Former boxing champion Eamonn Magee says he was a member of the IRA’s junior wing - Na Fianna Éireann.
From Ardoyne in north Belfast, Magee makes the claim in a new book about his life.
‘The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee’ lifts the lid on the often controversial life of the well-known former sportsman.
In the book he reveals that he was close friends with IRA man Thomas ‘Bootsy’ Begley.
He was killed along with nine Protestants in October 1993 when the bomb he was planting exploded at a fish shop on the Shankill Road.
The IRA had intended to kill members of the UDA who were believed to be holding a meeting in the same building.
Magee says that he and the IRA man were members of the organisation’s youth movement together.
“See the likes of Bootsy Begley, the Shankill bomber, we were the same age and knocked about with each other all our lives,” he told the Sunday Life.
“We were in the Fianna together, we drank together and yet I had no idea he was in the ‘RA.
“I hadn’t a f**king clue.
“Neither him or Sean Kelly, who I see every day working in the shop around the corner.”
Magee reflects that he could have taken a different path.
“That could easily have been me, you know,” he said.
“Wee things like that, it’s hard to stop thinking about them.
“And wee Bootsy was a total gentleman.
“I know what he done was totally wrong and absolutely disgusting, but he was always a gentleman.”
It is reported that while a member of the Fianna the boxer siphoned off fuel from local vehicles to be used in petrol bombs and hijacked a milk float for bottles.
His flirtation with the republican movement didn’t last long and in 1992 the IRA shot Magee in the leg during a punishment attack.
He also claims he was threatened by an armed IRA man while training for a fight with Ricky Hatton in 2002.
He suffered a bad beating in 2004 after being dragged from a car in west Belfast.
In the book the 46-year-old also reveals that he has gambled away almost £1million.
“A gambling addiction is a really terrible f**king thing,” he said.
“It can control you every bit as bad as the drink and the gear (cocaine). It can trick you into thinking that money grows on trees and so it doesn’t matter if you lose, you’ll get the money back again soon one way or another.”
He also admits that he felt suicidal after the murder of his son Eamonn junior (22) in May 2015.
