A FORMER terrorist has revealed how he warned Paul Ferris he would be shot dead by Republicans if he killed hated rival Tam ‘The Licensee’ McGraw.
Ex-paramilitary Manny McDonnell was caught in the middle when his friends Ferris and McGraw fell out.
As the former allies became locked in a feud they would bad-mouth each other to mutual pal McDonnell, 55.
But when the bitter squabble threatened to spill over into violence,
McDonnell claims he warned Ferris that a hit on crimelord McGraw would end up costing his own life too.
McDonnell said: “Paul had told me he was going to do Tam, but by this time I was really matey with Tam.
“Because I’d run an active service unit, with the experience and capability we all still had, Paul wasn’t a problem to us.
“When he told me what he was planning, he asked what I thought.
“I told Paul I didn’t like it and Tam had friends in Belfast. If anything happened to Tam, I and others would take it personally.
“Paul asked, ‘Is that a threat?’. I said, ‘Let me put it like this: if anything happens to Tam we are going to retaliate’.”
McDonnell — who had known Ferris since they served time together in Shotts nick — added: “I didn’t want to fall out with Paul because he had been a good friend.
“Paul never forgot that conversation. Years later he reminded me about it one day and asked, ‘Do you remember the conversation we had about Tam?’.
“I said, ‘I remember it well’. He said, ‘You know what you said, don’t you?’ and I replied, ‘I know exactly what I said, what are you getting at?’. He said, ‘Nothing, I’m just reminding you’.”
McDonnell revealed the warning in his biography, Lighting Candles, which tells the story of his journey from a childhood growing up during the Troubles.
When he was 15 he was arrested and jailed for two years for spying on police and British troops on behalf of Republican terrorists.
He was sent to Long Kesh prison, where he told an IRA commander he wanted to “kill as many British soldiers as I can”.
McDonnell then joined the IRA before switching to the “more ruthless” Irish National Liberation Army.
In the 1980s he was hit with an order banning him from travelling to England, Scotland and Wales.
But he tried to flout the ban by using fake ID to travel across to Glasgow and watch his beloved Celtic in action.
He was arrested as he walked off the ferry in Stranraer and was sentenced to two years behind bars when he appeared at Dumfries Sheriff Court.
It was while he was serving part of that sentence in Shotts prison,
Lanarkshire, that he struck up his friendship with Ferris — who was inside for having a gun.
McDonnell said: “I didn’t think much of him the first time I saw him. He was a skinny wee runt in a pair of pyjamas.
“But the fact was, I was a Republican and he was a criminal, and back home those didn’t mix.”
McDonnell went on to become a friend of Ferris — and gangster McGraw.
And he joined McGraw and ten others in the dock at the High Court in Glasgow over drug charges in 1998.
McDonnell had been arrested following a police investigation into a multi-million pound smuggling operation which used a kids’ football bus to bring the drugs into Scotland.
The charges against McDonnell were dropped on day 45 of the trial — which eventually saw McGraw walk free on a not-proven verdict.
But in the years following the trial, one-time allies McGraw and Ferris turned against each other.
And as a friend of both men, McDonnell was caught in the middle of their rivalry as they both slated each other to him.
He said: “Tam and Paul each knew I was seeing the other and the pair of them were like old women — ‘I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, he doesn’t like so and so’. They were always bitching on about each other, who was friends with who, and how one wasn’t going to speak to somebody because he’d talked to a friend of one of them.
“It was crazy. I liked them both — simple as that.”
And McDonnell also blasted Ferris’s claims that McGraw — who died aged 55 in 2007 — earned his Licensee nickname by being a police informant.
He added: “Paul was saying, ‘Beware, there’s a spy in your camp, he’s a grass’ and I knew he was talking about Tam.
“I could make up my own mind about that. I didn’t need anyone else to do that for me, I was the one who would decide, not Paul, and I trusted Tam.
“Paul kept sending letters on this theme and eventually I stopped writing
back. We hadn’t fallen out, but I didn’t need his advice.
“There have been a lot of nasty things said about Tam, a lot of people have said he tried to save himself by stitching up everybody else. But I know for a fact this is a lie.”
McDonnell claims he turned his back on Republican violence following the horrific Warrington bombing in 1993.
The sickening attack by the Provisional IRA killed three-year-old Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, 12.
McDonnell said: “It was after Warrington that I decided I’d had enough.
“As a volunteer I could withdraw my services at any time, I had to see my senior commanders to tell them of my decision.
“It was accepted but I was told, ‘Secrets stay secrets’.
“But they knew I would never let them down.”
LIGHTING Candles, by David Leslie, is available now at Waterstones, WH Smith and Amazon priced £9.99
Anger at rumours on Adair
DEAD drugs boss McGraw strongly denied being a close associate of former Loyalist terrorist Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair.
Claims McGraw had befriended Adair infuriated McDonnell and his Republican cronies.
McDonnell said: “I knew it was untrue. If at any time I’d even suspected Tam had a friendship with Adair I’d have immediately broken off from him, despite our relationship.
“In any case, I was certain that Tam would never have had anything to do with the likes of Adair, who was regarded as a joke in Northern Ireland.”
McDonnell’s book also reveals a plot to murder Adair on a visit to Glasgow.
Two hitmen would have travelled among Celtic fans but the shooting didn’t
happen because Adair was jailed.
Mad dog gun gang 'shot pal'
FORMER Republican terrorist Manny McDonnell has dedicated his book to a friend whose murder he blames on Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair’s UDA gang. Billy Kane was 20-years-old when he was shot dead at his home in Belfast in 1988.
Kane — whose dad Eddie was killed in a 1971 pub bombing — was attacked by a three-man hit squad.
But it’s believed the real target was Billy’s brother Eddie Jr — and McDonnell blames Adair, who now lives in Troon, Ayrshire, for the killing.
McDonnell said: “We’d decided to do something about this, but the cops knew we were ready to spring into action and we were being watched.
“We tried to find out who had done the shooting and it went back to Adair’s mob.”
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