 1979 attempt to blackmail to extort five million pounds from the Irish government

Extortionists used personal ads in £5m ransom demand over foot-and-mouth disease

A typed letter that arrived into the offices of the Department of Agriculture on Kildare Street in Dublin, addressed to the minister, was clear and to the point: “To get straight to the point, this is a demand for £5 million.

“The reason for you paying us £5 million is very simple. If you do this, we shall not introduce to this country one of the most deadly and costliest diseases that could afflict any country, in particular an agricultural country, namely foot and mouth disease.”

The letter was the opening salvo in an extortion demand that was taken extremely seriously at the time, and which has never been publicly disclosed before. Over the seven months following the letter’s receipt, communication between the State and the criminals proceeded by way of letters, a telephone call, and notices in the social and personal columns of Saturday editions of The Irish Times.

“Let us state from the start that we are totally determined to go through with our threats to spread this disease,” the letter said. “You and your entire department are totally helpless to stop us.”

There were five people involved, the letter said. They were from different backgrounds and each “reasonably financially secure”. They had invested time and money, including the payment of “inducements” abroad, to get to the position they were now in.

After outlining aspects of how they proposed to proceed, the writer asked that another ad be placed in The Irish Times, this one on Saturday, December 8th. “If you agree to pay the money, you will simply state ‘Tom Smith has read your proposals and will agree to your conditions.’”

Pic is Willie McGee, retired head of the fraud squad, and Charlie Bird, retired former RTÉ journalist, with The Irish Times newspapers from December 1979 through to February 1980 which contain ads used by the State to communicate with a foot and mouth disease ransom demand at the time.

See link below - article appeared in the Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/extortionists-used-personal-ads-in-5m-ransom-demand-over-foot-and-mouth-disease-1.4584576

The second of three parts!

Who Was Wolfgang Mozart?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musician capable of playing multiple instruments who started playing in public at the age of 6.

Over the years, Mozart aligned himself with a variety of European venues and patrons, composing hundreds of works that included sonatas, symphonies, masses, chamber music, concertos and operas, marked by vivid emotion and sophisticated textures

In this Podcast series John Low looks back on the life and times of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

The boy’s early talent for music was remarkable. At three he was picking out chords on the harpsichord, at four playing short pieces, at five composing.

At 13, Mozart had acquired considerable fluency in the musical language of his time, and he was especially adept at imitating the musical equivalent of local dialects.

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In the second of three episodes, Charlie Bird continues the sensational story of an attempt to extort five million pounds from the Irish government in 1979 by threatening to unleash an epidemic of Foot & Mouth Disease.

“Let us state from the start that we are totally determined to go through with our threats to spread this disease,” the letter said. “You and your entire department are totally helpless to stop us.”

There were five people involved, the letter said. They were from different backgrounds and each “reasonably financially secure”. They had invested time and money, including the payment of “inducements” abroad, to get to the position they were now in.

After outlining aspects of how they proposed to proceed, the writer asked that another ad be placed in The Irish Times, this one on Saturday, December 8th. “If you agree to pay the money, you will simply state ‘Tom Smith has read your proposals and will agree to your conditions.’”

The typed letter that arrived into the offices of the Department of Agriculture on Kildare Street in Dublin, addressed to the minister, was clear and to the point: “To get straight to the point, this is a demand for £5 million.

“The reason for you paying us £5 million is very simple. If you do this, we shall not introduce to this country one of the most deadly and costliest diseases that could afflict any country, in particular an agricultural country, namely foot and mouth disease.”

The letter was the opening salvo in an extortion demand that was taken extremely seriously at the time, and which has never been publicly disclosed before. Over the seven months following the letter’s receipt, communication between the State and the criminals proceeded by way of letters, a telephone call, and notices in the social and personal columns of Saturday editions of The Irish Times.

See link below - article appeared in the Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/extortionists-used-personal-ads-in-5m-ransom-demand-over-foot-and-mouth-disease-1.4584576

In the first of three episodes, Charlie Bird tells the sensational story of an attempt to extort five million pounds from the Irish government in 1979 by threatening to unleash an epidemic of Foot & Mouth Disease.

Extortionists used personal ads in £5m ransom demand over foot-and-mouth disease

The typed letter that arrived into the offices of the Department of Agriculture on Kildare Street in Dublin, addressed to the minister, was clear and to the point: “To get straight to the point, this is a demand for £5 million.

“The reason for you paying us £5 million is very simple. If you do this, we shall not introduce to this country one of the most deadly and costliest diseases that could afflict any country, in particular an agricultural country, namely foot and mouth disease.”

The letter was the opening salvo in an extortion demand that was taken extremely seriously at the time, and which has never been publicly disclosed before. Over the seven months following the letter’s receipt, communication between the State and the criminals proceeded by way of letters, a telephone call, and notices in the social and personal columns of Saturday editions of The Irish Times.

See link below - article appeared in the Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/extortionists-used-personal-ads-in-5m-ransom-demand-over-foot-and-mouth-disease-1.4584576

Mick Galwey won an All-Ireland Senior Football Championship with the Kerry Gaelic football team in 1986, as a 19-year-old, before turning to rugby union.

Mick Galwey is the only winner of an "All-Ireland" in both rugby union and Gaelic football. Making international Rugby debut in 1991 against France and became the team's captain ten years later.

In the 1993 Five Nations Championship match against England, Galwey rounded off a fine display in the 17–3 defeat by scoring the only try of the game. His efforts were rewarded later that year when he was selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand.

see www.seniortimes.ie

The first of three parts!

Who Was Wolfgang Mozart?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musician capable of playing multiple instruments who started playing in public at the age of 6.

Over the years, Mozart aligned himself with a variety of European venues and patrons, composing hundreds of works that included sonatas, symphonies, masses, chamber music, concertos and operas, marked by vivid emotion and sophisticated textures

In this Podcast series John Low looks back on the life and times of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

The boy’s early talent for music was remarkable. At three he was picking out chords on the harpsichord, at four playing short pieces, at five composing.

At 13, Mozart had acquired considerable fluency in the musical language of his time, and he was especially adept at imitating the musical equivalent of local dialects.

Ollie Campbell Rugby International and British & Irish Lion fly half talks to Gary Cooke.

Ollie played flyhalf for Ireland from 1976 to 1984. He is most well known for his role in orchestrating Ireland's Triple Crown victory at the 1982 Five Nations Championship, breaking a drought of over 30 years.

Campbell was educated at Belvedere College, a famous Irish rugby school in Dublin, where he was on the teams that won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup twice in a row in 1971 and 1972.

Campbell was also capped seven times for the British and Irish Lions. He earned three caps in the 1980 Lions tour to South Africa, where he was the Lions' leading scorer in the last two tests with six and five points respectively.

He earned another four caps in the 1983 Lions tour to New Zealand, where he was the Lions' leading scorer in the four test matches with 15 points. He scored 184 points in total for the Lions.

A chance to answer sixty general knowledge Questions and give your brain a gentle workout.

All 60 Correct Answers will be found on the wwwseniortimes.ie website or simply follow the Senior Times Facebook page.

Rugby legend Willie John McBride

Willie played 63 Tests for Ireland including eleven as captain, and toured with the Lions five times a record 17 Lions Test caps.

He was born on 6 June, 1940 in Toomebridge, in a small village in County Antrim, and went on to become and still regarded by all rugby critics to be one of the greatest players to have ever pulled on a British and Irish Lions shirt.

In this podcast interview with Gary Cooke - Willie tells us his life story in his own words from when he says he took up rugby relatively late at the age of 17 but once he began playing his talent was obvious and he quickly rose through the ranks after playing in the Ballymena Academy school’s XV

In 1971, as the British and Irish Lions defeated the All Blacks in a series for the first time, McBride cemented himself as a great of the game. The Ireland international started all four Tests as they came away from New Zealand with a remarkable 2-1 triumph.

It seemed impossible that the tourists – and McBride himself – could surpass that incredible achievement, but he and his team-mates did just that three years later in South Africa.

He said ,There weren’t the camera angles or television match officials to keep a check on some of the off-the-ball violence which sometimes took place during the amateur era. South Africa were well known for it at the time and the Lions duly decided to confront it head on. The result was an utterly ferocious series with the tour marred by a number of fights.

It was ultimately successful for the tourists, though, with the skipper coming up with the policy of ‘one in, all in’, believing that if they were all involved, the officials could not send everybody off. It was called ’99

visit www.seniortimes.ie