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During the mid-1990s, police entered a London home and arrested Michael Gallagher for alleged Irish Republican Army operations. His girlfriend, an scholar specializing in scientific research, was shocked and outraged.

Attenborough could not believe that her intellectual partner – a former civil servant who helped people with addiction issues – was involved with the IRA. He had previously impressed her by solving a difficult puzzle in merely three minutes.

Legal Accusations

Gallagher was indicted with plotting to enable the IRA launch explosive assaults at a key transport hub in the mid-1990s. Although the incidents caused no casualties, they produced major chaos.

She gathered financial support and backing from others to assert her boyfriend's lack of guilt. In spite of her campaign, he was sentenced of conspiring to cause explosions and received a two-decade jail term.

“Other than a small number of others, I hardly tell anyone,” Attenborough commented. “It was not a matter I was that proud of because he had misled me.”

Admission of Guilt

Today, almost many years afterward, the pair are still in a relationship and have written together a book that confirms Michael was, in fact, involved.

Gallagher had been an IRA fixer who helped various missions, among them the Heathrow attack. Gallagher hid the reality from his partner and just admitted subsequent to his guilty verdict, leaving her shocked.

After Incarceration

After Gallagher's liberation under the terms of the Northern Ireland settlement, the partners moved to the Irish countryside and set up a online enterprise, which they continue to run.

Their book, called Unbroken: Secrets, Lies and Enduring Love, changes viewpoints between the pair and delays the disclosure of his actions until after his sentencing.

I believe Gallagher is not a evil person, he is a truly decent person,” Attenborough remarked. “He simply didn’t put me first, and it is unclear if I consider that treachery. It was not his purpose.”

Background and Relationship

They met in 1985 through organizations that aided labor activists and campaigned against South Africa’s apartheid.

She, hailing from Walsall, held a doctorate in mathematical physics. He, a Glaswegian, was an hopeful author and someone overcoming addiction.

He had Northern Irish roots and performed occasional jobs for the IRA, handling accommodation, transport and identification for IRA members in the UK.

Uncovering the Lies

He kept secret his activities from Attenborough, who supported Irish unification but opposed IRA methods.

“I’d made a commitment to the IRA and a pledge to Attenborough and I thought I could manage both – I could to manage both,” he explained.

Law enforcement singled out Gallagher as a person of interest who had entered a building with remnants of bomb-making materials. Authorities watched his movements and bugged the residence for a lengthy period, ending in the pre-dawn raid at their Earl’s Court home on October 28, 1996.

Later Realizations

For many months – during her prison visits and the court case in the late 1990s – Gallagher maintained his truth.

“There was no way I could tell her because if she knew at that time, she must have to notify her brother: ‘Stop arranging guarantees for Michael because he admitted it,’” Gallagher said. “It was truly an difficult time.”

The chance of being found not guilty supported his false story until the court decided against him. Days later, when Attenborough visited to discuss possible legal challenges, he revealed his guilt.

“At first, I didn’t even know whether to trust his words,” Attenborough remembered. “I considered, then, whose story of the truth ought I believe?”

Upset, she considered ending the relationship, but in subsequent visits she accepted Gallagher’s apologies and justified his clandestine activities.

“Obviously I disapproved with these actions with the IRA. But on the other hand, it wasn’t a leading position that he performed.”

Final Revelations

During the authorship of their memoir, Gallagher disclosed one more past deception to his Attenborough: when he rapidly solved the word game in the newspaper of a periodical, he had previously done it in another edition.