Historian loses legal battle to name past British informers

A tribunal in London has dismissed on grounds of national security an application by a Cork historian to release the names of paid British informers who operated within Ireland more than a century ago.

Barry Keane, the author of Massacre in West Cork, wanted to obtain the names of informants who worked against Irish secret societies between 1892 and 1910. 

He has lost an appeal against the Home Office, the Metropolitan police service and the UK Information Commissioner by a two-to-one majority decision of the first-tier tribunal in London’s Chancery Lane. 

The tribunal decided that releasing the informers’ names would risk harm to their descendants and hamper the recruitment of informants. It said their names should remain secret “in perpetuity”. ...