Longford link to events surrounding the kidnapping of Don Tidey

The kidnapping of supermarket executive Don Tidey and the murder of an Irish soldier and a trainee garda brought an unwelcome spotlight on Leitrim during the Troubles.

Tidey, the chairman and managing director of Quinnsworth, was abducted from near his home in Dublin on November 24, 1983 and kept in Derrada Wood outside Ballinamore for 23 days by a Provisional IRA gang.

When a garda and Irish army search party stumbled across the hideout, father-of-four Private Patrick Kelly (36) from Ballinamuck, Longford and recruit Garda Gary Sheehan (23) from Carrickmacross, Monaghan were shot dead by the kidnappers.

Tidey made his escape during the ensuring chaos, but so too did the gang who disappeared into a large plantation on the Leitrim-Cavan border. To this day nobody has been convicted of the murder of either man.

The Kidnapping: A hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland by Leitrim journalists and bestselling authors Tommy Conlon from Ballinamore and Ronan McGreevy from Carrick-on-Shannon is the first book about the events surrounding the kidnapping of Don Tidey.
Their talk entitled, Seething with Sedition: Leitrim and the kidnapping of Don Tidey, will be hosted by the Carrick-on-Shannon Historical Society at a special event in St George’s Heritage and Visitor Centre on Saturday.

The compére will be fellow Leitrim journalist and RTÉ broadcaster Carole Coleman. Conlon said he witnessed the ambulances with the bodies of the two men travelling through Ballinamore a day after they were killed.

“The vision of that scene fell like a stone to the bottom of my consciousness and it lay there undisturbed for the next almost four decades,” he says.
“Some two years ago it bobbed unbidden to the surface of the lake of memory. It quickly disappeared, only to bob back up again — and again and again. The stone that vanished into the deep had somehow mutated into a cork that kept resurfacing. It wouldn’t go away; it kept on knocking until it got an answer.

“It was begging the question: what happened that day in Derrada Wood?”
He decided to team up with his friend McGreevy to ensure that the book would be published in time for the 40th anniversary this December. McGreevy says: “The historical society has been a great supporter of my work since my first book was published in 2016. We are both delighted to be appearing on Saturday.

“As Leitrim natives, this story is special to us. There is a responsibility to confront the understandable silence that has surrounded these terrible events for the last 40 years.
“The Kelly and Sheehan families have generously shared their recollections with us. So too has Don Tidey who broke his silence after all these years to give us a comprehensive account of his terrible ordeal.

“We felt a duty to tell their stories and to tell the truth about what happened.”
The Kidnapping was launched at the Island Theatre in Ballinamore in front of a capacity crowd with Paul Williams as host. David Kelly, the son of Private Kelly, spoke about the devastating impact that his father’s murder on the whole family.

The Kidnapping: A hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland is published by Penguin Sandycove priced €17.99.
In Conversation live public event, takes place in St George’s Heritage Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, on Saturday, October28, 2023.

The event is at 4pm sharp. Admission is €5 and members are free. Conlon and McGreevy will be signing books afterwards.