A farmer with no connections to any paramilitary group or the security forces, Oliver was a 43-year-old father of seven children,[1] and a native of Riverstown, County Louth, on the Cooley peninsula, near Dundalk.
He was abducted by armed members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) near the border on 18 July and his body was found the following day in South Armagh.
[2] They also claimed that Oliver had aided the IRA, providing sheds to store weapons and explosives, but that over a six-year period he had given information to the Gardaí, leading to several arrests.
The section justified Oliver's murder: The IRA has a duty to protect its organisation, its volunteers and the back-up provided by its supporters.
Tom Oliver's death was due to his willingness to act as an agent for the Dublin Government's Special Branch.In 2002, Thomas Oliver's son Eugene (aged 13 at the time of his father's death) wrote a public letter to the Dundalk newspaper, Argus, demanding answers to a series of questions directed at Sinn Féin's election candidate, Arthur Morgan regarding his father.