The Northern Minority Defence Force (NMDF) was a short-lived organisation that unsuccessfully aimed to recruit for the Irish republican armed struggle in Northern Ireland. It was affiliated to the Anti-Internment League (AIL).
The NMDF was founded in 1972 and had probably stopped operating by 1973. It is also referred to as the Northern Minorities Defence Force in Special Branch reports and as the Northern Ireland Minority Defence Force Committee in Hansard, though it is not clear which of these variations was the organisation's correct title.
The 1972 SDS Annual Report listed the NMDF as an organisation about which it had received information but stated that it was not a primary target.
The primary source of evidence for NMDF activities comes from reports by SDS undercover HN344 'Ian Cameron' , who spied on the organisation briefly in 1972. Cameron’s reports describe a small organisation that rarely, if ever, got beyond planning and theoretical discussions about the conflict in Northern Ireland. However, delegates from the group did travel to Northern Ireland to meet members of the IRA and there was talk in NMDF meetings of contact with senior IRA figure Joe Cahill.
The group met in pubs across London. Attendance at meetings could be as high as 40 but generally only just reached double figures.
Despite its size, the group appeared keen to organise itself into various 'sections'. For instance, at one meeting, the ten people attending it learned that they were now part of the headquarters staff, having been selected for their military experience. At the meeting it was also declared that the NMDF would soon 'deploy a unit' to Northern Ireland. There is no evidence that this happened.
The group's existence is mentioned publicly only once – in a story in The Times that reported on a meeting on 1 June 1972 at which the group implied it was planning paramilitary action in Londonderry. The Times reported that people at the meeting planned a military strategy on a street map of Derry, using wooden blocks to represent tanks. It said the group had practised military manoeuvres, going on map-reading exercises on Hampstead Heath.
On 4 June 1972, three members of the NMDF were arrested and charged with treason. One of the three, Thomas Quinn, was remanded in prison for nine months. His MP, George Strauss, later spoke in parliament about Quinn’s treatment, questioning why he had been remanded for so long, only to have his charge replaced with a much more minor offence.
Addressing the House of Commons, on 15 March 1973, Strauss downplayed the group’s threat:
[The NMDF] appears to go about the country making noises and public gestures in defence of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. It is not doing anything practical but its members are trying to show they are keen, active and militant.
A parliamentary discussion on how serious the group's intentions and actions were – or otherwise - followed. The debate indicated that the NMDF made bold but unsubstantiated claims about its numbers and intentions.
It is not clear what part, if any, Cameron's intelligence played in prosecuting those arrested. Cameron filed a report about the fallout from the raid and arrests but it is not clear whether he had attended the meeting that The Times mentioned.
Sources
Reports by HN344 ‘Ian Cameron’.
‘Mr Thomas Quinn (Sedition Charges)’, Hansard, vol 852, 15 March 1973.