'The IRA wanted to make Northern Ireland an economic wasteland': Sinn Fein facing criticism over Mary Lou McDonald praise for tycoon and kidnap victim Ben Dunne

An adjective used constantly in the media to describe him is “colourful”; he was the object of political scandal when his financial links to Irish politicians emerged in the 1990s, and he lost control over the Dunnes empire after being caught with a prostitute and cocaine in the USA in 1992.

In tribute to him at the weekend, Ms McDonald wrote on Twitter: “Very sad to hear of the sudden death of Ben Dunne. My thoughts are with his beloved family.

"He was a good man who cared about people. We will never see his likes again.”

Unmentioned by her was the fact that in 1981 the IRA had kidnapped him for a week and held him for ransom, as well as the fact that Dunnes Stores outlets were repeatedly bombed by the IRA.

However, other Twitter users were quick to remark upon this.

Among them was Sammy Wilson MP (@eastantrimmp) who said: “Mary Lou has the best shone brass neck in politics.”

Others noted that in 2020 Ms McDonald had said of the IRA’s campaign: “I wish it hadn’t happened, but it was a justified campaign.”

Former Special Branch detective William Matchett told the News Letter that Sinn Fein wishes to cultivate a kind of “selective amnesia” about the Province’s past.

He described the comments as “a big massive goldfish moment", adding: “History is just being re-written in plain site, in full public view, brazenly.

"If he was a decent man, why did [the IRA] put him and his family through all that trauma?”

Mr Matchett said that Mr Dunne was “very fortunate” to escape the fate of fellow business leader Thomas Niedermayer, the boss of the old Grundig electronics plant in Belfast.

He was abducted by the IRA in 1973 then killed and secretly buried in a rubbish dump where he went undiscovered until 1980.

Mr Matchett recalled that republicans at the time denied involvement in that, and spread rumours that, firstly, the German factory boss had “run off with his secretary”, then that “it was the loyalists who murdered him”.

"They wanted to make this place an economic wasteland,” he said.

"Somebody like Ben Dunne who was employing Protestants and Catholics was the same as Neidermayer.

"You can't try and make this place a wasteland when you've business people coming in and creating jobs. For that, he'd have been a target.

"[The republican view was] ‘how dare you run successful businesses in this place which we are trying to portray to the world is like an apartheid regime’?”

A description of Ben Dunne’s 1981 abduction in the 2023 book “The Kidnapping: A hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland” (written by Tommy Conlon and Ronan McGreevy - two journalists with the Irish Independent and Irish Times respectively).

It says Mr Dunne was 34 at the time, and had been seized as he crossed into the Republic after visiting one of his stores in Northern Ireland.

"A green Opel Ascona swerved in front of the businessman and pinned his black Mercedes into the hard shoulder,” the book says.

"He was forced at gunpoint out of the car and a hood was placed over his head. Four masked men took him to a farmyard. Judging by the smell, the hooded Dunne believed it to be a piggery.

"His captors demanded the phone numbers of his father and his wife. 'What do you think you are worth?' one of them asked Dunne. 'Nothing. You'll get nothing for me,' came the reply.

"A gang member phoned up Dunnes Stores head office and demanded IR£500,000 for his return.

"Dunne was held captive for six days at a farmhouse in south Armagh. A search for him was staged on both sides of the border…

"Dunne was eventually released outside a graveyard in south Armagh. His kidnappers gave him three bullets, one from a revolver and two from an Armalite, as souvenirs.

"Asked in 2014 by RTÉ presenter Miriam O'Callaghan if a ransom had been paid, Ben Dunne Jr responded: 'Money changed hands to the best of my knowledge. I was never troubled again.'…

"He also revealed that his kidnappers told him 'if I as much as opened my mouth that they knew where my children went to school, they knew where my wife shopped. Intimidation is an extraordinary thing’.”