[2] Born in Belfast,[3] White worked as a plumber,[4] and joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at an early age, being imprisoned several times during the 1930s.

[5] He travelled to England to take part in the IRA's "S-Plan" bombing campaign of 1939 to 1940,[4] then returned to Dublin to pass his bomb-making skills onto new recruits, including Brendan Behan.

Both agree that there was a shoot-out followed in which one officer was killed (Detective George Mordaunt), enabling White to escape, but he fell down a railway embankment and hid for two days before emerging, hoping that the police hunt was over.

There, he worked as a handyman and barber and set up a dance band, also managing to acquire some explosives from a local Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer who wanted rocks clearing from his field.

[3] White was finally captured by the RUC Special Branch and tried in October 1946,[10] and was handed over to the southern Irish authorities; he was sentenced to death, but this was reduced to twelve years' imprisonment on appeal, a defence in which his former comrade Seán MacBride was involved.

He was actually released early in 1948 following a change in government (a coalition between the Fianna Fáil and republican minded party Clann na Poblachta) which left Mac Bride in a ministerial post.