By James Bacon: Ireland is a place of bleak and haunting storytelling, with a long history of tales that induce fear, whether it be legendary myths, folk horror, tales of the Gothic, or modern looks at the harrowing aspects of humanity, there has always been a place for dark stories on the island.

Operation Bogeyman looks at an aspect of history, within a truly horrific time for Ireland, The Troubles and we learn in this stunning documentary of very unexpected and unusual aspects of the British war against the IRA, which can challenge where fiction and reality meet, as we are told how folk horror was deployed by Psy-ops.

There is a lovely opening to Operation Bogeyman, as we get a brief introduction to the history of Northern Ireland, as dates and times are shared, explaining the dept of the problem, going back hundreds of years, and yet, there is a clever realistic sharpness as we hear “it is an eternity since Brexit”.

Filmmaker Simon Aeppli narrates his documentary film, which is very different, beautifully presented, a paced investigation that takes time to build, without the urgency some documentaries seem to need, rather the film is filled with thoughtfulness and question, sounds and visual representations are offered, to allow the viewer the chance and time to soak in what is an atmospheric piece of work, that begs the viewer to think and draw their own conclusions.

Making mention of the “Fantasy Landscapes” that were created for Game of Thrones, in Belfast, the narrator, Simon, who notes they are from Carrickfergus, where King Billy landed lets viewers know that there is a buried history under Belfast. Which sounds very unexpected, and as we see the vista of Belfast these are not underground tunnels, but rather the shredded remains of police and army documents from Gough Barracks, buried fifteen meters down in Belfast Wasteland.

The narration is wonderful, as thoughts are shared about “buried histories” as well as the “cryptic truths” and matters long forgotten, that only lichen covered stones remember. Simon’s research and sense of place and time, is honest, as he moves to his computer, and he makes mention of the methods and resources he utilised, and we see that he starts to bring together the story utilising his “intuition to weave a story together of fragments” grasping for the viewer, a piece of history, that is unbelievable, when one first encounters it.

The film then uses footage of a British Military Chinook helicopter flying over his adopted home in Farnham, to discuss the Official IRA bombing of Aldershot, the home of the British Army, in 1972, when the officers mess of the 16th Parachute Brigade was targeted, 130 kilos of explosive in a Ford Cortina leaving seven civilians killed, including a British Army Catholic priest, in retaliation for Bloody Sunday. As Simon takes in the local cemetery, he feels drawn back to Ireland.

We then see the Prince Consort Library in Aldershot, desired, founded, funded and opened  by Prince Albert to contribute to the education of soldiers in the British Army. After Prince Albert’s passing the library was paid for by Queen Victoria. Here Simon found Colin J Wallace’s book Notes on Northern Ireland Index, which was a rigorous historical and cultural manual for officers arriving into the country.

Simon researched Colin Wallace, who was involved in “Black Propaganda” and “Psychological Operations”, ” Psy Ops”. Wallace had started off as a PR officer for the Irish Rangers, and soon was involved with the “Information Policy Unit”. The “Information Policy Unit” was stationed at Army British HQ at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn, where Wallace waged a propaganda war against the IRA, and fed fake news, lies and disinformation to the press. We learn that journalists referred to it as the “Lisburn Lie Machine”.

Wallace is shown on a TV programme, and we have journalists such as Barry Cown sharing their knowledge of Wallace.  Wallace spoke on television about sowing lies that would create difficult questions within the IRA, causing division.

We see Wallace costumed as a Priest, and then as Santa to deliver presents by helicopter to Army families at Christmas time but is noted as armed and wearing a bulletproof vest, as even Santa is a target. There is a lovely way that Simon uses his computer, and we then see photos and imagery from his files.

We see an article from The Republican News, about the Mau Mau massacre in Kenya, but the title is “Black Propaganda – Black Mass” and talks about how the atrocities in Kenya, such as Hols Concentration Camp were not reported, but the “blood curdling native barbaric magic” was the focus of British papers.

The Film then shows a sequence of newspaper headlines about Black Magic, Witchcraft and Devil Worship in 1973 — this was the work of the “Witchcraft operation” and we hear recordings speaking about it and how Wallace was behind it. A key point on the journey of discovery for Simon was Richard Jenkins book Black Magic and Bogeymen: Fear, Rumour and Popular Belief in the North of Ireland 1972-74 from Cork University Press.

In the Belfast newspaper archive, we see Simon leafing through a bound volume of Carrickfergus Advertiser and East Antrim Gazette and one is shown, from Thursday 8th of  November 1973 headline “Devil Worship Feared in Locality” — with rumours of Satanic worship and questions over the relationship to terrorism.

Simon tells us that by 1973, his father had completed the Man, Myth and Magic subscription, edited by Richard Cavendish, published weekly by Purnell of Leeds and running for 112 issues. My own father collected the series, there was huge interest at this time in Witchcraft, the Occult, Folk Tales, Paganism, and of course there were ample works of Film and Fiction, let alone TV for all ages, that used these subjects as themes in their storytelling.

This was a time when Horror was hugely popular. The Wicker Man would not be released until December that year. Books such as A Werewolf Among Us by Dean Koontz, Demons By Daylight by Ramsey Campbell and The Night Stalker by Jeff Rice were released. The Tomb of Dracula, Ghost Rider and Werewolf by Night were starting in Marvel comics. DC’s comic Ghosts #17 in August 1973  even had an eight-page story set in Northern Ireland, a soldier realising that the person he has shot is only a child, grief-stricken, told by the boys sister that she “warned him that this wasn’t a children’s crusade” she saying to him, “You will be pained and haunted for the rest of you life…” but the story of the Troubles is a fiction itself, as  it is interrupted by the word “CUT”, revealing to the reader the director, cameras and lights. Later as the director watches the rushes, ghosts appear on the screen, furious he demands the film be burned. Horror was huge.

Returning to the documentary, it suddenly gets very real, there is a change as it goes from contemplative to compelling and we see that Colin Wallace is being visited, interviewed, he is obviously not shy, and this is getting to the core of the matter.

Wallace is then heard, and we are shown a Black Propaganda document. The concept of the black magic story is shown as a way to create a wedge between the IRA and the Catholic Church. We learn that Wallace had agents undercover placing evidence and turned to The History of Witchcraft and Demonology, the 1926 book by Montague Summers, as a source and handbook for what they were setting up.

Wallace says he worked with Robert Nairac, in the Ardoyne and we get background on Captain Robert Nairac. Nairac is one of the most confounding characters in the Troubles, a Captain who served four tours in Northern Ireland, found a niche in intelligence work and has been linked to a variety of incidents. In 1977 he was taken from a pub and killed by the IRA when he was pretending to be a member of The Official IRA. We are told that Nairac is “kind of a ghost in the British Army” and that “part of the conflicts folklore framed him either as a hero, or as a devil” which is brilliant stuff.

Wallace talks of upside down crosses, and circles, and finding suitable places and how Robert Nairac and himself, in civies, set the scene in derelict sites and how it was “totally surreal” in areas with a real threat, and yet doing something “totally bizarre with chicken feathers!”

That this all spread a panic, is clear as there was an “explosion of belief” and further elements were added by Wallace. At one stage Wallace recorded an army theatrical performer howling like a Banshee, and played the recording from Antrim Castle. Simon’s own knowledge of film is then weaved into the documentary, as we hear of The Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man.

We learn of Mary Dunbar from Islandmagee and the 1711 witchcraft trial. The Irish version of the Salem witch trials, which saw eight women and one man accused of demonically possessing and magically tormenting a young girl. The comic, The Witches of Islandmagee, by Victoria McCollum, Andrew Sneddon and David Campbell is a superb recounting of what occurred and I would highly recommend it.

We hear how Wallace worked to link folk historical myth to modern ideas of satanism, witchcraft and so on, but doing so in a subtle way.  The narrator then draws some comparisons between The Wicker Man, and “Witchcraft Operation” both of which worked to have social control and where false magic had a power over the living just as Psy Ops did with their fake rituals and false news.

Linking real life activities that somehow ushered in a connection to the unexplained and paranormal, adding clearly identifiable material, objects, to events that were made look like rituals and then sowing rumours — instilled fears and created a belief among some that there was something to this.

There was also a military strategic goal. Wallace was keen to have children off the streets at night, they were a nuisance, a source of support for paramilitaries, challenging to manage and a concern for the army, parents fearful, would keep them at home, and also the fear it was hoped would keep children away from and out of derelict sites, locations the army may have used as watching posts.

The 1970s were filled with darkness. Scarred for Life by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence is an incredible book that catalogues all the dark, scary pop culture of the 1970s. It contains 740 pages on the 1970s including Operation public information films that would give one nightmares. Simon makes the thematic connection of social control between Wallace’s operation and the 1973 public information warning film The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water.  

Richard Jenkins’ book surprised Wallace at how much they created, that wasn’t there and then, we hear of the Brian McDermot Murder. Brian McDermot went missing from Ormeau Park in Belfast on Sunday, 2 September 1973. Brian’s remains were recovered from the River Lagan almost a week later. Wallace tells us that it was linked incorrectly to black magic and witchcraft, and indeed, we see a question posed on TV by a journalist to the investigating officer about whether there was a “Witchcraft” connection.

Wallace claims to have stopped Witchcraft Operation, as the body dismemberment was sufficient for the police to believe that there may have been a connection and that was too much, and we hear Wallace admits they created a monster. We then also learn that there is a real monster in Carrickfergus, as Jimmy Saville visited the same month that McDermot was killed. Not that any connection is made, but it is a reminder that the really darkest parts of history are familiar, the real horror is at the hands of humans, who act monstrously, not imagined.

We then hear of oral histories being recorded, of ghost stories, and of the Warrenpoint ambush by the Provisional IRA on 27 August 1979. First a bomb blew up killing 6 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. British soldiers shot and killed Bill Hudson, an innocent bystander from London who was standing on the Irish side of the border, once an incident point had been set up and reinforcements had arrived, a second bomb was detonated by the IRA killing twelve more soldiers.

We see that Simon gives is an uneasy view, as he takes in the view of The Knockagh WWI Monument on the hill of the same name with a panoramic view of the city of Belfast and even here learn of the connection to death, and of the abduction of Bernard Moane in May 1974, by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and shot at the monument.

The story then moves to “The Vault”, the Seapark archive held by the Northern Ireland Policing Board at the Seapark base which contains historical murder case files, the ‘murder archive”. There is mention of the Force Reconnaissance Unit, a British Military intelligence unit, and their raid against Seapark in 1990, in itself an unbelievable episode, and we see the impenetrable walls, tightly holding onto their secrets.

There is a healthy hint of cynicism that is fuelled by the challenges of uncovering a history that is murky, immersed in redaction, restriction and red tape and a protagonist in Wallace, whose profession was to lie. I had the opportunity to ask Simon some questions, first I wondered:

1. What was the compelling evidence that brought you to believe that Colin Wallace used Satanic Ritual in Operation Witchcraft in the British military fight against the IRA during the Troubles?

Simon said: My understanding of operation relies heavily on Colin Wallace’s testimony. While his account has been widely written about by journalists, most notably Robin Ramsay, Paul Foot, and Richard Jenkins. Tangible evidence remains scarce – the IPU destroyed documents regularly.  Jenkins’ work offers the most comprehensive analysis, but much of the press coverage was sensationalised and only hints at psychological operations.

I found the document by former Chief Information Officer Peter Broderick in the Inquiry into   Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA). He confirms that PSYOPS were sanctioned by the Ministry of Defence. Broderick cites “hundreds of possible examples” of covert activity, including fabricated stories such as IRA embezzlement, altered Republican publications, the Nitro-benzene narrative, and the so-called Black Magic operation.

Anecdotally, I have been approached by people after the screenings in NI who ‘remember’ the scare but as I say in the film, maybe this was just the 70s.

2. What did you find confounding, and challenging, what were the frustrations you encountered, trying to unpick the fact from fiction, and share the history of this episode?

Simon: As the operation happened over 50 years ago it has become part of the folklore of the Troubles and maybe my film adds to this. I made the film from a subjective point of view. I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m looking at the operation and time through the lens of folk horror and haunting and less interested in uncovering the truth as I think it’s lost or buried in past, as I say, this is folk story to me where the fact and fiction are entwined and blurred. The operation was a bricolage of Irish folk tales of the Banshee and fairies, superstitions and gleaned rituals of witchcraft from books. The newspapers ran with these stories creating new stories from the rumours of witchcraft and Satanism. So, I had to approach the subject in a personal way as the stories existed around the fringes of my hometown. Wallace’s operation made us the folk in the folk horror.

3. Wallace is a man that has so many elements to him, sacked by the Army, involved in controversy, allegedly raising questions over Kincora Boys Home. How did you find him? Did you believe everything he told you?

Simon: I met with Wallace several times and found him to be thoughtful, humorous and easy going. As said above, I’m not an investigative journalist and took him at his word but did push him on details on the day to day running of the IPU and design of operations. Basically, he told me a story, and this was supported by stuff that I had read by Ramsey, Foot and Jenkins.

I am interested in how memory becomes mythologised. I am drawn to the gaps, the layers, silence and inconsistencies. I had to rely on Wallace to help shine a light on the darken corners of the ‘dirty war’. While Wallace’s reliability is often debated, the alternative is the British intelligence services that neither confirm nor deny, which offers little to go on or in the film’s case the silence reveals the trace of a buried history.

Many who knew Wallace described him as intelligent and charismatic, qualities that likely made him highly effective at propaganda. I chose not to explore Kincora, as it’s a labyrinth and a subject already explored by other filmmakers. However, I respect Wallace’s determination to uncover the truth behind this disturbing chapter of the Troubles.

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In conclusion, when I was researching my own work on Conflict in Ireland, scholar and academic Peter Duncan noted “We don’t have history in Northern Ireland; we just have a set of competing mythologies” and I am minded to deploy this phrase, one which the contemplative reader can reflect on as the history percolates and this story is digested.

There is much to this film, and of course as Simon tries to uncover what is real and created, the viewer feels brought into the confounding conundrum, of where facts and lies begin and end. The concept of Psy Ops and Satanic ritual is so absurd, the idea of Wallace and Nairac agents of fear, creeping around and setting up satanic sites, beggars belief, but the real horror, the deaths and atrocities, the hiding of history, the abuse of power, the incidents that occurred, that are also shown, force the viewer to consider, and reflect. It is a terrific piece of work.

“Every place has its ghosts”

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Notes

Black Magic and Bogeymen – Fear, Rumour and Popular Belief in the North of Ireland 1972-74 by Richard Jenkins Imprint: Cork University Press

Ireland The Propaganda War. The British Media and the “Battle for Hearts and Minds”. Liz Curtis. Pluto press Ltd. London 1984

Who framed Colin Wallace by Paul Foot, Pan Book London 1990

Robert Nairac. “The hunt for the murdered British soldier who was determined to be noticed” BBC 10 November 2025 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20p2273g4jo

“The Disappearance of Captain Nairac” – BBC  10th November https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002m8lv

Betrayal The Murder of Robert Nairac GC (2nd Ed) by Mr Alistair Kerr. Cambridge Academic 2017

Bernard Moone – “Fresh Light on Sectarian Murder.” BBC 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6965724.stm

Brian McDermot – PSNI Review Murder. https://www.psni.police.uk/latest-news/legacy-investigation-branch-detectives-review-murder-10-year-old-brian-mcdermott

“Bill Hudson. Saw his cousin shot on the day of the Narrow water bomb.” https://www.independent.ie/regionals/louth/dundalk-news/saw-his-cousin-shot-on-the-day-of-the-narrow-water-bomb/26937022.html

“Our incident room was in the heart of a secure compound in Sea Park, the headquarters of the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Police Authority at Carrickfergus. The seventeen-acre complex was surrounded by high chain-link fences and guarded by armed officers in fortified bunkers. How could our office be on fire? “…the Force Research Unit were directly responsible for the fire. The FRU, Wilfie told me, was a secret British unit responsible for running Army agents.” Ireland. P2 and P5 – Not for the faint-hearted : My Life Fighting Crime by Barron John Stevens.

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