February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The body of Mary Reid, 49, was found on Wednesday, Jan. 29, washed up on Doagh Isle in Inishowen, northern Donegal, after her companion, Terry Robson, reported her missing. She had gone walking with her dog. It was thought that she might have died trying to rescue the dog after it got into difficulties in the water.
Reid became entangled in controversy involving allegations of evidence planting when, along with two other republicans, Mick Plunkett and Stephen King, she was arrested in Paris by anti-terrorist police in August 1982. They arrests came as part of a crackdown a few weeks after a well-known delicatessen was bombed in the Jewish quarter of the city. An informer had told the police that the three were part of an Irish-Palestinian terrorist cell. Though the three, who were all linked to the Irish National Liberation Army and its political wing the Irish Republican Socialist Party, were not charged in connection with the attack, which was carried out by Palestinians, they were charged with possession of two weapons and a small quantity of explosives. However, it subsequently emerged that the police had planted the guns and explosives in the apartment during the search. The three were released. Charges were brought against several of the officers involved and the case continues to drag through the French courts.
Mary Reid had been a member of the Official republican movement before joining the IRSP shortly after it was founded. For a while she was married to Cathal Og Goulding, the son of Cathal Goulding, the last chief of staff of the IRA before it split in 1969. Goulding became the C/S of the Official IRA. For several years she was editor of the IRSP