Calls have been made for a full public inquiry into the role of clergymen in terrorism after The Observer learnt that three more priests were involved with the Provisional IRA at the time of the 1972 Claudy bomb massacre.
One of the priests was the IRA's officer commanding the Provos' North Antrim Brigade. He cannot be named for legal reasons.
The other priests who joined the IRA at the beginning of the Ulster Troubles were Father Patrick Fell and Father John Burns.
Fell served more than 10 years in an English jail over a conspiracy to cause explosions in Coventry during the early Seventies. He was convicted alongside Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, two IRA men who died on hunger strike in English prisons.
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